Tag: government

CDC expands investigation into military handling of dangerous disease samples

10:46 am

Does this make you feel safer? The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has now expanded its investigation of the Defense Department’s handling of dangerous infectious disease samples.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding its investigation into possible mishandling and improper shipment by Defense Department laboratories of organisms that cause deadly diseases, including plague and encephalitis, U.S. officials said Thursday. Concerns about the handling of those samples led the Army to announce a moratorium on production, shipping and handling of toxins at nine labs last week. But officials did not acknowledge until Thursday that plague and encephalitis samples were involved.

When asked why the Pentagon didn’t disclose the new concerns about plague and encephalitis last week, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that officials were trying to be as forthcoming as possible “without alarming the public.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, the Defense Department withheld critical information because it made them look bad and illustrated how dangerous their mishandling of dangeous diseases has been.

Other than that, all is well!

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Mitch McConnell makes a fool of himself

9:57 am

The leader of Republican failure, Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), today had the nerve to say that Congress’s inability to block Obama’s Iran deal was still a victory because they “won the argument with the American people.”

He really does think Americans are stupid. Under the leadership of McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Congress two months ago wrote and passed the Corker-Cardin bill to allow the Iran deal to be passed with only a one-third minority approval from both houses of Congress, instead of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority in the Senate. In other words, this corrupt Republican leadership stacked the deck in favor of Obama and the deal in order to make it easy to pass.

He now has the chutzpah to call this a victory because the debate about the bill caused the American people to oppose it!? The American people always opposed this deal, or any deal that would funnel billions of dollars to this terrorist regime and allow them to build nuclear weapons. What he and Boehner needed to do was to oppose this deal unequivocally, using the power the constitution gave them to block it. Instead, they manipulated the vote to get it passed, and then make believe they opposed it all along.

And McConnell said this on September 11th of all days!

These guys have got to go. They do not represent the Republican Party, or the conservative movement. Instead, they are quislings and fifth columnists, working to sabotage the will of the American public, which voted overwhelmingly for Republicans and a conservative agenda in the last election.

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Southern ocean absorbs more CO2 than expected

9:38 am

The uncertainty of science: Scientists have found that the ability of the southern ocean surrounding Antarctica to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide varies much more drastically than they had predicted.

In 2011, the ocean took in 4.4 gigatonnes of CO2, according to the study — more than 10% of the CO2 emitted by human activity at the time. That was roughly double what it absorbed a decade earlier. The increase marks a sharp turnaround from simulations published a few years ago, which suggested that the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 had dropped in the 1980s and 1990s, and predicted that this trend would continue.

“It doesn’t mean that our [climate-change] projections for the future are going to change dramatically,” says Nicolas Gruber, an environmental physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who co-authored the latest paper. Rather, he says, the study shows that the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon changes more drastically than researchers had anticipated. [emphasis mine]

Typical of much of the climate research community, the scientist above insists that just because their models were wrong is no reason to change them, or the reasoning behind them. We are going to charge ahead, regardless of the facts!

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Europe’s Galileo GPS constellation reaches 10 satellites

8:58 am

The competition heats up: A Soyus rocket today launched from French Guiana the 9th and 10th satellites in Europe’s competing GPS system.

This launch enhances competition in two ways. First it is a success of the Russian Soyuz rocket, launched from the European spaceport in South America, Second, it establishes a competing GPS system to the American system, which is great for everyone. Expect future GPS units to provide the capability to use both the systems, as well as the Russian Glonass system.

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Police arrest 8 protesters camping illegally on Mauna Kea

8:54 am

Last night police arrested 8 protesters who were camping illegally on Mauna Kea in opposition to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

I have posted below the fold a video of the arrests. To me, the significant take-away from this video is the scale and permanence of the tent structures that these people have built opposite the Mauna Kea visitors center. The emergency order forbidding camping had gone into effect on July 14. Yet, the impressive buildings they have made of wood and poles have clearly been allowed to stand. This suggests that the state is really not serious about enforcing the law and stopping the protesters from camping on the mountain.

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Republican revolt over Iran deal vote

9:46 am

The House Republican leadership is facing a revolt from its membership of their plan to vote on the Iran deal.

Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders got an earful Wednesday morning from lawmakers who say President Barack Obama has not disclosed so-called “side deals” between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, and therefore is crosswise with the law that gives Congress review power over the accord.

