Tag: government

Russian ISS crews to be reduced beginning in spring 2017

12:20 pm

Russia today made it official: Beginning in the spring of 2017 their crews to ISS will be reduced from 3 to 2, and will remain reduced until they launch their next ISS module.

“In case the endorsed schedule is observed and the MLM gets into operation in December 2017, the curtailment will affect only one Russian crew,” the source said. “Otherwise the practice of curtailment will continue until the commissioning of the module.”

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos has to downsize the ISS mission crew as the number of Progress cargo ships launched to the ISS annually will be reduced to three from four at present in the wake of NASA’s refusal to continue using the Progresses and to change over to new U.S. cargo carriers instead, the source said, adding that three Progresses a year is not enough to support three cosmonauts working at the ISS permanently.

The finances will get even more squeezed when the U.S. no longer needs them to launch its astronauts.

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ESA/Airbus Safran deal finalized

12:10 pm

The competition heats up: The European Space Agency today gave its final approval to the deal that will have Airbus Safran Launchers design, build, and essentially own the new Ariane 6 rocket that ESA hopes to use to compete in the launch market in the 2020s.

This deal essentially closes the book on Arianespace. Though it officially still exists, it will be Airbus Safran that will be running the show in the future.

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SpaceX explosion will not effect its Air Force certification

12:02 pm

The competition heats up: An Air Force official today said that, based on its ongoing experience with SpaceX during the investigation of its September 1 Falcon 9 launchpad explosion, they do not expect any change in SpaceX’s certification that allows it to bid on Air Force satellite contracts.

The Air Force official also noted that the damage to the launchpad was “moderate” and was “definitely repairable.”

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More fraud found in Obamacare

10:54 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A new GAO investigation has found that, like its previous reports in 2014 and 2015, it is remarkably easy for fictitious applicants to get approved for both Obamacare and the large subsidizes that go with it.

Our undercover testing for the 2016 coverage year found that the eligibility determination and enrollment processes of the federal and state marketplaces we reviewed remain vulnerable to fraud, as we previously reported for the 2014 and 2015 coverage years. For each of our 15 fictitious applications, the marketplaces approved coverage, including for 6 fictitious applicants who had previously obtained subsidized coverage but did not file the required federal income-tax returns. Although IRS provides information to marketplaces on whether health-care applicants have filed required returns, the federal Marketplace and our selected state marketplace allowed applicants to instead attest that they had filed returns, saying the IRS information was not sufficiently current. The marketplaces we reviewed also relaxed documentation standards or extended deadlines for filing required documentation. After initial approval, all but one of our fictitious enrollees maintained subsidized coverage, even though we sent fictitious documents, or no documents, to resolve application inconsistencies. [emphasis in original]

This report is actually less a condemnation of Obamacare and more a condemnation of the completely incompetent and failed state of the entire federal bureaucracy. They can’t get this job right, but in truth, they pretty much can’t get any job right.

Obviously, we should therefore do what the Democrats propose and give the federal government and its bureaucracy more power and responsibility. That will surely fix things!

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Another Obamacare co-op folds

1:29 pm

Finding out what’s in it: New Jersey’s Obamacare co-op has been taken over by the state and will fold in 2017.

As noted at the link, “that leaves just six of the original 23 Obamacare co-ops in operation next year.”

In other words, Obamacare is steadily going bankrupt, and in the process it is bankrupting the health insurance business. Before the law, it was possible for individuals to buy at a somewhat reasonable price a catastrophic insurance plan that would cover you in case of disaster but required you to pay for most of your routine health care costs. Obamacare outlawed those plans (obviously, someone was lying when he said you could keep your plan if you liked it). The result however is that everyone is forced to buy at very unreasonable prices the equivalent of those same plans, since both premiums and deductibles have risen so much that everyone now has to pay for routine health care costs.

Obviously, this means we should all vote for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, because they more than anyone else know how to solve the problem they created. Obviously, voting for the Republicans, who predicted this disaster in great detail and with remarkable accuracy, would be a mistake, a clear demonstration of racism or something. And we wouldn’t want to be called racist by Democrats, would we?

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The people directly hurt by Obamacare rises

10:17 am

Finding out what’s in it: A new poll shows that the number of people directly hurt by Obamacare has continued to rise.

