FCC chairman Brendan Carr this week didn’t simply make a public statement yesterday against Amazon, as I reported earlier today. The day earlier, on March 10th, he did an hour-long interview with Breibart News, providing a more complete summary of the FCC’s overall agenda since the change of administrations from Joe Biden to Donald Trump.

You can watch that interview here. To put it mildly, the shift in policy and approach at the FCC is significant, and appears to be generally moving in the right direction.

To understand the context, we need to first review the FCC’s approach during the Biden administration. My regular readers will remember the many stories during that time describing the FCC’s aggressive effort to expand its regulatory power, in many cases in areas completely exceeding its fundamental statutory authority. For example, it proposed new regulations designed to tell satellite companies how and when to de-orbit their satellites. It also wanted to its own bureaucracy for imposing those regulations, and went ahead and created it without any congressional approval. It also under Biden attempted to limit satellite operations that the astronomy community opposed, an action that was once again outside its statute authority.

Overall, the goal of the FCC under Biden was to expand the power of the administrative state, in as many areas as possible. And though there was push back from Congress, as long as a Democrat was president it was clear that this power-grab was going to grow exponentially.

After the 2024 election, however a Democrat was no longer president. Trump quickly moved in 2025 to squash the FCC’s power grab, with a stated public goal to instead streamline FCC regulations and speed license approvals.

Carr’s interview earlier this week essentially gave us an update on that Trump policy, and it appears this new anti-regulatory policy is moving forward, with a goal to eliminate ten regulations for every one regulation added. According to Carr:

We’ve gone through the FCC Code of Federal Regulations, which is our rule book. … We took each component of it and went to all the bureaus and offices, and we had everyone go through it page by page: which rule is outdated, which rule can we get rid of, which rule can we cut in half?

So far, we’ve gotten rid of, I think, just over 1,000 regulations. I think it’s 130,000 words that have been cut—300 pages that have been reduced from this Code of Federal Regulations. We’re just going to keep going to get rid of outdated, unnecessary regulations.

We’ve also taken a look at what we call dormant dockets—proceedings the FCC started and left open that create a regulatory overhang. We’ve closed, I think, something like 2,000 separate inactive proceedings at this point.

It’s one of our most productive efforts. We’re ahead of schedule on the 10-to-1 regulation requirement from the administration, where you get rid of 10 regulations for every one that you do.

This is the opposite of what was done under Biden and what was expected from Kamala Harris had she won the election. And this streamlining can only have a positive effect on the satellite and communications industry, as it will ease the burdens faced by both old and new companies.

We must still ask if this is Trump’s FCC: “Nice business
you got here. Shame if something happened to it.”

Not all is sunshine however. During this interview Carr did indicate several areas where the FCC under Trump is aggressively applying its power, though that effort seems more appropriate to the commission’s specific purpose. The FCC is working to force companies to locate their customer service call centers in the U.S. It is trying to limit robo-calls, and eliminate those that are scams. It wants to make broadcast sports events more readily available to the public, even if the owners of those events wish to do otherwise.

And it has already banned foreign-built drones from the U.S. If you want to get a license to sell a drone in the U.S., you have to build it here.

These new regulations should certainly be questioned, because anytime you give government bureaucrats power in any area there is the risk they will overuse those powers. At the same time, these Trump-era FCC policies do seem more focused towards helping American business and its citizenry. Rather than limit what Americans can do, these policies appear designed to help them, while working to limit the actions of the bad actors.

The trend is positive, but only time will tell whether it produces healthy fruit or dies on the vine.

In a major announcement, the House Judiciary committee today revealed that Google has admitted that it had bowed to direct pressure by the Biden administration to censor conservatives, and it now vows to never bow to such pressure again.

The company has also agreed to allow everyone it banned due to that pressure to return to Youtube.

The graphic to the right comes from the committee’s announcement. All five points listed are critical to the future. First, Google now confirms the truth of another “rightwing conspiracy theory”. The Democratic Party under Biden was aggressively abusing its power to censor its opposition. Second, Google now admits it participated in this wrong-doing, and pledges to never do it again.

Finally, and most important, it notes the threat to freedom and free speech now posed by Europe and its new censorship laws. That threat is real, and unless American companies have the courage to tell Europe to pound sand, we could see them agreeing to squelch our speech in order to keep their businesses open in Europe. Google is essentially asking Congress and the federal government to do something to protect it from those laws.

They’re coming for you next: According to this Fox New report, major bank executives have admitted that White House officials during the Obama and Biden administrations aggressively pressured them to cancel the bank accounts and blacklist many customers, simply because those customers had political opinions that Obama, Biden, and the Democratic Party did not like.

Fox News Digital spoke with two executives at leading U.S. banks, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals. The executives said that ambiguity in federal laws was exploited by regulators under the Obama and Biden administrations in order to pursue political objectives. According to one executive, banks were pressured to deny services to certain industries as part of Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2.0. “When there’s ambiguity in the law, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for a long time the beholder was the Obama and Biden administration,” the official said.

A House Oversight Committee report found that “Operation Choke Point,” a DOJ task force whose aim was to “choke out” legal companies disfavored by the Obama administration, worked with bank regulators to label certain industries, including firearms sales, as “high risk.”

During the height of the blacklisting craze in both the Obama and Biden administrations, numerous conservative candidates and organizations and individuals suddenly found their bank accounts canceled and their businesses blocked from ordinary financial transactions. These new allegations confirm what was strongly suspected at the time, that the Democrats were using the regulations to blackmail banks into doing this blacklisting.

This story proves without doubt the despicable and thuggish nature of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party minions who worked under them. Moreover, these allegations add great weight to the other accusations against Obama and many intelligence officials for making up the Trump-Russian collusion hoax. If Obama was willing to threaten banks if they didn’t blacklist conservatives, he and those intelligent officials would surely have had no problem working up a fake story to slander and destroy Trump.

All the more reason for voters to utterly reject this Democratic Party. It has not reformed itself, and it is clearly now a threat to not only our Constitution and the rule of law, it is a direct threat to the livelihood and freedom of every single American. It has no morals at all. All these Democrats care about is power. If the voters give that power back to them in any future election, they will use it to destroy all who disagree with them.

And there no longer any doubt about this at all.

According to a Space News article yesterday, the FCC’s regulatory focus since January and the advent of the Trump administration has shifted significantly from its focus during the Biden administration.

The article describes in detail the present focus to streamline regulations and speed license approvals.

One early result of this push is a reduction in the FCC’s licensing backlog. Schwarz said the space bureau has reduced pending applications by 35 percent since January, including those for new space stations and ground infrastructure.

Modernizing regulations for non-geostationary satellite systems is another priority. The FCC is considering revising so-called “power limit” rules aimed at preventing interference between low-orbit constellations and traditional geostationary satellites and earth stations. Schwarz said these reforms could help pave the way for higher-throughput services that rival terrestrial broadband.

This focus appears correctly centered on the FCC’s actual legal statutory authority to regulate the limited bandwidth of the electromagnetic spectrum to avoid conflicts in its use.

Under Biden, the FCC instead focused on expanding its power beyond that statutory authority, claiming it had the right to determine how satellites were built, when they would be de-orbited, and in what manner. None of those activities have anything to do with bandwidth and the FCC’s legal responsibilities.

