Tag: bankruptcy

Today’s blacklisted Americans: Lawyers who won NY gun rights case in Supreme Court blackballed by their law firm

1:06 pm

A witch hunt against conservative lawyers
The witch hunt against conservative lawyers accelerates.

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: The two lawyers who recently won a major gun rights victory in the Supreme Court this week, invalidating the “may-issue” gun control laws in leftist states that prevented anyone from obtaining a gun license, have been blackballed by their law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, and forced to resign.

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, a regular Supreme Court litigator, resigned from Kirkland & Ellis and announced they were opening their own shop in Washington, D.C. Clement has been a high-profile litigator of conservative causes since he left the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2011, he argued the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of Republican lawmakers before the Supreme Court.

That case also caused Clement to resign from the firm King & Spalding following pressure from clients to drop the gay marriage case.

As reported at Politico:
» Read more

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NASA blocks Starship/Superheavy launches at SpaceX’s new Florida launchpad

9:37 am

Capitalism in space: NASA officials revealed yesterday that it will not allow any Starship/Superheavy launches at SpaceX’s new Florida launchpad, at least for the moment, because of the threat a launchpad failure might have on the launchpad SpaceX uses to launch manned Falcon 9 missions to ISS.

The NASA statement said the agency “is responsible for ensuring SpaceX remains compliant with the requirements of the property agreement for the use of Launch Complex 39A.”

“These requirements include those related to construction, safety and environmental conditions,” the statement said. “At this time, NASA has only provided approval to build. Additional review for hazards, operational impacts and supportability will be required prior to a launch.”

The new Starship launchpad is 1,000 feet away from pad 39A, which is SpaceX’s manned Dragon launchpad. NASA management thinks this is too close. However, the managers have also not ruled out future launches, only that they wish to do a thorough review of the issue with SpaceX.

Because NASA and the federal government is also relying on Starship to land its astronauts on the Moon, it can’t block Starship flights outright. It could be however that this issue might shift Starship operations back to Boca Chica, after federal government opposition there forced SpaceX to shift more operations to Florida.

In other words, the government wants its cake and eat it to. Some factions within the Biden administration and the Washington bureaucracy want to block Starship, others want it to fly. The result is a tug-of war, with SpaceX in the middle.

16 comments

Pushback: University of Houston forced to allow free speech to settle lawsuit by conservatives

12:12 pm

University of Houston: reluctantly forced to recognize the First Amendment

Bring a gun to a knife fight: When in December 2021, the University of Houston changed its anti-discrimination policy, broadening the definition so widely that almost anything anyone said could be defined as harassment, three conservative students obtained the help of the first amendment organization Speech First and sued. From their lawsuit [pdf]:

The Policy’s “[e]xamples of harassment” make clear that the Policy covers protected speech. Examples of harassment “include but are not limited to: epithets or slurs, negative stereotyping, threatening, intimidating, or hostile acts, denigrating jokes and display or circulation (including through email or virtual platforms) of written or graphic material in the learning, living, or working environment.”

Under the Policy, even “[m]inor verbal and nonverbal slights, snubs, annoyances, insults, or isolated incidents including, but not limited to microaggressions,” can constitute harassment if “such incidents keep happening over time and are targeting a Protected Class.” The Policy warns that “academic freedom and freedom of expression will not excuse behavior that constitutes a violation of the law or this Policy.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, according to the highlighted quote, the university’s anti-discrimination policy attempted to overide the First Amendment to the Constitution.
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Today’s blacklisted American: School board threatens parent with lawsuit if she doesn’t shut up

12:16 pm

Alexandra Schweitzer: a true momma grizzly
Alexandra Schweitzer: a true momma grizzly

When parent Alexandra Schweitzer began challenging publicly the use of inappropriate sexual materials in the elementary schools in Oconomowoc Area School District (OASD) in Wisconsin, the school board made what appeared to be some minor superficial changes in its policy without really addressing her concerns.

Above all, school district officials would not confirm unequivocally that these materials — many of which advocated the queer agenda on gender — had been removed. Unsatisfied with this response, Schweitzer expanded her campaign.

