Another woman sues SpaceX for sexual discrimination and retaliation

On March 5, 2024 Michelle Dopak filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for sexual discrimination and retaliation, claiming the company paid her less than male workers, refused to promote her, and ignored her complaints about sexual abuse by her married manager that eventually led to a pregnancy.

Dopak said in the suit that in 2020, her manager offered her $100,000 to have an abortion, which she declined. She is suing the company for an unspecified amount of damages. Reuters was first to report the existence of the lawsuit. Dopak accused SpaceX of colluding with her former manager by allowing him to transfer $3.7 million in SpaceX stock out of his name to evade child support payments, according to the lawsuit obtained by Business Insider.

This suit is one now of several discrimination suits against the company. Unlike the others, however, if Dopak’s accusations prove true it would be the most damaging of all, since she claims the company itself took action against her to protect this manager. The other suits appear more frivolous on their face, issued by individuals claiming to have been fired by SpaceX for their opinions, when the facts strongly suggest they were more interested in causing trouble at the company then doing their job, and thus deserved to be fired.

Amazon files to have shareholder lawsuit dismissed

On December 11, 2023 Amazon requested dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit against it for acting in bad faith by excluding SpaceX in its initial launch contracts with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to put its Kuiper constellation of satellites into orbit.

The lawsuit claimed that the board performed little diligence on the proposed contracts to launch the 3,236-satellite constellation with the Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur rockets. The combined contracts were, it stated, the second largest capital expenditure in Amazon’s history at the time, trailing only its $13.7 billion acquisition of grocer Whole Foods.

The lawsuit stated that the board and its audit committee spent “barely an hour” reviewing those contracts, including those that would go to Blue Origin and ULA. Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos, while ULA has a contract with Blue Origin to use BE-4 engines on its Vulcan rocket. The suit estimated that nearly 45% of the value of the contracts goes to Blue Origin either directly or through the BE-4 engine contract with ULA.

Amazon’s call for dismissal disputes these claims, stating that the board spent far more time on the issue, and then documents this. Interestingly, it makes no mention of the recent additional launch contract Amazon signed with SpaceX on December 3, 2023, but it is obvious that this filing was timed to occur afterward in order to strengthen Amazon’s case.

Amazon’s response (available at the link above) is heavily redacted, so some of the company’s claims are difficult to assess. For example, if the board did consider the issue of launch contractors properly, the subject of using SpaceX should have come up and been discussed at length. The redactions make it impossible to determine if this was so. If anything, what can be read suggests SpaceX was dismissed as an option far too quickly.

Former Blue Origin engineer sues the company for wrongful termination

A former Blue Origin engineer, Craig Stoker, has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming it fired him because he had reported unsafe conditions caused largely because the company’s then CEO, Bob Smith, interfered with operations and insisted these unsafe conditions be hidden.

According to the complaint, Blue Origin’s contract with ULA requires the company to communicate issues that could impact rocket engine delivery one year in advance; Stoker wanted to tell ULA the engines would likely be delayed. [Ed. Delays that ended up actually happening.]

But Smith had allegedly instructed Stoker not to share these production and delivery issues with ULA.

Ultimately, after an internal investigation, Blue Origin HR concluded that Smith did not create a hostile work environment, nor violate any company policies. Stoker objected to this conclusion; the complaint says that Stoker later learned that no one from the engine program was interviewed as part of the investigation.

The complaint also notes that

Smith’s behavior caused employees “to frequently violate safety procedures and processes in order to meet unreasonable deadlines.” Smith would “explode” when issues would arise, generating a hostile work environment, the complaint says. Stoker sent a follow-up email to the two VPs — Linda Cova, VP of the engines business unit, and Mary Plunkett, senior VP of human resources — that included a formal complaint against Smith.

According to the complaint, Smith then “spearheaded” Stoker’s termination because of his refusal to sweep the safety issues under the rug.

If the accusations of this lawsuit prove true, it provides another piece of strong evidence explaining why Blue Origin went from a productive company to an utter failure after Bob Smith took over in 2017.

Biden’s Justice Department sues SpaceX

The corrupt and very partisan Justice Department of the Biden administration today sued SpaceX for discriminating against refugees and illegal immigrants because it restricts hiring to “U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.”

