Tag: Biden

Varda blocked from bringing its capsule back to Earth by FAA

9:49 am

Varda has been forced to delay the first return of its capsule from space, loaded with a drug designed to treat HIV/AIDS that can only be manufactured in weightlessness, because the FAA has so far refused to issue “a re-entry license,” a new regulatory power grab the FAA instituted two years ago supposedly to “streamline the launch and reentry licensing process.”

This new language, which I was unaware of and know of no Congressional act approving it, has done exactly the opposite.

A key issue, he said, is that Varda is the first to seek a reentry license under new FAA regulations known as Part 450. Those regulations were enacted by the FAA more than two years ago to streamline the launch and reentry licensing process.

…For the commercial launch industry, the Part 450 regulations have become an area of concern. Only a handful of Part 450 launch licenses have been issued to date as the FAA begins a transition to the new regulations, but those licenses have taken longer to complete than expected, in some cases missing a 180-day statutory deadline. Industry officials raised the issue at a July 13 hearing of the House Science Committee and at a July 11 meeting of an FAA advisory group, the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted language says it all. It also suggests these new regulations, apparently written by the FAA and not Congress, might be contributing to the delays being experienced by SpaceX in its attempt to do test launches of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

Varda is presently hoping to return the capsule in mid-August. It had begun this re-entry licensing process in early 2021 — more than two years ago — and still does not have that approval. Its business plan is to make money by manufacturing things in weightlessness that can’t be made on Earth — such as this HIV drug — and returning those items to Earth for sale.

Such a plan can’t work if the federal administrative state stands in the way.

6 comments

Weekend repost: The Democratic Party of thugs and goons

12:26 pm

The effort by Democrats to censor Democrat Robert Kennedy from speaking at a House hearing on July 20, 2023 focused expressly on documenting censorship and blacklisting not only illustrated the ugly totalitarian nature of the Democratic Party, it also illustrated their utter lack of self-awareness as well as their inability to think, in any way at all.

The moment he started talking, the Democrats went into censorship mode by making motions to censor Kennedy, points of order, accusations, and finally a vote to table Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s (D-Fla.) motion to cancel Kennedy’s “testimony and degradation” and put it behind closed doors so the poor American people would not be subjected to words spoken by Joe Biden’s primary opponent.

Their actions at that hearing are not exceptions to the rule, however, they are the rule. In order to make this fact clear, I think it worthwhile reposting an August 2022 essay, which documented their long term goonish storm-trooper behavior. It didn’t just start at that hearing, it has been going on for a long time.

————————-
The Democratic Party of thugs and goons

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Will the Trump raid finally wake Americans up?

While the outrage and fury has only begun to rise over the unjustified raid of the home of former President Donald Trump yesterday by the FBI, ordered by Biden Justice Department with a warrant issued by an Obama-supporting judge with ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex operation, nothing about that raid was anything new or startling. For the past seven years, since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the Democratic Party and its supporters have increasingly acted like Nazi storm-troopers, willing, able, and eager to crush their opponents at every opportunity, and to do so cruelly and with great viciousness.

I therefore ask, shouldn’t we have exhibited the same amount of rage and fury for the hundreds and hundreds of ordinary Americans these same thugs have harassed and ruined since 2016? Why did it take a raid on Trump to finally bring that rage to the forefront?

Two Americans committed suicide because of Biden administration persecution after they dared protest the questionable election of Joe Biden on January 6th. What about them?

Scores of conservative FBI agents in the past two years have been fired from their jobs, simply because they did not agree politically with the Democrats. What about them?

What about the arrest by the FBI of a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, simply because he had also protested on January 6th the questionable election of thug Joe Biden? Or the threats of violence and murder against Supreme Court justices by leftist Democratic Party allies?

What about the effort by Biden’s labor board to shut down the conservative outlet The Federalist, simply because its founder sent out an anti-union joke?

What about the former Trump lawyer whose career was destroyed, simply because he was a former lawyer of Trump?

