Tag: bankruptcy

Part 3: Against the COVID liars and their strong-arm edicts the wheels of justice are grinding forward slowly

1:43 pm

Renewing the Declaration of Independence
Renewing the Declaration of Independence

In the first two parts of this series I very carefully outlined the ugly corrupt lie of the experimental COVID jab, and then followed up with a detailed summary of the lies put forth to justify imposition of the many COVID mandates.

Today, in this concluding essay, we will take a look at the battle by many to resist and end those COVID mandates, a battle that is increasingly successful because the mandates themselves were both immoral and illegal. They desecrated all the fundamental tenets and principles that underlie all American culture and law.

First however an addendum to yesterday’s essay, where I noted that “The royalties possibly received by Fauci and others in the government for their work developing the COVID jab — that the government then mandated — boggles the mind.” Shortly after I posted that essay, this story hit the web:

Fauci’s Net Worth Doubled During Pandemic, As Americans Struggled to Make Ends Meet

In 2021 alone Fauci earned almost two million dollars in royalties, travel perks, and investment gains. We still do not know however exactly what companies paid Fauci this money, or the precise amounts, because, according to the organization Open the Books which obtained this data, NIH has redacted that information.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Something is very rotten in the state of COVID”. The only reason I can fathom for keeping the source of those royalties secret is if their unveiling would reveal a serious conflict of interest. Fauci was one of the most visible government officials pushing the COVID shots on adults and children. Was he also making money on each jab? The public has a right to know.

Now, on to the fight against the illegal and immoral COVID mandates.
» Read more

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FCC approves new regulation requiring defunct satellite deorbit in five years

10:13 am

Despite questions from Congress and others about the agency’s legal authority to do so, the FCC yesterday approved a new regulation that will require satellite companies to de-orbit defunct satellites within five years, shortening the rule from the previous requirement of 25 years.

Commissioners voted 4-0 to adopt the draft rule, published earlier this month, intended to address growing debris in LEO. Under the new rule, spacecraft that end their lives in orbits at altitudes of 2,000 kilometers or below will have to deorbit as soon as practicable and no more than five years after the end of their mission. The rule would apply to satellites launched two years after the order is adopted, and include both U.S.-licensed satellites as well as those licensed by other jurisdictions but seeking U.S. market access.

The article notes how this rule replaces “a longstanding FCC guideline” Note the difference. Previously the FCC had made a recommendation, recognizing it did not have the authority to impose it. Now, our power-hungry DC bureaucracy has decided it can ignore the law and impose any rule it desires. Nor does it feel it needs to listen to Congress, one committee of which sent a stern letter recently questioning the then proposed new rule and calling for the FCC to hold off any action on it while elected officials review the situation.

The FCC yesterday responded, essentially telling Congress to bug off.

None of these questions have anything to do with whether this rule makes sense. It likely does, but that still doesn’t give FCC officials to right to arbitrarily give themselves more power. Whether our elected officials will act to defend their own power is uncertain, as the pattern in the past half century is for Congress to consistently cede its power to the bureaucracy, whenever challenged.

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Part 2: How the liars spread the ugly corrupt lie of the COVID jab

4:01 pm

Yesterday I outlined in detail how a growing body of research as well as a great deal of blatantly obvious public data is increasingly demonstrating that the COVID shots carry with them some risk, and that in many cases, especially for those younger than 50, the risks outweigh the relatively minor benefits the jab provides against the Wuhan flu.

Though this data was unknown when the COVID shots were first made available, the amount of uncertainty and risk was great enough to make it unconscionable for any politician or health official to require anyone to get the jab, no matter what. And yet, led by President Joe Biden, government agencies and big corporations nationwide demanded employees get the jab, or be fired.

The result: tens of thousands of individuals, especially the young and healthy, have died unnecessarily from the COVID shots, since COVID itself could never have killed them.

Today I am going to outline the lies perpetuated by politicians and government health officials almost from day one of the Wuhan panic that worked hide these basic facts. Many times these lies were committed with the best of intentions. Many times the liars honestly and sincerely believed the lie was their only course of action.

And in too many cases, the lies were merely lies, said simply to protect the individual from scandal and possible prosecution, should the truth come out.

No matter what the reason, however, these lies were not only dishonest, they were morally wrong, and resulted in routinely bad policy that only made the Wuhan epidemic far worse than it ever had to be.