Currently, 29% of Americans say Obamacare has hurt them and their family, up from 26% in May, and the highest Gallup has measured to date. Meanwhile, the percentage who say the ACA has helped their family dropped from 22% to 18%. The bulk of Americans, 51%, continue to say the law has “had no effect.” As more provisions of the law have taken effect over the years, the “no effect” percentage has dropped from the first reading of 70%, in early 2012.

Not surprisingly, support for Obamacare, always low, has shrunk as well. As the article at the link notes,

Wait until the next round of open enrollment starts in eight weeks. The number of people who feel the ObamaCare pain is likely to rise even further, especially in places like Tennessee, Minnesota, and other states where premiums will go up 40% or more over 2016.

The fact that in many regions there will be only one or fewer insurance options will help to underline why people increasingly hate Obamacare. Sadly, every one of these failures was predicted by conservatives back in 2010. The Democrats however were too wise and caring to listen. For them, caring is all that matters, even if it means instituting policies that destroy people’s lives.

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An attack on Israel coming?

10:01 am

Two stories this morning suggest that an attack soon on Israel from either Iran- or ISIS-backed forces, or both, may soon take place.

The first would be a large attack from the north, near the Golan Heights, planned with the hope of grabbing and holding territory from Israel. The second would be a small terrorist attack. meant only to distract and cause harm. Supposedly Iran and the Islamic State oppose each other, but here they would be working together. Good thing the Obama administration sent Iran $33 billion in cash to help them in this effort.

To get a feel for the hate held by Islamic leaders of all stripes for Jews, watch this excerpt from a Friday sermon by a Hamas MP. Their goal is simple: Kill all the Jews. I wonder how Israel is going to negotiate a two state solution faced with that.

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Update on the Falcon 9 launchpad explosion investigation

9:42 pm

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today describing the investigation into last week’s Falcon 9 launchpad explosion, noting especially how — despite participation by the FAA, NASA, and the Air Force — SpaceX will be entirely in charge of the investigation, in accordance with present law.

The article is clearly lobbying for a change, whereby the government would have more power in these investigations. I personally think a change would be a mistake, that the law as it is now is how it should be. It was their rocket that exploded. Their business model depends on their rockets not exploding. Thus, they have the greatest self-interest in fixing the problem. The other outside players might be helpful, but their presence can only in the long run make things more difficult and slow things down, without making anything better.

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Federal Dept of Ed forces school to close

9:48 am

We’re here to help you: Because of constant regulatory harassment by the federal Department of Education, ITT Technical Institutes, a private college-level school system that has been operating for more than 50 years providing technical vocational training, has been forced to shut down.

The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter. We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution.

Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees. Our focus and priority with our remaining staff is on helping the tens of thousands of unexpectedly displaced students with their records and future educational options.

This action of our federal regulator to increase our surety requirement to 40 percent of our Title IV federal funding and place our schools under “Heightened Cash Monitoring Level 2,” forced us to conclude that we can no longer continue to operate our ITT Tech campuses and provide our students with the quality education they expect and deserve.

Their press release adds the following:

We have always carefully managed expenses to align with our enrollments. We had no intention prior to the receipt of the most recent sanctions of closing down despite the challenging regulatory environment that now threatens all proprietary higher education. We have also always worked tirelessly to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and to uphold our ethic of continuous improvement. When we have received inquiries from regulators, we have always been responsive and cooperative. Despite our ongoing service to this nation’s employers, local communities and underserved students, these federal actions will result in the closure of the ITT Technical Institutes without any opportunity to pursue our right to due process.

Any business that has successfully provided services to its customers for fifty years has definitely proven its worth — except to the hardcore leftists in the Democratic Obama administration. Employing 8000 people and providing worthwhile training to thousands more, and doing it privately outside the control and power of the federal government? We can’t have that! Better to destroy it!

Update: In related news, more than 80K coal mining jobs lost during Obama’s tenure. The article also notes this important fact:

And now Hillary Clinton is running to be his successor, essentially promising a third term for Barack Obama’s vision. And what did she tell us during the primary? “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

It’s so nice to know these Democrats support unemployment and bankruptcy.

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North Korea fires three more test missiles

2:23 pm

What, me worry? North Korea today fired three test ballistic missiles into an area of the Sea of Japan considered part of the Japanese defense zone, repeating their previous test.