After enrolling her children elsewhere, Alexandra continued to be an advocate and resource for local parents regarding their concerns. As President of No Left Turn in Education [NLTE]– Wisconsin, Schweitzer voiced her concerns, and those of district parents, in public forums and in testimony before the Wisconsin legislature.

Apparently, the school district did not like what she said in those public forums or in that testimony. It proceeded to hire an outside lawyer — using school funds — to send Schweitzer a cease-and-desist letter [pdf], threatening further legal action against her if she did not retract her statements and then shut up.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Student gov’t demands blacklisting of every club that does not endorse the queer agenda

11:38 am

Student government at North Texas opposes freedom of speech

They’re coming for you next: The student government at North Texas University has passed a resolution that demands the school blacklist of every club that expresses any dissenting opinion about the queer agenda.

From the resolution [pdf]:

THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED THAT, any UNT Student Organization that engages in harassment, discrimination, hate crimes, and/or violation of UNT policy through transphobic posts, statements, and actions be immediately suspended to protect the mental, emotional, and physical health of transgender students at UNT. [emphasis mine]

Note how this resolution isn’t condemning actual harassment. Instead, it considers mere disagreement to be “harassment, discrimination, and a hate crime”, and thus must be punished.

The resolution lists a bunch of incidents where so-called “trans” students (more accurately described as emotionally unstable individuals who want to make-believe they are of a different sex) were offended and felt “unsafe” when others expressed their opposition to this queer agenda. The key and most significant event however involved an appearance at the school of Jeff Younger, who was then running for the state legislature but more importantly had been involved in a very public and truly horrifying case where one of his two sons had been forced by a guardian to dress as a girl because that guardian had decided the boy was one. (To understand how horrifying, look at the images at the link.)

Younger had fought but failed to protect his son. He came to the campus to tell his story, which was then disrupted by leftist protests of chants and obscenities. Apparently, it is all right for Younger to feel “unsafe.” These leftist rules as always apply in only one direction.

The article at the link quotes Program Officer Graham Piro from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:
» Read more

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SLS dress rehearsal countdown ends at T-29 seconds

7:47 pm

NASA’s fourth attempt to complete a full dress rehearsal countdown of its giant SLS rocket today ended at T-29 seconds, just short of the complete countdown.

It appears the countdown had one issue — a hydrogen fuel leak at the point where the umbilical fuel line attaches to the rocket — that mission control decided to ignore (or “mask” to use their word) so that they could proceed into the count as far as possible. It was this decision however that caused the two-hour delay in the countdown. They then resumed the countdown at T-10 minutes, the beginning of terminal count.

During the terminal count, the teams performed several critical operations that must be accomplished for launch including switching control from the ground launch sequencer to the automated launch sequencer controlled by the rocket’s flight software, and important step that the team wanted to accomplish.

NASA will hold a press conference tomorrow at 11 am (Eastern) to discuss the results of this dress rehearsal. While the leak is concerning, I expect NASA to decide that this dress rehearsal was a success, that they will roll the rocket back to the vehicle assembly building where they will fix this problem, after which the agency will declare the rocket ready to launch by the end of August.

While risky, doing otherwise likely raises other risks. If they decide to do another dress rehearsal the launch faces more delays. And waiting much longer continues to increase the danger that the solid rocket side boosters will not function as intended because they have been stacked almost a year longer than their accepted use-by date.

If this turns out to be the plan, expect the actual launch countdown to be as plagued with issues and delays and scrubs. NASA has yet to demonstrate it can do this smoothly with no problems. Worse, this level of mediocre performance has been par for the course for this entire SLS program.

If that launch should go smoothly it will be a welcome and unprecedented event.

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NIH to discriminate against whites in awarding research grants

9:47 am

Federal government: dedicated to segregation!
NIH: dedicated to racial discrimination

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has now created a program to award about $20 million in grant money exclusively to black researchers, thus favoring research not because of its merit but solely because of the skin color of the grantee.

The program will create a new class of NIH’s standard R01 research grant designed to “encourage a more diverse pool of PIs [principal investigators],” said Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), at a recent meeting. NINDS is launching the program, aimed at new PIs and those whose labs are at risk of folding, together with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). In 2021, the three institutes partnered on a policy with similar aims that NIH later pulled because of concerns it would violate federal antidiscrimination laws.