There was some legislative push back from Congress during the Biden administration, but it was slow and relatively weak. Now that push back has become unnecessary, because the FCC under Trump is back to doing its actual job instead of trying to build empires of regulation.

The agency also appears, for the moment, to have ended its partisan abuse of red tape for political reasons. Under Biden it used its regulatory power against SpaceX in retaliation to Elon Musk’s decision to publicly support Biden’s political opponents. It appears the present effort to speed license approvals for everyone has ended this practice.

This Trump executive order cancels a number of Biden executive orders that imposed net neutrality, DEI, climate change, and other requirements that added paperwork and cost money and time. Most important of all for rocket companies, this new order aims to streamline the environmental review process on new projects, a process that was expanded exponentially during Biden but had been growing out-of-control for decades, and appeared during Biden to destroy many rocket startups.

Of course, because this executive order was issued by Trump, it will likely be blocked by a federal judge, because only Democratic Party presidential executive orders are allowed in America now.

The key words are highlighted in quotes below.

The Artemis Accords are a set of non-binding principles signed by nations for a peaceful and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy. In October 2020, under the first Trump administration, the accords were created, and since then, 54 countries have joined with the United States in committing to transparent and responsible behavior in space.

“Following President Trump’s visit to the Middle East, the United States built upon the successful trip through engagement with a global coalition of nations to further implement the accords – practical guidelines for ensuring transparency, peaceful cooperation, and shared prosperity in space exploration,” said acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro. “These accords represent a vital step toward uniting the world in the pursuit of exploration and scientific discovery beyond Earth. NASA is proud to lead in the overall accords effort, advancing the principles as we push the boundaries of human presence in space – for the benefit of all.”

…participants reaffirmed their commitment to upholding the principles outlined in the accords and to continue identifying best practices and guidelines for safe and sustainable exploration.

…The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements, including the Registration Convention and the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices for responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

Many of the highlighted phrases are of course quite laudable, such as the desire for peace and the use of space for the benefit of all. The tone and spin however is very globalist and communist, and leaves out entirely the primary reason Trump created the accords in the first place, to encourage private ownership, capitalism, competition, and freedom in space by bypassing or canceling the Outer Space Treaty’s rules that forbid such things.

According to the release there will be more talks among accord signatories in the upcoming September meeting of the International Astronautical Congress. I highlight this press release and its Biden-era language in an effort to make the Trump administration aware that — at least in space — Biden’s policies apparently remain in charge. While I also know this is not the most important priority for Trump, it is also something he does care about, and these issues are critical for the future lives of those who will soon explore and settle the solar system.

Someone in the Trump administration has got shift NASA back to pushing for private enterprise internationally, rather than the feel-good, empty, and communist agenda of the globalist crowd, as illustrated by the language above. And they need to do it before, or even very publicly at that September International Astronautical Congress.

According to a long interview given to Eric Berger of Ars Technica, the astronauts flying Boeing’s Starliner capsule on its first manned mission in June 2024 were much more vulnerable than NASA made it appear at the time.

First, the thruster problem when they tried to dock to ISS was more serious than revealed. At several points Butch Wilmore, who was piloting the spacecraft, was unsure if he had enough thrusters to safely dock the capsule to ISS. Worse, if he couldn’t dock he also did not know if had enough thrusters to de-orbit Starliner properly.

In other words, he and his fellow astronaut Sunni Williams might only have a few hours to live.

The situation was saved by mission control engineers, who figured out a way to reset the thrusters and get enough back on line so that the spacecraft could dock autonomously.

Second, once docked it was very clear to the astronauts and NASA management that Starliner was a very unreliable lifeboat.

Wilmore added that he felt pretty confident, in the aftermath of docking to the space station, that Starliner probably would not be their ride home.

Wilmore: “I was thinking, we might not come home in the spacecraft. We might not. And one of the first phone calls I made was to Vincent LaCourt, the ISS flight director, who was one of the ones that made the call about waiving the flight rule. I said, ‘OK, what about this spacecraft, is it our safe haven?'”

It was unlikely to happen, but if some catastrophic space station emergency occurred while Wilmore and Williams were in orbit, what were they supposed to do? Should they retreat to Starliner for an emergency departure, or cram into one of the other vehicles on station, for which they did not have seats or spacesuits? LaCourt said they should use Starliner as a safe haven for the time being. Therein followed a long series of meetings and discussions about Starliner’s suitability for flying crew back to Earth. Publicly, NASA and Boeing expressed confidence in Starliner’s safe return with crew. But Williams and Wilmore, who had just made that harrowing ride, felt differently.

Wilmore: “I was very skeptical, just because of what we’d experienced. I just didn’t see that we could make it. [emphasis mine]

It wasn’t until SpaceX’s Freedom capsule arrived in September 2024, with two seats for Wilmore and Williams to use for return, that the Starliner astronauts finally had a truly reliable lifeboat attached to ISS.

All in all, the story here is that NASA last year took a very nonchalant attitude towards the lives of these two astronauts. Once Starliner docked to ISS, they really had no lifeboat in case a catastrophe occurred on ISS. The proper action at that point would have been to get a new manned Dragon docked to ISS as quickly as possible. Doing that however would have disturbed the complex planned schedule of dockings at ISS.

Being naturally lazy as all bureaucrats are, NASA management decided to instead take for them the easiest route, bringing Freedom to ISS in September as scheduled, even though it left these two humans without a lifeboat for a period of about four months.

Flying a quickly put together rescue mission also risked a lot of bad press, both for Boeing and for the Biden administration during the election campaign. (Biden’s fear was really unfounded. The press would have correctly lauded NASA and Biden for acting diligently and with speed.)

That both Wilmore and Williams are being so open and honest about these facts now suggests they either fear no retribution from the Trump administration, or do not ever expect to get another flight from NASA.

One lesson we all should take from this is to never trust any government officials from either party. In this case, I foolishly took NASA at its word last summer when it claimed Starliner was a safe lifeboat. They were lying however. And as much as I am always skeptical of government officials, I allowed myself in this case to be fooled.

And as they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. If I can at all help it, I won’t let this happen again.

The first stage booster returned to Earth and landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean ~250 nautical miles off the coast of Florida. Following the successful landing, an off-nominal fire in the aft end of the rocket damaged one of the booster’s landing legs which resulted in it tipping over.

This is only the second time in years that a first stage has been lost in this manner. After the previous occurrence last year during the Biden administration, the FAA grounded all SpaceX launches for several days, an action that indicated clearly an effort to harass the company for political reasons. I will be very surprised if this happens again, with Trump now in office.

“After completing the required and comprehensive safety review, the FAA determined the SpaceX Starship vehicle can return to flight operations while the investigation into the Jan. 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open,” the FAA’s emailed statement reads. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrase reveals much. There is a new boss in Washington now who will not tolerate unnecessary red tape that stymies private enterprise unnecessarily. SpaceX is the only entity qualified to investigate the loss of Starship in the seventh flight, and it has completed its investigation. All the FAA can really do in its own “investigation” is retype SpaceX’s conclusion. It might have some clean-up work of its own relating to clearing the air space after Starship was destroyed, but even there SpaceX’s conclusion note that the plan worked out before launch between the company and the FAA worked perfectly.

Under Biden the FAA would have made SpaceX wait while that retyping took place, likely assigned to someone who can only hunt and peck at an old manual typewriter. No more.

