FAA confirms: No Starship/Superheavy launch license until Interior approves
The Kafkaesque Interior Department
strikcs again!
They’re coming for you next: In an email today, the FAA confirmed what I had reported yesterday, that though it hopes to issue a launch license for the next orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket by the end of October, no license will be issued until Fish & Wildlife in the Interior Department agrees.
Before it is authorized to conduct a second Starship/Super Heavy launch, SpaceX must obtain a modified license from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other regulatory requirements. As part of that license application determination process, the FAA will review new environmental information, including changes related to the launch pad, as well as other proposed vehicle and flight modifications.
The FAA will complete a Written Reevaluation (WR) to the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) evaluating the new environmental information, including Endangered Species Act consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If the FAA determines through the WR process that the contents of the PEA do not remain valid in light of the changes proposed for Flight 2, additional environmental review will be required. Accordingly, the FAA has not authorized SpaceX’s proposed Flight 2. [emphasis mine]
Tragically, my April prediction is coming true. This launch is almost certainly not going to occur before November, and will almost certainly be delayed until next year.
Note again that until the Biden administration, SpaceX was not required to get a detailed environmental reassessement after every Boca Chica test launch. Fish & Wildlife was not involved, as it shouldn’t be. SpaceX made its engineering investigation, the FAA reviewed it quickly, and the company launched again, at a pace of almost one test launch a month, with almost every launch resulting in a crash landing or an explosion.
Under the Biden administration the rules suddenly changed. Now, all launches are environmental concerns, even though we have empirical data for more than seventy years at Cape Canaveral that rocket launches not only do no harm to wildlife, they allow it to thrive because the spaceport creates large zones where nothing can be developed.
In other words, the Biden administration is playing a raw and cruel political game, designed to kill Starship/Superheavy. And it is succeeding, because it will be impossible to develop this rocket on time for its investors and NASA at a pace of only one test launch per year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Kafkaesque Interior Department
strikcs again!
They’re coming for you next: In an email today, the FAA confirmed what I had reported yesterday, that though it hopes to issue a launch license for the next orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket by the end of October, no license will be issued until Fish & Wildlife in the Interior Department agrees.
Before it is authorized to conduct a second Starship/Super Heavy launch, SpaceX must obtain a modified license from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other regulatory requirements. As part of that license application determination process, the FAA will review new environmental information, including changes related to the launch pad, as well as other proposed vehicle and flight modifications.
The FAA will complete a Written Reevaluation (WR) to the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) evaluating the new environmental information, including Endangered Species Act consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If the FAA determines through the WR process that the contents of the PEA do not remain valid in light of the changes proposed for Flight 2, additional environmental review will be required. Accordingly, the FAA has not authorized SpaceX’s proposed Flight 2. [emphasis mine]
Tragically, my April prediction is coming true. This launch is almost certainly not going to occur before November, and will almost certainly be delayed until next year.
Note again that until the Biden administration, SpaceX was not required to get a detailed environmental reassessement after every Boca Chica test launch. Fish & Wildlife was not involved, as it shouldn’t be. SpaceX made its engineering investigation, the FAA reviewed it quickly, and the company launched again, at a pace of almost one test launch a month, with almost every launch resulting in a crash landing or an explosion.
Under the Biden administration the rules suddenly changed. Now, all launches are environmental concerns, even though we have empirical data for more than seventy years at Cape Canaveral that rocket launches not only do no harm to wildlife, they allow it to thrive because the spaceport creates large zones where nothing can be developed.
In other words, the Biden administration is playing a raw and cruel political game, designed to kill Starship/Superheavy. And it is succeeding, because it will be impossible to develop this rocket on time for its investors and NASA at a pace of only one test launch per year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
By keeping the masses away from launch sites and bases–there is LESS tourist trash and such.
Elon needs to stress that point–since Greens hate their fellow humans so badly.
A little surfing also documents that:
A: The Brownsville TX area is listed as likely to experience landfall of a hurricane on average every 13 years
B: That the Boca Chica Starbase are is likely subject to experience 3-6 feet of “Above Ground” storm surge in the case of a Cat2 landfall
Starbase is on a Barrier Island and it is absolutely ludicrous to imply that a few Starship launches (most especially after the extensive Stage 0 upgrades) would represent a severe environmental risk as the environment so threatened is likely to be washed away every decade or two anyway by no less than Mother Gaia herself,
I hope all of our hand wringing is misplaced and that the system will actually work unbiased, but sadly I share the pessimism here that politics will supersede rational policy.
