Tag: bankruptcy

Robert Kennedy’s speech today, in which he suspends his campaign and endorses Trump

2:12 pm

Even Robert Kennedy agrees with this now
Even Robert Kennedy agrees with this now

Below I have embedded in its entirety Robert Kennedy Jr.’s speech today where he announced he has suspended his campaign, endorsed Donald Trump for president, and declared he will campaign for him.

You should watch it, especially beginning from around seven minutes into the speech, when he begins to describe at length the tyrannical anti-democratic nature of today’s modern Democratic Party, and why that nature has forced him to leave that party, the party of his father, Robert Kennedy and his uncle, John Kennedy, to which he has belonged since he was a child. The key quote:

I attended my first Democratic convention at the age of six in 1960 and back then, the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism against censorship against colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars. We were the party of Labor of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment. Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name. It was the Party of Democracy.

As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with. It had become the party of war censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big tech big ag and big money wanted abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president.

He now sees Trump as the only way now to prevent this party of censorship and corruption from destroying our great nation.

This quote however does not give you the full flavor of his speech. It is nuanced, thoughtful, educated, and principled. You might not agree with everything he believes, but you will discover that he came to those beliefs based on rational thought, reasoned research, and critical thought. And it is that ability to think critically and openly about the Democratic Party — that he and his family have been an integral part for more than half a century — and to reject it and endorse Donald Trump. It is therefore incumbent upon every American citizen to do the same, to use our brains to make a thoughtful (not emotional) choice in November.

Which means it is incumbant upon everyone to spend a short 40 minutes to watch this speech. If you run it at 1.5 speed you can still understand everything, it will take less time.
» Read more

11 comments

Trump indirectly tells us the swamp WILL be drained if he is re-elected

1:31 pm

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

Today I saw a short clip of Donald Trump answering a question about whether he is getting the normal intelligence briefings traditionally given to all presidential candidates. His answer was startling:

Well I could [get them] if I wanted them, but I don’t want them. … They come in, they give you a briefing and then two days later they leak it and then they say you leaked it. The only way to solve that problem is not to take them.

On its face Trump is simply telling us he is now being careful with whom in the government he deals with. On a deeper level, he is showing us that he is no longer the naive businessman he was in 2016. At that time he wanted very much to reform Washington, but he thought he had the good will of the people in Washington to help him do it. (Remember, for most of his life he was a dedicated Democrat with many friends on the left.)

Instead, he found himself stymied and back-stabbed and attacked on all levels. » Read more

40 comments

First SLS/Orion manned mission faces new delays because of Orion heat shield issues

9:39 am

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

Because the damage to the heat shield on the Orion capsule that flew around the Moon in late 2022 remains somewhat unexplained, NASA is considering delaying the next SLS/Orion mission, presently planned for September 2025 and intended to be the first Artemis flight to carry humans and take them around the Moon.

The heat shield, already installed at the base of the Orion spacecraft, will take the brunt of the heating when the capsule blazes through Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the 10-day mission. On the Artemis I test flight in late 2022, NASA sent an Orion spacecraft to the Moon and back without a crew aboard. The only significant blemish on the test flight was a finding that charred chunks of the heat shield unexpectedly stripped away from the capsule during reentry as temperatures increased to nearly 5,000° Fahrenheit (2,760° Celsius).

The spacecraft safely splashed down, and if any astronauts had been aboard, they would have been fine. However, the inspections of the recovered spacecraft showed divots of heat shield material were missing.

Two years later, despite extensive investigation and analysis, it appears NASA has not yet identified the root cause of the damage. The ablative material used on Orion was similar (though not identical) to the material used successfully on numerous other heat shields since the 1960s, yet it did not perform as expected.

NASA is presently facing three options. Do nothing and fly the next mission as planned, with four astronauts. It could rethink the trajectory used during re-entry, though this would likely not change things significantly unless the astronauts don’t go around the Moon as planned. Or it could change the heat shield itself.

The first two options are very risky, considering the unknowns. The latter involves a major delay of at least two years.