These stories are only a small sampling of the political abuses of power exercised by Democrats and the Biden administration time after time against their political opponents in just the last eighteen months. The list is long and painful to read.
» Read more

14 comments

Pushback: Federal judge confirms and shuts down censorship campaign of Biden administration

12:50 pm

The Bill of Rights, cancelled
Cancelled by the Democratic Party led by Joe Biden

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got “em: On July 4th (an appropriate date), Terry Doughty, chief U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled that the evidence clearly showed that the Biden administration, in league with most big social media companies, had been running an aggressive censorship operation against conservatives for the past two-plus years, and issued an injunction banning “numerous top Biden administration officials and agencies from communicating and meeting with social media companies.”

You can read Doughty’s ruling here [pdf]. I strongly urge you to do so, as he is harshly blunt about the ugly actions of the Democrats running the federal government since 2021. His introduction sets the tone, beginning with this quote, “I may disapprove of what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it,” and then getting more blunt from there:

This case is about the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The explosion of social-media platforms has resulted in unique free speech issues—this is especially true in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history. In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech. [emphasis mine]

In his detailed review of the history, he begins by listing the number of examples of this attack against free speech by the Biden administration:
» Read more

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SpaceX completes six-engine static fire test of Starship prototype #25

9:43 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully completed a six-engine static fire test of Starship prototype #25, the prototype that will be stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #9 and flown on the next orbital test flight.

Musk said in an interview on Saturday that more than a thousand upgrades were planned before the next flight of the Starship/Super Heavy. Including a significant change to the stage separation system that will see the Starship ignite its engines while still attached to the Super Heavy. Improvements are also being made to the Raptor engines to prevent leaks of super-heated gas which resulted in multiple engine failures during the April launch.

Major repair work and modifications are also underway to the Starship launch pad, after extensive damage occurred during the April 20 test flight.

Musk has also said the company will be ready to launch by August. While it is certainly possible that engineering will cause a slight delay to that schedule, more likely SpaceX will be ready, and then have to sit and wait for the FAA and the Biden administration to issue a launch permit. I am predicting it will not be issued by then, and likely not for months afterward.

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Biden administration announces India will sign Artemis Accords

1:08 pm

Modi meeting Biden upon arrival at White House June 21, 2023
Modi meeting Biden upon arrival at White House
on June 21, 2023

As part of the visit of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to the U.S., the Biden administration today announced that India has agreed to sign Artemis Accords, becoming the 27th nation to join the American space alliance.

It appears India made this decision after the Biden administration agreed to foster a whole range of cooperative technology exchanges.

Cooperation in advanced computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum information science is also being fostered through the establishment of a joint Indo-US quantum coordination mechanism and the signing of an implementation arrangement on artificial intelligence, advanced wireless, and quantum technologies.

Both countries are working together on 5G and 6G technologies, including Open Radio Access Network (RAN) systems, with plans for field trials, rollouts, and scale deployments in both markets. “Here we’ll be announcing partnerships on open ran, field trials and rollouts, including scale deployments in both countries with operators and vendors of both markets. This will involve backing from the US International Development Finance, for cooperation and to promote the deployments in India,” the official said.

The US will support the removal of telecommunications equipment made by untrusted vendors through the US rip and replace program and welcomes Indian participation in this initiative.

The full list of signatories to the Artemis Accords is now as follows: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

One would hope that this decision would help separate India from China and Russia, but this is unclear.

There are other questions. » Read more

3 comments

Pushback: Judge blocks race-based program of Biden administration

11:45 am

Modern segregation
Modern Democratic Party segregation

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” On June 5, 2023 federal Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas ruled [pdf] that a race-based development agency, dubbed the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and created under Biden administration, was patently illegal under both the U.S. Constitution and numerous civil rights laws, and must cease awarding grants based on race.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit [pdf] filed for three individuals by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), one of whom, Christian Bruckner, was specifically told by the local office of MBDA “…that it could not help him because of his race.” The lawsuit notes that:
» Read more

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SpaceX confirms Starship prototype to fly on next Superheavy test flight

9:19 am

SpaceX has confirmed that it will use Starship prototype #25 to fly on top of Superheavy prototype #9 on the next orbital test flight.

Starship #25 does not include a lot of the upgrades that have been installed on later Starship prototypes, but by using it SpaceX tells us its focus on that next orbital test flight will be to test Superheavy. Using this less capable Starship gets it used and out of the way so that the kinks in Superheavy can more quickly be worked out.

It also means SpaceX’s prime focus on that second flight will not be reaching orbit, though the company will try nonetheless.

The article at the link also notes that this next orbital test cannot take place any sooner than August, based simply on engineering requirements.