Here is a link to the NHC Map focused on “Brazos Island State Park, Boca Chica Hwy, Brownsville, TX, 78521, USA” which is essentially Starbase.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/203f772571cb48b1b8b50fdcc3272e2c/page/Category-2/
I see that the NHC map link does not include the designated search I’d set up. As it is a little obtuse to use here is how you get what you want to see:
1. Click on the Magnifying Glass icon on the right of the screen to open the search box.
2. Type in “Brazos Island State Park” and before you finish a pop up list with this location should appear so select that.
3. The map will re-draw zoomed in with no storm surge color coding. To see that click on the = sign to zoom out 2 levels and you should see the map of projected storm surge by color.
4. If you want to see the effect of a different hurricane intensity just click on the button but you may have to redo the search/zoom.
MDN: My, this is an excellent point. Not only do rockets not hurt wildlife, and spaceports help preserve wildlife areas, Boca Chica itself can’t possibly be protected from the much more harmful attacks of Mother Nature.
As has been obvious since Biden took over, the government’s effort in Boca Chica to slow walk SpaceX has nothing to do with safety, with engineering, with environmental protection. Its only goal is to slow walk SpaceX, in any way possible, simply because people in the Biden administration and the government don’t like Elon Musk.
Behold your future: If you don’t kow-tow to government stooges, they will hurt you, vindicatively and with glee.
“Nice rocket business youse got there., be a shame if anything happened to it”
Kash Patel’s newest book title perfectly describes them:
Government Gangsters
MDN:
With respect, you are playing the opposition’s game. As they have already set the rules, you cannot win.
An ideological position demonstrably absent logic, cannot logically be subdued. Consider the alternate hypothesis: Interior must demonstrate that launches will have serious and long-lasting environmental impact. Burden-of-proof on the plaintiff is the basis of Western jurisprudence; evident in Robert’s many examples of tyrannical wanna-be’s backing down on law.
Better yet, nice space station you got there. Be a real shame if technical difficulties prevented resupply missions from getting off the ground.
Instead of invoking Bob’s ire in calling for Starship to be moved to another country—I say make Boca Area 52, where the Greens can be liquidated on sight.
Perhaps the reason that the Biden regime believes it has to punish Musk is due to Elon’s political activities and his political independence, with which he is increasingly getting in the way of the Democrat? Just think of the re-activation of numerous blocked users on Twitter (now X) and the partial shutdown of Starlink in Ukraine by Musk.
Hoppewave:
“Absurdistan The Music Video”
Hans Hermann-Hoppe (2018)
https://youtu.be/x15LTalV1b0
(4:33)
In Our Hands:
“How To Lose What We Have” (1950)
https://youtu.be/8UFYluWMDiM?t=222
Questions: 1. There is no perhaps about it. I have said exactly this numerous times. These delays are not for safety, environmental, or engineering reasons. They are a vindicative abuse of power.
2. Your Russia/Soviet block roots are coming out, in that your comment seems to imply that the Biden regime is justified somehow in doing this because Musk has been exercising his rights of free speech and political independence. In America we have something call the Bill of Rights, which expressly forbids such vindicative abuse of power, because fundamentally our nation was founded on the rights of every person to follow their beliefs, dreams, and goals freely, without interference. The government is defined as the servant of the people, not its lord.
You might think on that.
One more word: I also use the term Biden regime because political power was clearly won through electoral fraud and Biden is therefore not governing legitimately.
Elon Musk’s inspiration! Very impressive footage of the Soviet N1-L3 “moon rocket” that I’ve never seen before (and have seen a lot of this stuff over the years). And what Russians and Ukrainians can achieve together in competition with the USA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72xymkw230E
It would be interesting to hear NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s take on these interminable delays. My thought is that at some level he must be as frustrated by them as we are, even if he can’t voice his concerns as a loyal administration team player. My intuition is that he would like to go down in history as one of the people who helped put Americans back on the moon — a capstone to his career — but now this effort appears to be in jeopardy.
That said, I wonder if Robert could reach out to him as a journalist for a comment. Might he reply?