To begin, let us look at the lies of some specific individuals.
» Read more

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Part 1: The ugly corrupt lie of the experimental COVID jab

2:16 pm

Joe Biden: dictator
Joe Biden: claiming the power to tell us what medicines we must take

On September 9, 2021, President Joe Biden announced harsh mandates nationwide that forced millions to get COVID shots. You had no choice. If you refused, you would be fired from your job and made a non-person, forbidden in all ways from participating normally in society.

“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said, making a direct appeal to the 80 million people who he said were still unvaccinated. “Your refusal has cost all of us.”

…”It’s simple [said an official]: If you want to work for the federal government, you must be vaccinated. If you want to do business with the government, you must vaccinate your workforce.”

Those mandates — unreasonably based on very uncertain knowledge at the time — have now been found to have killed thousands of people who did not need to die.

And worst of all, the people imposing those mandates were lying, and knew they were lying.

Killing young adults

For a large majority of the population that either voluntarily chose to get the COVID jab or were forced to submit under duress, the shots and boosters at this point appear to have been harmless. Most people have exhibited no negative symptoms once jabbed, and have so far been able to go on with their lives as if nothing had changed.

The problem is that for many, that jab was a death sentence, with the executioner often arriving unexpectedly but quickly, and completely unnecessarily.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Arrested in 2020 for letting her kids play in park, a mom is still being prosecuted by Idaho Republicans

12:16 pm

Sarah Brady: targeted by both establishment parties for defending her freedom
Sarah Brady: targeted by both establishment parties
for defending her freedom

Persecution is now cool! In 2020, during the worst of the Wuhan panic, Sarah Brady was part of a gathering of parents and children in a public playground in Meridian, Idaho, a playground that the local mayor, Lauren McLean (Democrat), had closed in her panicked fear of COVID. Her irrational ban said that no outdoor equipment or playground equipment could be touched, though people could still gather in the parks.

When police officers demanded Brady and the others leave the park, Brady challenged them, questioning the absurdity of the closure. She was then arrested, and charged with misdemeanor that could result in six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“I feel like I was singled out because I was the only person that was arrested,” Brady said. “I wasn’t the only person standing on the bark [the playground surface]. I definitely wasn’t playing on the playground equipment. I wasn’t swinging, never touched them. But yeah, I do feel like I was singled out and maybe it was because I asked too many questions.”

Two years later, this absurd persecution of Brady continues. The Republican state attorney general, Lawrence Wasden, has refused to drop the charges, and is instead pursuing them.
» Read more

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The rising federal Gestapo

1:18 pm

The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest
The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest.
The little boy in the center clearly needs to be frog-marched to prison.

It can happen here. Anyone who denies this is merely guaranteeing that tyranny in America will arrive sooner.

Worse, it is happening here, right now, at this very moment. The Houck family to the right has been in the news the past few days because on September 23, 2022 they found their home surrounded by an FBI SWAT team with guns drawn, pounding at the front door to arrest the father, Mark Houck, for a minor pushing incident that had occurred months earlier that was so minor the court had dismissed the lawsuit against Houck almost immediately. Notwithstanding its utter triviality, the Biden administration, its Justice Department, and the FBI decided it gave them a great chance to intimidate and frighten someone who happened to also be a conservative and religious activist.
» Read more

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NASA managers decide finally to roll SLS back to assembly building

9:01 am

NASA managers this morning finally gave up on launching their SLS rocket in an early October launch window and scheduled rolling back the rocket to the assembly building tonight.

NASA will roll the Artemis I Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Monday, Sept. 26. First motion is targeted for 11 p.m. EDT.

Managers met Monday morning and made the decision based on the latest weather predictions associated with Hurricane Ian, after additional data gathered overnight did not show improving expected conditions for the Kennedy Space Center area. The decision allows time for employees to address the needs of their families and protect the integrated rocket and spacecraft system. The time of first motion also is based on the best predicted conditions for rollback to meet weather criteria for the move.

Based on this graph [pdf] provided by NASA earlier this year, the next launch window is from October 17 to October 31, followed by another from November 12 to November 27. It is unclear whether they can meet that first window, even if all engineers do is check and recharge the flight termination system batteries.

The question of the rocket’s two solid-fueled boosters however looms. Both are now one year past NASA’s use-by date, and it appears somewhat unknown what the risks are using them. Replacing them however will entail a significant delay, from three to six months.

As I said this weekend, NASA managers face no good choice, because of the impractical and inefficient design of this rocket.

