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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.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Trump will ask Congress to ease the firing of government workers

Good if true: According to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is in charge of Donald Trump’s transition team, should he win the presidency he will ask Congress to pass laws making it easier from him to fire government workers.

Trump’s transition advisers fear that Obama may convert these appointees to civil servants, who have more job security than officials who have been politically appointed. This would allow officials to keep their jobs in a new, possibly Republican, administration, Christie said. “It’s called burrowing,” Christie said. “You take them from the political appointee side into the civil service side, in order to try to set up … roadblocks for your successor, kind of like when all the Clinton people took all the Ws off the keyboard when George Bush was coming into the White House.”

Originally these laws were passed to reduce the spoils system, whereby new presidents got to hand out lots of jobs to friends once elected. Now, these laws merely act to prevent elected officials from having any supervisory oversight over the employees they manage.

The article also noted that the Trump campaign is beginning to assemble a list of government workers they want to fire should they win. This is also encouraging, considering the overall incompetence we’ve seen in the federal government these past few years. (I would especially like to see the entire management of the National Park Service fired for the part they played in helping Obama during the government shutdown.) It is time for a purge. If Trump follows through with this, it will be a very positive thing.

Expect a lot of squealing however from the usual suspects in Washington. The key will be whether Trump will have the courage to follow through despite those squeals.

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

5 comments

  • wayne

    Yes, this sounds good on it’s face.

    I’d prefer to hear, however, that any number of Departments would be ripe for wholesale downsizing, defunding, and outright elimination. Mitch & Ryan however, control that to a large degree, and they’ve shown zero inclination to reduce any spending whatsoever.

    These people have been burrowing into the civil-service for almost 8 years. (and it’s not just confined to Obama) I fear it would just become a Show Vote, and they can’t make it retroactive. I do like the idea, I just don’t trust any of these clowns to implement it, and I want to hear the other 999 great idea’s to rapidly SHRINK the government

    The only way to really get rid of these people, is to eliminate their phony baloney jobs.

  • Localfluff

    Modern businessmen use a surprisingly thin layer of staff. The fewer they are, the greater share of the pie each one of the partners get, which motivates the chosen ones to work harder. That is the business logic which doesn’t exist in public sector. The logic in public sector is of course that other people pay and that you don’t need to care about the consequences of your actions. But a new emperor can infuse a lean management culture for a while. Governments were actually extremely lean before the world wars! Like my prime minister getting his first two secretaries only in the 1940s (both of whom later became PMs themselves!). Now our PM has 4000+ hired.

    “- Why do you need any staff at all? You’re the secretary of state. You just visit and talk to people. Why do you need any staff for that? Make the opponent pay for the interpreter. I do most of your job anyway. I say you do better without any staff. I’m your staff. If you think you need a secretary, you’ve got salary enough to hire one yourself.”

  • Cotour

    Trump understands one fundamental rule of employment, ultimately there must exist the credible fear of losing your job and / or your pension if you are incompetent or are a “problem” employee (read, a bureaucrat like Lois Learner, that has your oppositions agenda at heart and works to stifle your progress)

  • Localfluff

    Churchill, and this was during his attempted political comeback after the war, asked a surprised member of parliament to become foreign minister (secretary of state):

    – This must be a mistake. I have never addressed any foreign issue in parliament. Nor have I ever even listened to any of those who do. I have never been abroad, except for war duty. I do not speak any foreign language. Sire prime minister, I don’t even like foreigners.

    – (Churchill) All of that is to your advantage!

  • Localfluff

    Obamas friend Erdogan is doing some lay offs too. Moving to Canada is actually a good idea for some individuals who oppose unity and greatness.

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