The lawsuit states SpaceX “failed to fairly consider” and “refused to hire” the asylees and refugees who ended up applying anyway. It also alleges that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that the US’s export control laws allowed it to only hire US citizens and lawful residents. Additionally, the DOJ claims SpaceX hired “only” US citizens and green card holders from September 2018 to September 2020.

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, says in a statement.

Justice is demanding compensation and back pay for anyone “deterred or denied employment”, as well as civil penalties.

This suit is utter garbage and puts SpaceX between a rock and a hard place. I guarantee if SpaceX had hired any illegal or refugee who was not yet a legal citizen, Biden’s State Department would have immediately sued it for violating other laws relating to ITAR (the export control laws mentioned) which try to prevent the theft of technology by foreign powers.

The Biden administration considers Elon Musk an opponent, and since it is now moving to indict and even imprison all political opposition, it is no surprise it is beginning to use lawfare against him. As I have written repeatedly, it has almost certainly pressured the FAA to slow walk any launch license approvals for SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. This lawsuit today simply provides further evidence that my prediction will be right that the next orbital test flight of that rocket will be delayed months.

Pushback: Judge rules that libel suit against two black professors for slandering white real estate assessor can proceed

Mott (l) and Connolly, eager to defame whites
Mott (l) and Connolly, eager to use race to
defame an innocent white man

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A U.S. district judge on August 2, 2023 ruled [pdf] that the defamation lawsuit of real estate assessor Shane Lanham against two black Johns Hopkins professors can now proceed.

And boy, does Lanhan stand a good chance of winning. This is a followup of an earlier blacklist story from February. The two professors, Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, had publicly accused Lanham on national television of being a bigot because they had not liked the value he placed on their house. As I wrote then:

This story began when Connolly and Mott asked Lanham (who is white) and his company, 20/20 Valuations, to appraise their house. When they were unhappy with his appraisal, they decided to get another appraisal, but this time do what they themselves called a ““whitewashing experiment.” For the second appraisal they removed all evidence that a black family owned the house, to the extent of having a white friend present himself as the owner instead. The second appraisal, done months later, came up with a higher price.
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SpaceX and FAA seek dismissal of lawsuit against Starship at Boca Chica

Both the FAA and SpaceX have now submitted their response to the lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other environmental and leftist political groups, requesting a dismissal of their lawsuit demanding no more launches at Boca Chica until the federal government completes a new environmental impact statement.

In a filing Friday, the FAA said the groups lack legal standing for their claims against the agency that granted a launch license to SpaceX’s Starship rocket program. Separately, a SpaceX filing said the first Starship launch on April 20 provided no cause for the FAA to conduct a new environmental assessment, a process that could halt further test launches for years. “For the foregoing reasons, defendants request that the court dismiss the complaint in its entirety,” Todd Kim, assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in the filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

In a sane world, this lawsuit would have been thrown out of court almost instantly. There is no evidence the test launch of Starship/Superheavy caused any environmental damage. Furthermore, launches from Cape Canaveral for the past seven decades have proven this fact repeatedly.

We no longer live in a sane world. There is no guarantee the court will rule in favor of the FAA or SpaceX.

Class action securities fraud lawsuit filed against Virgin Galactic

Capitalism in space: In what will likely be the first in a number of similar legal actions, a lawsuit was filed against Virgin Galactic earlier this month accusing the company and a number of upper management individuals of securities fraud.

A class action lawsuit was filed in New York on Dec. 7 alleging securities fraud by Virgin Galactic, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in October 2019 after merging with Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH).

Named in the lawsuit are Virgin Galactic Holdings, CEO Michael Colglazier, former CEO George Whitesides, former current chief financial officer Doug Ahrens, and former chief financial officer Jon Compagna.

The lawsuit was filed amid years-long delays in the start of commercial human suborbital flights that have caused a sharp decline in the value of the stock. Virgin Galactic began trading on the New York Stock Exchange at an opening price of $12.34 on Oct. 28, 2019. The stock is now trading at $14.46 having previously soared to a high of $62.80.

The article description of the condition of the company’s WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane and its suborbital craft VSS Unity suggests that the likelihood of further tourist flight could be low.