Ship 25 is now at the launch site and awaiting a six-engine static fire test, with Elon Musk noting the pad modifications should be complete in a month, ahead of another month of testing before the next test flight.

This gives the FAA two full months to approve the launch license. I predict however that come August, that launch license will still not be approved, and we will still have no clear idea of when that approval will come. Nor should we be surprised if approval does not come before the end of this year.

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Three government agencies now investigating the safety of methane-fueled rockets

9:42 am

We’re here to help you! It appears that three different federal agencies have been tasked to investigate the safety of methane-fueled rockets, which SpaceX, Relativity, Blue Origin, and others are beginning to use for their rockets. It burns cleaner and with more power than kerosene and is easier to handle than hydrogen.

Yet, the federal government under Biden now seems worried a new innovation in rocketry is being developed. First, the FAA is studying the explosive potential of such rockets, according to Brian Rushforth, the manager of the innovation division.

The FAA has set up a test stand at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. A crane 43 meters tall will be used to drop stainless steel containers containing mixtures of LOX and methane. A series of tests is planned to start in June on three-week intervals to measure the explosive power of that propellant combination. A second phase, tentatively scheduled for next year, will conduct similar tests with varying velocities. He said the data from those tests will be shared with other government agencies, such as NASA and the U.S. Space Force, along with launch vehicle developers.

Meanwhile, NASA and the Space Force are jointly doing a separate study on how methane-fueled rockets threaten the launch range and other nearby launchpads.

In all three cases it can be argued that these studies make sense. It also can be argued that the Biden administration is putting pressure on these agencies to find ways to squelch this new technology, especially because it is central to the development of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship rocket, and there is real hostility in Democrat/leftist circles to Elon Musk. This latter argument is further strengthened when you consider the explosive possibilities of hydrogen fuel, used by the space shuttle for decades as well as NASA’s SLS rocket. I can’t imagine its danger is less than methane. If hydrogen has been determined to be okay why should methane now be considered a threat?

Either way, we can be sure of one thing: These studies will slow down development by SpaceX and others of these new methane-fueled rockets. They will also provide ammunition for outside environmental groups who want to file further lawsuits against these companies to stop their rockets from launching.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration threatens to shut down Catholic hospital system because of a candle

12:36 pm

The evil candle that must be snuffed out!
The evil candle that the Biden administration insists must be snuffed out,
or else the hospital must close.

They’re coming for you next: Because the Saint Francis Health System in Oklahoma has always kept a single candle lit in its hospital chapels, Biden administration officials are now threatening to shut down five Catholic hospitals in Oklahoma, citing federal government fire safety requirements.

If Saint Francis does not comply, the government will revoke its ability to obtain any Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) payments for treating patients, in essence blocking those patients from healthcare while threatening the entire Saint Francis Health System with bankruptcy.

In response, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (as legal representative of St. Francis) sent a letter [pdf] in protest, noting that the Biden administration’s goal has nothing to do with fire safety, but to censor and squelch the religious practice of the St. Francis Health System:
» Read more

24 comments

Environmentalists sue FAA, demanding it shut down Boca Chica and Starship

12:10 pm

Starship/Superheavy at T+4:02, just after the self-destruct command was issued
Starship/Superheavy at T+4:02, just after the self-destruct command
was issued on April 20, 2023. It also appears to be the fate of SpaceX’s
entire Boca Chica operation, if the environmental radicals get their way.

A group of environmental groups as well as a non-profit corporation calling itself the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc, today filed a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration FAA), demanding it shut down SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility and block all further Superheavy/Starship launches.

You can read the lawsuit here [pdf]. Its essence is contained in these two paragraphs:

The area surrounding the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica is a biologically diverse and essential habitat area for many species, including federally protected wildlife and animals that are considered sacred to the Carrizo/Comecrudo People, such as the critically endangered ocelot. The SpaceX facility is smack in the middle of publicly owned conservation, park, and recreation lands, including a National Wildlife Refuge, two State Parks, a State Wildlife Management Area, and a State Coastal Preserve. These lands are of extraordinary conservation value for a range of federally and state lists wildlife and other protected species such as migratory birds. Bird species from both the Central and Mississippi flyways converge there, making it an essential wintering and stopover area for migratory birds as they move north and south each year.