GOP leaders are likely to change their approach Wednesday, and are now considering a vote on Rep. Peter Roskam’s (R-Ill.) resolution that would delay a disapproval vote because they believe Obama has not disclosed some elements of the deal.

The article correctly notes that, because of the Corker-Cardin bill pushed through several months ago by this same Republican leadership, it is almost impossible to block the Iran deal and that this revolt will likely change nothing. However, it also notes that Roskam was once part of that same Republican leadership and was pushed out last year. His actions here suggest to me that he might be maneuvering to position himself as a likely Boehner replacement.

More details here. The story above is from a Democratic-leaning news source. This second link is from a conservative site. This story also notes that the Republican leadership is actually so stupid they are planning the vote on the Iran deal on take place on September 11. I wonder what happened that day 14 years ago?

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School lunch program collapsing under Obama

7:32 am

Doing the job the Republicans in Congress are too cowardly to do: The more costly and less appealing foods imposed by the Obama administration on the school lunch program in order to promote better eating have been rejected by so many students that the entire program faces bankruptcy

President and first lady Michelle Obama’s bid to cut kid obesity through new demands for more costly but healthier food is financially crushing the nation’s school cafeterias, forcing staff cuts, boosting waste and killing plans to buy new equipment, according to an industry association.

A new survey from the School Nutrition Association reported that 70 percent of the nation’s lunch programs have been financially “harmed” by the new low-salt, low-sugar menus and that a stunning 93 percent report fewer students buying the chow. “Meeting these mandates has harmed the financial health of nearly 70 percent of school meal programs surveyed, with fewer than 3 percent reporting a financial benefit,” said the survey. Some 49 percent of the responding schools said they were forced to cut cafeteria staff as a result.

Not surprisingly, the school cafeteria industry is calling for greater funding to solve the problem. I’d rather see the entire program revamped and trimmed significantly. There is no reason for the government to provide lunches for most of the nation’s children. The program was originally created to feed only the poorest. As with most government programs, it has since grown way beyond that original goal, to a point that is absurd and wasteful.

Posted in the Tucson airport.

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VA fiddled while sick veterans died

10:56 am

Obamacare will soon make this kind of medical care standard for everyone! A new audit of the Veterans Administration estimates that 307K patients died while waiting for requested treatment.

Read the entire article. The malfeasance and corruption at the VA is far worse than this, and goes back decades to the agency’s very beginnings. Also, giving the VA more money won’t fix it.

[T]he VA has seen its budget grow from $87.6B in 2009 to $152.7B in 2014. The 2016 budget request is $165.5B. This includes $70.2B in discretionary spending, with $63B going to medical care. So the department is asking for plenty of money to “help” veterans, but isn’t spending the money wisely.

Most of the issues mentioned in this audit were first identified in report issued in 2010. So why didn’t the VA act then to attack these problems?

Things move slowly in government, but if the work process system was this bad, why wasn’t it fixed? A part of it might be the VA wasn’t interested in fixing the system because it didn’t want to lose any money. This is a horrible theory, but it isn’t like the VA hasn’t had issues for years.

The time has come to shut these failed government agencies down.

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Iran deal gets enough Democratic votes to pass

10:22 am

Democrats now have enough votes to sustain a veto and thus allow President Obama’s Iran deal to go into effect.

Ed Morrissey says it best:

What’d the GOP get out of all this? What did their huge advantage in the House and their eight-seat majority in the Senate ultimately amount to in terms of concessions? It’s one thing to lose a momentous fight on foreign policy, ceding all of your constitutional leverage in the process, but if you can get some goodies for your side at least you can say it’s not a total loss. Unless I missed something, we got … nothing. Not a thing — not even, in all likelihood, the right to crow and say that our resolution of disapproval passed the Senate with plenty of Democratic support. This fiasco will end with an essentially party-line vote on cloture, leaving Obama free to argue to the world that the deal has the acquiescence of the U.S. Congress. The only thing we get from this is the right to point out later, when this agreement eventually ends with Iran going nuclear and the Middle East being further destabilized, that this disaster is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Democratic Party. That’s a nice consolation prize, but we’ve known since the beginning that we’d be getting that. What we’ve added to our “winnings” since this congressional kabuki began is precisely nothing.