It is also interesting that Richard Branson is not named, as he clearly played a part in any such action. He also conveniently sold most of his stock in the company when its price was on the high end of its roller coaster. It could be the plaintiffs left him out in order to keep his substantial financial big guns from firing back at them.

More lawsuits are expected however, and we should not be surprised if both Branson and Palihapitiya get included at some point.

Key legal issues behind the Texas petition to Supreme Court re election issues

Link here.

The author reviews the petition, the logic behind it, and the legal possibilities. She also cogently reviews the worst examples of misbehavior in the four swing states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, that justify Supreme Court action. If you are one of those people that refuses to recognize the illegalities in the handling of the election in those states, you should read this article to education yourself.

The key point however is this:

These injuries, Texas asserts, demand a remedy. But the remedy sought is not what some may surmise is the goal—a second term for President Trump.

No, what Texas seeks is for the Supreme Court to mandate that the defendant states comply with the Constitution, and that means that electors are selected by the states’ legislatures. Texas makes this point clear, stressing: “Plaintiff State does not ask this Court to decide who won the election; they only ask that the Court enjoin the clear violations of the Electors Clause of the Constitution.”

Texas is essentially demanding what I suggested several weeks ago: If election issues are not fixed, elected state Republicans must refuse to certify.

Texas is demanding that these four states put the decision to the legislatures, since their election counts cannot be trusted. While the arguments are sound, it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will listen.

Covington teenager settles with Washington Post

The lawyers for Covington teenager Nicholas Sandmann have reached an out-of-court settlement with the Washington Post in its $250 million defamation lawsuit.

The announcement gave no details of the settlement.

If it didn’t include a complete front-page retraction and apology from the Washington Post than it is less than worthless. Sandmann might get a ton of money, but the slanders against him will remain, unchallenged. And the Post will still be free to slander others in the same manner, for crass partisan Democratic purposes.

CNN settles with Nick Sandmann

No details yet, but CNN has apparently negotiated a settlement with the lawyers for Covington high schooler Nick Sandmann for its slander of him during its reporting.

The amount of the settlement was not made public during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky.

Sandmann’s lawsuit sought $800 million from CNN, the Washington Post and NBC Universal. Trial dates are still not set for Sandmann’s lawsuit against NBC Universal and the Washington Post. The Washington Post suit sought $250 million. A federal judge let a portion of the suit go forward after The Post filed a motion to dismiss it.

Sandmann’s attorney, Lin Wood, said, “This case will be tried not one minute earlier or later than when it is ready.”

The money quote from the article however is this: “Attorneys say the money they’re seeking is not designed to compensate Nick, but to ‘deter the defendants’ from doing the same thing (that they’re accused of) in the future.”

I truly hope the settlement is made public, and it bites hard into CNN’s bottom line. They richly deserve it for their very bad reporting on many things during these past three years. Ditto for the Washtington Post and NBC.

Covington lawsuit against Washington Post reopened

A federal judge has reinstated the $250 million lawsuit by Covington teenager Nicolas Sandmann against the Washington Post for slandering him during its news coverage.

U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman agreed to permit discovery on three of 33 allegedly libelous statements in The Post’s coverage of the Jan. 18 incident pertaining to teenager Nicholas Sandmann. The Post has insisted that its reporting was fair and accurate.

All three flagged statements from the newspaper’s coverage refer to Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips being blocked or impeded by Nicholas, a student at Covington Catholic High School, during their viral encounter at the Lincoln Memorial stairs.

Since the video of the event quite clearly shows that Sandmann never blocked anyone, that if anything Nathan Phillips pursued Sandmann, the Post is now very vulnerable to losing the suit. This decision also suggests that Sandmann’s lawsuits against CNN and NBC will also go forward.

Sandmann lawyers file $275 million defamation lawsuit against CNN

The law firm for Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky teenager who was slandered by numerous leftist mainstream news organizations in January, has now filed a $275 million defamation lawsuit against CNN.

You can read or download the full suit here [pdf]

This suit is on top of a $250 million lawsuit the firm has also filed against the Washington Post.

Right now it appears to me that both the Washington Post and CNN are going to lose big in these suits. Following the filing of the lawsuit against it the Post published “an editor’s note” concerning its coverage of the incident, but never admitted to or apologized for its false reporting. Instead, it merely noted the numerous errors and false claims in the original reporting. If anything, that correction makes it more liable, as it suggests the false coverage was acceptable to it, at the time.