SpaceX activities authorized in the FONSI/ROD [the environmental reassessment issued last year] have and will adversely affect the surrounding wildlife habitat and communities. In addition to harm from construction activities and increased vehicle traffic, rocket launches result in intense heat, noise, and light pollution. Furthermore, the rocket launches and testing result in explosions which spread debris across surrounding habitat and cause brush/forest fires — including one that recently burned 68 acres of adjacent National Wildlife Refuge. The FAA calls these explosions “anomalies,” but in fact they occur frequently, with at least 8 over the past 5 years. FAA acknowledged that many more such “anomalies” are expected over the next 5 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has found that prior SpaceX rocket explosions harmed protected wildlife and designated habitat in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In other words, rockets and launch sites should never be placed inside wildlife refuges, because such activity is detrimental to wildlife.

A more false statement cannot be made. Under this conclusion the launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, which have been operating in the middle of a wildlife refuge now for more than six decades, should be shut down immediately. All the wildlife there must certainly be dead!
» Read more

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With the federal bureaucracy gleefully sharpening its knives to shut down Boca Chica, SpaceX should quickly shift Starship/Superheavy operations to Florida

1:12 pm

Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q
Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q

The results of the spectacular test launch last week of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship heavy lift rocket was predictable in almost all ways.

First, everyone knew that it was highly unlikely that the launch would do everything intended. This was the first time ever that SpaceX had fired all 33 Raptor-2 engines at the base of Superheavy, at full power. It was the first time ever that this firing took place with Starship stacked on top. It was the first time ever that the entire stack was fueled. It was the first time ever that this rocket — the world’s most powerful (twice as powerful as the Saturn-5 and about three times more powerful than SLS) — had every launched.

The number of unknowns were gigantic, which was exactly why SpaceX needed to do the launch. The company’s engineers needed to find out what they didn’t know about Superheavy in order to refine their engineering so that Superheavy will be more likely for success in its next launch. They also needed to find out what such a launch would do to their preliminary launchpad, in order to refine its engineering as well so that future launches could take place with little or no damage.

Thus, it is not surprising that there were surprises. The most significant was the actual amount of success. Superheavy functioned far better than anyone could have dreamed, retaining flight control through max-q and then flying for almost three minutes before Starship failed to separate and the entire stack lost control and had to be destroyed. Most of its engines worked, though discovering the reasons for the handful that failed will be a prime question in the subsequent investigation.

The second unsurprising thing about this launch is the reaction of the federal bureaucracy, run by Democrats and the Biden administration. It has quickly moved in to squelch any further launches at Boca Chica, likely for a considerable time. The FAA immediately initiated its own investigation while grounding all further launches from Boca Chica. The Fish & Wildlife Service has now begun detailing, almost gleefully, the amount of ground damage the launch caused, including ripping out the concrete base below the rocket and flinging chunks of debris hundreds of feet away as well as depositing a cloud of sand dust on everything up to 6.5 miles from the launchpad.

This quote however is significant, and tells us the real truth:
» Read more

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Starship launch still stalled by FAA

3:47 pm

According to a tweet by Elon Musk today, Starship will be ready for its first orbital test launch in a few weeks.

Musk also noted however that SpaceX is still awaiting the FAA’s launch license, and because of this he now expects the launch in the third week in April.

Why it is taking months for the FAA to issue this license is disturbing, and suggests that under the Biden administration the feds are behaving more and more like the incompetent Civil Aviation Authority in the UK, which stonewalled Virgin Orbit’s launch for months so that the company now sits on the verge of bankruptcy.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay for this story, who will be gone for the next two weeks on vacation. Have fun Jay.

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Pushback: Smithsonian ordered to no longer violate the First Amendment

3:36 pm

The evil hat that Air & Space banned
The evil hat that Air & Space officials banned

Pushback: The Smithsonian Institution, which runs the Air & Space museum as well as other museums in Washington, D.C., has been ordered by the courts to stop violating the First Amendment, as it did when on January 20, 2023 it harassed and ejected students from a pro-life group, there as part of their participation in the annual March for Life demonstration, because they were wearing wool caps that said “pro-life” on them.

According to the consent order [pdf], the Smithsonian expressed “regret” for the event and promised to “remind all security officers stationed at NASM [National Air & Space Museum] of the rights of visitors.”