The reason the Republicans failed here is that the leadership, led by Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), wrote and passed a bill that allowed this treaty to pass without even a majority of Congress. In other words, before they even saw the treaty they agreed to it. And once they saw the treaty they made loud noises, including Corker, about how bad it was, but they themselves had already made it impossible for them to block it.

It is time for these Republican leaders to be fired. It isn’t just Democrats who have betrayed the American people and our friends in the Middle East with this deal, it is this Republican leadership that has decided to help Obama and the Democrats get everything they want. And in turn, this has given the Iranians — still eager to instigate terrorism attacks and war against the U.S. and Israel — everything they want as well.

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170 million guns purchased, crime drops by half

10:10 am

More guns, less crime: According to federal government data Americans have purchased more than 170 million guns since 1991, and in that time violent crime has dropped 51 percent.

This evidence strongly suggests that the presence of guns in the hands of honest Americans helps to reduce violence. And while there are many factors contributing to the fall in crime, many which have nothing to do with the purchase of guns by Americans, the statistics here should not be ignored. Gun control advocates always argue that if gun limits are reduced, a blood-bath will follow. This claim has always been proven false, and these statistics do so again.

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Atlas 5 successfully launches U.S. military satellite

9:45 am

The competition heats up: ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket today successfully launched a U.S. Navy military communications satellite into orbit.

ULA’s big selling point for its very high prices is its very high reliability. This was its 99th consecutive launch success for the company, going back to 2006. It was also the 127th in a row for the Atlas 5.

The problem is that a majority of these launches were government payloads, which up until now has been willing to pay top dollar. For ULA to really compete successfully, it needs private customers, and they appear unwilling to pay that top dollar, going instead to SpaceX. It is for this reason the company is pushing hard to develop a more efficient and less costly rocket.

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Government still hasn’t notified individuals whose personal data was hacked

10:15 pm

Government marches on! Months after the federal government admitted publicly that the personal data of more than 20 million government employees had been hacked they still have not sent notifications to those millions.

Instead, they’ve turned this into an opportunity to spend taxpayer money for their friends!

The agency whose data was hacked, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), said the Defense Department will begin “later this month” to notify employees and contractors across the government that their personal information was accessed by hackers. OPM said notifications would continue over several weeks and “will be sent directly to impacted individuals.”

OPM also announced that it hired a contractor to help protect the identities and credit ratings of employees whose data was hacked. In a statement, OPM said it had awarded a contract initially worth more than $133 million to a company called Identity Theft Guard Solutions LLC, doing business as ID experts, for identity theft protections for the 21.5 million victims of the security data breach. The contractor will provide credit and identity monitoring services for three years, as well as identity theft insurance, to affected individuals and dependent children aged under 18, the agency said.

I wonder if Theft Guard Solutions donated campaign money to Obama in order to get the contract. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I also wonder if they are as incompetent at this work as the company the Obama administration hired to build the Obamacare website. I also don’t know this, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they screw up just as badly.

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Kentucky clerk again defies Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages

10:07 am

A Kentucky county clerk continues to defy federal court rulings by refusing to issue any marriage licenses so as to avoid issuing same-sex licenses as well.

A Kentucky county clerk, defying a new U.S. Supreme Court decision and citing “God’s authority,” rejected requests for marriage licenses from same-sex couples on Tuesday in a deepening legal standoff now two months old. Citing her religious objections, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the Supreme Court in June ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry under the U.S. Constitution.

On Monday the same court rejected Davis’ request for an emergency order allowing her to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she appeals a federal judge’s order requiring her to issue them. Eight people filed a federal lawsuit against Davis in July challenging her office’s policy of not issuing marriage licenses to any couples – gay or straight.

I do not support any government official who arbitrarily decides to not follow the law. The issue here is whether the Supreme Court ruling itself followed the law. There are many legal experts who would say no.

Either way, this story illustrates the coming persecution of Christians and Jews whose faith tells them that any support of homosexual activities is wrong. You see, it is no longer acceptable to the homosexual community for these religious people to simply leave homosexuals alone and allow them to do what they want, as has been the case for the past half century. It is now demanded that the religious participate and endorse homosexual behavior, even if it goes against their own deeply held beliefs.

I want to point out again that no homosexuals have been prevented from living their lifestyle during this whole same-sex brouhaha. They remain free to live as they wish. The only people being persecuted are Christians, merely because they have refused to endorse that behavior. With these facts in mind, who do you think are the fascists?