The NIH attempted to create a similar bigoted grant program last year, but had to back off when critics pointed out its obvious illegality. Agency officials now claim this new program passes muster, because

…it aims to enhance diversity “in a very broad sense,” [NIH extramural chief Michael] Lauer says. An NIH spokesperson notes that although the program “encourages” applications from researchers in underrepresented groups, “it is not exclusive—all new investigators and at-risk investigators are eligible to apply.” (NIH defines “at-risk” as a PI who will have no NIH grants if their high-quality proposal isn’t funded.)

What a lie. We all know that the grant application will require each applicant to state their race, and the NIH will then automatically disqualify anyone who isn’t black. It will also conveniently never make public the actual racial breakdown of those who win grants from this program, in order to hide its bigotry.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration increases closures of gun stores by 500%

11:36 am

The goal of Democrats: Banning the 2nd amendment
The goal of Democrats: Banning the 2nd amendment

They’re coming for you next: The Biden administration has increased its forced closures of legal gun stores by more than 500%, often revoking licenses for minor reasons such as typos.

In the years before the Biden-Harris administration took over the White House, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives usually revoked an average of 40 Federal Firearm Licenses (FFLs) per year. But, in the 11 months since Joe Biden declared war on “rogue gun dealers,” the ATF has revoked 273 FFLs — an increase of more than 500%. However, rather than targeting the true rogues, Biden’s ATF is revoking FFLs for the most minor of paperwork errors, which were never a concern for the ATF until Biden weaponized the agency.

“This has nothing to do with the ATF and everything to do with the DOJ,” said John Clark of FFL Consultants. Clark is a firearm industry expert who said the ATF announced the number of revocations at a recent Firearm Industry Conference. “The vast majority of the ATF don’t like this any more than the industry does,” he said. “It’s Biden.” [emphasis mine]

Meanwhile, the investigative journalism project of the the Second Amendment Foundation has been stonewalled by the ATF, having filed freedom of information requests with it on this issue almost a year ago, with no response.

The consequences of this harsh Biden policy has of course not reduced the number of gun crimes, in the slightest. What it has done however is to discourage gun dealers from working with the ATF, out of fear of being shut down for the slightest infraction:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Arizona State University blacklists American flag for flags promoting the queer agenda and the evils of America

12:04 pm

American flag banned by Arizona State University
Banned at Arizona State University so that queers and racists could
be celebrated instead

As part of the celebrations this month for the fake holidays Juneteenth and Pride month, Arizona State University decided the American flag must come down and be replaced with flags celebrating the queer agenda and the Marxist and the racist anti-American agenda that Juneteenth represents.

On Wednesday, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk blasted Arizona State University for replacing American flags lining a street with Juneteenth and Pride flags. Kirk posted photos of ASU’s downtown Tempe, Arizona campus, with streets lined with alternating colorful pride flags, and the Juneteenth flag bearing a large star.

“Originally, the flags outside my apartment on campus were all American flags, then, at the start of June following the Memorial Day holiday, they replaced every other flag with pride or ‘progress’ flags.

“About a week later, my two roommates and I watched through our window as one of the American flags was taken down and replaced with a ‘Juneteenth’ flag. By the next morning, all the American flags were replaced by the Juneteenth flags,” said an ASU student who wished not to be named.

Since I guarantee almost none of my readers know what this fake Juneteenth holiday stands for, here is the BBC’s liberal spin:
» Read more

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SLS dress rehearsal countdown set for June 20th with launch delayed again

9:28 am

According to NASA officials, the next attempt to complete a dress rehearsal countdown for its SLS rocket will take place on June 20, 2022, with the earliest date an actual launch can occur delayed again, and now set at best for an August 23 to September 6 window.

The article also notes that during a different press conference, NASA administrator Bill Nelson hinted that “there could be slips” in the present target date of ‘2025 for landing humans on the Moon.

Ya think? I guarantee that NASA will not land humans on the Moon in ’25, at least not using SLS. Based on all the issues confronting SLS, as well as NASA’s normal way of doing things, this mission will certainly slip at least one to two more years. And I am being very very very very optimistic.