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NASA managers scrub September 27th SLS launch

9:59 am

NASA managers today decided that they had to scrub their attempt to launch SLS on September 27, 2022 due to a hurricane threatening Florida, and are instead preparing to roll the rocket back to the assembly building to protect it.

During a meeting Saturday morning, teams decided to stand down on preparing for the Tuesday launch date to allow them to configure systems for rolling back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers deferred a final decision about the roll to Sunday, Sept. 25, to allow for additional data gathering and analysis. If Artemis I managers elect to roll back, it would begin late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

This will likely delay the launch until the late October launch window, or the mid-November window, as shown in this graph [pdf]. During this time engineers will certainly test and recharge the batteries that run the rocket’s flight termination system so that there will be no question they will work should the Space Force safety range officer need to destroy the rocket during launch.

NASA however now faces another quandary it has been avoiding for the past year. The stacking of the five segments of SLS’s two solid rocket strap-on boosters began in November 2020, two years ago. During the shuttle era and until last year, NASA had a rule that said a booster must launch within a year of stacking. The fear was that the weight of the solid rocket fuel could distort it over time, and possibly cause it to burn improperly once ignited. As these boosters are the equivalent of firecrackers — once you light them you can’t turn them off — NASA had chosen, until last year, to have a use-by date of one year for the boosters.

Now however NASA has abandoned that rule. The boosters have been stacked for twice that time, and the agency has to ask if it will be safe to use them. To change them out however will take at least three months, if not longer. The present set of boosters would have to be removed, and a new set stacked and installed.

I fully expect NASA to stay with these boosters, despite their age, once again violating its own safety rules, as it did routinely during the shuttle era (resulting in the loss of two shuttles and the death of fourteen astronauts). Though no humans will be on this test flight, this sloppy engineering culture clearly threatens the lives of the astronauts who will fly on the second Artemis SLS mission, around the Moon.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Google, Paypal, Venmo team up to blacklist a gay organization

12:18 pm

Google loves blacklisting, along with its teammates Paypal,Venmo, and Twitter
Google loves blacklisting, along with its teammates
Paypal,Venmo, and Twitter

Blacklists are back and big tech likes ’em: Apparently because the homosexual advocacy group Gays Against Groomers opposes the exposure of queer ideology to little children, this week the big social media companies Google, Paypal, and Venmo did a coordinated crack down on the group, shuttering its accounts all within one day’s time.

Google, Paypal and Venmo shut down accounts affiliated with Gays Against Groomers, a Twitter account that is critical of gender ideology, particularly in regard to children. Venmo shut down the account early Tuesday morning, and Paypal blocked the account from its services minutes later, according to an email shared by the account’s founder Jamie Michell; Google shut down her account, including her email address, the following morning, according to a screenshot and an email.

Google reinstated the account the next day, but provided no credible explanation for its actions, at all.

In July this same organization had also been suspended by Twitter. The account was only reinstated when the group agreed to replace the letter “o” in “Groomers” with graphic eyeballs. It appears Twitter did not like the use of the word “groomers”, since it described precisely what queer advocates are doing when they espouse their perverse sexual behavior to young children.

The organization had been using its Twitter account to publicize examples where queer advocates performed sexually in front of kids. As it notes on its webpage:
» Read more

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Pushback: NY cops fight city’s COVID jab mandate

12:16 pm

NY Mayor Eric Adams: an enthusiastic tyrant
NY Mayor Eric Adams: an enthusiastic tyrant

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In the past week three stories from New York City suggest that the willingness to fight against the irrational and abusive COVID shot mandates imposed by the one-party rule of the Democratic Party in that city can win.

First, a state judge in New York on September 13, 2022 ruled in favor of a lawsuit by police officer Alexander Delito, stating that the city cannot fire him for refusing to get the jab. Delito had apparently been arbitrarily denied a religious exemption, with no explanation. As the judge noted in his decision:

“The hollow and generic phrase ‘does not meet criteria’ cannot be rational because not a single item particular to [Deletto] was discussed and not a single reason for the decision was given,” Justice Arlene Bluth ruled. “There is no indication that anybody even read [Deletto’s] arguments. It is the duty of the agency to explain why it made the decision,” the judge added.

The ruling sets a precedent that will make it difficult for New York City to continue the mandate. Not surprisingly, a week later the city’s Democrat mayor, Eric Adams, announced he is lifting the mandate on the private sector and on school children, even as he refused to remove it from government workers.