Unlike the previous test, these were ground-based missiles. Either way, the Obama administration was immediately on the case!

In a statement, the US said it “strongly condemns” the multiple launches. The move came at a potentially embarrassing time for North Korea’s only real ally, China, which is currently hosting the G20 summit in Hangzhou. “Today’s reckless launches by North Korea threaten civil aviation and maritime commerce in the region,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday. “We will raise our concerns at the UN about the threat posed to international security by these programs,” he continued. “We will also do so in other fora — including the upcoming East Asia Summit — to bolster international resolve to hold the DPRK accountable for its provocative actions. Our commitment to the defense of our allies in the face of these threats remains ironclad.”

I especially like this State Department spokeman’s use of “fora”, the Latin plural of “forum.” That’s telling ’em! We aren’t going only raise this issue in one forum, we’re going to raise it in many forums!

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Big money for California air pollution researchers

12:04 pm

The next time anyone tries to point out how “Big Oil” or “Big corporations” are using their financial clout to squelch research into air pollution, the environment, and global warming, refer them to this story:

Nineteen California professors earning more than $300 million in grants from the government to study air pollution have issued a letter demanding more air quality regulations, which they can then use as a foundation for earning more government grants studying air pollution.

The environmental movement likes to talk about how big corporate money pays for all the environmental skepticism we see in the press, and if that money disappeared the debate would vanish and everyone would agree with them. The trouble is that most skeptics I know, including myself, get nothing from big corporate money. Instead, it is the environmental movement that gets gigantic amounts of cash from the federal government, run by politicians like President Obama, who has a very pro-environmentalist bias and wants his scientists to confirm his religious belief in human-caused global warming and the evils that humans do to the environment.

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Russia completes preliminary design for Progress replacement

9:53 am

The competition heats up: Russian engineers have completed their preliminary design for a proposed Progress replacement, first revealed August 22.

The main rationale for the development of the new cargo ship was the urgent need to reduce the number of cargo launches to the ISS from four to three annually, while still supporting three crew members on the Russian segment of the station.

The preliminary design for the new cargo ship was originally to be completed in December 2016, but the work was apparently sped up to be completed in August of the same year. Still, even if the go ahead for the full-scale development of the project was given immediately, the new cargo ship was not expected to fly before 2020. In the meantime, the Russian crew onboard the ISS could be reduced from three to two people beginning in March 2017 onward, with the exception of a time period in 2018, when Russian cosmonauts would have to conduct spacewalks to outfit the newly arrived MLM module.

The new design, radically different from Russia’s present Soyuz and Progress capsules, would be able to place 8.2 tons in orbit, one ton more than Progress. That the Russians accelerated the design process suggests to me that they are putting a high priority on this project, and that they will build it.

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Budget constraints and technical challenges delay commercial crew

10:56 am

A NASA inspector general report released today cites both budget constraints imposed by Congress as well as technical challenges that will delay the first commercial manned mission to ISS until 2018.

When the commercial crew program began, NASA hoped to have routine flights by 2015, but that slipped in large part due to congressional underfunding in the early years. OIG noted today that its 2013 report found that adequate funding was the major challenge for the program. Congress has warmed up to the program, however, and now is approving the full President’s request so funding is not the issue it once was. Technical challenges now are the major hurdle according to today’s report.

The companies’ systems must be certified by NASA before beginning routine flights to ISS. Boeing anticipates receiving certification in January 2018 with its first certified flight in spring 2018, and SpaceX is working toward late 2017 for its first certified mission, the OIG report says. But it is skeptical: “Notwithstanding the contractors’ optimism, based on the information we gathered during our audit, we believe it unlikely that either Boeing or SpaceX will achieve certified, crewed flight to the ISS until late 2018.”

The report has been written prior to yesterday’s Falcon 9 launchpad failure, which will certainly impact the schedule negatively.

Essentially, the report claims that the program was delayed initially by about two to three years because of the refusal of Congress to fund it fully. The delays to come will be instead because of the technical challenges. While I tend to agree with this assessment, I also note that government reports like this are often designed to generate more funds for the agencies involved, not find a better way to do things. If we are not diligent and hard-nosed about how we fund this program I worry that with time commercial crew will become corrupted by the government’s sloppy and inefficient way of doing things, and become as bloated as Orion and SLS. This is one of the reasons I never complained when Congress short funded the program previously, as it forced the companies involved to keep their costs down.