A decision must be made soon however. To meet the agency’s schedule it must begin stacking SLS’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters next month. Those boosters have a limited life expectancy originally estimated to be one year. In the first unmanned Artemis test flight in 2022, NASA because of other delays stretched that life span to two years, and had no problems with the launch. If it stacks the boosters now and then has to delay for two more years to redesign Orion’s heat shield, those boosters will have been stacked for three years when launched.

Considering how seriously NASA is taking the issues with Starliner, which are likely not as serious as a heat shield that doesn’t work reliably, it would seem insane for NASA to launch Orion manned without fixing its own problem. And yet, for more than two decades NASA has consistently not demanded the same safety standards for SLS that it has demanded for the private commercial rocket startups. We shall see if this pattern now persists.

I continue to believe that the first Artemis lunar landing will not take place before 2030 (at least six years behind schedule). This heat shield dilemma only strengthens that prediction.

14 comments

Pushback: Parent sues Denver school board and four of its board members for slander

2:10 pm

The slanderers on the Denver Board of Education
The accused slanderers still serving on Denver’s Board of Education.
Click for details about each.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Kristen Fry, a parent in Denver, has now sued the four members of the Denver school board who teamed up with a political consultant they worked with to falsely accuse her of assaulting that political consultant at a public board meeting while also using a vicious racial slur against him.

Fry had been part of a group of parents and teachers that were desperately trying to get this board to change its policies in the schools that had were allowing violence to run rampant From Fry’s lawsuit [pdf]

In the period leading up to 2022-23 school year, the BOE [Board of Education] defendants pursued a number of significant changes to DPS [Denver Public Schools] policy that had severe consequences for the educational and safety environment in DPS schools.

Among other things, in an initiative spearheaded by Mr. Anderson, and supported by the other defendants, DPS removed public safety officers from district schools because of purported racial inequities in disciplinary enforcement. DPS further replaced clear behavioral and accountability rules with what are sometimes termed “restorative justice” principles that often have the effect of leaving students (especially low-income students) vulnerable to disruptive and even criminal behavior by their classmates. For example, under the new rules, schools were required to allow potentially violent students, including students facing criminal charges such as robbery and attempted murder, to attend in person, even where against the advice of law enforcement authorities.

These policies were doing nothing but bring chaos and violence to the schools, while seriously degrading the learning environment. The parents, teachers, and even students repeatedly attempted in private and in public to convince the board its policies were not working.

In every case, this effort was met with anger, disrespect, and retailation by the board. In one case the board immediately terminated a principal for expressing dissent about their policies to a television news reporter. In the case of Fry, these thugs not only repeated these false claims against her in many public forums, they teamed up to file criminal charges against her.
» Read more

5 comments

NASA delays Starliner return decision to end of month

9:17 am

In a short FAQ posted by NASA today, the agency quietly revealed that the decision on whether to bring Starliner back with its astronauts on board has been delayed till the end of August.

NASA now plans to conduct two reviews – a Program Control Board and an Agency Flight Readiness Review – before deciding how it will safely return Wilmore and Williams from the station. NASA expects to decide on the path forward by the end of August.

It appears the agency has decided to bring more people into the decision-making process. In the briefing last week, it was then planning only one review, expected to be completed before the end of this week. It now sounds like a second review will occur after the first, pushing the decision back one more week.

All of NASA’s actions in the past three weeks have suggested an increasing involvement by upper management, possibly including White House officials. With an election coming up, the politicans who are supposed to be in charge have apparently inserted themselves into this process and are demanding greater review. I expect in the end the decision will fall to them, and might even be announced by NASA administrator Bill Nelson himself.

These actions have also suggested that upper management does not like the risks involved in returning the crew on Starliner. Politicians do not like to have bad things happen on their watch. We should therefore not be surprised if the decision is made to send Starliner home unmanned.

5 comments

Court: Cop who arrested an innocent citizen illegally has no immunity

2:06 pm

Still in effect
Still in effect

A federal three-judge panel has now ruled that a policeman who illegally arrested an innocent citizen simply because that person had a concealed carry permit cannot claim qualified immunity from suit or prosecution.