The order however does not simply accept the museum’s expression of regret. It specifically enjoins the Smithsonian and its employees “from prohibiting visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum from wearing hats or other clothing with messages, including religious and political speech” and requires it to distribute the consent order to “all security officers stationed at NASM, as well as other Smithsonian personnel who interact with the public, including volunteers and museum staff, within 7 days.” It also orders the museum to tell its security officers that their behavior on January 20th was wrong.
» Read more

8 comments

Space startups get their SVB assets back when Feds move in

9:34 am

Because of the decision of the federal government to guarantee all deposits at the failed Silcon Valley Bank (SVB), even those above the $250K limit set by the FDIC law, several space rocket startups are no longer threatened with failure, for now.

Astra for example is now seeking to move as quickly as it can its assets, equaling about 15% of the company, to other financial institutions.

I would expect this incident will cause every company to make sure their assets are distributed more widely, as a hedge against the failure of one bank.

19 comments

AGs from 22 states blast Biden’s attempt to illegally insert racial quotas and climate change into federal contracting law

1:56 pm

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Joe Biden imposes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s
Green New Deal on all federal contractors

In May 2021 President Biden signed an executive order [pdf] requiring federal agencies to make climate change and helping “disadvantaged communities and communities of color” a major priority in all their work.

That executive order, which in many ways was simply a rewording of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s communist and bigoted Green New Deal, required agencies to do things like reconsider where their pension funds were invested and to change those investments — not to get the best return on the dollar as required by law — but to protect them from “the threats of climate-related financial risk.”

The executive order also demanded that the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) require federal contractors to:

…publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk and to set science-based reduction targets; and (ii) ensure that major Federal agency procurements minimize the risk of climate change, including requiring the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions to be considered in procurement decisions and, where appropriate and feasible, give preference to bids and proposals from suppliers with a lower social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis mine]

» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Pro-lifers banned from the Washington Monument because it is a “First Amendment-free zone”

12:41 pm

banned by the Biden administration
Banned apparently by the Biden administration

They’re coming for you next: As part of the annual pro-life March for Life demonstration in DC on January 20, 2023, volunteers running a food table were forced to move away from the Washington Monument because, as one park ranger told them, they were in a “First Amendment-free zone.”

The women were setting up a table to provide some fellow pro-life supporters with bagels and coffee when a park ranger told them they were in a “First Amendment-free zone” and had to move out of the granite plaza surrounding the famous obelisk. They relocated on the grass, inches next to the plaza, with the approval of the park ranger. Later, a police officer approached the ladies and told them they were allegedly “getting complaints” about their table being on the path. Police told them they had to leave, and the women complied.

These women had set up the same table at the same spot the year before, with no problems.

Though the granite plaza itself is considered a “restricted zone” where “Activities may only occur within these areas on specified dates to maintain the contemplative and respectful environment of the memorial,” these women were only running a craft service table, an activity that the park service only the year before did not consider a violation of this rule.

Furthermore, we know this was not the reason the ranger and police officer moved to remove them. By his own words, the ranger called this area a “First Amendment-free zone,” thus telling them that they were not allowed to express their opinions there and had to leave, even though the park website itself specifically contradicts this ranger, proudly stating that.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American found innocent of federal trumped up charges

11:27 am

The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest
The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest.

Back in September 2022 I wrote an essay entitled “The rising federal Gestapo” in which I described the numerous recent stories of the Biden administration using the FBI and the Department of Justice as weapons to harass its political opponents, either by conducting armed raids on their homes and persons, or by trumping up false charges against them.

Mark Houck, the father in the picture the right, was one of those under attack. Not only was his home raided by an FBI SWAT team, terrifying his children, but Houck was arrested on a trumped up charge of physically attacking a worker at an abortion clinic, a charge that had other courts had already dismissed as spurious.

The good news yesterday is that Houck has been found innocent of that trumped up charge.

At first it appeared the jury was deadlocked, but that changed instantly when one juror was replaced with an alternate. Within an hour the not-guilty verdict was in, strongly suggesting that juror had had a political ax to grind and was refusing to follow the facts of the case or the judge’s instructions.