Buzz Aldrin’s son acts to block his father’s access to his assets

Sad: Andrew Aldrin, son to Buzz Aldrin, has moved to try to block his father’s access to the funds in two of his financial accounts.

Andrew Aldrin’s lawyer sent a letter last month to an associate in Morgan Stanley’s private wealth management division with instructions not to transfer any assets in two financial accounts in a trust of which Andrew Aldrin is a trustee. Buzz Aldrin, 89, has tried to terminate the trust and wants the assets distributed to him.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, member of the first landingBuy Photo

The letter from Andrew Aldrin’s lawyer warns Morgan Stanley that the son, acting as trustee, will seek damages if his instructions aren’t followed. “Please govern yourself accordingly,” the letter said.

Morgan Stanley asked a Florida court last week to decide if it should follow the instructions of Buzz Aldrin or his son.

The family has been fighting for control of Aldrin’s assets, with two of his children saying he has memory loss and is delusional.

1984 at the University of Michigan

Fascist academia: The University of Michigan has been sued by a free speech organization for its 1984-like rules that threaten students with punishment, even re-education camps, if they dare express any opinion that might offend its organized thought police.

As the lawsuit says, the university has created an “elaborate investigatory and disciplinary apparatus to suppress and punish speech other students deem ‘demeaning,’ ‘bothersome,’ or ‘hurtful’.” Yes, really: The student disciplinary code defines “harassment” as any “unwanted negative attention perceived as intimidating, demeaning, or bothersome to an individual”

…The university has its version of the Stasi and Orwell’s Thought Police — a “Bias Response Team” that investigates supposed “bias” complaints from offended students — students who can file their complaints anonymously. So if you are accused of wrongdoing, you don’t even have a right to confront your accuser — just like the former citizens of East Germany where the Stasi had literally hundreds of thousands of informers who could be your next-door neighbor or even a member of your own family. Or in this case, a student down the hall or from one of your classes.

If you think this Star Chamber process is limited to verbal speech, think again. Just like the electronic surveillance in Oceania, the “Bias Incident Report Log” posted by Michigan on its website shows that the Bias Response Team may come after you for what you do and say in “On-line/Social Media” communications including texts, emails, and Twitter.

The log also shows that the campus secret police — sorry, the Bias Response Team — also goes after “Off Campus” speech. So students aren’t safe anywhere. Their First Amendment rights are severely restricted, no matter what they are doing or where they are.

So a student may literally receive a knock on his door “from a team of University officials threatening to refer the student to formal disciplinary authorities” for something some unknown, anonymous informant alleges that he said, something the informant doesn’t like, or doesn’t agree with, or is uncomfortable with. Unless, of course, as the complaint says, the student agrees to submit “to ‘restorative justice,’ ‘individual education,’ or ‘unconscious bias training’.”

In other words, the only way a student may be able to avoid formal charges against meritless claims is by agreeing to submit to the academic equivalent of a communist-style “re-education” camp or brainwashing about the latest liberal fad like “unconscious bias.”

Read it all. It is pretty horrible, and makes me wonder why the state government is providing any funds to this fascist-run university. Time to shut it down.

Twenty-year-old sues Dick’s for refusing to sell him gun

Pushback: A twenty-year-old in Oregon has sued Dick’s Sporting Goods for refusing to sell him a rifle, based on his age.

The plaintiff, Tyler Watson, claims he faced “Unlawful Age Discrimination.” Watson attempted to buy the rifle “on or about February 24” at a Medford, Oregon, Field and Stream store. (Field and Stream is subsidiary of Dick’s.) Watson’s suit, filed in the Circuit Court of Oregon for the County of Jackson, says a store employee refused the purchase and indicated, “He would not sell [Watson] any firearm, including rifles and shotguns, or ammunition for a firearm, because [Watson] is under 21 years old.”

The employee referenced Dick’s recent policy shift, disallowing firearm sales to anyone under 21, and cited the policy as the reason for denying the sale.

Watson’s suit alleges that Dick’s policy violates Oregon law against age-based discrimination for people 18 years and older in places of public accommodations. State law includes prohibitions against discrimination in stores that are open to the general public.