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Anti-establishment non-politicians top Iowa poll

9:11 am

I normally don’t bother reporting on polls. They are notoriously unreliable and often force one to the wrong conclusions. Nonetheless, this poll appears significant because it indicates that it isn’t just Trump that the voters are turning to in their disgust of the establishment political elite community.

First, it is the first poll since late July that does not show Trump with a lead. Instead, Ben Carson ties him. Second, Carly Fiorina with 10% and Ted Cruz with 9% come in second and third.

Finally, and most important, Bush, Kasich, and Rubio, politicians who have demonstrated by their actions that once elected they cannot be trusted get little or no support.

For months I have strongly believed that Jeb Bush was going to go nowhere once the voting began. The Republican base does not want another Bush. Similarly, Rubio’s betrayal of the tea party voters who got him elected by his support of the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration bill is well remembered by those tea party voters. They do not trust him.

Instead, I believe that it will be reliable conservatives or brash outsides like Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, and Trump who will get the votes. This poll suggests I might be right.

Having said this, I must emphasize again my mistrust of polls. It is just as likely this poll is a waste, and tells us nothing.

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Obamacare to punish small businesses for helping employees

8:42 am

Finding out what’s in it: The IRS has announced that the annual fine to businesses — even businesses with less than 50 employees — for helping employees pay their medical expenses will be a mere $36,500.

“We were told over and over during the Obamacare discussions that if you had less than 50 employees there’s no requirement to provide coverage, so you don’t have to worry about any cost factor,” said Ron Aldridge, Mississippi director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. … If a company has five employees, the total tax would be $182,500. A “large” employer with 50 employees that did not provide insurance in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, would be subject to $2,000 per employee, with the first 30 employees exempt, for a total of $40,000, Aldridge said.

And then there’s this gem:

The Mississippi Insurance Department said: “The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administration’s regulation writers at the IRS.” [emphasis mine]

Not only is this IRS rule illegal, as it isn’t based on anything written in the Obamacare law, it starkly illustrates the inhumane attitude of the Obama administration and people there who wrote it. The rule demands that employers look the other way if their employees are in trouble because of medical expenses. It also surprises everyone by suddenly imposing Obamacare on all businesses, even tiny ones which had been promised they were exempt from the law.

In fact, based on the information in this article, even an independent contractor like myself could be found in violation of this rule and subject to fines.. Essentially, I am not allowed to use my profits from my business to pay for my medical costs,

In other words, this administration wants to hurt people.

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Judge rules IRS must disclose White House requests for private taxpayer information

1:13 pm

The noose tightens: A federal judge today ruled that the IRS must turn over any records showing White House requests for private confidential taxpayer information.

Questions about potential White House meddling in taxpayers’ private information stretch back to the beginning of the Obama administration, when the then-White House chief economist seemed to describe the tax structure of Koch Industries during a briefing with reporters. His description was apparently incorrect, but it left some watchdog groups wondering if the White House had quietly sought information on conservatives, such as the billionaire Koch brothers.

Cause of Action sued in 2013 to get a look at whatever requests the White House, or other federal agencies, had made. The IRS refused, saying even the existence of those requests would be protected by confidentiality laws and couldn’t be released, so there was no reason to make the search. The judge said Friday, however, that the agency couldn’t use the privacy protection “to shield the very misconduct it was enacted to prohibit.”

If evidence is found that the White House was delving into the confidential tax records of its opponents, with IRS help, I think this scandal will finally reach critical mass. People might not go to jail, but the evidence will allow the individuals involved to sue and win in court. For the Democrats, Obama, and the IRS, this will not be pretty.

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New EU tax law puts thousands out of business

11:42 am

We’re here to help you! A major revision to the VAT tax in the European Union tax has caused the shutdown of thousands of businesses because they cannot afford to meet the complex rules and bureaucracy required.

Designed to prevent large businesses locating themselves in VAT-competitive territories, it had the predictable effect of drowning small businesses under a sea of bureaucracy, forcing them to access the data required to prove the customer’s location, figure out which of more than 80 VAT rates to apply, and issue an invoice in the correct language, currency and layout. Unable to afford the costly software required to deal with the regulation, thousands of small business and sole traders have closed or abandoned their enterprises. Most of those who have continued to trade have either moved to third party platforms, losing up to 70 percent of their total revenue (not just non-domestic sales) in commission, or spent thousands on software.