As I wrote in that September essay,

In the past two years the effort by Democrats to portray Republicans criminals and traitors, merely because they disagree with Democratic Party policy, has become normalized. To Democrats today, if you are a Republican you are a fascist, an insurrectionist, a traitor, a criminal, and evil. Your rights are voided and they have the right to arrest you, at any time.

The Biden administration tried to void Mark Houck’s rights. It failed in court. Was this vicious effort however a failure? I say no, because 1) the Biden administration remains free to continue this abuse of power and 2) conservatives have now been put on notice that, at any moment, their lives could be torn apart by these thugs.

In fact, this short post is only posted to give an update on a previous column. It is not today’s daily blacklist column, which will follow shortly and will give perfect example of how the abusive power-hungry in our culture now routinely abuse their power against any who oppose them.

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Rwanda and Nigeria to sign Artemis Accords

9:13 am

Rwanda and Nigeria have become the first two African nations to sign te Artemis Accords, bringing the number of signatories to this American-led alliance to 23.

Neither Nigerian nor Rwandan officials described in detail any plans to participate in Artemis at the signing ceremony, but at the Secure World Foundation event, a State Department official said that is not a condition for signing the Accords.

“We continue to encourage all responsible spacefaring nations to sign the Accords, and we also encourage countries that are just developing their space sector to also consider signing,” said Kristina Leszczak of the State Department’s Office of Space Affairs. “We stress that interested countries do not need to come to the table with existing space capabilities or even near-term plans to contribute to Artemis. We find this opens the conversation up to a much more diverse group.”

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The accords, bi-lateral agreements between each nation and the U.S., were designed during the Trump administration to emphasize the rights of private investors in space and thus do an end-around of the Outer Space Treaty. Under the Biden administration it is no longer clear if that remains the goal. The existence of a signed alliance led by the U.S. and the capitalistic west however gives the U.S. the political force to protect those rights, assuming the American government is interested in the future in doing so.

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Government lies versus COVID truths

3:05 pm

Dr. Ashish Jha, government liar
Dr. Ashish Jha, government liar.

On November 23, 2022, the very same day White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha stated unequivocally that “If folks get their updated vaccines and they get treated … we can prevent essentially every COVID death in America,” the Washington Post reported a CDC-financed study showing that by August 2022 more people were dying from COVID who had gotten the jab than those who had not.

For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine.

Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, according to an analysis conducted for The Health 202 by Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

It’s a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising. In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent, per our colleagues Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating.

“We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cox told The Health 202.

In other words, Jha was lying, and he was doing so in plain defiance of the data that has been accumulating exponentially in the past year. » Read more

14 comments

Several major rocket companies to the FCC: stay out!

8:58 am

In response to the proposal by managers at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it regulate satellite operations despite having no actual legal authority to do so, a cohort of major rocket companies as well as others have responded in firm opposition.

Major space companies, including SpaceX and Relativity, are urging the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to stick to its purview — spectrum usage — as it looks to potentially update its rules for in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) missions.

There is plenty that the FCC could — and should do — to support ISAM missions that sit squarely within its regulatory bounds, the companies said. SpaceX and others, as well as startups like Orbit Fab, which wants to build refueling depots in space, and Starfish Space, which is developing a satellite servicing vehicle, submitted recommendations related to spectrum and ISAM. The commission also heard from Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance and other space companies and industry groups.

…Relativity Space and the industry association Commercial Spaceflight Federation separately argued that the FCC’s involvement in issues outside of those related to spectrum could result in duplicative approvals processes. These could be especially challenging for smaller startups and newer space entrants to navigate.

It is likely that if the FCC tries to impose regulations outside of its legal authority, one or more of these companies are going to sue to nullify those regulations, and will likely win. In the process nothing will be gained, and much lost. Thus, this advice from the industry makes great sense, and the FCC and the Biden administration should stop playing empire-building games and focus on what it is legally supposed to do.

3 comments

Ukraine officials in direct negotiations with Musk about Starlink

10:22 am

According to the Ukraine’s defense minister, they are now conducting direct negotiations with Elon Musk concerning the cost of using SpaceX’s Starlink constellation as part of its war against Russia.

In an interview, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said “I know that we will not have a problem” keeping the service active, citing the “personal communication” between Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Musk.

Fedorov “is responsible for the digitalization and he has a direct connection with Elon Musk. They have a personal communication, and Mykhailo was really positive” about the situation in their last discussion of the issue, Reznikov said.

