The FCC now claims it will not send monitors into newsrooms.
Though I am sure they are backing off this particular project, I would not get nonchalant about the goals of these government fascists. If they think they can get away with imposing their control on the news, they will do it.
More good news: The cop who shot and killed an already restrained 90 lb teen, saying “We don’t have time for this,” as he fired, has now been indicted for voluntary manslaughter.
Too often the actual cops and government officials who commit acts of oppression get off scot free while their government has to pay the bills. This time, the punishment is being applied to the person who did the deed, a much better approach as it imposes personal responsibility from the individuals involved.
Some good news: Victory in the Ukraine for its protesting citizenry with the ouster of that country’s corrupt and tyrannical government.
The ousted President had won an election under suspicious circumstances, then arrested his opponent and put her in jail, then made numerous deals that brought him enormous wealth. He is now gone, and his opponent is free.
Leftwing fascism: A Democratic Congressmen threatens the loss of the FCC license of television stations which air an ad criticizing his vote in favor of Obamacare.
Then Rep. Gary Peters, who is the running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, went all-in Friday, having his lawyers send a letter to a Michigan television station citing the Post in demanding that AFP provide more evidence that Obamacare is as terrible as it really is. Mr. Peters’ lawyers wrote that “Unlike federal candidates, independent political organizations” — and by extension, Ms. Boonstra — don’t have a “right to command use of broadcast facilities.” They clinched with a threat that airing the ad could “be cause for the loss of a station’s license.”
More here.
Other that supporting a law that is causing great anxiety and pain and financial loss to millions of innocent Americans, now this Democrat is also out to squelch freedom of speech. What’s not to like?
Grovel before the badged ones.
Read it and weep.
Posted from Alon Shvut, West Bank, Israel. Local time: 10:20 pm
The consolidation of the Russian aerospace industry continues as the government considers taking over privately owned Sea Launch.
The Russian government will a take closer look at the idea of buying commercial launch services provider Sea Launch, which is owned by a top Russian space contractor but whose key assets are based in California, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Feb. 19. Moscow has asked the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, and Russian manufacturer RSC Energia, which holds 95 percent of Swiss-registered Sea Launch, to submit an overview of the financial situation of the maritime launch services company, Rogozin said in remarks posted on the Russian Cabinet website. The Russian government holds 38 percent of Energia, which supplies the upper stage of the Sea Launch rocket.
Should the government go forward with the deal, it likely would move the oceangoing rocket pad and command ship from Long Beach, Calif., to a Russian port on the Pacific Ocean, Rogozin said. “Something tells me that if we go for it, then the base will definitely be outside the United States,” he said.
Without question the Putin government is trying to recreate the top-down centralized system that existed during the Soviet era, with everything controlled and even owned by the government. While this might please their love of power, I doubt it will be an effiicent way to compete in the open commercial market.
Which means this consolidation is a wonderful opportunity for the new private launch companies. Soon, Russia will be out of the market, focused instead on launching Russian only satellites and spacecraft.
Posted from Rome, Italy. I am between flights, awaiting my connection to Tel Aviv.
The open-mindedness of a modern ivy league college student: “I don’t think we should be tolerating conservative views because that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society.”
Nor is this one student alone. She is typical of the bigoted, hateful leftwing mindset in the academic community, where tolerance is defined by how much you can censor and silence any opposing points of view.
Posted from Garden City, New York. I now shutting down and heading to the airport to fly to Israel. I expect that I will be out of touch with the internet until Sunday, at the soonest.
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA is studying how to prevent solar powered bombs being smuggled onto airplanes.
Well, who wudda thunk it? I mean, without the TSA none of us would ever have noticed when a terrorist unpacked a bomb and stuck it up against the window of the plane so it could get sufficient energy to go off.
Finding out what’s in it: Vulnerable Democrats are now whining about the Medicare cuts imposed by Obamacare, by the very law they refused to read and then imposed on us.
The article notes how these same Democrats were also very blunt about lying that Obamacare would not force any cuts to Medicare, before the law was passed.
“Stand with President Obama on spending!”
And I must emphasize that I agree completely with every quote from Barack Obama in this column.
Colorado sheriffs push back against enforcing the gun laws passed by Democratic state legislators.
Fifty-four out of 62 Colorado elected sheriffs together with retired law enforcement, Federal Firearms Licensed dealers, disabled individuals, gun manufacturers and other concerned citizens filed a complaint in federal court against the governor claiming violations of the Second and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
A ban on high-capacity magazines and required background checks for the private sale and transfer of firearms are the two components of the legislation being targeted for dismissal in the courts, said Cooke. “The legislature basically outlawed all magazines not just ones that can hold more than 15 rounds,” he said. “Any magazine that can be readably converted to hold more than 15 rounds is illegal – which is about every single magazine made.”
