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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

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SpaceX sues to have NLRB complaint dismissed

SpaceX yesterday filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to have the employee complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed as a violation of the company’s fifth and seventh amendment rights as well as article II of the Constitution.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit here [pdf]. It specifically lists as defendants the board members of the NLRB, as well as the unnamed administrative judge who will run the NLRB’s case, once it begins.

The SpaceX lawsuit is interesting in that it challenges the very legal structure that has established the NLRB, stating that its actions are illegal because that structure forbids the President from having full control over its actions, as required by article II of the Constitution.

Whether this lawsuit succeeds is of course unknown, but its quick filing tells us that SpaceX was prepared for this NLRB action, even before it was filed. It also tells us that the company now recognizes the overall threat to it by the Biden administration, which appears to be trying to weaponize every agency in the federal government to destroy the company, and is prepared to fight long and hard against this abuse of power.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

6 comments

  • Steve

    Thank goodness he (Musk) has both the courage and the wherewithal to fight the Administrative State. Hopefully the Supreme Court will come down with a decision this term that will give Musk a huge boost.

  • F

    Like so many other government bodies, the NLRB should be defunded.

  • DJ

    Perhaps this is off subject but interesting non the less. Washington Post is bleeding money.
    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/01/05/the-washington-post-is-in-big-trouble-n2168357

  • Alton

    Also last year PBS, NPR and The New York Times each laid off 300+ Employees.

    A Nice Trend ☺️ indeed.

  • BLSinSC

    OUR Constitution is rather SPECIFIC regarding the Administrative role of Our Government – the PRESIDENT is in charge! How ANY agency can claim exemption from Presidential oversight is mind boggling! But of course, the turnip in the White House will agree to any plan to diminish or destroy Mr. Musk! I do hope when PRESIDENT TRUMP regains his RIGHTFUL office he has the Supreme Court use THIS decision to preemptively give him RULL REIN over the “administrative” state!!

    We should all thank Mr. Musk for his many efforts to improve Our Nation – GREAT JOB from a LEGAL IMMIGRANT!!

  • Edward

    I love how the lawsuit calls the NLRB tyrants:

    28. The NLRB’s current way of functioning is miles away from the traditional understanding of the separation of powers, which views “[t]he accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands” as “the very definition of tyranny.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 47 (James Madison).

    30. If the current Members of the NLRB are asked to make a prosecutorial determination about whether SpaceX is in violation of the NLRA, there is an objectively high risk that they would not later be able to provide the neutral adjudicative forum that the Constitution demands, and so would need to recuse from further participation in any agency adjudication against SpaceX.

    Accuser, investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. That is not American. It isn’t even British. It is French. J’accuse!

    118. The Supreme Court has held, however, that “an unconstitutional potential for bias exists when the same person serves as both accuser and adjudicator in a case.” Williams, 579 U.S. at 8.

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