I suspect that at some point, the Ukraine will start paying SpaceX some money out of the $20 million per month Musk says it costs. And it will likely draw the cash for those payments from the approximately $50 billion the U.S. has sent it in aid.

5 comments

Government to Musk: “Nice business you got here, shame if something happened to it.”

11:46 am

The government to Elon Musk: Nice business you got here.
The press and the feds negotiate with Elon Musk

Over the past week a series of events relating to the Ukraine War, Elon Musk, and Starlink illustrated starkly the growing corrupt, aggressive, and unrestrained power of our federal government and the administration state and press that supports it.

Our story begins in early October when Elon Musk put forth his own proposed solution to the Ukraine War, suggesting that to end the war the Ukraine should cede the Crimea to Russia and forgo its attempts to join NATO, making itself a neutral power instead.

Not surprisingly, Ukrainian officials responded to this somewhat naive though sincere proposal with great hostility. So did the press, the Biden administration, and many in social media.

Then, on October 14, 2022 Elon Musk said that his company Starlink cannot continue indefinitely providing service to the Ukraine, without some reimbursement. At the beginning of the war Musk had made Starlink available for no charge, and it has been an important factor to the Ukrainians in their recent military successes.
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Part 3: Against the COVID liars and their strong-arm edicts the wheels of justice are grinding forward slowly

1:43 pm

Renewing the Declaration of Independence
Renewing the Declaration of Independence

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, on to the fight against the illegal and immoral COVID mandates.
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The rising federal Gestapo

1:18 pm

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

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

Worse, it is happening here, right now, at this very moment. The Houck family to the right has been in the news the past few days because on September 23, 2022 they found their home surrounded by an FBI SWAT team with guns drawn, pounding at the front door to arrest the father, Mark Houck, for a minor pushing incident that had occurred months earlier that was so minor the court had dismissed the lawsuit against Houck almost immediately. Notwithstanding its utter triviality, the Biden administration, its Justice Department, and the FBI decided it gave them a great chance to intimidate and frighten someone who happened to also be a conservative and religious activist.
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First meeting of all 21 nations who have signed Artemis Accords

10:13 am

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

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

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

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

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

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Biden administration to formulate new regulations governing in-space commercial activities

11:09 am

We’re here to help you: The Biden administration has now officially announced its plans to formulate new regulations governing in-space commercial activities, such as satellite repair, orbital refueling stations, and removal of space junk, as part of a space strategy workshop statement released last week by the FCC.

The new White House initiative is a follow-on effort [to one started during the Trump administration], aimed at fleshing out the domestic rules, and possibly future regulations, for “non-traditional” space activities that today either fall between jurisdictional cracks or simply are not covered by current law, according to a US government source involved.

Another thrust of the Biden administration effort is to get in front of the governance issues in order to shape future global norms and rules, including for military activities — ahead of China, which also is seeking to be a leader in how humankind expands its reach to the stars.

Kamala Harris announced this new regulatory effort, outlined in this strategy document [pdf], and added that it will be led by the National Space Council, despite the fact that the FCC scooped her by a full week in announcing it. This quote below from her speech announcing this initiative also illustrated her empty-headed, cliche-ridden mentality:

“We will do this work to make sure our nation remains a role model for the responsible use of space,” Harris said in a speech during a visit to the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif. noting that the US “must write new rules to provide the clarity” needed by government and industry for 21st century space operations.

“We must think about where we now stand and where we must go,” she said. “The opportunity of space must guide our work in the 21st century. to do so, must deepen our partnerships with the private sector.”

Despite the vapid content of Harris’s speech, make no mistake she and the federal bureaucracy that is dominated and controlled by the Democratic Party knows exactly where it wants things to go: It wants power and control, and is very unhappy that in the past five years private enterprise has wrested that power and control from it in space. These new regulations will be shaped entirely with the goal of squelching the freedom of private companies so that the government runs things again.

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Pushback: Blacklisted doctors join lawsuit against Biden administration COVID censorship

2:16 pm

Correct from the start despite government censorship
Correct from the start despite government censorship

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Three well-known research doctors have now added their names to a lawsuit filed by two states that accuses the Biden administration of coordinating with major social media companies like Google and Twitter to censor all posts critical of administration COVID policies.