Time to re-read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Milt: Hah, I suspect hell will freeze over before Bill Nelson or his office would respond to me if I asked for a comment. My experience in recent years with NASA is that they treat me as more of a non-person than the FAA and the Biden administration treats Elon Musk.
I don’t blame them. I have not been their friend over the years.
I also think what Bill Nelson thinks is irrelevant. Besides the fact that he is well past his prime and has no influence or clout, he has always been a team player. He will do as he is told.
Let me add that I find it disgusting that we now think it necessary to beg government officials for permission when we wish to do something. I don’t kow-tow to them, no matter what. They should kow-tow to me.
Robert Zimmerman wrote: “Behold your future: If you don’t kow-tow to government stooges, they will hurt you, vindicatively and with glee.”
One of Obama’s policies in action: use the power of the government to reward your friends and punish your enemies.
Welcome to Obama’s fundamentally transformed America, land of the formerly free.
Edward: Your constant harping on Obama makes one think you believe he is the sole source of our problems, a conclusion that is incredibly simplistic and incorrect in so many ways it is hard to count. And if this is so, it also suggests you are a much more shallow thinker than I know you are.
You might want to think about that.
I believe Edward’s ‘harping’ on Obama is not without merit.
Consider that the election by a racist country of a Black President (Bill Clinton notwithstanding) was going to be a transformative event, and everything, really, was riding on it. And, it happened twice. ‘Demonstrably racist no more, your honor.’
Perhaps if Barack Obama had been his own man, the high road of recognition of effort and unifying of peoples under the Constitution could have been advanced. I have argued that Obama was an empty vessel; a conduit for the unelected Progressive agenda. And as US President, no more powerful voice could there be.
I do not think that Barack Obama signified the beginning of the end, but he certainly steepened the pitch.
Aside from the fact that your state is no longer a democracy due to voter fraud in 2020, should you Americans think about your political system and whether it makes sense to give so much power to a single man as president? Would it also be better to shift state power back to the individual US states? Who agrees on that?
Ref: obama (Barry Soetoro)
We can’t forget about him for the primary reason that he and his minions are still running the Country.
He has a lot to answer for…. and I can’t say anything else, or the FBI will be knocking on my door before the day ends.
Questioner–
The separate and sovereign States of the Union created our federal government, not the other way around. We don’t have a King.
I agree that the 16th Amendment should be repealed. Our Founders never intended for the Federal government to extract such a huge proportion of our wealth via taxation. The progressives had to breach that firewall to fund their welfare state.
I agree that the 17th Amendment should be repealed. Federal Senators were intended to represent their respective State and were intended to be appointed by State Legislatures and serve at their whim. Members of the House are directly elected by the people, why should the Senate be elected by the people? Now, State Legislatures can’t get rid of rouge senators. Progressives had to breach that firewall as well, to enact their statist utopia.
“When they call themselves the Good and the Just, do not forget that they would be Pharisees… if only they had – power!”
Thus, I speak to you in a parable….
Jordan Peterson / Akira / Friedrich Nietzsche
“Tarantulas” (2018)
https://youtu.be/7zIkUkRLJAM
7:59
Well, if there were no environmental or endangered species problems for launch 1, we sure have some problems now. Won’t somebody please think of the yellow bellied sap-sucker? !!
And if you think this is the first Written Reevaluation (WR), we’re going to re-evaluate the re-evaluations.
There are going to be problems going forward for sure. Problems for ALL of us.
Robert,
If you want to get picky, it all started when the wrong side won the Whiskey Rebellion. It negated at least one of the reasons for independence from England, taxation without proper representation and taxation on a popular drink (alcohol rather than tea). From that moment, the liberties that we had at the signing of the Constitution have slowly been whittled away.
Obama decided that government was the people’s keeper and should be completely responsible for healthcare; that government should own the auto companies that the government had driven into the ground, rather than go through proper due process of bankruptcy courts; that government should support one political party and attack the others; that government should cause a huge rift between races, sexes, and any other distinguishable groups that can be identified; that fines for non-politically correct behavior or speech should be onerous and bankrupting (cruel and unusual punishment); that the president should be able to ignore Congress and rule by pen and telephone, as well as ignore the Supreme Court and rule by fiat; and that government should reward Obama’s friends and punish his enemies — and the “public servants” went along with these unconstitutional policies. Obama put self-declared communists into high government positions. As Obama announced with his fundamental transformation speech, the slow movement toward tyranny shifted into high gear, and although the engine lugged a bit at first, it is now at high speed, due to Obama’s policies. Robert, if these are incorrect then please spend the effort to count the many ways and correct me.