The response from the leaders of various government unions was immediate. Here is just one example:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Republicans and conservatives increasingly unwilling to talk to pollsters out of fear

12:45 pm

Joe Biden's
Joe Biden’s anti-conservative rally on September 1, 2022

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: According to pollsters, the vicious almost slanderous attacks by President Biden against Republicans and conservatives — following decades of similar harsh language from Democrats nationwide — is causing these voters to increasingly refuse to talk to pollsters about their opinions.

In a Twitter thread, Trafalgar Group chief pollster Robert C. Cahaly said that President Joe Biden’s recent attacks on so-called “MAGA Republicans” will make polling supporters of former President Donald Trump even harder to poll than in previous years. Cahaly pointed out that in the last two presidential election cycles, name-calling and threats from prominent Democrats contributed to the phenomenon of the “shy Trump voter.” But as the 2022 midterms have begun in earnest, Biden’s escalating rhetoric against Trump supporters, accusing them of embracing “semi-fascism” and being a threat to America, will make these voters even harder to reach in polling.
» Read more

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First meeting of all 21 nations who have signed Artemis Accords

10:13 am

For the first time yesterday, the 21 nations who have signed the Artemis Accords gathered together in a single meeting during the International Astronautical Congress being held in Paris this week.

The article at the link comes from the UAE’s state-run press.

Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency, attended the signatories’ meeting on behalf of the UAE. “During this meeting, heads of space agencies discussed future plans in the industry to ensure the safety of humans and deconfliction of activities on the Moon, as well as the importance of the Accords to emerging space nations,” she said.

Since the U.S. is the lead nation in these accords — with all signatories becoming participating partners in its Artemis program to settle the solar system — U.S. government policies will dominate any discussion. When the Trump administration established the Artemis Accords, a major goal was to establish property rights in space for private companies. Under Trump, the U.S. would have thus certainly exercised its power to make sure that was the goal.

With the Biden administration in charge, it appears the focus has shifted — for good intentions — to promoting international cooperation, which means the goals of our other international partners appear more dominant. Under Biden, the U.S. appears willing to allow these other countries to propose policy. Should this happen, I guarantee the opportunities for private enterprise as well as the freedom for future space generations will not be as promising.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist thugs at University of New Mexico threaten conservative speaker and audience with violence

12:14 pm

Tomi Lahren: targeted for leftist violence
Tomi Lahren: targeted for leftist violence

They’re coming for you next: When the conservative student organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) invited conservative Tomi Lahren to speak at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, a mob of leftist thugs gathered outside, attempted to force their way in, and apparently actually threatened violence against both Lahren, the audience there to hear her speak, and the handful of police officers trying to protect them.

“I start my speech and you can hear the chants and you can hear the screaming and the expletives. And again, nobody really thought anything of it. They’re just, you know, fired up. And I didn’t really think too much of it until they started pushing past the officers and banging on the doors so much that these double doors are visibly moving and shaking and they are smashing into the windows. And that’s when it became incredibly chaotic,” Lahren continued. “Everybody was worried that they were going to get inside. They were pushing officers in front of the doors and pushing them out of the way. I mean, attacking them. It started to get very ugly and very violent, very fast. Of course, we could only see through these little windows in the front the room we were in, so we couldn’t really see exactly what was going on out there.” [emphasis mine]

A very short video shows these protesters chanting and pushing against the door to the room.
» Read more

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NASA issues call for new manned lunar lander proposals

10:12 am

NASA yesterday announced a solicitation for proposals for new manned lunar lander proposals, aimed at obtaining services long term, rather than the initial contract it has awarded SpaceX which only covered the first few Artemis lunar missions.

This solicitation is essentially being offered so that Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin will have a second chance to win such a contract, having lost out to SpaceX initially. It also is NASA’s effort to get Congress to give it a bigger budget so that it can pay for two different lunar lander contracts.

Having two competing lunar landers is not a bad thing. Giving a second contract however simply because the company (Blue Origin) exerts political clout is not. Right now it is unclear whether this solicitation is the former or the later.