Watson has also sued Walmart, for the same reasons.

The irony here is that Oregon, a decidedly liberal state, was very quick to pass age discrimination laws in the past, a traditional tactic of the left to create groups of victims it can utilize politically in order to maintain its power. Watson here is now using those laws against them.

SSL lawsuit against Orbital ATK to move forward

A judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought by SSL against Orbital ATK, two companies competing for satellite servicing work, can go forward.

The case stems a December 2016 incident where NASA officials notified SSL that there had been unauthorized access to SSL documents related to a NASA “Tipping Point” technology development award on a server at the Langley Research Center. SSL had received that award earlier in the year to work on technologies related to in-space satellite servicing.

That unauthorized access was traced to an Orbital ATK employee, who was subsequently fired by the company. However, SSL said in its suit that as many as six Orbital ATK employees viewed the documents. SSL filed the suit in March 2017 seeking an injunction to prevent Orbital ATK from using any of those documents in its own projects, as well as “other and further relief the Court may deem just and appropriate.”

Both companies have satellite servicing missions planned. What I want is for both to succeed, to provide some competition in the field. Though I suspect this is doubtful, this lawsuit has the possibiliity of killing Orbital ATK’s effort.

ULA settles lawsuit that said it defrauded government of $90 million

ULA has settled a lawsuit with a whistleblower who claimed the company had defrauded the federal government of at least $90 million by overbilling employee work hours.

Unlike the commercial marketplace where prices of goods and services are determined by market forces including competition, sellers in the aerospace industry face little or no competition and contract pricing is based largely on a contractor’s estimated costs, the lawsuit says.

ULA charged the government tens of millions of dollars for work that was never performed and inflated the estimated labor hours including the time required to buy parts and materials from vendors, the lawsuit says.

ULA retaliated against Scott [the whistleblower] by forcing him out of the company after he revealed the alleged illegal activities. ULA officials placed a camera above his desk, monitored and questioned his cell phone and computer use, and suggested he violated the law or engaged in improper bidding practices himself, the lawsuit says.

ULA used a system called the Keith Crohn model that creates a grid using the cost of equipment to reach an employee cost. A labor value was placed on the grid for every item ordered through the company’s purchasing department. For example, any item that cost between $1 and $1,000 would be assigned a labor value of 8 hours. It didn’t matter what part it was, the lawsuit said. The U.S. bans arbitrary cost estimates when actual data is available that establishes the cost.

The first paragraph of the quote above actually describes the bad deal that the Air Force made with ULA back in the early 2000s, giving the company a monopoly on launches while subsidizing it to the tune of $1 billion per year. That deal is now dead, and ULA is instead forced to compete with SpaceX (and soon others I hope) for launch contracts. Not surprisingly, their prices have dropped considerably.

Palin wins first battle with NYTimes in her libel lawsuit

This should be entertaining: A federal judge has ruled that the New York Times editorial writer who smeared Sarah Palin in an editorial will have to testify under oath about that editorial.

The editorial tried to blame Palin for the 2011 Tucson mass shooting by an insane man, even though the New York Times’ own reporting had previously shown without doubt that no such link existed. In order to avoid losing their case, the editorial writer is going to have to claim that he doesn’t read his own newspaper, and thus did not know about the Times own reporting on this story. Otherwise, it will appear that the editorial was malicious and a lie, and thus libelous.

Like I said, this should be entertaining. Either Palin wins the lawsuit hands down, or the New York Times will have to make itself look like a piece of junk. Which, by the way, it has mostly been for the past three decades.

Lawsuit by fired SpaceX employee goes to court

The jury trail of a lawsuit by a fired SpaceX employee, claiming that he was dismissed because he complained about bad practices at the company, has now begun.

A Los Angeles state court jury will be asked to decide whether Blasdell had good reason to believe testing documents were falsified and whether his firing was unjustified. “He went up the chain of command as he had learned in the Marines was the proper procedure,” Blasdell’s lawyer, Carney Shegerian, told jurors in his opening statement Tuesday. “He had nothing personal to benefit from this other than to do the right thing.” SpaceX made misrepresentations to the federal government, cut corners in areas where safety was concerned and labeled Blasdell “insubordinate” for pressing his concerns, Shegerian said.