The actions of the policemen, Nicholas Andrzejewski, were incredibly inappropriate and abusive.

On November 12, 2018, Basel Soukaneh’s life was significantly disrupted. Soukaneh was looking for a house he was considering purchasing, but the GPS on his phone, held in a holder on the dash of his car, had frozen. He was unfamiliar with the area. Soukaneh pulled over to correct the problem, left the engine running, and had the interior lights on. A Waterbury police officer quickly knocked on his window and demanded to see his driver’s license. Soukaneh handed him the license and his legal concealed carry permit, then told the officer where his firearm was located in the vehicle.

The officer, Nicholas Andrzejewski, grabbed Soukaneh, dragged him from the car, and violently handcuffed him, causing significant pain. Andrzejewski then stuffed Soukaneh in the back of his police car and searched Soukaneh’s car, including the trunk. Several other officers came to the scene. One of them put Soukaneh in an upright, seated position instead of where Andrzejewski had stuffed him, with his head near the floor. After another half hour, he was released. It is not clear if he was charged with a traffic violation.

» Read more

7 comments

SpaceX gets FCC okay for next Starship/Superheavy test flight

9:41 am

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Artist rendering of Superheavy being captured by
the tower chopsticks at landing. Click for video.

The FCC yesterday issued SpaceX a communications license for the fifth orbital test launch of its giant Starship/Superheavy rocket, with the license permitting Superheavy to “either return to the launch site or perform a controlled water landing.”

The license runs through February 15, 2025.

This does not mean a launch has been approved however. The FCC only gives approval for radio communications on such a flight. It is the FAA that must issue the actual launch license, and it as yet not done so.

SpaceX had announced on August 8, 2024 that it was ready to go. It is now almost two weks since then and the FAA has said nothing.

The only justifiable reason for this delay would be that SpaceX has requested permission to do the first chopstick landing of Superheavy at Boca Chica (as suggested by the FCC approval), and since this changes the already approved flight path from the previous four test launches, the FAA is reviewing it more closely, and taking its time to do so.

The simple fact is that it can’t learn anything by this review. It isn’t qualified to make any educated determination. Either it is willing to let SpaceX do that return, or not. If it is against it at this point, it should simply say so, demand SpaceX hold off a chopstick landing until later, and give it permission now to do another ocean landing. At least this way the company would have clarity and could proceed.

6 comments

NASA reconsiders cancellation of overbudget and behind schedule robotic refueling mission

8:59 am

Due to some pressure from Congress (which wants the 450 jobs the project employs), NASA is now reconsidering its cancellation of the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission, designed in the late 2000s to demonstrate the robotic refueling of a dead satellite but is so overbudget and behind schedule that in the interim private enterprise accomplished the same goal now repeatedly for a fraction of the cost.

Language in the final fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill, released just days after NASA’s cancelation announcement, which fully funded OSAM-1 at $227 million, directed NASA to adjust the mission to launch in 2026 within the spending profile NASA included in its 2024 budget request. That could be done, the report accompanying the bill suggested, through “potential de-scoping of some non-essential capabilities,” adding that if it is not possible, NASA should conduct another continuation review in September.

In other words, Congress wants NASA to keep this project, even if it means cutting the budget of other more useful and valuable missions.

OSAM has cost a billion dollars so far, and after almost fifteen years has not yet flown. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman’s MEV servicing robot has already provided fuel to several dead satellites, while orbital tug startups are flying missions and developing the same refueling capabilities for far less. The industry doesn’t need this demonstration mission anymore. It has already demonstrated it, and done so better.

Moreover, why the heck does OSAM require 450 people? That number is absurd, and likely exceeds the payrolls of all the orbital tug companies plus Northrop’s robotic servicing division combined.

There is hope for the American taxpayer. The legislative recommendations above come solely from the Senate. The House appears less interested in spending this money. And NASA has not yet decided what it will do.