The announcement also included what has become boilerplate in all NASA announcements about its Artemis lunar missions:

Through Artemis missions, NASA is preparing to return humans to the Moon, including the first woman and first person of color, for long-term scientific discovery and exploration. [emphasis mine]

It is very clear that the number one criteria that NASA has established, under the Biden administration, for picking the crew on that first Artemis lunar landing mission is race and gender, not talent, skill, or ability. While it will be a great thing when the first woman and black steps on the Moon, their skin color or sex should not be the reason they got to go. If it is, it will be incredibly insulting to their talent, skill, and ability. In fact, by making race or gender the only qualification that NASA cares about, it puts an asterisk on those qualifications. Forever people will wonder if these individuals really deserved the honor.

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September 16, 2022 Quick space links

4:02 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

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Today’s blacklisted American: USC professor suspended because one common Chinese word he was teaching sounded like the “N-word”

12:02 pm

Greg Patton, blacklisted for being a good teacher
Greg Patton, blacklisted by USC for being a good teacher

The modern dark age: Today’s blacklist story is in a sense a follow-up of my blacklist story from yesterday, as it clearly shows that the fraternities which broke free of supervision from the University of Southern California (USC) had good reason, and that (as I speculated) one of the main reasons they did so was because of USC’s woke and racist policies.

Today we discover that USC has forced a communications professor specializing in Asia, Greg Patton, to stop teaching because during one virtual class he was explaining the innocent reason why — to English speakers — the Chinese seem to say a racial slur repeatedly. Apparently, the Chinese phrase “那个” (nèi ge), which approximately means “that one” or more simply “um”, is used in Chinese as a filler word, similar to “um,” “ur” in English.

Patton was trying to explain this to his class during a virtual session. Below is embedded that specific moment that has now caused him so much trouble:
» Read more

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Pushback: Fraternities break free from USC’s draconian supervision

11:59 am

What USC wants its students to become
What USC wants its students to become

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Faced with the university’s arbitrary rule that shut them down “without explanation or cause,” ten of the fourteen fraternities that serve the students at the University of Southern California (USC) have broken their affiliation with the university and formed their own oversight body.

Not surprisingly, the university immediately implied that these fraternities were acting to encourage “sexual assaults,” “drug abuse,” “mental health abuse,” and “underage drinking,” and should be blacklisted by USC students. Officials from the new independent council immediately disputed these slanderous claims:

“I want to say unequivocally that no, we are not disaffiliating to dodge these social event policies that were put into place,” Harrison Murphy, a representative from the new council, told The Los Angeles Times.

“Murphy said members that separated from USC did so because they felt the university’s policies toward Greek organizations were unfair and flawed,” The Los Angeles Times reported. “For instance, he said, USC banned all social events from November 2021 through January 2022 even for fraternities that had done no wrong.”

A look at university’s long and complex policy [pdf] for supervising these fraternities makes if very clear why so many have told the university to go jump in a lake. The number of inspections, meetings, and consultations required, combined with a lot of odious paperwork, appears absurdly unreasonable and costly. The policies also apparently allowed the school to shut a fraternity down merely on hearsay accusations, based on incredibly vague standards. Note the highlighted words below:
» Read more

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Pushback: Teacher files class-action lawsuit against Texas A&M for favoring non-Asian minorities in hiring

11:44 am

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
Texas A&M: dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Because Texas A&M university has specifically created hiring programs that favor non-Asian minorities, a University of Texas at Austin professor, Richard Lowery, has now filed a federal class-action lawsuit, demanding that this policy end immediately and that the court appoint a monitor to guarantee this.

You can read the lawsuit here [pdf]. It was prompted by a July 8, 2022 letter [pdf] sent out by the Office of Diversity at Texas A&M that outlined a new program, dubbed ACES Plus, which would specifically to pay certain minorities more, merely because of their race:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Two students harassed and blackballed from a “sexual assault survivor’s club” because they were Jewish

12:33 pm

SUNY-New Paltz: supports blacklisting and anti-Semitism

Two female students attending the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz, Cassandra Blotner and Ofek Preis, have now filed a federal civil rights complaint because of the vicious and hostile treatment that they were subjected to by “the sexual assault survivor’s club” at the college, simply because both were Jewish and supporters of Israel.

You can read their civil rights complaint here [pdf].

Denise Katz-Prober, a Brandeis Center lawyer who represents Blotner and Preis, said in an interview with The College Fix that the two women were treated horribly. “They essentially have been victimized three times,” she said. “They were victimized first when they were sexually assaulted, then by the community of students and support services they turned to, and then by the university when they reached out for help and the university failed to take steps to protect them.”