The United States news media did not help by making this devil out to be an angel, complete with haloes, and schools didn’t help by making their students sing songs of praise about him. Frankly, Obama was treated as a god-like entity, as though he were a monarch who was more important than the Constitution. All forms of checks and balances failed or were ignored, with Obama, and the other two branches of government were castrated and the fourth estate refused to do its constitutionally protected duty for We the People. Today, American governance is completely different than it was in 2006. Under Obama, the dead of the revolutionary war, the civil war, and all other wars that protected our liberty, have died in vain — that this nation, under God, has a new birth of tyranny — and government of the people, by the people, and for the people perished from the earth. (Paraphrased from Lincoln.)
It does not matter whether the voters were willing to allow tyrannical behavior, it was Obama, not Clinton, who chose to fundamentally transform America. It was Obama who pulled off that coup, not any of the other Democrats. The America of 2016 was not the America of a decade before. Post-Obama, social upheaval and political upheaval abound. We went from a nation that was moving along fairly nicely to a nation that can expect a coming dark age. That is all on Obama and his policies, not Clinton or his policies. He may no longer be in office, but Obama’s policies continue to apply. If these are incorrect, please spend the effort to count the many ways and correct me.
Obama is not the sole source of our problems, but he is the source of the rapid fundamental changes that happened in this country during his reign, and these changes continue to harm us. How many people were blacklisted or cancelled before Obama and how many are blacklisted these days? How much pushback do we have to do these days, and how much did we have to do before Obama? Before Obama, would anyone have written here, “and I can’t say anything else, or the FBI will be knocking on my door before the day ends“? wayne may be exaggerating, but the FBI did just try to entrap a bunch of his fellow Michiganians (Michiganders?). If these are incorrect, please spend the effort to count the many ways and correct me.
I would like to know what the German people should have done in the 1920s and in the 1930s to stop the tyranny that the NAZI party brought to them. What should they have done in the 1940s to stop what had been started. Knowing these answers could inform us as to how to combat the oppression and tyranny we now have in this country and to stop the coming dark age. How are we to regain the governance that was promised to us in the Preamble to the Constitution, to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity“?
I’m sorry, Robert, that you think that is shallow thinking, but I realized that this country had been fundamentally transformed when I first started using the “Welcome to Obama’s America” line in 2014, when Obamacare came into full effect. At the risk of sounding like I’m bragging, I think that was observant of me. It wasn’t until months or years later that I added “fundamentally transformed” into the line. I thought that addition clarified my thinking, but apparently I was wrong. America has been fundamentally transformed, and Obama intentionally transformed it. America is significantly worse than it had been, and Obama made it that way. If these are incorrect, please spend the effort to count the many ways and correct me.
Elections have consequences, and we are now suffering from losing the most important election of our lifetimes. The election of Washington brought the most liberated nation the world had ever known in all of recorded history. The election of Lincoln brought an end to slavery in America, the nation that a century earlier had originated the worldwide movement to end that practice. The election of Obama brought national division and strife not seen since the American civil war. Gilbert Zachary, in another thread, is even concerned about such a division, worried that it may result in yet another civil war in America. Fifteen years ago, before Obama, did anyone seriously suggest that there would be another American civil war? Was there a division that would cause anyone to seriously think America would or could have another civil war? If these are incorrect, please spend the effort to count the many ways and correct me.
However, Robert, this is your site, and if you don’t like the phrase, I will stop using it.
Edward: I was only noting that your obsession with Obama as the root of all our ills today was not making your arguments more convincing. It is making them less so. You can say that everything changed after his election, but as an historian I don’t see it that way. What I see is that Obama simply took advantage of years of voter laziness, Republican Party weakness, a now very corrupt Democratic Party (given us us by Hillary and Bill Clinton), an out-of-control federal government, a weak Congress (in general), and an overall debasement of the rule of law.
Such things were developing for decades, and the fault of this lies with many. Obama if anything was merely the final result. To focus all on him suggests an unwillingness to look deeper, and provide a deeper education. More important, it makes your effort to persuade less effective.
Your choice, however. I certainly don’t police what people say on BtB, as long as they act like civilized adults, use clean language, and don’t descend into insult.
