Should the U.S. agree to the European Union’s space code of conduct?
The pigs are winning! A GOP budget proposal offered today only proposes $32 billion in budget cuts for this year, rather than the $100 billion they promised during the campaign.
Just what the new space industry needs, more regulations! The EPA has decided it has the right to regulate perchlorate, a chemical used for rocket fuel as well as fireworks and other explosives.
Federal and NASA agents raid the home of two former United Space Alliance employees.
The right response: After a video sting posted on youtube showed a Planned Parenthood manager helping a supposed pimp operate his sex ring of underage girls, the organization has fired that manager. Key quote:
“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape,” Phyllis Kinsler, chief executive of the agency’s central New Jersey branch, said in a statement. Ms. Kinsler said the tape “depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.”
Update: Youtube is threatening to remove the video due to so-called “privacy violations.”
What crap. The only person whose privacy was invaded was the manager who was breaking the law. Such behavior does not deserve protection, and youtube should know better.
A Louisiana judge has held the Interior Department in contempt over its offshore oil drilling moratorium. Key quote:
After [the judge] overturned the government’s moratorium in June, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this court’s preliminary injunction order.”
The Obama administration might not realize it — as well as many politicians from both parties in DC — we are a nation of laws, not men. It thumb your nose at the law it will eventually come back to bite you. Especially if the citizenry becomes outraged at your arrogance.
The military space war between China and the U.S.
By a vote of 51-47, the Senate today rejected a full repeal of ObamaCare. A second vote, 81-17, did repeal the 1099 tax paperwork provision.
No surprises here. This just illustrates the need to throw more of these clowns out of office in 2012. For one thing, many of the 81 Senators who voted to repeal the 1099 tax provision had voted for it only 10 months ago. Have they finally learned to read?
Reality meets feel-good politics: A study has found that there is no consumer interest in buying the one million electric cars Obama wants on the road by 2015.
Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was confronted in a supermarket on Saturday over his refusal to allow a vote on the repeal of Obamacare.
The crew of a simulated 500 day long Mars mission has reached “Mars orbit” after 8 months of confinement in a facility in Russia.
Russia regains contact with missing military satellite, finds that it was placed in the wrong orbit.
A monument to Boris Yeltsin was unveiled today in his hometown on the 80th anniversary of his birth.
In this week of memorials to American space tragedies, this event in Russia brings to mind the far more important and significant events, affecting millions of people worldwide, that unfolded in the Soviet Union during the late 1980s and mid-1990s. The communist superpower was collapsing, and there was the real possibility that that collapse could lead to worldwide war and violence.
Yeltsin, far more than any other man, helped shepherd the former Soviet Union out of that chaos, and he did it as a civilized man, with relatively little bloodshed. As he shouted defiantly as he stood on a tank in front of the Russian parliament building on the day of the August coup, “Terror and dictatorship . . . must not be allowed to bring eternal night!”
Unlike many former communist leaders, Yeltsin had the openness of mind to recognize that the state-run centralized command society that he had grown up in and had helped run for years simply did not work. “We have oppressed the human spirit,” he noted sadly during a press conference shortly after the coup. More importantly, he also had the courage to take action on this realization, and force the painful changes that were necessary to save his country.
Yeltsin was no saint, and the Russian transition from dictatorship to freedom was far from perfect. No one even knows if that transition is going to hold, today, twenty years later. Nonetheless, the world should remember Yeltsin for his success, and honor that memory.
Government stupidity in action: FEMA considered then canceled (thank goodness) a proposal to spend more than a billion dollars on Meals-Ready-to-Eat on the very slim chance that the New Madrid fault in the midwest might produce a major earthquake sometime in the three years.
Unfortunately, they still haven’t canceled plans to buy 7 million emergency blankets and 550 million gallons of water in individual 1-liter plastic bottles.
More McCarthyism from the left: How a university professor was threatened, then lost his job, because he disagreed with the mayor of Chicago.
Russia loses contact with newly launched military satellite.
A video sting operation has caught a Planned Parenthood official as she gladly helps a pimp illegally cover up his underage sex ring. Key quote:
In the video, the pair visit Planned Parenthood Central New Jersey’s abortion center in Perth Amboy and clinic manager Amy Woodruff, an LPN, warns the pimp and his prostitute to have their trafficked underage girls lie about their age to avoid mandatory reporting laws.
“Even if they lie, just say, ‘Oh he’s the same age as me, 15,’…it’s just that mainly 14 and under we have to, doesn’t matter if their partner’s the same age, younger, whatever, 14 and under we have to report,” Woodruff says. “Like on the paperwork there’s going to be a point that asks, uh, like are you sexually active, stuff like that … if they’re under a certain age… – you know, me and my other counselor, like for the most part we want as little information as possible – cause we don’t want to be involved…”
Watch the whole video. Your jaw will drop in horror, especially consider how much government money Planned Parenthood gets (more than $300 million per year).
An intriguing idea: A Georgia lawmaker proposes doing away with driver’s licenses.
A Senate vote to repeal Obamacare could come as early as this week.
Repeal it already! From the courts to the White House, everyone knows this law is a turkey.
A proposal to bypass the effort of Egypt (or any government) to shut down the internet.
Here’s the right way to respond to the Tucson shootings: Less restrictions on gun use proposed in Arizona.
Big news! A Florida judge today has ruled the entire Obamacare law is unconstitutional. Key quote:
In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson, a Republican appointee, said that the law’s requirement to carry insurance or pay a fee “is outside Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. It is not constitutional.” The ruling also said that the entire law “must be declared void,” because the mandate to carry insurance is “not severable” from the rest of the law. [emphasis mine]
The Republicans in Congress are considering laws to force internet companies to record user data.
God damn it, that is not what they were sent there to do. We have an out-of-control federal budget issuing out-of-control regulations, and these turkeys want to expand their ability to pry into our private lives?
More proof this bill stinks: The Obama administration has given Obamacare waivers to 28 union locals that spent almost $700,000 to get Obama elected.
Surprise, surprise! A poll has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans from both parties want politicians to pay attention to tea party demands.
Repeal it already! Another US judge is expected to rule on Obamacare today. Key quote:
The judge, Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Florida, was expected to rule on a lawsuit brought by governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans. Obama is a Democrat. The plaintiffs represent more than half the U.S. states, so the Pensacola case has more prominence than some two dozen lawsuits filed in federal courts over the healthcare law.
Freedom of speech alert: As Egypt goes offline some members of the US Congress are getting their own internet ‘kill switch’ bill ready.
Repeal the damn bill! And even the White House agrees as it quietly exempts its political friends from Obamacare. Key quote:
How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.
It’s all about power and control: The TSA has announced that it will no longer approve private airport screeners.