Drs. Jayanta (Jay) Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff and Aaron Kheriaty joined the lawsuit filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) worked with Big Tech companies to censor Americans discussing the pandemic. The doctors alleged they were censored on social media platforms for expressing views in opposition to the positions of the federal government, their representation, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), said in a Tuesday press release.

Kheriaty was blackballed by his hospital and banned from seeing patients back in October ’21 because after looking the data he had decided to recommend his patients not get the jab.

Kulldorff, one of the world’s foremost experts on vaccines, was blacklisted from Twitter, Linkedin and the CDC in August ’21, also because he challenged the government mandates that required people to get the COVID shots.

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya were co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which condemned the lockdowns and mandates and instead called for a more traditional focused policy for dealing with the Wuhan flu:
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FCC cancels $900 million award to Starlink

3:07 pm

The FCC today canceled a $900 million subsidy it had awarded to SpaceX in December 2020 as part of a federal program to help establish broadband service in rural communities.

The reasoning for canceling the award given at the link is very unclear. However, since the award a lobbying effort by Starlink’s competitors — teamed up with Democrats in Congress — to cancel the award has been on going. It now seems to have succeeded.

Another clue to explaining this cancellation is timing. The award was announced at the end of the Trump administration, when his appointees controlled the FCC. The cancellation took place during the Biden administration, with the FCC now controlled by Democrats who are increasing revealing themselves to be very hostile to private commercial space in general and Musk and SpaceX in particular.

Nonetheless, it seems absurd to give SpaceX any such subsidy, regardless of the politics. As I said in February 2021:

No one, including SpaceX, should get these funds. SpaceX is proving they aren’t necessary to get the job done (bringing fast internet service to rural communities). Moreover, the federal government really doesn’t have the cash, deep in debt as it is.

Sadly, just because the FCC cancelled its award to SpaceX we should not expect as modern taxpayers that the money won’t be spent. Expect the Biden administration to instead dole it out to its preferred vendors.

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The Democratic Party of thugs and goons

11:34 am

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Will the Trump raid finally wake Americans up?

While the outrage and fury has only begun to rise over the unjustified raid of the home of former President Donald Trump yesterday by the FBI, ordered by Biden Justice Department with a warrant issued by an Obama-supporting judge with ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex operation, nothing about that raid was anything new or startling. For the past seven years, since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the Democratic Party and its supporters have increasingly acted like Nazi storm-troopers, willing, able, and eager to crush their opponents at every opportunity, and to do so cruelly and with great viciousness.

I therefore ask, shouldn’t we have exhibited the same amount of rage and fury for the hundreds and hundreds of ordinary Americans these same thugs have harassed and ruined since 2016? Why did it take a raid on Trump to finally bring that rage to the forefront?

Two Americans committed suicide because of Biden administration persecution after they dared protest the questionable election of Joe Biden on January 6th. What about them?

Scores of conservative FBI agents in the past two years have been fired from their jobs, simply because they did not agree politically with the Democrats. What about them?

What about the arrest by the FBI of a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, simply because he had also protested on January 6th the questionable election of thug Joe Biden? Or the threats of violence and murder against Supreme Court justices by leftist Democratic Party allies?

What about the effort by Biden’s labor board to shut down the conservative outlet The Federalist, simply because its founder sent out an anti-union joke?

What about the former Trump lawyer whose career was destroyed, simply because he was a former lawyer of Trump?

These stories are only a small sampling of the political abuses of power exercised by Democrats and the Biden administration time after time against their political opponents in just the last eighteen months. The list is long and painful to read.
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Today’s blacklisted American: Doctor jailed for entering Capitol on Jan 6 and expressing opinions

12:35 pm

Simone Gold, in prison for having wrong opinions

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: Simone Gold, one of the thousands of doctors who strongly objected to the federal government’s COVID policies during the Wuhan panic, has begun a six month jail sentence for “trespassing” during the January 6th 2021 protests at the Capitol.

While US officials tried to smear and marginalize Gold and her group, her actual jail sentence was linked to her participation in the January 6, 2021 Trump rally in the US Capitol. According to Gold, she proceeded to the Capitol building on that date, where police let her into the building with a group that did not use force; and she spoke to the crowd inside about medical freedom.

As a result, she was charged with trespassing, and sentenced to jail time. [emphasis mine]

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