“The human cost to these businesses is vast”, Clare Josa is co-founder of EU VAT Action commented for EU Observer. “The only reason the Digital Single Market is still functioning is because awareness levels are below 5 percent, so most businesses are continuing to trade under the former system. As awareness rises, the damage will soar.”

Read the whole article. The quote above only gives a small taste of the problem caused entirely by government bureaucrats and elected officials who seem divorced from reality. And though this is a European governmental disaster, it is instructive for Americans to learn about it. Like Obamacare, the new VAT tax rules were imposed with the best of intentions, but completely ignored the reality of meeting those intentions. The result is financial ruin for thousands of businesses and individuals.

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Wyoming farmer defies the EPA

8:37 am

Defiant! A Wyoming farmer has filed suit against the EPA for demanding he disassemble a small stock pond he built on his own property, after following all the state’s rules and getting all the proper permits.

The EPA’s fines, $75K per day, have now accumulated to over $16 million. He is challenging the agency, saying that he followed all the rules, that the pond is on his own property, and that the EPA does not have jurisdiction.

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Hawaii Supreme Court hears arguments on TMT constructions

8:15 am

Hawaii’s Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments for and against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea.

Based on reading the various news reports of the hearing and the questioning by the judges, it appears to me that the judges have already decided against the telescope. Race, ethnicity, and hatred of western technology must take precedent over all else.

I repeat: If the court shuts down TMT astronomers should consider moving out entirely. Furthermore, Americans should maybe consider other places for their tourism, considering how hostile Hawaiians now appear to be.

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The terrible political consequences of Iran deal to the Democratic Party

9:55 am

Several stories in the news today outline for me the terrible political consequences faced by the Democratic Party by their support for the nuclear deal with Iran:

This quote from the middle article however highlights how bad the consequences for the Democrats will be:

if Obama is left with a deal that is opposed by a majority of either the Senate or the House, the Democrats will be stuck with it. They will then be on the defensive with every hostile move Iran makes with the $150 billion the mullahs are going to get.

Like Obamacare, only Democrats are going to support this Iran deal. They will own it entirely. Thus, the first time Iran does something to violate the treaty or to use the $50 billion or more of cash they will get for signing the deal to promote terrorist attacks, it will be Democrats and only Democrats who will share the blame.

Yet, like Obamacare, the Democratic Party seems oblivious to these political risks. Come hell or high water, they are, as described in the first story, working as hard as they can to get the votes to sustain an Obama veto and make this deal law.

As much as I want these Democrats kicked out of office, I think having the Iran deal approved will be worse for the nation and the world. It will immediately dump billions of dollars into the hands of Iran’s radical terrorist leaders, surely resulting in more violence against many innocents across the globe. And it will announce to the world our willingness to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, which will almost certainly instigate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and probably prompt Israel to attack Iran, possibly with its own nuclear weapons.

None of this is good. Better that the Democrats should save themselves the political cost and oppose this horrible deal.

Unfortunately, I am not hopeful. The track record of today’s Democratic Party is that of a group of people willing to put ideology ahead of everything, even if it means they will lose elections like crazy afterward. I see nothing to make me think they will do different here.

Our only option afterward then will be to throw them out of office. I pray that come 2016, the election results will make the Republican landslides of 2010 and 2014 look like mild rebukes in comparison.

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States okay big insurance premium increases caused by Obamacare

9:22 am

Finding out what’s in it: State insurance regulatory agencies have been routinely granting the gigantic rate increases requested by health insurance companies due to the costs imposed on them by Obamacare.

It’s the third year in a row for huge rate hikes, all due to the uncertainties built into the mandate-driven system of ObamaCare. The White House explained the hikes after the first year as an artifact of sudden access to care, but by year three that explanation has worn thin. The cost curve isn’t bending downward in any phase of health care, and it’s not even bending upward any longer. It’s skyrocketing, and insurers are reflecting that in their premium hikes.

At the same time that premiums have escalated, of course, deductibles have expanded almost exponentially for some families. Consumers are paying outrageously high premiums for insurance they will almost certainly never access, thanks to the need to spend thousands more out of pocket on top of these premiums before insurers have to cover anything but wellness checks.