We must also note that when first proposed by Bush Jr. in 2004, he predicted a NASA manned lunar landing by 2015, which means this launch will be at least one decade behind schedule, with it more likely being later than that.

But then, I can hear our glorious president yelling at me for complaining. “C’mon man! What’s a decade or two when you’re scheduling something important?”

12 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration purging conservatives from FBI

1:20 pm

Chris Wray, FBI director and jack-booted thug
Chris Wray, FBI director and jack-booted thug

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: According to numerous whistleblowers talking to the office of Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the FBI has been aggressively blacklisting any employee who happens to express any conservative opinions at all.

Jordan detailed the most recent actions in a June 7th letter [pdf] to Chris Wray, director of the FBI, which was also a follow-up on another such letter sent in May.

We continue to investigate allegations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is retaliating against FBI employees for engaging in disfavored political speech. On May 6, 2022, we sent you a letter that detailed examples of the FBI suspending the security clearances of FBI employees for their participation in protected First Amendment activity.1 To date, you have failed to acknowledge our letter or begin to arrange for the requested briefing. Since our May 6 letter, we have received new protected whistleblower disclosures that suggest the FBI’s actions are far more pervasive than previously known. Multiple whistleblowers have called it a “purge” of FBI employees holding conservative views. [emphasis mine]

The earlier May 6th letter [pdf] was even more blunt:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Scientist destroyed because he dated a co-worker

2:35 pm

David Sabatini: Scientist blacklisted

Persecution is now cool! The career and work of a world-renowned molecular biologist scientist David Sabatini has been utterly destroyed because of unproven accusations against him from a co-worker whom he had been casually dating for a short time.

The story at the link is long and detailed, and utterly horrifying. Not only did Ruth Lehmann, the head of the the Whitehead Institute where Sabatini worked and who fired him, never talk to him face-to-face, the report she based her actions on was filled with hearsay and unsubstantiated accusations.

No matter. Sabatini had been accused of sexual harassment, and thus he must be destroyed, without due process or any fair trial.

In the 24 hours after the report came out, Sabatini’s life fell apart. MIT put him on administrative leave. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, another prestigious non-profit that funds biomedical research and was paying Sabatini’s salary, fired him. He resigned from the Whitehead, and eventually MIT, at the advice of his lawyers who thought it would help him secure his next job. (“I one hundred percent regret that,” Sabatini told me).
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor, discriminated because of his race, forced to resign from South Florida University

12:58 pm

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
South Florida University: dedicated to segregation?

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Professor Andrew Bugajski was forced to resign after three years of teaching at the nursing school at South Florida University because, according to his lawsuit, he was subjected to racial harassment by his dean because of his white skin color.

Bugajski was on track to be a tenured professor, but said he resigned because of discrimination and harassment he faced at the hands of Usha Menon, Dean and Senior Associate Vice President for USF Health. “Shortly after being hired, Plaintiff (Bugajski) immediately recognized his supervisor Vice Dean Usha Menon exhibiting hostility towards Caucasian men,” wrote Christiane L. Nolton, Bugajski’s lawyer. “Indeed, Plaintiff witnessed this disconcerting behavior which also occurred in front of other employees on multiple occasions. Specifically, Vice Dean Menon told Plaintiff and others that USF’s upper administrators were ‘a bunch of f***ing white male conservatives.’”
» Read more

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FAA finally releases its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility

11:44 am

SpaceX's plan of operations at Boca Chica

After almost a half year of delays, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today released its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica, Texas, possibly recommending that future launches of Starship/Superheavy be allowed at that location but also leaving open the continuing ability of the federal government to block further flight tests.

The FAA determined that the Proposed Action would not result in significant environmental consequences and has issued a Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision (FONSI/ROD). … Required mitigation measures are listed throughout Chapter 3 of the final PEA [the environmental reassessment]. Should any future license or permit be issued to SpaceX to perform any aspect of the Proposed Action, the FAA will ensure that SpaceX implements these mitigation measures as conditions for licensure.