SpaceX today announced it will attempt the eighth Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight this coming Friday, February 28, 2025, with a launch window beginning at 5 pm (Central). From the company’s website update:

The upcoming flight will target objectives not reached on the previous test, including Starship’s first payload deployment and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch. The flight also includes the launch, return, and catch of the Super Heavy booster.

The company also published today a detailed report on its investigation into the loss of Starship soon after stage separation in the 7th test flight.

After vehicle separation, Starship’s six second stage Raptor engines powered the vehicle along its expected trajectory. Approximately two minutes into its burn, a flash was observed in the aft section of the vehicle near one of the Raptor vacuum engines. This aft section, commonly referred to as the attic, is an unpressurized area between the bottom of the liquid oxygen tank and the aft heatshield. Sensors in the attic detected a pressure rise indicative of a leak after the flash was seen.

Roughly two minutes later, another flash was observed followed by sustained fires in the attic. These eventually caused all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences and ultimately led to a loss of communication with the ship. Telemetry from the vehicle was last received just over eight minutes and 20 seconds into flight.

Contact with Starship was lost prior to triggering any destruct rules for its Autonomous Flight Safety System, which was fully healthy when communication was lost. The vehicle was observed to break apart approximately three minutes after loss of contact during descent. Post-flight analysis indicates that the safety system did trigger autonomously, and breakup occurred within Flight Termination System expectations.

The most probable root cause for the loss of ship was identified as a harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the propulsion system. The subsequent propellant leaks exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.

The company then details the changes it has incorporated into the Starship set to fly on Friday, noting that it also had the spacecraft do a 60-second long static fire test to “test multiple engine thrust levels and three separate hardware configurations in the Raptor vacuum engine feedlines to recreate and address the harmonic response seen during Flight 7.”

The investigation update also noted that the plan put together prior to launch with the FAA for clearing the air space should such a mishap occur worked as planned.

All debris came down within the pre-planned Debris Response Area, and there were no hazardous materials present in the debris and no significant impacts expected to occur to marine species or water quality. SpaceX reached out immediately to the government of Turks and Caicos and worked with them and the United Kingdom to coordinate recovery and cleanup efforts.

Finally, I must note that, as I predicted in January right after the seventh flight, the FAA has quickly moved to approve the launch license the instant SpaceX has completed its investigation. Under Biden it would instead spend weeks, even months, retyping SpaceX’s investigation (since it has no one qualified to actual investigate anything) before issuing the launch license. Under Trump such bureaucratic interference is not being permitted. Or to put it more accurately, Biden’s harassment of SpaceX that forced the FAA to slow-walk approvals has ended. Under Trump the FAA has gone back to its previous policy of trying to help and encourage commercial space, instead of hurting it.

In an unopposed motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the Justice Department said it intended to file a notice of dismissal with prejudice, which means prosecutors would not be able to file these charges again.

Of all the lawfare initiated against Musk and SpaceX by the Biden administration, this lawsuit was by far the stupidest and most ridiculous. SpaceX doesn’t discriminate against non-American citizens. If they meet State Department rules and also have the qualifications, it hires them. And has done so. For one federal agency, Justice, to demand that SpaceX violate the rules of another agency, State, proves the lawsuit’s real purpose was harassment only.

That harassment has ended with the arrival of Trump.

And as usual, NASASpaceflight.com ignores the importance of politics and Trump’s election in changing the regulatory culture at the FAA. Just as it has made believe the Biden administration wasn’t forcing the FAA to slow-walk its license approvals to SpaceX, it is now making believe the Trump administration won’t do anything to force the FAA to speed its approvals.

We know however that it will. I fully expect that when SpaceX completes its investigation of the failures from flight 7 and describes its fixes, the FAA approval will following very quickly thereafter, within days. Under Biden that approval would still take months.

The source to the story comes from a local.

The report was made by Calvin Wehrle of Galveston, who frequently camps along Texas 4 near the Starship launch site.

In an interview Friday, he said he was there on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when an SUV pulled up with five male passengers who rolled down their windows to converse. They said they were from the Middle East. “I said something like, ‘What are y’all here for? ’ and the driver said, ‘Oh, we’re here to blow (Starship) up,’ ” Wehrle said. “I just went stone cold, and he said, ‘Oh, I got you. I was joking.’ ”

As the conversation went on, though, Wehrle’s visitors said at least three times they were in South Texas to attack Starship. He reported the incident to SpaceX and the sheriff’s office and said he was contacted later by an investigator.

This could be nothing, or it could be serious. The location of the Starship/Superheavy facilities is right along the road at Boca Chica, and it is very easy for anyone to get quite close. In fact there have been several incidences where people were caught trespassing.

Considering that SpaceX is gearing up for the seventh orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy on January 10, 2025, the risks are now higher. The tank farm there, also not far from public access, is going to be filled with oxygen and methane, and will be an ideal target for attack.

And we can thank Joe Biden and his Democratic Party for allowing millions of illegals to enter the country un-vetted over the past four years, including tens of thousands who the evidence suggests could be potential terrorists. And we can also thank the Biden administration for sucking the quality out the FBI, making it incapable of doing its real job while it was used for political purposes harassing and persecuting Trump, many Republicans, and many ordinary conservatives.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

Data assembled by the government of the United Kingdom now proves unequivocally that getting the jab during the COVID panic was a very bad idea. It did less than nothing to prevent you from getting the virus, and in fact significantly increased your chances of dying.

[T]he data show that 30 percent of the UK population remained completely unvaccinated as of July 2022. 34 percent were not double vaccinated, and 50 percent were not triple vaccinated.

However, the vaccinated population accounted for 95 percent of all COVID-19 deaths between January and May 2023.

The unvaccinated population, meanwhile, accounted for just five percent of Covid deaths.

Perhaps the most troubling information revealed in the data is the fact that deaths increased among the groups who received more “vaccine” doses. The vast majority of the deaths are among those vaccinated four times. This quad-vaxxed population accounts for 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and 83 percent of all Covid deaths among the vaccinated.

The numbers for many other time periods following the introduction of the jab are comparable.

Though we should expect the number of deaths to be higher for the jabbed population since there are more of them, the numbers far exceed that difference. For example, among those aged 80 to 89 during just one month, December 2021, there were only 776 deaths from all causes among the unjabbed. Among those who had gotten the jab, however, there were 16,171 deaths.

That’s twenty times more, even though the total jabbed population was only about double the size of the unjabbed.

The article notes that health officials are now recognizing similar numbers in many other countries, including excess deaths and a surge in heart-related deaths. For example, a study [pdf] of just one county in Washington state found a 1,236% surge in excess cardiac arrest deaths among a population of two million who received COVID mRNA injections.

Joe Biden: claiming the power to tell us what medicines we must take
in September 2021.

But don’t worry. The government and Joe Biden insisted you’d die if you didn’t get the jab, and so he mandated it for any employees whose employer took federal dollars. And if you refused, he insisted you get fired.

“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.”

After all, he was the president and thus of course he knew best. Just consider his many medical degrees as well as the many years of experience he had treating patients!