When the other members of the club, officially called New Paltz Accountability (NPA), learned that both women were ardent and public supporters of Israel, these club members began a campaign to harass and dox the women continuously.
» Read more

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SpaceX appeals FCC decision that cancelled Starlink subsidy

9:35 am

SpaceX’s Starlink division has now appealed the decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cancel a nearly $900 million subsidy award given to companies providing broadband to rural regions.

Starlink’s appeal is complex, its arguments appearing to all center on what the company thinks was unfair practices by the FCC in cancelling the award.

Starlink told the FCC it was held to “standards that no bidder could meet today.”

“Changing the rules to undo a prior policy is grossly unfair after SpaceX has invested thousands of employee-hours and millions of dollars preparing to meet its [FCC program] obligations on the reasonable assumption that the Bureau would apply the Commission’s rules in an even-handed manner,” the company said.

That one FCC commissioner has publicly questioned the legality of the cancellation gives some weight to Starlink’ complaint.

In the end, this entire FCC program is a rip-off of the taxpayer. No companies, including SpaceX, should get this money. SpaceX is proving that it can get its constellation launched and operating profitably in rural areas, without a dime of federal money. Why should the rest of us help them do it?

Furthermore, the questionable nature of the FCC cancellation suggests the money from this program is possibly being awarded for political reasons, payoffs to companies that give the most campaign contributions to the right politicians. SpaceX doesn’t give much to any politicians, so it could be the cancellation was done as punishment for that lack.

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NASA revises its SLS launch schedule, pending approval of the range’s safety office

6:13 pm

NASA today announced that it is now targeting September 27, 2022 for the first test launch of its SLS rocket and Orion capsule.

Engineers have — on the launchpad — completed the repair work on the hydrogen leak that caused the previous launch scrubs. The plan now is to do a test fueling on September 21st to see if the repair worked.

If all is then well, the agency wants to launch on September 27th. To do so however NASA needs to get the approval of the safety range office to waive the use-by date of the batteries used to terminate the flight after launch, should something go seriously wrong. The rules require those batteries to be checked every 20 days, and as of today they have been in use for 31 days. The range had already given NASA a five day waiver so it could try to launch on September 5. To launch on September 27th will require the range to allow those batteries to remain unchecked for 46 days, more than double their accepted use-by date.

For the range to allow such a waiver would be I think entirely unprecedented, especially for the very first launch of a new rocket. Such test launches are exceedingly risky. A lot can go wrong, and often does when a rocket tries to fly for the first time. To allow such a lift-off with a questionable flight termination system seems completely insane and irrational.

NASA is also proposing an October 2nd launch date. I suspect this date is based on the range safety office refusing to give this waiver. If so, NASA would then do its September 21st fueling test on the launchpad, quickly roll the rocket back to the assembly building to check the batteries, and then try to get it back to the launch pad in time for that October 2nd date.

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Defense to help Commerce create its own ability to track orbital objects

12:40 pm

The Defense and Commerce departments yesterday signed an agreement where Defense will help Commerce create its own capability for tracking of all objects in orbit, from satellites to space junk.

The agreement, the Commerce Department said in a statement, defines how the two departments will work together to implement provisions of Space Policy Directive (SPD) 3 in 2018 that directed commerce to provide space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic management (STM) services, such as conjunction warnings, currently provided by the U.S. military.

The result of this is that the federal government is now creating a second bureaucracy to do what the military has been doing quite capably for more than a half century. Commerce intends to obtain its data by awarding contracts to private companies, who will do the actual tracking. The irony is that it is very possible the military will eventually sign similar contracts with the same companies, thus paying them twice for the same service. Meanwhile, Washington has an excuse for hiring more people.

Even more ironic, this policy directive was issued during the Trump administration. It might have intended for Commerce to replace the military, but under the Biden administration the federal bureaucracy is being allowed to interpret the policy more broadly, thus allowing both agencies to do the work.

I also guarantee that the Republicans will almost certainly do nothing to change this, should they take over Congress. For the past thirty years this so-called party of small government has done nothing to earn that title. Instead, it has simply engineered the growth of government, in a more subtle and deliberate manner.

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FAA and NTSB sign deal dividing turf for investigating space accidents

11:46 am

FAA & NTSB agreement

Turf war! The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday signed an agreement that divides up the responsibilities for investigating accidents that occur in or by space entities.