You can read the executive summary here [pdf]. The actual reassessment [referred to as the PEA] can be read here [pdf]. The key quote, on page 2 of the reassessment, is this:

The applicant has provided the FAA with a mission profile of proposed launch operations that is
analyzed in this PEA. The FAA’s Federal Action is to issue experimental permit(s) and/or a vehicle operator license to SpaceX for this mission profile, which is described in more detail in Section 2.1. If SpaceX modifies or adds operations as part of its Starship/Super Heavy program in the future, the FAA would analyze the environmental impacts of those activities in a tiered environmental document, which would summarize the issues discussed in this PEA that remain applicable (e.g., the environment around the Boca Chica launch site) and concentrate on the issues specific to the subsequent action (e.g., a mission profile involving a new landing site).

The completion of the environmental review process does not guarantee that the FAA will issue an experimental permit or vehicle operator license to SpaceX for Starship/Super Heavy launches at the launch site. [emphasis mine]

Essentially, SpaceX — after some revisions based on public comments — provided the FAA a detailed outline of its proposed operations, as summarized by the graph above (taken from the executive summary), and the FAA agreed to that program. However, this agreement by the FAA does not include any actual permits for flights or tests.

Furthermore, this recommendation by the FAA is not final. The reassessment also included in great detail a second option, dubbed the “No Action Alternative”:

Under the No Action Alternative, the FAA would not issue new experimental permits or licenses to SpaceX for any test or launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site. In this situation, SpaceX’s production and manufacturing that that do not require a license from the FAA or approval by any other federal agencies would continue at its existing facilities and production and manufacturing infrastructure would expand. Testing operations, including tank tests and static fire engine tests, that do not require approval by the FAA or other federal agencies would also continue at the VLA. In addition, SpaceX could conduct missions of the Starship prototype launch vehicle as authorized by the current license (LRLO 20‐119). 6 The license expires on May 27, 2023. This alternative provides the basis for comparing the environmental consequences of the Proposed Action.

Under this alternative, SpaceX operations at Boca Chica would be severely limited, and would essentially end in May ’23.

In reviewing both documents, it appears that the FAA has given SpaceX a go-ahead with this reassessment, but done so with many caveats. It will issue SpaceX its launch permits, probably on a per launch basis, each of which will require SpaceX to meet more than 130 pages of further environmental and social justice requirements. As noted in the first quote above, should SpaceX fail to meet any of those mitigation measures, future permits will be blocked.

Furthermore, the reassessment appears to have left it open for the White House to choose the “No Action Alternative.”

In either case this reassessment appears to have given any number of agencies within the federal government — including the White House — the clear ability to block SpaceX’s operations repeatedly, after each test flight.

I suspect SpaceX will immediately apply for a launch permit, and hope that political pressure will force the federal agencies to approve that permit.

NOTE: This analysis is based on a first quick review. The documents are long and purposely written to make it hard to figure out what is being proposed. More review is still required.

22 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: School officials attempt to censor and shut down conservative club at Utah high school

11:59 am

Copper Hills High School: No free speech allowed for conservatives!
Copper Hills HS: No free speech allowed for conservatives!

Persecution is now cool! School officials at Copper Hills High School in West Jordan, Utah, have repeatedly attempted to censor and block the conservative Turning Point USA chapter there, first by making it difficult for the students to form the club, then by telling them they had to remove some signs as well as always include opposing points of view in their displays. When the students objected these school officials then shut down their gathering entirely.

The specific oppressive actions of the school’s principal, Bryan Veazie, and his assistant principal, Rufine Einzinger (both reachable here), are well described in the letter [pdf] sent to Tracy J. Miller, the President of the Board of Education for the Jordan School District, by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the students:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Republican candidate for Michigan governor arrested by FBI

1:50 pm

Ryan Kelley: a target for arrest for being a Republican
Ryan Kelley: a target for arrest for being a Republican

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: One day after President Joe Biden joked on television with Jimmy Kimmel about “sending [Republicans] to jail,” the FBI arrested Ryan Kelley, one of the Republicans running for Michigan governor, on misdemeanor charges for daring to stand on the steps of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, but never entering it.

Kelley is charged 17 months after the Jan. 6 riot and on the same day the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is to hold a primetime hearing Thursday to present never-seen video, new audio and a mass of evidence following a year-long investigation by the select panel.

The criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital charged Kelley with: knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; knowingly engaging in any act of physical violence against person or property in any restricted building or grounds; willfully injure or commit any depredation against any property of the United States. All are misdemeanor offenses. [emphasis mine]

» Read more

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SLS’s 2nd mobile launcher to cost more than $1.5 billion, 3x what was initially budgeted

11:47 am

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

According to an inspector general report [pdf] released today, the second mobile launcher being built by the company Bechtel to transport its SLS rocket from the assembly building to the launch site is likely going to cost more than $1.5 billion, three times what was initially budgeted, and will not be completed any earlier than the end of 2027, four years behind schedule.

Compounding Bechtel’s projected cost increases and schedule delays, an ML-2 [mobile launcher-2] project analysis provided only a 3.9 percent confidence level that the nearly $1 billion cost [twice the original budget] and October 2025 [2.5 years late] delivery estimates were accurate. NASA requires projects to develop budgets and schedules consistent with a 70 percent joint cost and schedule confidence level (JCL), meaning a 70 percent likelihood the project will finish equal to or less than the planned costs and schedule. In fact, an Independent Review Team analysis determined the project would require an additional $447 million and 27 months, for a total contract value of $1.5 billion and a launcher delivery date of December 2027—a schedule that would enable an Artemis IV launch no earlier than the end of 2028.

The first mobile launcher, shown on the left in the graphic, cost more than $1 billion and will used only three times, at most. The second, on the right, is required for all of the assigned interplanetary tasks being given to the full size version of SLS beyond those first three test flights. Without it that version of SLS cannot launch. And even if the launcher is ready by 2028, as the IG report suggests, that will be more than a decade behind schedule, and six years from now.
» Read more

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Pushback: Parents and teachers sue Virginia school board for teaching queer sex to kids and lying about it to parents

12:15 pm

The Harrisonburg school board
The Harrisonburg school board and its superintendent.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), both parents and teachers on June 1st filed a lawsuit against the Harrisonburg City Public School Board for encouraging children to use incorrect sexual pronouns as it also indoctrinated the kids into the queer sex agenda, all while setting policies intended to conceal its actions from parents.

Upon a child’s request, school district policy requires staff to immediately begin using opposite-sex pronouns and forbids staff from sharing information with parents about their child’s request, instead instructing staff to mislead and deceive parents.

The lawsuit [pdf] is even more blunt than the press release above:
» Read more

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Russian company S7 ends project to build private rocket

8:50 am

The Russian company S7 has ended its project to build a private rocket, citing lack of funds and a dearth of Russian investors.

Due to a lack of opportunity to raise funding, the project to create a light-class carrier rocket has been suspended,” the press service said.

The company said that was the reason why it let go some of its staff – 30 people out of more than 100 – in June. “Still, S7 Space continues to operate in some areas, such as additive and welding technologies where work is underway,” it said.

S7 first announced this rocket project in 2019. Development was suspended in 2020, however, when the Putin government imposed new much higher fees on the company for storing the ocean launch platform Sea Launch, fees so high that the company was soon negotiating to sell the platform to a Russian state-run corporation.

At the moment it appears that while Russia has possession of the Sea Launch ocean floating launch platform, it has nothing to launch from it. Nor does there appear to be any Russia project that might eventually do so. The Putin government has quite successfully choked off S7 — fearing the competition it would bring to Roscosmos — and with it any other new rocket company.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Georgetown University succeeds in blacklisting conservative for having opinions

12:04 pm

Georgetown University: No free speech allowed

They’re coming for you next: Though Georgetown University announced last week that it had finally decided to reinstate Ilya Shapiro as a senior lecturer and executive director for the university’s Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Shapiro responded almost immediately by announcing his resignation from the job.

Shapiro had been suspended and under investigation for the past four months because of a single tweet he had issued criticizing President Biden’s decision to make race and gender more important than a judge’s legal qualifications in picking Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court. For the background to this story see my May 13, 2002 post.

Shapiro’s resignation letter to William M. Treanor, Dean & Executive Vice President of the law center (available at the second link above), makes clear his reasons for quitting:
» Read more

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