I wonder what the fine is for launching without a permit?
Why does SpaceX need a license?
Life, Liberty, and Levin
9-17-23
“Why The Democrat Party Hates America”
https://youtu.be/AGZOy3AO7vU
(13:01)
Mr Zimmerman, you must admit that the ground effects of the last Super Heavy launch were a bit more dramatic than planned for. How far away did those hunks of concrete land? I’m pretty sure some of them were way outside the facility grounds. Oof.
I can see an actual environmental review being required. “Show me how you intend to not kill various species of animals who reside several miles away from your launch. And it better not involve giving them hard hats.” Which would then necessitate showing your launch pad won’t blow up so bigly this time. It should be as simple as that.
Of course, it won’t be. For the reasons you and others mention.
Av Av8
September 18, 2023 at 4:43 am
Why does SpaceX need a license?
Well, there’s the whole airplanes flying around, and people on the ground under the flight path (not too much there, given location and path, but still), and boats under the flight path. A license allows for notifying the authorities and the authorities notifying the populace.
It is, also, a way of saying “Do you know what the heck you’re doing? Show me.” And, no, you shouldn’t assume that because he’s been successful before means he has any clue going into the future.
GWB-
glad you brought that perspective up, and I’m not picking on you specifically, but….
I would put forth the proposition that: in-general too many of us, for far too long, have boughten into the whole “common sense regulation” way of thinking as it applies to everything, (and the associated bureaucratic state it entails) as if the Federal Government was some neutral umpire in a baseball game, calling balls and strikes.
These people aren’t neutral, they have an agenda, and they act under color of law.
(I have no solution for Musk, except maybe Vote Trump, and I appreciate we can’t dismantle everything at once, overnight, but we need to start thinking that way or continue to lose opportunities, and time.)
GWB wrote, ” How far away did those hunks of concrete land? I’m pretty sure some of them were way outside the facility grounds. Oof.”
No, Your certainty is false. The post launch investigations showed otherwise. Fish & Wildlife, in its own review and quoted in my April 2023 essay, agreed:
And it once again must be noted, we have almost three-quarters of a century evidence from Wallops, Vandenberg, and Cape Canaveral that rocket launches do no harm to wildlife. Interior’s demands now from SpaceX are purely for political reasons, and are an abuse of power.
wayne
September 18, 2023 at 6:43 am
I won’t disagree on how they’re using their authority. (Hence, my final line in my first comment.)
It is “common sense” to require an environmental approval. But they are using that idea to bind the fetters a bit tighter on Musk.
Robert Zimmerman
September 18, 2023 at 8:53 am
and Boca Chica State Park
Well, that would be outside the launch facility’s bounds, if not “way outside.” And I would question why F&W *AND* Interior both need to sign off on it. And if all the answers have already been given, then fine.
But I do think it’s reasonable to say, “The dude blew up his launch pad and launched parts of it pretty dang far, and we should make sure that won’t be an issue again.”
Also, I noted in my first comment that the action is clearly an abuse as it’s being implemented.
(Also, I don’t think the tidy realms around Canaveral are as dispositive as you might think. Have any launches there exploded towers so shrapnel goes for miles? How about concrete launch pads? Musk created a little bit unique issue with his launch – and I don’t begrudge him that.)
GWB: On one point I should have been more clear: F&W is part of Interior, and the approval of the former also requires the approval of the latter, which is its boss.
Finally, I am really tired of Americans making excuses for these government agencies, who are clearly abusing their power in unprecedented ways. I am especially disgusted with this considering the abuses and lies from government agencies during the last three years. Have people learned nothing from the abuses under COVID? What will it take to get people to recognize the government really does want to squash you, like bugs?
WOW! I have never seen so many comments that did not whole-hardheartedly uphold the Socialist narrative. My day is made!
Mr. Zimmerman, if you got all this right (all the US government’s lies), then why do you think things are different in Ukraine? For example, just think of what father and son Biden did there for their financial gain and what the mainstream media likes to hide!!
Robert Zimmerman
September 18, 2023 at 9:54 am
GWB: On one point I should have been more clear: F&W is part of Interior, and the approval of the former also requires the approval of the latter, which is its boss.
And I thought that was probably the case. Either way, it’s a stupid call – given the one already said OK.