There is also this quote:
Last week a coalition of pro-Second Amendment legislators attempted a full repeal of the unlawful magazine capacity limit only to be rejected at the committee levels of a Democrat-controlled legislature, said Cooke.
According to the new law, if a firearm with a magazine attachment was taken into possession after July 1 it would be considered a crime; but if that same firearm was purchased before July 1 it is a “grandfathered” magazine and not considered a crime, he said. The sheriff presented the two differently-dated magazines to the committees and asked them to tell the difference. “Obviously they could not do it.” When neither the public nor law enforcement can distinguish between two magazines that are identical the law is unconstitutional, he said.
When you pass bad laws, all you will get is contempt for the law. Thus, it is essential that we be reluctant to pass laws unless we are very very very sure they make sense.
Posted from Garden City, New York.
Posting for the rest of February will be spotty. I am heading to New York to give a lecture the Long Island section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Thursday night, then on to Israel for 10 days to visit family.
For an idea of what it was like to visit Israel last February, check out my earlier posts below, listed in chronological order. In each case, I think you will get a more accurate portrayal of the reality on the ground, in contrast to the political antisemitism of today’s modern intellectual culture.
Finding out what’s in it: “If I do not receive my medication, I will die.”
And then there’s this Obamacare story from California (HT commenter Cotour): Man’s back surgery on hold because he can’t find a doctor in California who will take his Obamacare insurance.
I don’t understand why members of Congress, the White House and the media become cooperators in videos that sort of show that deep down they all see themselves as . . . actors. And good ones! In a phony drama. Meant I suppose to fool the rubes. It’s all supposed to be amusing, supposed to show you’re an insider who sees right through this town. But I’m not sure it shows that.
We’re at a funny point in our political culture. To have judgment is to be an elitist. To have dignity is to be yesterday. To have standards is to be a hypocrite—you won’t always meet standards even when they’re your own, so why have them?
I have always tried to have judgment, dignity, and standards, which I guess explains why I have had so little success compared to today’s politicians and modern intellectuals.
Meanwhile, take a close look at who participated in the video Noonan describes above. It will tell you who we should not trust in the impending war over American freedom.
Finding out what’s in it: A fourth hospital in two years is shutting down in Georgia because of payment cuts imposed by Obamacare.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: University of South Carolina administrators refuse to teach the Constitution, as required by state stature, because they find it “inconvenient.”
State statutes maintain that all students at a South Carolina public school must spend a certain amount of time studying the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Failure to abide by the statute is grounds for the removal of the head of the public institution–in this case, President Pastides. “Willful neglect or failure on the part of any public school superintendent, principal or teacher or the president, teacher or other officer of any high school, normal school, university or college to observe and carry out the requirements [of the statute] shall be sufficient cause for the dismissal or removal of such person from his position,” according to South Carolina law.
The USC administrators say the statute is inconvenient to enforce, however, since it would disrupt the university’s current course requirements.
It might inconvenient, and the law itself might be foolish, but it isn’t up the administrators to decide this. They should be fired.
Communism fails again, and the Western intellectual elite puts blinders on so they don’t have to see it.
Communism and top-down state control of human activity has always failed in the past, continues to fail in the present, and will always fail in the future — no matter how good or sincere the intentions might be. If you want to make life better for people, give them freedom and then try to persuade them to do the right thing. Applying force simply does not work.
The Russian head of the Baikonur spaceport has resigned.
It appears that this is part of the continuing shake-up in Russia’s space operations as a result of its recent launch failures.
The uncertainty of science: NOAA’s official prediction for this winter was as bad as monkeys working on typewriters.
“Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director. The center grades itself on what it calls the Heidke skill score, which ranges from 100 (perfection) to -50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better). October’s forecast for the three-month period of November through January came in at -22. Truth be told, the September prediction for October-December was slightly worse, at -23. The main cause in both cases was the same: Underestimating the mammoth December cold wave, which brought snow to Dallas and chilled partiers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
But don’t worry. These guys know exactly what’s going to happen to the climate in a hundred years.
A Boston hospital kidnaps a family’s daughter and then slaps a gag order on them to try to prevent them from talking about it.
The Boston hospital, to which the girl was transferred on the advice of her original doctors in Connecticut, disagreed with the treatment and then forced their decisions on the family to the point of denying them access to their daughter. The father is now going public because he fears if she doesn’t get the right treatment “she is going to die.”
Though the story makes no mention of it, we must remember that Massachusetts is the land of Romneycare, where the government has stepped in to run the medical world. Somehow, I strongly suspect that fact plays a part in this story, if only as a cultural factor.