The worst aspect of this story is that the mandates — and the jabs — were clearly not necessary, even at the height of the epidemic. COVID was simply a variation of the flu, and like the flu if you were healthy when you got it you simply were sick for a few weeks. It didn’t kill you. And for those who were sick and aged and thus seriously threatened with death by the virus, the best solution would have been to isolate them from exposure, the exact opposite of what was done by the Democrats running states like New York and Michigan.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Trump created the accords with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Biden rewrote the goal to accomplish the exact opposite, as NASA states in all recent press releases about new nations joining:

The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

I expect there to be a shift back to the original goals in the second Trump administration.

Adding both nations to the list, the American-led Artemis Accords alliance now includes the following 47 nations: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Should Donald Trump return to the White House it will be very interesting to watch how this alliance evolves in the coming years. The original goal for the accords when started by the Trump administration was to build an alliance with enough clout to overcome the limitations on private property contained by the Outer Space Treaty. Though this alliance is surely now large enough to force those changes, that goal has been mostly pushed aside by the Biden administration. I suspect a new Trump administration will be able to bring it back to life, with added force due to this alliance’s size.

After SpaceX’s incredibly successful fifth test flight of Starship/Superheavy on October 13, 2024, I began to wonder about the complex bureaucratic history leading up to that flight. I was most puzzled by the repeated claims by FAA officials that it would issue no launch license before late November, yet ended up approving a license in mid-October in direct conflict with these claims. In that context I was also puzzled by the FAA’s own written approval of that launch, which in toto seemed to be a complete vindication of all of SpaceX’s actions while indirectly appearing to be a condemnation of the agency’s own upper management.

What caused the change at the FAA? Why was it claiming no approval until late November when it was clear by early October that SpaceX was preparing for a mid-October launch? And why claim late November when the FAA’s own bureaucracy has now made it clear in approving the launch that a mid-October date was always possible, and nothing SpaceX did prevented that.

I admit my biases: My immediate speculation is always to assume bad behavior by government officials. But was that speculation correct? Could it also be that SpaceX had not done its due diligence properly, causing the delays, as claimed by the FAA?

While doing my first review of the FAA’s written reevaluation [pdf] that approved the October 13th launch, I realized that a much closer review of the history and timeline of events might clarify these questions.

So, below is that timeline, as best as I can put together from the public record. The lesser known acronyms stand for the following:

TCEQ: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
NMFS: National Marine Fisheries Service (part of NOAA)
FWS: Fish & Wildlife Service (part of the Department of Interior)

My inserted comments periodically tell the story and provide some context.

• June 13, 2022: FAA approves environmental reassessmant, allowing launches from Boca Chica
• July 2023: Launch deluge system approved by TCEQ
• Feb 2024: FAA requests NMFS to review Indian Ocean impact of Starship landing
• March 7, 2024: NMFS approves Starship landing in Indian Ocean
• March 13, 2024: EPA says it must be involved in approving deluge system
• March 14, 2024: Third test flight of Starship/Superheavy

Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024

At this point SpaceX has successfully launched Starship into orbit, splashing it down in the Indian Ocean and meeting all requirements of the FAA and these other government agencies except for the sudden insertion of the EPA out of the blue. The company then proceeds to aggressively address the EPA’s concerns:

• March 14, 2024: SpaceX samples water discharges and finds they are within acceptable regulatory limits
• April 5, 2024: SpaceX samples water discharges and finds they are within acceptable regulatory limits
• May 8, 2024: SpaceX samples water discharges and finds they are within acceptable regulatory limits
• June 6, 2024: Fourth test flight of Starship/Superheavy

Once again SpaceX has successfully launched Starship into orbit, splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Once again it does so while meeting all the regulatory requirements imposed on it by these numerous government agencies.

• July 1, 2024 SpaceX submits new permit application for deluge system to TCEQ and EPA
• July 12, 2024: FAA initiates a new environmental reassessment of Boca Chica
• August 2, 2024: TECQ agrees w/EPA and says SpaceX must get different permits from the state and EPA
• August 9, 2024: SpaceX says it is ready to launch
• August 10, 2024: TCEQ advices FAA it will approve deluge system under different regulation
• August 12, 2024: FAA suspends approval process for new environmental reassessment

The FAA has since claimed it suspended the approval process on August 12th because of the new regulatory concerns of the EPA and TCEQ, but when it did so TCEQ had already said it had no regulatory concerns. Moreover, only three weeks later the EPA concurred with TCEQ (see below). Yet that reassessment remains suspended.

• August 13, 2024: TCEQ approves deluge system, pending public comment
• August 29, 2024: Texas Historical Commission said no damage from sonic boom
• Sept 5, 2024: EPA approves Starship launches under its regulations

Note that at this point there should be no reason to prevent the FAA from issuing a launch license. The objections raised in August by TCEQ and the EPA have all been cleared. Instead, the FAA responds as follows:

• Sept 10, 2024: FAA says approval of 5th flight impossible before late November
• Sept 10, 2024: SpaceX blasts FAA for all delays
• Sept 12, 2024: EPA officially informs FAA in writing of its Sept 5 approval
• Sept 12, 2024: FAA asks FWS to review whether a Superheavy return to Boca Chica is safe
• Sept 12, 2024: FAA blames SpaceX for all delays

September 12th is a key date. On that day the EPA officially informs the FAA that it approves the launch, meaning there remain no more obstacles to issuing the launch license. Instead, the FAA suddenly demands that FWS, which up to now had not been involved at all, look into the environmental consequences of the sonic boom from Superheavy as it lands at Boca Chica. Note too that SpaceX has been proposing this tower-chopstick landing at Boca Chica since July.

At the same time the FAA publicly blames SpaceX for the delays.

• Sept 20, 2024: Musk: Starship is ready for 5th flight; again blasts the FAA bureaucracy
• Sept 24, 2024: FAA administrator Mike Whitaker testifies in front of Congress, blasting SpaceX
• Sept 26, 2024: FAA requests NMFS to review changes by SpaceX

The nature of Whitaker’s testimony before Congress on September 24th also tells us much. He claimed the delay was because there were “safety” questions with the sonic boom that Superheavy would cause when it returned to Boca Chica. Yet, no one had considered this an issue until the FAA raised it with FWS on September 12th. Whitaker also implied that SpaceX had not been following regulations, when the history above shows this to be completely false.

Two days after Whitaker’s testimony the FAA suddenly initiated another bureaucratic investigation, this time with NMFS, raising new questions about the spashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean and asking this outside agency to reconsider its previous approval from March 7, 2024.

It appears that Whitaker realized he needed more reasons to delay SpaceX until November, and thus ordered his people to bring NMFS back in.

• Oct 2, 2024: Coast Guard issues notice for launch window Oct 12-19
• Oct 4, 2024: FAA once again insists no launch license until late November
• Oct 10, 2024: NMFS re-approves Starship landing in Indian Ocean
• Oct 11, 2024: FWS re-approves Superheavy landing at Boca Chica
• Oct 12, 2024: FAA issues license
• Oct 13, 2024: SpaceX launches Starship/Superheavy, with Superheavy successfully caught by tower chopsticks, and Starship landing on its precise target in the Indian Ocean

Overall, this history suggests strongly that FAA administrator Mike Whitaker, possibly under orders from the White House, was attempting to use whatever regulatory means he could to delay the launch until after the election in November. That the agency purposely delayed initiating the reviews by FWS and NMFS until as late as possible underlines this strategy. Get some agencies to approve, then bring in other agencies to start more reviews and cause more delays.

