How ten high-profile Democrat Senators pressured the IRS to harass conservatives.
How ten high-profile Democrat senators pressured the IRS to harass conservatives.
Tag: government
ULA today stated that they have enough Russian engines in stock to complete the 36 launch U.S. military bulk buy.
ULA today stated that they have enough Russian engines in stock to complete the 36 launch U.S. military bulk buy.
Whether they will actually complete that bulk buy remains unknown.
How the Peoria mayor used the power of his position to try to destroy someone who was making fun of him.
How the Peoria mayor used the power of his position to try to destroy someone who was making fun of him on Twitter.
Could your town’s mayor spark a police investigation into your activities that ends with town cops rifling through your mobile phone, your laptop, and the full contents of your Gmail account—all over an alleged misdemeanor based on something you wrote on social media? Not in America, you say? But you’d be wrong.
The interesting thing about this story is not so much the abuse of power by the mayor and the police in Peoria but the reaction to their actions. Watch especially the Peoria Council meeting on April 22, 2014. The response is uniformly horrified and disgusted and in opposition to this abuse.
That the public and most politicians get it and realize how inappropriate these actions were gives me hope for our country.
Newly released IRS emails show that the harassment of conservatives was directed by higher management in Washington and elsewhere, not confined to low level employees in Cincinnati.
Working for the Democratic Party: Newly released IRS emails show that the harassment of conservatives was directed by higher management in Washington and elsewhere, not confined to low level employees in Cincinnati.
The key fact here is that these emails prove that Lois Lerner and other officials in the Obama administration lied when they made the claim that the harassment was the work of low level employees.
But then, lying by this administration is par for the course.
A climate scientist who joined the board of a skeptical think tank was forced to resign from that think tank after only three weeks due to intense outside pressure and harassment from the global warming community.
McCarthyism of the left: A climate scientist who joined the board of a skeptical think tank was forced to resign from that think tank after only three weeks due to intense outside pressure and harassment from the global warming community.
I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from [the Global Warming Policy Foundation] (GWPF). I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen.
It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years. Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time. [emphasis mine]
The emphasized language illustrates once again the blacklisting methods now being used by the left to destroy anyone who dares to disagree with them.
Read the full transcript of Tuesday’s briefing in Russia on the subject of the U.S./Russian cooperation in space.
Read the full transcript of Tuesday’s briefing in Russia on the subject of the U.S./Russian cooperation in space.
It is very worthwhile reading the entire thing. The text makes it very clear that Russia is not kicking us out of ISS, as has been wrongly reported by several news agencies. It also makes clear that the Russians consider the Obama administration’s actions childish, thoughtless, and unproductive. They also emphasize how the U.S. government is generally an “unreliable” partner in these matters, something that I have noted before when our government has broken space agreements with Europe.
The text also clarifies the GPS situation. The stations we have in Russia are in connection with scientific research, something they wish to do also in the U.S. If an agreement isn’t reached, that research will cease. Actual use of GPS for navigational purposes will not be effected.
Side note: NASA says that they have not yet received any official notice from Russia concerning the briefing above. This might be because Rogozin’s briefing was meant merely as a shot across the bow, or it could be that the Russians have not yet gotten around to doing it. We shall see.
Three astronauts safely returned from ISS on Tuesday evening.
Three astronauts safely returned from ISS on Tuesday evening.
“We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has.”
Finding out what’s in it: “We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has.”
The quote says it all about what Obamacare is really about: The wielding of power by politicians and the squelching of freedom for everyone else. Along the way society becomes poorer and more oppressive.
India has successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of more than 1,800 miles.
India has successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of more than 1,800 miles.
Though they really don’t need it, a private effort to reactivate a 1970s spacecraft has now gotten NASA’s okay.
Though they really don’t need it, a private effort to reactivate a 1970s spacecraft has now gotten NASA’s okay.
This piece of paper from NASA is a definite nice-to-have, given that “a private entity cannot legally salvage U.S. government property in space,” according to Mike Gold, a space law expert and attorney who works full time as the head of Washington operations for Bigelow Aerospace, the North Las Vegas, Nevada, company developing inflatable space habitats with technology licensed from NASA.
But practically speaking, it appears NASA could have done little to stop the ISEE-3 Reboot project from moving ahead with its plan to take over the old spacecraft — an Earth-Sun observatory that launched to the gravitationally stable Earth-Sun Lagrange point 1 in 1978 and is now swinging back toward the home planet in the heliocentric orbit NASA nudged it into in 1982 to chase comets.
What is really more important is that their effort to raise the necessary private funds for this project has largely succeeded.
NASA has chosen the four shuttle engines that will be used to launch SLS on its first mission in 2021.
What a waste: NASA has chosen the four shuttle engines that will be used to launch SLS on its first mission in 2021.
All four engines were used multiple times on many shuttle missions. They will fly once on SLS, at a cost of many billions, and then end up destroyed when that giant rocket’s first stage falls into the ocean. Worse, no one has really defined what the goal of that first launch will be. It might merely be a test launch, with no humans on board.
To me, it would be wiser to put the engines into storage and wait until we have a new reusable capability that could take advantage of the reusable engineering of these engines. Throwing them away on a pork-barrel boondoggle like SLS seems so stupid.
Russia fights back
Much has been made about the sanctions the Obama administration has imposed on any cooperation with Russia due to the situation in Ukraine and how those sanctions might damage the commercial and manned space efforts of the United States.
So far, all evidence has suggested that the sanctions have little teeth. The Obama administration exempted ISS from the sanctions. It also appears to be allowing the shipment of all commercial satellites to Russia for launch. Even a court injunction against using Russia rocket engines in U.S. military launches was lifted when the Obama administration asked the judge to do so.
The Russians now have responded. Why do I take their response more seriously?
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