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Did China today have a launch failure?

10:35 pm

A scheduled Chinese launch today has apparently ended in failure, though exactly what happened remains presently unknown.

China was early this morning expected to launch its Gaofen-10 Earth observation satellite from Taiyuan, following the issuance of an airspace exclusion zone days in advance. However, it seems the launch did not go to plan. Gaofen-10, nominally part of the ‘CHEOS’ Earth observation system for civilian purposes, was due to be launched on a Long March 4C rocket between 18:46 and 19:11 UTC on Wednesday (02:46-03:11 Thursday Beijing time). China usually releases information of launches once payloads are successfully heading towards their target orbits around an hour after launch. Much earlier, spectators and insiders often share details and photos of the launch on social media.

However, many hours after the launch window passed there was still silence, with the launch timing and location of the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre apparently limiting opportunities for outside viewers.

The launch however was not scrubbed, as first stage launch debris was found as expected along the flight path, suggesting that some failure occurred with the upper stage.

Like today’s Falcon 9 failure, this Chinese failure could have a rippling effect on their ambitious plans this fall, including the launch of their next space station followed by a 30-day manned mission.

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Social Security paid $1.7 million to dead federal workers

9:53 am

Government in action! An audit of Social Security has discovered that the agency paid $1.7 million to dead federal workers.

An audit released by the agency’s inspector general Monday revealed that the Social Security Administration had not crosschecked beneficiaries’ deaths with the Office of Personnel Management, which manages federal employees. Missing just 35 deaths cost taxpayers $1.7 million.

“OPM’s annuitant file contained deaths that were not recorded in SSA’s systems,” the inspector general said. “SSA paid $1.7 million in [Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance] OASDI benefits to 35 deceased beneficiaries. The average payment after death was $49,156 for an average of 84 months. …Additionally, we estimate SSA would have continued paying these beneficiaries approximately $258,000 over the next year had the deaths not been identified,” the inspector general said. Another six deceased individuals received $56,695 after their benefits were terminated by the agency.

The response by Social Security? The agency called the $1.7 million payments to dead government workers an “extremely small number.”

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Michigan court rules against civil forfeiture

11:43 am

Good news: The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that civil forfeiture denies citizens their due process rights under the Constitution. As the court wrote:

“Because of her indigency and inability to pay the required bond, [Kinnon] was excluded ‘from the only forum effectively empowered to settle [her] dispute.’ … Ultimately, Michigan’s civil asset forfeiture scheme operated to deprive [Kinnon] of a significant property interest without according her the opportunity for a hearing, contrary to the requirements of the Due Process Clause.”

This shouldn’t be rocket science, as the language and intent of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is quite plain.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The problem today is that this has become rocket science. Too many people either don’t know this plain language, or work dishonestly to distort it to empower government to oppress us.

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Obama to ratify Paris climate treaty, bypassing Senate

10:54 am

The Constitution is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration is claiming that, should Obama sign the Paris climate accords when he visits China next week, it will be sufficient to make it law, even though it will not have been approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate as required by the Constitution.

White House senior adviser Brian Deese said the president has the legal authority to ratify the accord without the two-thirds Senate vote required for treaties. He said the pact negotiated by 195 countries in December is merely an “executive agreement. … The president will use his authority that has been used in dozens of executive agreements in the past to join and formally deposit our instrument of acceptance, and therefore put our country as a party to the Paris Agreement,” Mr. Deese said at a White House press conference. “That’s a process that is quite well-established in our existing legal system and in the context of international agreements and international arrangements,” Mr. Deese said. “There is a category of them that are treaties that require advice and consent from the Senate, but there’s a broad category of executive agreements where the executive can enter into those agreements without that advice and consent.”

Gee, I wonder what clause in the Constitution Mr. Deese can name that delineates the President’s power to sign and make binding “executive agreements” with foreign powers? My copy of the Constitution doesn’t seem to have any such clause. What it does say about foreign treaties is quite clear and blunt: The President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” (Article 2, Section 2).

But then, when has the law ever really meant anything to this President and the modern Democratic Party? In fact, it means so little to them that they have nominated a candidate for President who willfully ignores it, and then lies about that lawbreaking repeatedly.

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