It also appears that though none of these agencies moved with great speed, they also did not cooperate entirely. After the Coast Guard, FWS, NMFS, and TCEQ had all cleared SpaceX for the launch, Whitaker had no other legal options, and was forced to allow his underlings at the FAA to issue the launch license.

A lot of house cleaning is necessary, far more than
any of us can imagine.

What this history also tells us is that we now have an administrative state that is quite willing to use the complex environmental regulations that now exist to manipulate those regulations in order to arbitrarily damage the efforts of one specific company, SpaceX, because its founder and head, Elon Musk, has publicly expressed political opinions that administrative state does not like. The main culprit appears to be FAA administrator Mike Whitaker, but I am sure he is not alone in this, but is working with many higher ups in the White House as well as many lower bureaucrats in his agency and others, all of whom are hostile to Musk.

And if you think I am being paranoid, I need only refer you to the testimony of two commissioners in the California Coastal Commission, who only last week said what Whitaker and many other federal bureaucrats believe but will not say out loud, admitting that they are using their regulatory power to stop SpaceX, merely because they disagree with Musk’s political opinions.

If America is to become great again, a major house cleaning and deregulation is in order, far in excess to what Elon Musk did when he took over Twitter. Not only do a lot of people need to be fired, but whole swathes of regulations need to be repealed, and fast. These rules aren’t protecting the envirornment, they are squelching freedom and the basic rights of American citizens.

The Biden administration appears to be working to de-emphasize those goals, and in fact to instead strengthen the Outer Space Treaty. From this press release (and similar to statements in all recent press releases):

The accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

The full list of nations is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

It is interesting to note that Estonia as well as Lithuania, Armenia, and the Ukraine were once part of the Soviet Union (against their will). Similarly, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were once part of the Soviet bloc, also against their will. It appears they want to ally themselves with the west, with one reason their fear that Russia might invade them as it has the Ukraine. It also could be that these nations agree with the Trump administration’s original goals, and wish to promote capitalism and private property, having experienced for decades the failures of communist and authoritarian rule.

The future goals of the Artemis Accord alliance will demand entirely on who wins the presidency in the elction in November.

Sadly, under the Biden administration that focus has been pushed aside, replaced with watered-down “principles [that] support the safe and sustainable exploration of space” that are also “grounded in the Outer Space Treaty.”

In other words, nations signing the accords now are simply signing on in the hope of getting American cash by joining the American Artemis program. The full list of nations is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Whether this alliance can eventually be used as a tool to overturn the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space remains unknown. A new Trump administration would almost certainly shift things back in the right direction, especially if that administration reshaped the entire Artemis program away from its failed reliance on SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway and instead allowed private companies to redesign the program entirely, based on what makes the most economic and engineering sense rather than funding big government projects that accomplish litte except create make-work jobs.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Yesterday both SpaceX and Elon Musk renewed their attack on the FAA’s apparent arbitrary harassment of the company, both by slowing down development of Starship/Superheavy as well as imposing fines and delays on the company for petty issues relating to Falcon 9 launches.

First, Elon Musk sent out a tweet on X, highlighting a successful static fire launchpad engine test of the Starship prototype the company plans to fly on the sixth Starship/Superheavy orbital flight. As he noted with apparent disgust, “Flight 5 is built and ready to fly. Flight 6 will be ready to fly before Flight 5 even gets approved by FAA!”

Second, and with more force, the company released a public letter that it has sent to the leading Republican and Democratic representatives of the House and Senate committees that have direct authority over space activities, outlining its issues with the FAA’s behavior. The letter details at length the irrational and inexplicable slowdown in FAA approvals that caused two launches last summer to occur in a confused manner, with SpaceX clearly given the impression by the FAA that it could go ahead which the FAA now denies. In one case the FAA claims SpaceX removed without its permission a poll of mission control during its countdown procedure. SpaceX in its letter noted bluntly that the regulations do not require that poll, and that the company already requires two other polls during the count.

In another case involving SpaceX’s plan to change to a new mission control center, the company submitted its request in June, and after two months the FAA finally approved the control center’s use for one launch, but had still not approved it for a second. The first launch went off, so SpaceX thus rightly assumed it could use the control center for the second. Yet the FAA is now trying to fine SpaceX for that second launch.

The third case of FAA misconduct appears to be the most egregious. SpaceX had built a new propellant facility that was safer because it was farther from publicly accessible areas. The FAA approved use of that facility for a crew launch to ISS, but delayed its official refusal for a different launch. SpaceX however had that other approval in which the FAA clearly stated the facility posed no safety issues, so it decided to go ahead with the second launch, with an FAA official during the countdown present and making no objections.

Here’s where things got really stupid. During the countdown the FAA suddenly delivered a letter to SpaceX denying it permission to launch, because it was using a propellant facility the FAA had already approved. Mission control called the FAA, telling the official who picked up the phone that “it was unsafe for the FAA to be sending these types of communications during operations … on the fly.” That official agreed, and “did not direct SpaceX to stand down or pull its license.” The launch proceeded safely. And now the FAA wants to fine SpaceX for doing so.

Expect the FAA to attempt to defend these strange actions. A former FAA administrator is already doing so, quite ineffectively if you ask me.

Trump defiant

Whether SpaceX’s pushback now can force a change at the FAA however is very very unlikely, as long as the present White House is controlled by the Democratic Party. That party now sees Musk as a political opponent, and has clearly demonstrated in the past three years its eager willingness to censor, blacklist, arrest, and even prosecute such opponents. It is now giving Musk and his space company that treatment, and if it maintains control of the presidency after the November election it is going to certainly escalate that persecution, aggressively.

And even if the Democrats lose in November, they are deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy of the executive branch. It will not be easy to force that bureaucracy, including the FAA, to change that its behavior. Doing so will require courage and forceful unwaivering action. Donald Trump appears to now have that courage (see the picture to the right), but it remains entirely unknown whether the people he appoints will have that courage also.

Even as the FAA has increasingly appeared to be harassing SpaceX with red tape, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr this week slammed his own agency for what appears to be clearly partisan hostility to SpaceX in its recent decisions and public statements.

Carr noted how only last year the FCC had canceled an almost $900 million grant that it had previously awarded to SpaceX for providing rural communities internet access. When it did so, the FCC claimed that the company had failed to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.”

That claim of course was absurd on its face, considering that Starlink was the only available commercial system that was actually doing this, directly to individual rural customers.

Carr noted however that this absurd FCC decision was made even more ridiculous this week by the FCC’s chairperson, Jessica Rosenworcel, who accused SpaceX of being a “monopoly” because of its success in launching Starlink satellites and providing this service ahead of everyone else.

“[Starlink has] almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and has a very high portion of internet traffic… Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. So we’ve got to invite many more space actors in, many more companies that can develop constellations and innovations in space.”

As Carr noted publicly,

“You have an agency that in 2023 says that Starlink is not reasonably capable of providing high-speed internet. And then in 2024, they’re saying it’s so capable of providing high-speed internet that we’re going to toss the word monopoly out there. There’s just no way to sort of, I don’t think, square what’s going on here with a fair application of the law or the facts, it just looks like partisan politics in my view.”

Note that Rosenworcel is a Biden appointee, and Carr is a Trump appointee. Even so, Carr’s point fits the pattern we have seen from the federal bureaucracy since Joe Biden became president. It has become decidedly hostile to SpaceX and Elon Musk, and has increasingly taken actions and made statements confirming that partisan hostility.