1 comment

Rocket startup Stoke Space is saddled with the same red tape as SpaceX

10:06 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket

We’re from the government and we’re here to help you! The rocket startup Stoke Space appears to be struggling with the same kind of environmental red tape that is hindering SpaceX, though in Stoke’s case the red tape appears absurdly unnecessary.

Stoke is the only company besides SpaceX developing a rocket with both its first and second stages returning to Earth to land vertically and then be reused. Unlike SpaceX Starship/Superheavy, which is gigantic and revolutionary in all ways, Stoke’s Nova rocket is comparable in size to the hundreds of rockets that have launched from Florida since the 1960s. Based on that six-decade track record, it would seem that getting rights to launch Nova (but not for its return) would be considered basic and routine, requiring little complex bureaucracy.

Hah! Fooled you!

Before any of this can take place, the Space Force must complete its “environmental assessment” of the company’s plans at LC-14 [the launchpad used for John Glenn’s first orbital mission and many others subsequently], in order to evaluate how repeat launches will affect local flora and fauna. These assessments are mandatory under federal law, and they can often take months — but the upside is that they provide a closer look at a company’s operational plans.

» Read more

7 comments

Pushback: Former police chief who illegally raided local Kansas newspaper charged

1:26 pm

Police Chief Gideon Cody, proud to emulate Nazi tactics
Former Marion police Chief Gideon Cody,
apparently proud to emulate Nazi tactics

The wheels of justice ground slow, but grind they do: In August 2023 the entire police department of Marion, Kansas, performed a Gestapo-like raid of a local newspaper’s offices as well as the homes the town’s vice mayor, the newspaper’s 98-year-old owner Joan Meyer (resulting in her death the next day from a heart attack), and one reporter.

All the evidence suggested the police chief, Gideon Cody, had performed the raid as a personal favor to a local businesswoman, Kari Newell, who was worried that newspaper might publish a story about her arrest for driving while intoxicated and without a license. Newell and Cody then worked together to use the police and a local judge, Laura Viar, to harass and hopefully destroy a newspaper. The newspaper survived, but their actions ended up killing its 98-year-old founder.

The public outrage was instantanous. Cody was soon suspended, and if Newell wished to keep her history out of the papers this raid was exactly the wrong way to do it. The story went national, exposing her drunk driving history to the world. Meanwhile five different federal lawsuits were filed against Cody and various other county and city officials. The reporter, Debbie Gruver, also resigned from the newspaper, saying she no longer felt comfortable in the Marion community.

It now appears that Cody, who officially resigned in October 2023, has now been charged with a crime in connection with the raid.
» Read more

4 comments

Let’s take a look at the college teachers and students who support Hamas and the torture and murder of little children

2:23 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Apparently too many college students and teachers
support Hamas despite these very obvious facts.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Fight! Fight! Fight! At the website Campus Reform one of its reporters, Michael Duke, has been doing magnificent work in identifying in detail college by college the students and professors who rioted this spring on numerous university campuses in support of the terrorist organization Hamas and its October 7, 2023 massacre of more than 1200 people, including the rape, torture, and murder of men, women, children, and babies.

I thought it was time to do the public a service and provide a link to all of Duke’s reports, so that future employees will have a handy place to go to find out whether the future college prospect before them thinks it is acceptable to kill babies in support of an ideology. Duke’s work has only begun, but it appears he is trying to identify every single pro-Hamas rioter this year who was arrested. His list so far:
» Read more

8 comments

It’s the audience that counts

11:27 am

The short clip below from the Stephen Colbert late night show has been making the rounds today. Colbert is interviewing a CNN news anchor and says the following, ““I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is.”

To his shock the audience laughs, clearly recognizing how inaccurate, stupid, and clueless Colbert’s description of CNN is. Kaitlan Collins, the news anchor, responds, “That supposed to be a laugh line?” and Colbert, clearly uncomfortable, answers, “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

Watch an enjoy:
» Read more

5 comments
1 … 38 39 40 41 42 … 239