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.

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.

Gangs of New York (2002)
Machine Politics
https://youtu.be/p56Ok2ahtYk
4:29

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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 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 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:

No debris was found on lands belonging to the refuge itself, but the agency said debris was spread out over 385 acres belonging to SpaceX and Boca Chica State Park. A fire covering 3.5 acres also started south of the pad on state park land, but the Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t state what caused the fire or how long it burned.

There was no evidence, though, that the launch and debris it created harmed wildlife. “At this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands,” the agency said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thus, I speak to you in a parable….

Jordan Peterson / Akira / Friedrich Nietzsche
“Tarantulas” (2018)
https://youtu.be/7zIkUkRLJAM
7:59

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.

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.

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.