It could be argued that the FCC canceled the grant last year in order to do what Rosenworcel now desires, to increase competition and help other companies achieve success, but that’s not what the FCC claimed when it canceled the grant. It instead made the demonstrably false statement that Starlink was not doing the job and no longer qualified for the grant, when it was actually doing the job quite well and better than everyone else.

Late last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shared that SpaceX failed to get authorization to discharge industrial wastewater into or adjacent to surrounding wetlands, resulting in a $3,750 penalty. The wastewater SpaceX is charged with releasing comes from a water deluge system for its massive Starship rocket. The deluge system is used to absorb heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing.

This article is typical of most of our leftist mainstream press. It pushes the false claims of those activists — such as their insistence they represent everyone in the south Rio Grande Valley and that the water was “industrial wastewater.” First, they represent almost no one in south Texas, as almost everyone there is very happy with SpaceX and the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs it is bringing to the area. For example, these groups recently held an event on the beaches near SpaceX facilities “to fight for its preservation, which they view as being in jeopardy since the arrival of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”

Only about a dozen people showed up.

Second, the water is not “industrial wastewater.” As Elon Musk noted in a tweet, “Just to be clear, this silly fine was for spilling potable drinking water! Literally, you could drink it.”

Nonetheless, this manufactured environmental issue has clearly been used to stall SpaceX’s efforts. The company had said it was ready to do the next test launch of Starship/Superheavy on August 8, 2024. It is now a month later, and the FAA has still not issued the launch license. It is possible that part of the reason for the delay is because SpaceX has decided it will attempt to bring Superheavy back to the launch tower at Boca Chica, where the tower’s chopstick arms will try to capture it on landing. If so, the FAA might be demanding more assurances of safety than SpaceX can reasonably provide.

The delay however is also almost certainly caused by this fake environmental water issue. The FAA apparently has been forced to deal with it, and that action has stalled all of its new regulatory harassment of SpaceX, including the process to approve a new environmental assessment of Boca Chica that would allow the company to launch as many as 22 times per year.

They’re coming for you next: Once again the FAA has expanded its harassment of SpaceX by now grounding the company from any further launches while it “investigates” the failed landing of a Falcon 9 first stage last night. The FAA statement is as follows:

“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 8-6 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on August 28,” the FAA said Wednesday in a statement. “The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a droneship at sea. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.”

The FAA’s actions against SpaceX since Biden became president have consistently been unprecedented and biased against the company. No such grounding was issued by the FAA during any previous first stage failed landing. No such grounding was issued when SpaceX was crashing first stages on barges when it was trying to figure out how to do this.

No such investigation by the FAA were instituted when ULA had a valve issue on the Atlas-5 launch that launched Starliner manned to ISS. No such investigation has been instituted by the FAA as a result of Boeing’s thruster problems on Starliner.

In fact, the FAA even admits that it has no justification for this new grounding, since it admits that “No public injuries or public property damage have been reported.” Its entire statutory authority for regulation is based on protecting the public. Since the landing failure injured no one, what business is it of the FAA? None.

Finally and most important, there is no one at the FAA qualified to do any investigation. What it will do is kibbitz SpaceX while the company does the real investigation, then twiddle its thumbs for a few weeks retyping SpaceX’s conclusions, making believe it has completed its own “investigation”.

This harassment has got to stop, but we should only expect it to continue as long as the elected officials supposedly in charge of the federal government are willing or even eager to have it continue. Trump has said that he fully intends to house-clean should he win again, and all signs point to him really meaning it this time (he failed to do so in his first term). If he doesn’t win, we can only expect this harassment to escalate, to the point that it will likely shut down SpaceX and all other American rocket startups.

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.

What makes this review and press conference different from all previous Starliner reviews and conferences is that NASA administrator Bill Nelson will attend.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The only reason a politico like Nelson would participate in such proceedings is because he has taken control of the decision-making process, and will make the decision himself. The review is likely to educate him as best as can be done in this short time, and he will then decide whether the two astronauts who launched on Starliner, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will return on it in the next week or so, or will stay on board ISS until February 2025 and return on the next Dragon crew capsule scheduled to launch to ISS in late September.

Nelson might have decided to get involved on his own, but I am certain that if so it was strongly “encouraged” by officials above him in the White House. There is an election coming up, and the risks involved in using Starliner to return the astronauts must be weighed in connection not just with its engineering concerns but with its political ramifications also.

Nelson’s decision will also provide us a strong indication of a future Harris administration’s attitude toward space.

My conclusion is based on several subtle things. First, no Boeing official participated, the second time in row that they were excluded. Second, this briefing included some new individuals who rank higher in the chain of command, and whose opening statements were clearly written carefully in advance and were read aloud.

Third, and most important, the wording of those statements repeatedly indicated they are looking at Dragon return more seriously. For example, NASA’s chief astronaut Joe Acaba suggested strongly that the two astronauts were now well prepared for an eight month mission, rather than coming home in August 2024. Other statements by officials suggested they themselves are less confident about returning on Starliner. Though the data suggests they can return safely, there remains enough uncertainty to make some people uncomfortable.

One factor not stated but is certainly controlling the situation now is the upcoming election in November. The Democrats who control Washington and the White House will allow nothing to happen that could hurt their election chances. We must therefore assume people in the White House are now in control and are the ones who now intend to make the decision about Starliner’s return.

Based on these factors, we should expect NASA to announce next week that the crew will return in a Dragon capsule. In order for the return to happen on Starliner NASA and Boeing engineers must somehow convince those politicos that the return would be entirely safe. Since these politicos are always risk adverse, it would shock me if they can be convinced. It could happen, but understanding the politically framework is important.

The officials stated that they have scheduled the final review next week, and it appears the decision will be announced then.

The FAA is cancelling the in-person public meetings on the Draft EA scheduled for: Tuesday, August 13, 2024; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT City of South Padre Island Convention Center, 7355 Padre Blvd, South Padre Island, TX 78597 Thursday, August 15, 2024; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT Port Isabel Event & Cultural Center, 309 E Railroad Ave, Port Isabel, TX 78578 The FAA is also cancelling the virtual public meeting scheduled for: Tuesday, August 20, 2024; 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT The FAA will provide notice for new dates for the meetings and a new date for the close of the comment period in the future.

The FAA’s email also noted that public comments can still be submitted either electronically here or by mail sent to Ms. Amy Hanson, FAA Environmental Specialist, SpaceX EA, c/o ICF 1902 Reston Metro Plaza Reston, VA 20190. In both cases, the commenter must reference Docket No. FAA-2024-2006. The email also stated that the public comment period would be extended beyond its August 29, 2024 closure date.

This cancellation mirrors the situation in 2021-2022, when the FAA was reviewing its previous environmental reassessment of the Boca Chica site. At that time the agency repeatedly failed to meet its own deadlines, sometimes on a month-by-month basis, so that the final approval process ended up stretching out more than a half year. Similar delays further stalled the first Starship/Superhavy test flight by another full year.

I once again suspect that higher ups in the White House are applying pressure on the FAA to stall this process, for political reasons, probably because those higher ups want no action taken before the November election. I am guessing, but this is how Washington works. Real achievement by American private citizens must always take a back seat to the power lusts of the DC politicos who now rule us.