Obviously this is the fault of Bush-Reagan and the evil Republicans in Congress, none of whom wrote or voted for Obamacare and in fact opposed it vehemently. Obama and the Democrats, who wrote the law and then forced it through Congress, are obviously innocent of any blame for that law’s disasters. Let’s vote for them again!

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Russia delays first manned Vostochny launch seven years

8:41 am

The heat of competition: Russia has finally admitted that it will not be able to fly manned missions from its new Vostochny spaceport in 2018, and had instead rescheduled that first flight for sometime in 2025.

The reasons were not spelled out, and it was unclear if financial considerations were behind the delay.

Space agency spokesman Mikhail Fadeyev made clear the change of plan in stating: ‘The first manned flight from the Vostochny Cosmodrome is scheduled for 2025 with an Angara-AV5 rocket, according to the federal space programme.’ The move reflected the ‘founding principle of Vostochny as an innovative cosmodrome’, he claimed. Under the plan, the first test flight of the Angara-A5B is scheduled for 2023, while the rocket’s first unmanned flight is slated for 2024.

Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev recently visited the spaceport, stressing the importance of the first unmanned launch, due in four months from now, being a success. His statement appeared to allow for the possibility of slippage in this timetable also.

Vostochny was first proposed in 2007, so that means it will take Russia almost two decades to get this spaceport ready for manned flights. Only a government operation, designed to create jobs instead of accomplishing something, takes such an ungodly long time to get finished.

Meanwhile, Russia will continue to use Baikonur for manned flight for at least one more decade.

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EPA withholds Colorado disaster documents demanded by Congress

3:58 pm

Surprise! The EPA, when ordered by Congress to release documents describing that agency’s planning prior to the toxic waste disaster it caused in Colorado, has failed to meet the deadline set by Congress for turning over those documents.

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the EPA failed to meet the House Science Committee’s reasonable deadline in turning over documents pertaining to the Gold King Mine spill,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). “These documents are essential to the Committee’s ongoing investigation and our upcoming hearing on Sept. 9. But more importantly, this information matters to the many Americans directly affected in western states, who are still waiting for answers from the EPA.”

Smith – who frequently spars with the EPA – is chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. EPA director Gina McCarthy has been asked to appear and answer questions about the agency’s role in creating a 3-million-gallon toxic spill into Colorado’s Animas River on Aug. 5. Critics say McCarthy and the EPA have been unresponsive, secretive and unsympathetic toward millions of people who live in three states bordering the river.

The word “coverup” comes to mind, though how could anyone believe that the Obama administration (the most transparent in history!) would do such a thing baffles the mind.

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Boeing lobbies for renewal of the Export-Import Bank

9:37 am

Boeing on Monday told its satellite workers that it will eventually lay off hundreds because of lost contracts due to the failure of Congress to renew the Export-Import Bank.

Boeing Co (BA.N) on Monday told its workers that it expected to cut as many as “several hundred” jobs in its satellite business through the end of 2015 due to a downturn in U.S. military spending and delays in commercial satellite orders. Multiple commercial orders were being delayed by recent failures of launch vehicles and uncertainties about the future availability of financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, whose government charter lapsed on June 30, the company told key managers in an internal communication.

Boeing spokesman Tim Neale confirmed the reductions and said the total number of people affected would be finalized in coming months. Some could find work in other parts of Boeing, he said. [emphasis mine]

This announcement is pure lobbying, no more. They might have to lay off workers, but they haven’t done it yet, and when they do the numbers are likely to be far less than they are implying. And even so, the layoffs will probably be good for the company, making it more lean and efficient.

The reason they have made this public now is to generate support for a renewal of the Export-Import Bank, which Congress allowed to expire last month. Boeing wants it back, because the company uses the low interest loans it provides (using government money) to get contracts abroad. However, they really don’t need it to do that. They could trim costs, work more efficiently, and get loans in the private sector, as every other private company is expected to do.

This announcement is really no different than the doom that was predicted prior to the arrival of sequestration. Those budget cuts were going to cause the destruction of the defense industry and the American military, while causing the airline industry to collapse because the TSA and the FAA wouldn’t have the staff to keep the planes in the air. Twas all a lie. Nothing happened, and by some miracle the government still had plenty of cash to keep things running smoothly. Similarly, Boeing can compete without the help of the government. They just have to stop whining and do it.