You can read that agreement here [pdf]. A screen capture of the key clauses is to the right. Essentially, the NTSB will lead any investigation that either causes death or injury, or involves damage to property not related to the space operation itself, while the FAA will lead all other investigations.

The agreement also has a lot of clauses describing how the two agencies will work together in dividing up this turf before, during, and after investigations. Above all, the agreement now authorizes both agencies to “conduct its own analysis and determine its respective conclusions and recommendations in accordance with its authorities.”

The agreement stems from an effort by the NTSB to take over all space-related accident investigations it proposed in November 2021 that both the FAA and industry strongly opposed. This agreement however shows that the Biden administration ignored those objections in order to give the NTSB a wider range of power, while also giving bureaucrats in both agencies more power as well. Under this agreement, every space incident is now going to be investigated twice, with both the NTSB and FAA doing their own investigations.

Expect this agreement to be used by the Washington bureaucracy to slow or shut down innovation and new technology. The NTSB is designed to investigate incidents caused in the long established and robust airline industry, not developing cutting-edge experimental work. It will naturally act to discourage such experimental work.

Meanwhile, the FAA will chime in with its own investigation and analysis. The competing results will only cause confusion and disorder, thus further acting to discourage any new and risky innovations.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Fox blacklists news reporter for not getting jab

12:43 pm

Fox News: eager to blacklist

They’re coming for you next: Her story is not unique in this age of blacklisting and oppression, but it does reveal how bad really things are because the source of the blacklisting happens to be a news outlet that many naively consider against such things. Breanna Morello had moved from Florida to take a new job with Fox News, with the expectation that it would not only get her on-air reporting time but might lead to becoming “a producer for Tucker Carlson.”

After packing up my beautiful Florida apartment in late December, I was relocating back to New York City for work. My remote role as a Fox Business booking producer was going to become an in-person position starting on January 3, 2022.

The day I moved into my new apartment, I was completely caught off guard by an email that was forwarded to me by my Executive Producer. » Read more

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FCC proposes new regulation requiring satellites to be de-orbited five years after mission end

9:53 am

The FCC yesterday announced it is considering a new regulation that would require companies to de-orbit defunct satellites in low Earth orbit no more than five years after the satellite’s shut down.

The order, if adopted by commissioners, would require spacecraft that end their missions in or passing through LEO — defined as altitudes below 2,000 kilometers — dispose of their spacecraft through reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere as soon as practicable and no more than five years after the end of the mission. The rule would apply to satellites launched two years after the order is adopted, and include both U.S.-licensed satellites as well as those licensed by other jurisdictions but seeking U.S. market access.

According to the FCC press release [pdf], this new regulation will be discussed at the next public meeting of the commission on September 29, 2022.

Though in general this rule appears a good idea, there are several legitimate objections to it. NASA’s orbital debris office noted that this rule would only reduce space junk by 10%. Others questioned the FCC’s regulatory authority to do this at all, since its main statutory function is not the regulation satellite operations but the use of the frequencies those satellites use.

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NASA wants to launch SLS in September; needs range safety office waiver to do it

9:39 am

In outlining the status of the repair work on the hydrogen leak on SLS on the launchpad yesterday, NASA officials indicated that they are targeting a September 23rd launch date that will require the Space Force range safety office to okay the use of a flight abort system with batteries that are significantly past their use-by date.

NASA has submitted a request to the Eastern Range for an extension of the current testing requirement for the flight termination system. NASA is respecting the range’s processes for review of the request, and the agency continues to provide detailed information to support a range decision.

The range office had required that the batteries for that flight termination system be checked every 20 days, a process that requires the rocket to be rolled back to the assembly building. It had already given NASA a five day extension to 25 days, but even that was insufficient to get the rocket launched in its previous launch window, expiring on September 6th. Though NASA has not said how long an extension it is requesting, to do a September 23rd launch would require another extension of 17 days, making for a total 23-day waiver for those batteries. Thus, instead of limiting the life of those batteries to 20 days, NASA is requesting the range to allow the batteries to go unchecked for 43 days, at a minimum.

For the range to give that first waiver I think is somewhat unprecedented. To do it again, for that much time, seems foolish, especially as this will the rocket’s first launch, and a lot can go wrong.

NASA officials also hinted during yesterday’s press conference — in their bureaucrat way — that human error might have caused the hydrogen leak.