All I can now take from these events is an impression of a rotting corpse, the Democratic Party, that the voters should have buried decades ago. Instead, the voters have propped it up, allowing its stink to spread until it has poisoned everything related to American government and the noble but now dying principles that formed it.

For example, it now appears that the colossal security failure on July 13th during Trump’s Pennsylvania rally was the result of providing the Secret Service too few resources, forcing it to depend more on local authorities than normal. The Secret Service and the local police then showed themselves to all be utterly incompetent. It appears communications between these different government agencies was poor or non-existent. The local people were supposed to secure the top of the roof where the assassin eventually placed himself, but decided instead to go inside the building because the roof “was too hot.”

Unfortunately, it seems this decision wasn’t conveyed to the Secret Service properly. It therefore appears Crooks was able to station himself on the roof and fire at Trump because the Secret Service thought he was a local police sniper.

At least, that’s my interpretation of the facts, as presently understood. Based on the ugly and stonewalling testimony of now former Secret Service head Kim Cheatle yesterday before Congress (who finally resigned today), it is impossible to say for sure what happened. That she has now resigned is no victory, because she did so in a way that made it even harder to gather the facts, resigning after she spent a day refusing to answer any questions from Congress.

Meanwhile, the president vanished for almost six days, with no pictures or video of any kind, even as he announced his withdrawal as presidential candidate. It is no surprise rumors began to fly that he had suffered a much more serious medical emergency then simply getting COVID again, with some even speculating that he was actually dead, and that a palace coup had taken place. He apparently is not dead, but it is also a fact that a palace coup might have occurred anyway.

At the same time, isn’t it interesting that only two days after Joe Biden withdraws from the presidential race his Justice Department was suddenly able to find the transcripts of special counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with Biden that prove he is “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” For months Justice has stonewalled Freedom of Information requests from numerous news outlets, claiming it didn’t have those transcripts.

Now, when it no longer matters, Justice locates them. How convenient.

All in all, the whole situation stinks, reeking of lies, cover-ups, incompetence, and dishonesty, all for the sake of power and factional warfare.

For decades, beginning with Bill Clinton’s pathological lies and rising exponentially once Trump became president Americans have been lied to by Democrats and their allies in the mainstream propaganda press, with possibly the worst and most obvious lie being that Joe Biden was as “sharp as a tack,” until the debate proved he wasn’t. Then these same people turned on a dime, with no apologies, and claimed (with utterly straight faces) that he was on death’s door and needed to withdraw immediately.

It is no wonder that no one believes anything they see in the news anymore. And it is also no surprise that ordinary Americans are now quite willing to quickly believe that Washington insiders would try to kill a presidential candidate they don’t like, kill a sitting president they don’t like, and then install someone else no one else likes as a new candidate.

And do such evil acts while issuing more lies after more lies about its corrupt actions, lies that the mainstream propaganda press will reprint quite enthusiastically with no shame.

Worse however are the far too many Americans who still believe anything these liars say. As a result, their slander campaign now against Trump has created a large public who thinks it was all right to try to assassinate a presidential candidate, and wishes someone would try again.

As I said, it all stinks, and until we Americans act forcefully to clean up this carrion mess, it is going to turn the entire nation into a corpse. If it hasn’t done so already.

In my column yesterday, I described what I thought the short term cultural ramifications of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life on July 13, 2024 would be. I concluded that it is going to make it very hard for the Democrats to continue their slander campaigns against him and all Republicans.

Today I intend to write about the political ramifications.

To understand those ramifications however you have to leave the bubble of political world. Numerous readers commenting on yesterday’s column noted quite rightly that many Democrats (both in and out of the party) are not going to change, that their hate of Republicans and Trump is too ingrained, that they will simply pause expressing that hate for a few weeks and then begin anew.

Some leftists have not even waited that long, as was seen during a Jack Black concert in Australia one day after the assassination attack, when one member of the band, Kyle Gass, publicly expressed disappointment that Trump was not murdered.

In fan-captured footage, Black can be seen presenting a birthday cake to Gass on stage and asking him to “make a wish.” Gass responds, “Don’t miss Trump next time,” referencing the less-than-day-old shooting. The video also captures the audience responding with laughter.

As I predicted yesterday, however, there are now immediate consequences for such ugly comments. Gass’s agent immediately dumped him, and Black was forced to cancel the rest of the band’s tour.

Among the political class, however, the consequences of having such ugly opinions will not be felt as badly. It is true that among partisan Democrats the desire to see Trump die will still be whispered. It is true that Democrats will still likely demonize him in public, though initially more gently and later with more nuance.

The political class however, including both partisan Democrats and Republicans, covers only a tiny percentage the American public. We in the political class need to recognize that we are in our own bubble, whether we are on the left or the right. To understand the Earth-shattering shift that is now going on in America right now you have to leave that bubble and look at the kind of people who don’t spend much time following these issues, and only begin paying attention when the election gets close and things like the presidential debates occur.

One story described in the comments to my column yesterday, told by regular reader Cotour who also has his own political blog, illustrates this shift most dramatically.

I was dealing with a young, 30ish Hispanic fully American customer the other day. I do not talk politics with my customers but will touch on it if they ask my opinion. He spontaneously says to me: “You know, I was on the fence about who I was going to vote for president in November. I am no longer on the fence”.

He will be voting for Trump.

And during this unsolicited spontaneous interaction sitting at my table happens to be sitting a FEMA manager (D) knee jerk “Trump is a racist” who I have come to know who was in the process of attempting to pick my brain for my opinion on the effects on the subject of the attempted assassination of the former president. He heard the entire interaction.

He was dumbfounded!

The Hispanic customer represents that general non-political public. The FEMA manager the political class. That non-political public saw clearly only a few weeks ago how badly it had been lied to by the propaganda press and people like that FEMA manager, that Joe Biden was mentally and physically declining, and clearly was not as “sharp as a tack” as claimed by that mainstream media and leftist poltiical world.

That uninterested public is now horrified by the assassination attempt, and are watching to see what the political class — and most especially Democrats — will do. If as expected the Democrats return to demonizing Trump as an “existential threat to democracy” and a “racist” and “bigot” and a “white supremacist,” that non-political public is no longer going to accept such lies nonchalantly, as it has in the past.

They no longer can be fooled. They know they can get better information elsewhere. They also know that the slanders and lies fed them by Democrats and the propaganda press are slander and lies, no different than the lies fed them about Joe Biden’s mental health. And that realization by the public will make any demonization against Trump boomerang back against the Democrats so badly the party will not know what hit it.

This is the fundamental political consequence of the Trump assassination attempt. For the next few months the Democrats are going to fumbling about, trying to find some “narrative” they can use to win votes, and will find they have nothing that can convince anyone to back them. They are bankrupt. Their candidate is a disaster. Their policies under Biden have been an even greater disaster, fueling war internationally, an open border that no American community is capable of handling, and a moribund economy with high inflation and saddled with heavy regulation.

Calling Trump and the Republicans “Hitler” and “fascists” and “racists” and “white supremacists” and “Christian nationalists” won’t work either. The public now sees through those lies, and will instead be insulted by them.