As to squashing us like bugs… I also realize there are some things that the gov’t should actually do. And while some of those things are overdone, we can’t just toss them in a fit of pique. Some of your statements seemed of “The baby, too!” variety. I wanted to make the point that I can see the gov’t needing to be involved in this because Musk blowed it up really good. But, yes, it seems they’re overdoing it out of a sense of corralling Musk back into the Davos herd. As I’ve said several times now, I think they are overdoing it/abusing it.
I should probably also make the point that big KABOOMS have the tendency to be abused because everyone says, “Do something!” Even though this didn’t actually directly affect many people, it was a BIG kaboom, so it was easy to abuse.
GWB: Except that the FAA and Interior where abusing their power before that big Kaboom, delaying SpaceX’s first Starship/Superheavy launch for almost a year for no clear good reason.
It is all overreach by the federal government.
And by the way, we have reached a point where the scale of federal abuse of power is so great I am quite willing to toss that baby out, whole. Fire them all, and start over.
This doesn’t mean cancel our Constitution and present government. This means that every agency that has participated in this abuse of power should be cleaned out, brutally. Reduce their size significantly, and put new people there. If anything would make these bureaucrats think twice about abusing their power in the future.
Here is the conundrum going forward, The DoI/F&W will demand that the OLM be proved not to self-destruct as it did before giving their approval for the launch license; BUT, the only way to prove it is to launch the Starship/Superheavy. So since you can’t prove it, you can’t launch to prove it.
I agree that the 17th Amendment should be repealed.
It was passed for a reason: The state selection of senators was very corrupt and everyone knew it.
That does not mean a repeal is a bad idea, but it will bring the old problem back, eventually. How about: In even decades (00s, 20s, 40s) the state picks them; in odd decades (10s, 30s, 50s) it’s popular vote.
What feeds into both of the problems described by Robert and markedup2, is that the voters – even nominally “conservative” voters – have come to expect the government to focus upon establishing today’s flavor of the “common good” in area after area … and NOT focus upon their legitimate mission:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.– That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Were they to focus upon that legitimate mission, you would see neither the abuses of power that are trampling on those rights today … nor the size and reach of government that enables said trampling.
If I were President, I would take a cue from “Tough and Competent” Gene Kranz, and require every blackboard/whiteboard in the Executive Branch to have the words “To Secure These Rights” written at the top of them by their users – never to be erased.
But the real problem is among US. The more we ask government to do FOR us, the more power we give its all-too-human operatives to do TO us.
markedup2-
17th Amendment–
Of course there was corruption! There’s always corruption. We’ve historically distrusted government at all levels and all this crap-o-la about “public service” is a relatively recent narrative.
It was sold under the guise of increasing “democracy,” but we are a Republic based on representative democracy.
The Senate is supposed to represent the separate and sovereign States, and they were originally accountable to their respective Legislature.
If the States don’t have a check on the House, we don’t need a Senate.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Machine Politics
https://youtu.be/p56Ok2ahtYk
4:29
GWB: “I don’t think the tidy realms around Canaveral are as dispositive as you might think. Have any launches there exploded towers so shrapnel goes for miles? How about concrete launch pads?”
Plenty of explosions of launch vehicles at the Cape. From the earliest days, but some by SpaceX in the early days of the Falcon program including 2016. The “tower” did not explode, the only issue was debris from the blast pad under the vehicle, the tower is still there and just stacked the Starship for the second test.
Every current launch pad at the Cape has a concrete base, typically with an exhaust deflector. What Musk bypassed in the first launch was a water spray system. This has been rectified for the second launch.
We can remove all the politicians we currently have in power. That would be easy but would not solve a thing.
Like Biden is right now they are all just place holders. The real power is the cabal of people who supposedly work for them(its actually the other way around). All of the thousands of government workers who are not elected but are in those nice save government unions. All of the office workers working in every politicians office. All of their advisors and staff who have been working in those offices for years.
Its the advisors who actually write all the speeches and the laws, not the politicians.
Lets say a republican loses a seat to a democrat. The democrat throws out all the old office staff and brings in their own from a pre-selected group of staff from other democratic offices that have been lost to republicans.
The faces change but the behind the scenes power players stay the same.
Figure out how to get rid of those people and you will have done something real, until then your just changing faces.
Find those people and target them for elimination by politically and socially isolating and targeting them.