NASA has not confirmed if an “inadvertent” manual command that briefly overpressurized the hydrogen fuel line caused the leak, but the agency is investigating the incident. Bolger said new manual processes replaced automated ones during the second attempt and the launch team could have used more time to practice them. “So we didn’t, as a leadership team, put our our operators in the best place we could have,” Bolger said. During the Sept. 17 fueling test, NASA will try out a slower, “kinder and gentler” process that should avoid such events.

If the Space Force and the Biden administration demand the range officer allow this rocket, with this team, to be launched with a questionable flight termination system, we should expect public resignations from several range officers. Whether anyone in our present government however has the ethics to do such a thing appears very doubtful.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Modern Hollywood now celebrates McCarthyism and blacklisting

11:49 am

Hollywood, home of the modern McCarthyism

The modern dark age: Despite a history during the 1950s McCarthy era, when many of its most talented members were blacklisted because of their leftwing political beliefs, Hollywood today celebrates and encourages the blacklisting of conservative talent.

Consider the blacklisting described by comedian Adam Carolla and late night Fox show host Greg Gutfield during one recent podcast:

“Oh, we can’t get the guys who wrote on ‘Conan’ to come into the writers’ room because they’re scared of being blackballed. It drives me insane that they never stop complaining about McCarthyism and they’re more than happy to blackball anybody who crosses the line,” Carolla said.

“They’re the new McCarthy-ites, especially in this woke culture,” Gutfeld said. “I’m counting on this show succeeding without names and creating our own celebrities, which is actually what happens at Fox.”

Both men also described how, even if a writer or performer wanted to work for them, they often backed out because their agent or publicist told them not to, either because of the same fear or because of hostility to their politics.

In addition, Carolla in a different podcast described how this same blacklisting culture is now being used not just against conservatives, but against those who refuse to bow to the absurd COVID edicts.

The story of one actor, Clifton Duncan, is typical.
» Read more

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1-in-5 Democrats and 1-in-3 women Democrats think men can get pregnant

12:41 pm

The uncertainty of science? An online survey has found that large numbers of self-described Democrats now believe that it is possible for a man to give birth to babies.

The online survey, conducted by WPA Intelligence from August 22-25, found 22% of Democrats agreed with the statement, “Some men can get pregnant.” The percentage rose when only including women, and a whopping 36% of white, college-educated female Democrats concurred. [emphasis mine]

There is no uncertainty here. Men cannot get pregnant, and to believe it is possible tells us that you are either insane, or utterly disconnected from the real world.

The highlighted words underline the madness that is overtaking our intellectual upper classes. More than one-third of college educated Democrat women believe this. No wonder these same people wear masks, get triple and quadruple COVID jabs, and want any evidence that they are wrong censored with the speakers blackballed. They have become so divorced from reality that to even let a peep of it enter their brains will cause their heads to explode.

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Pushback: Libs of TikTok threatens Twitter with lawsuit if banning continues

12:25 pm

Twitter: Home for censorship
Twitter: Home for censorship.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: After getting suspended again by Twitter for merely proving that Boston Children’s Hospital was doing sex change operations on children, Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik had her lawyers send the social media company a letter threatening a lawsuit if the suspension was not lifted immediately.

As she notes,

Last week, I was wrongfully suspended from Twitter for seven days after I exposed a hospital that admitted to performing gender-affirming hysterectomies on healthy minors. I say “wrongfully” because the reason given for my suspension was hateful conduct. I did not engage in hateful conduct. I accurately reported the truth

In their letter Raichik’s lawyers made it clear [pdf] that nothing she did was hateful. If anything, her actions caused others on Twitter to spew hate at her. As the lawyers noted also,
» Read more

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The evidence continues to pile up: The government’s strongarm policies against COVID were utter failures

2:05 pm

The modern basis of medical research in the dark age
Health policy during the Wuhan panic

Since my last COVID update in June, the number of research papers has continued to show, with increasing force, the total and utter failure of every single one of the draconian edicts imposed on the pubic by leftist governments both in Democratic Party controlled states in the U.S. as well as worldwide.

Below are a small sampling of this accumulating research. Read it and weep.

My sorrow however comes from knowing that this knowledge was patently obvious from day one. This new research really isn’t new, it confirms what was well known, and was confirmed quickly as early as March 2020. However, when skeptics like myself, mostly on the right, desperately tried to stem the panic, it was all to no avail. The government’s edicts were always wrong, but no one wanted to listen. The data below merely confirms what all the data, before and during the Wuhan panic, was already telling us.
» Read more

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