This dynamic has quickly been reflected by political events in the past few days. Within two days of the assassination attempt the judge overseering one of the lawfare cases against Trump threw it out, accepting the legal argument that the special prosecutor had been appointed illegally by attorney general Merrick Garland, that everything he was doing was unconstitutional. Though the judge had certainly come to this decision earlier, the timing of the annoncement was significant.

J.D. Vance

Similarly, Trump’s decision to pick J.D. Vance as his vice presidential candidate, the most conservative person being considered, was influenced by this new dynamic. Trump apparently had been leaning to pick Vance, but it appears the shooting helped him come to a final decision. Better to have someone who was a reliable conservative to replace him than to pick someone more wishy-washy, merely to win over some questionable votes. Trump no longer needs another Mike Pense or George Bush Sr. (as Reagan did). The new political atmosphere makes it clear that Trump could do this with little or no political cost.

The ramifications among Democrats also became clear almost immediately. Even though today there are rumors that the effort to replace Biden are coming back to life, after the assassination attempt numerous Democrats were saying that the fight to remove him was over. It appears Democratic Party bigwigs had concluded that the chances of them winning the White House in November, with or without Biden, are now too slim, and it is better to live with Biden than subject the party to a major public battle that can only do them more harm.

I recognize that all of this is speculation and could easily be wrong. Nonetheless, the political landscape is without doubt now undergoing some dramatic and shocking changes, and this is the direction where I see it going. And it won’t take long to find out if I am right.

If I am right however it will bode well for our country, because it will at least for a few years put an end to the legacy of hate established during the Obama years, whereby leftists could spout any lie they wanted against conservatives and get away with it. They will no longer be able to do this, without cost.

The consequences of significant events can never be determined in their immediate aftermath. History takes time to play out, so to guess at this moment the real aftermath of the attempt to kill Donald Trump this weekend at a Pennsylvania rally is probably foolish and premature.

Nonetheless, I am going to try, because in the past two days I think I begin to see the clouds breaking and a trend appearing. And most amazingly, I think the trends are all positive, in a way that might save this country in ways no one expects.

I will begin today by taking a look at what appear to be the cultural impacts. Tomorrow I will look at the political consequences.

First some background. For the past seven years, since Trump was elected in 2016, the left and its propaganda press (what others label the mainstream press) have gone insane in their hatred of this man, to a point that they repeatedly claimed he was Hitler reborn and that it was perfectly justified to consider having him killed to get him out of the way.

Nor do I exaggerate. Watch:

Don’t be fooled folks.

This is what unity looks like from Democrat politicians and many of their supporter’s. pic.twitter.com/RXz7KbQbGT

— Allen Lively (@AllenLivelyLOF) July 14, 2024

Here’s 2 and a half minutes straight of Democrats explicitly calling for political violence.

Has Biden ever denounced this?

They have blood on their hands. pic.twitter.com/mbGYXTWAN7

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 14, 2024

I could post many more compiliations, all showing different examples of Democratic Party politicians and journalists slandering Donald Trump absurdly, and then raving madly for his murder (see for example here, here, and here).

Nor has Trump been the left’s only target. Since Obama it has become their go-to debate tactic to slander and libel anyone who disagrees with them, calling them “racists” and “white supremacists” and “bigots” and “hate-mongers,” when the people who have put racism and hate first the most have been they themselves.

I am not trying to claim that the left is the only one doing such things, but in watching the political scene for fifty years it is clear that the left started this demagogery, and any comparable actions from the right have been a response and an effort to defend itself. Remember too, it is the left that since 2020 has had an aggressive blacklisting and censorship campaign against anyone who disagrees with them.

This weekend’s assassination attempt was then exactly what the left has demanded for years. Now that they have seen it almost happen however they are suddenly discovering it is sometimes dangerous to get what you wish for. For most on the left, including many politicians, their desire for blood is now quenched. Not only do they no longer want to associate themselves with such viciousness, they are under great pressure to recant publicly.

For example, immediately after the assassination attempt, Forbes published an article entitled “Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump’s Next Appeal To Black Voters?”, framed as if Trump wanted to get shot if only to use it as an election ploy, and that he would use it to pander to blacks in order to get their votes.

It was the same partisan hateful trash we’ve been seeing from the leftist propaganda press for years.

Except that Forbes deleted the article within hours. Apparently some at the magazine recognized how horrible the magazine looked for publishing it at that moment, and decided they needed to delete it quickly.

Similarly, the co-founder of LinkedIn and big Democrat donor Reid Hoffman found himself walking back earlier comments he had made, expressing his desire to kill Trump. “I wish I had made him an actual martyr.” were his exact words. The day after the shooting of Trump however he attempted to reframe what he said, to make believe he didn’t really mean he wanted Trump killed, even though these were his exact words.

I replied that I wished that Trump would martyr himself — meaning let himself be held accountable,” Hoffman wrote on X in reference to Trump’s legal problems, including his criminal conviction in Manhattan for falsifying business records and other pending cases against him. “Of course I meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence, which I categorically deplore,” Hoffman added.

Is Hoffman truly regretful wishing Trump would be killed? It is hard to say. Without doubt however he now realizes how utterly inhuman and ugly he sounded, and regrets that for sure.

Hoffman was not alone in walking back such ugliness. Many across the left (but sadly not all) have recognized how insane and vicious they have sounded, and are trying to make amends, if only to salvage some of their reputations. For example, the Biden administration has halted all advertising that had tried to make Trump nothing more than “literally Hitler,” and Biden himself claimed in a speech following the assassination attempt that “we are not enemies. … We are neighbors, we are friends, coworkers, citizens, and most importantly we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.”

Sadly, Biden could only cite the hateful attacks that have come from the right, but he knew that to continue his own attacks against Trump now would reveal his own hate most starkly.

All in all, the assaassination attempt has — at least for the short run — made such talk unacceptable. It has been revealed for what it is, slanders and libels intended only to incite hate and violence.

It has also had its impact on the right. Trump for example has said he has thrown out his original Republican Convention speech, which focused on attacking Biden, replacing it with a speech calling for national unity.

In George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, there is a character called The Chaplain, who throughout her trial not only eagerly demands she be burned at the stake, he condemns her repeatedly as an agent of the devil who deserves no sympathy.

And then she is condemned and dragged out to be burned. The Chaplain goes to watch her execution, first with enthusiastic glee, and then with a horror that ends up driving him mad. He cries out:

I let them do it. If I had known, I would have torn her from their hands. You don’t know: you haven’t seen: it is so easy to talk when you don’t know. You madden yourself with words: you damn yourself because it feels grand to throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper. But when it is brought home to you; when you see the thing you have done; when it is blinding your eyes, stifling your nostrils, tearing your heart, then — then — [falling on his knees] O God, take away this sight from me! She cried to Thee in the midst of it: Jesus! Jesus! She in Thy bosum; and I am in hell for evermore. [emphasis mine]

For seven years the left has been acting like The Chaplain during Joan of Arc’s trial. His highlighted words above describe their actions since 2017 quite perfectly. They have been screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it satisfied their base emotions.

For many on the left they are now The Chaplain after Joan had been burned at the stake. They have seen with Trump’s almost assassination the very horrible consequences of screaming “Fire!” in crowded theater, and wish such madness to stop before something even worse occurs.

Will this positive reconsideration hold? We will have to wait and see, but I am actually strongly optimistic, based on how I think the politics over the next year will play out. But then, that’s tomorrow’s column.