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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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Pushback: Judge blocks race-based program of Biden administration

Modern segregation
Modern Democratic Party segregation

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” On June 5, 2023 federal Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas ruled [pdf] that a race-based development agency, dubbed the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and created under Biden administration, was patently illegal under both the U.S. Constitution and numerous civil rights laws, and must cease awarding grants based on race.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit [pdf] filed for three individuals by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), one of whom, Christian Bruckner, was specifically told by the local office of MBDA “…that it could not help him because of his race.” The lawsuit notes that:

The MBDA’s statutes, regulations, and website all speak a clear message of discrimination: Defendants refuse to help white business owners like Plaintiffs, as well as many other businesses owned by other non-favored ethnicities from North Africa, the Middle East, and North Asia.

MBDA was created in 2021 when Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Under that law, MBDA was to help minority businesses, as defined as follows:

To qualify as a “minority business enterprise,” a “socially or economically disadvantaged individual” must manage the business’s operations and own at least 51% of it. An individual is
presumed to be a “socially or economically disadvantaged individual” if they are Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Puerto-Rican, Eskimo, Hasidic Jew, Asian Indian, or a Spanish-speaking American. But any other race or thnicity is not considered “socially or economically disadvantaged” and thus ineligible for the center’s services. [emphasis mine]

The judge ruled that the law was illegal, and enjoined the MDBA from issuing grants based on race.

New Mexico office of MBDA discriminatory policies
The continuing racist discriminatory policy of the
New Mexico office of MBDA

It should be noted that despite this ruling, it appears that at least one office of MBDA, in New Mexico, has changed nothing, and still discriminates based on race. The graphic to the right, included as evidence in the lawsuit, was taken today from that office’s website. It is very clear that if you are simply a white Caucasian who is not an Hasidic Jew (only one specific Jewish denomination) you are considered a second-class citizen which this agency will deny service.

Moreover, even if they changed the wording of this website to comply with the judge’s order, don’t expect the discrimination to end. All MBDA’s officers have to do is add a “White” category to its applications, and then routinely deny any grants to any white who applies. Without access to the ethnic breakdown of their grants, there will be no way to find out that they are continuing to discriminate.

What needs to happen is that this agency needs to be defunded, immediately. Its fundamental purpose is to discriminate, to hand out government money to favored races, a blatantly racist purpose. Since it has only existed for less than two years, there has been hardly enough time for it to be deeply entrenched in the government. It would seem a no-brainer for the Republicans who control the House to simply zero out the funding for MBDA.

Wanna bet they will fail to do it?

Genesis cover

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

9 comments

  • James Street

    Speaking of Blacks. And Texas.

    Happy Juneteenth! When we celebrate Republicans in 1865 finally being able to force the last Democrat slave owner hold-outs in Texas to free their slaves.

  • LTC SDS

    One correction to your article Bob. It’s not the government’s money, it’s OUR money.

  • LTC SDS: How right you are. But then, no one sees it as ours any longer, most importantly the elected officials who so grandly pass it out so generously.

  • David Eastman

    That’s one of the beauties of funding the government by endless continuing resolutions, not the conventional budgetary process. The ability for the house to actually wield the power of the purse and defund an agency has essentially been removed for the duration of the current CR, which was passed before the current house was seated, and extends beyond the next house election. And the “republican” leadership of the senate signed on to this because they were more scared of what their republican colleagues in the house might do than what the democrats keep doing.

  • The New Mexico Office’s continuing to operate “in defiance” of the ruling is both perfectly normal, and under the judicial jurisdictional system we have, appropriate. The judge’s preliminary injunction only applies within the Northern District of Texas and against the other two MBDA Centers named, neither of which is in NM. (I would question application to even those two). If the final ruling goes the same way, AND then if it gets appealed and then upheld, it will apply within whatever Federal District Court’s jurisdiction NDT lies (+2 other MBDA Centers), which may or may not include New Mexico. For this to apply nationwide, it will have to go to the Supreme Court and be upheld. IF the NDT judge did a good job writing his opinion, it will be cited in other cases in other Federal Districts, and hopefully become the go-to for striking down this blatantly unconstitutional law.

    Sadly it’s only a preliminary injunction, not a final ruling. Dems KNOW this is unconstitutional, this portion of the law is simply lawfare, meant to consume vast quantities of the opposition’s legal resources against bad law being defended with TAXPAYER resources.

  • BLSinSC

    I have proposed a SIMPLE SOLUTION to all this RACIST CRAP! A NEW LAW that simply states “No decisions nor actions may be based on RACE other than Historical Portrayals of ACTUAL People”! THAT would put an END to all the controversy! It would also put an end to the “affirmative” action that hinders people who are not the preferred color. The NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus would be deemed RACIST and therefore not allowed as much as the NAAWP and Congressional WHITE Caucus are not kosher!! People would be subjected to Martin Luther King’s vision whereby they would be judged on the CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER rather than the color of their skin! Black Americans want EQUALITY – so do everyone else! So this law would make EVERYONE EQUAL in the eyes of the LAW! You want to succeed in business? Be a GOOD businessman! Want to get a quality education? STUDY!! Want to have a decent life? STOP MAKING STUPID LIFE CHOICES!! But FIRST just pass the LAW and ENFORCE it!

  • BLSinSC, black Americans do not want equality, they want superiority without merit. They want everyone else’s wealth transferred to them just because they are black. Just look at the grift of Black Lives Matter. And do remember, Whiteness is not about skin color but about working hard, thinking rationally, nuclear family, Western civilization and other traits.

  • Edward

    BLSinSC proposed: “a SIMPLE SOLUTION to all this RACIST CRAP! A NEW LAW that simply states …

    Except that the old laws and even the Constitution itself is being ignored. Why would anyone think that a new law would fare any better?

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