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IRS reveals Lerner used more than one personal email address

7:29 pm

Surprise! The IRS today revealed that it has just discovered that Lois Lerner used a second private personal email account, under a different name, for conducting government business.

IRS lawyer Geoffrey J. Klimas told the court that as the agency was putting together a set of documents to turn over to Judicial Watch, it realized Ms. Lerner had used yet another email account, in addition to her official one and another personal one already known to the agency. “In addition to emails to or from an email account denominated ‘Lois G. Lerner‘ or ‘Lois Home,’ some emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s request may have been sent to or received from a personal email account denominated ‘Toby Miles,’” Mr. Klimas told Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the case.

It is unclear who Toby Miles is, but Mr. Klimas said the IRS has concluded that was “a personal email account used by Lerner.”

There is additional concern that this insecure account, not yet searched, might have been used by Lerner to communicate confidential taxpayer information.

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Wisconsin spends $1.2 million defending “John Doe” prosecutors.

8:43 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The State of Wisconsin has spent more than $1.2 million defending Democratic Party prosecutors who had instigated investigations against innnocent citizens merely because those citizens opposed that party’s agenda.

The courts have repeatedly ruled against those investigations, sometimes with very harsh words. Yet, the state continues to spend money defending them, even though the governor, Scott Walker, is a Republican and the state legislature is controlled by the Republican Party.

This quote from the article sums it up:

“They lost in the highest court in Wisconsin and they still won’t let go. And we are supposed to keep battling them on our dime while the taxpayers pick up the tab for them to harass us in court. And why is the state of Wisconsin paying legal fees for Milwaukee County officials who are being sued for violating people’s civil rights in a Milwaukee County investigation? Let Milwaukee County taxpayers pay to defend their corrupt public officials.”

If Scott Walker is serious about running for President, he should end the funding of these prosecutors now.

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Oregon forest fires blamed on federal ban on logging

7:12 pm

We’re here to help you! The logging industry is blaming the increased number of severe forest fires in Oregon during the past three years on the federal ban on logging in federal forests.

Logging on federal lands was first limited in the early 90’s. More severe limits on logging on any roadless federal land were then passed by President Bill Clinton in 2000, essentially ending the practice on federal lands.

[Andrew Miller, CEO of Stimson Lumber, one of the state’s largest lumber companies] said this was a huge mistake. “As soon as the ban on logging took effect, fire conditions worsened,” he said. “Four or five years after the ban was put in place fires started to really ramp up.” The reason for the increase is simple, he said. When logging in these areas stopped, more and more trees began to fill the lands. These trees, particularly ones that have died and become dried out, rather than be chopped down by a logging company, give the fire easily combustible fuel. “Once logging was stopped the forests got older and older and more and more trees died off,” Miller said.

The article is well written, and includes a response by a Forest Service official, who dismissed the lack of logging as the cause and instead blamed the increase in fires to extreme weather and less snowfall in the western states.

I am willing to bet that a close look at the weather in the Northwest will find that the only extreme weather they have seen in the past three years has been snow, contradicting the Forest Service official’s claim. I do not know this, and could easily be wrong, but I am still willing to bet.

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“SJW zealots proved their commitment to tolerance, openness and variety by vowing not to read a work found on [an opposing] slate under any circumstances.”

5:13 pm

The story describes the battle this year in the science fiction field between Social Justice Warriors (SJW) — leftwing ideologues who want to limit the books that win the Hugo Awards to only those that support leftwing identity politics — and a slate of science fiction authors who oppose this intolerant attitude and wanted to get the Hugos opened up to a wider range of ideas.

This quote sums up the attitudes of the left quite nicely:

The facts of this case are the same as in gaming and in every other industry that social justice warriors touch. They do not care about art forms. They do not care about science fiction. They do not even particularly care about talent. They care about enriching and ennobling themselves and their friends, and pushing a twisted, discredited, divisive brand of authoritarian politics.

In politics, in the environment, in science, and in any number of other important fields in today’s society, the left really has no interest in achieving its stated goals. (Just read this one report about the EPA’s mine disaster in Colorado, for example.) Instead, the goal is power, and control, and gaining the ability to dictate how others shall live their lives — even if it destroys everything else in the process.

When Americans finally understand this, they might finally choose to throw these thugs out of power. Until then, however, expect them to continue their scorched Earth policy of destroying innocent people, because they can.

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