Not surprisingly, the SpaceX lawyer disagreed:

“Jason Blasdell is not a whistle-blower and this is not a whistle-blower case,” SpaceX’s lawyer, Lynne Hermle, said in her opening statement. He never observed or conducted any unlawful testing of rocket parts, never complained about unlawful testing, and never brought any concerns about unlawful testing to federal authorities, Hermle told jurors.

Trump rally attendees sue San Jose

Fourteen attendees of a San Jose Trump rally on June 2 have filed a class-action suit against the city, the mayor, and the police chief for their failure to protect them from rioters.

“Law-abiding citizens leaving the Trump rally were victimized by being forced by armed police to walk into a riot in full swing where many were assaulted while police looked on,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Harmeet K. Dhillon, who is also the vice chair of the California Republican Party.

Dhillon says her clients range from a 14-year-old who was assaulted by two different individuals and denied assistance by the San Jose Fire Department to a 71-year-old woman whose glasses were ripped off and destroyed by three rioters. She said it was made clear that the “inaction” of 250 San Jose police officers “was colored by political viewpoint considerations.”

As documented at the time, the San Jose police actually arranged things so that the Trump supporters were forced to take a detour that would put them directly in the path of the violent protesters, and then stood down and watched them get attacked.

I hope they win big, and bankrupt the mayor and the police chief.

Computer chip company sues SpaceX

The competition heats up: A computer chip manufacturer has sued SpaceX, accusing it of stealing both its engineers and the computer chips they were designing.

Broadcom’s co-founder and chief technology officer Henry Samueli met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in October 2015 in attempts to solidify an agreement, at which time Musk insisted Broadcom keep its “A-team” on the project, according to the complaint.

But even as Samueli and Musk were meeting, other SpaceX representatives were attempting to uncover the identities of the “A-team” engineers working on the Space X project, Broadcom says in its complaint. Five Broadcom engineers – all of whom worked on the SpaceX project – resigned their positions with the company effective March 11, and refused to disclose their new employer, according to the complaint. Broadcom says SpaceX confirmed they hired the five engineers on March 9, saying nothing prevented them from hiring other Broadcom engineers.

For its part, SpaceX says the Broadcom engineers – all named as defendants in Broadcom’s complaint – approached them. “SpaceX did not pursue or lure engineers from Broadcom,” a SpaceX spokesman said. “On the contrary, these engineers reached out to SpaceX anticipating significant layoffs at the Broadcom Irvine location.”

Japanese investor sues Excalibur Almaz

The billionaire investor in the company Excalibur Almaz is suing the lawyer in charge for fraud.

Using the $49 million the billionaire invested, the lawyer purchased several Soviet-era capsules and a Almaz space station module from the Russians, claiming they would use this equipment, once refurbished, to establish a commercial space company. What the lawyer, Art Dura, did not tell anyone was, as the lawsuit explains:

“The purchase contracts had to be approved by the Russian government, and unbeknownst to plaintiff … expressly excluded the right to modify the Russian hardware, thus relegating it to display uses only! The items were only museum pieces, a secret Dula would keep until well after he acquired control of plaintiff’s investment.”

Dula’s vehicle for the scheme was Excalibur Almaz Limited, an entity he set up in the Isle of Man, into which he transferred Horie’s $49 million investment, according to the complaint.

What I find amazing is that the company, Excalibur Almaz, also put out a lot of press releases describing how they were going to use this Russian equipment as part of their space effort. I reported on these releases myself. That Dura was able to keep the contract terms secret, that even the Russians didn’t publicly protest his false statements, is most interesting. Apparently, the Russians were glad to take his money and even help with the fraud, by not revealing the truth when Dura made public claims that were impossible according to the contract.

This story illustrates one of the less obvious investment risks inherent in a new industry such as commercial space. Not only can vehicles crash and burn, there are also a lot of con artists out there willing to take advantage of naive individuals who are so passionate about space exploration that they don’t look closely at what they are doing.

Judge orders release of documents withheld by DOJ in Fast-and-Furious

A federal judge has ordered the Obama administration and the Justice Department to hand over some of the documents demanded by Congress in its investigation of the government’s gun-smuggling operation dubbed Fast and Furious.

The judge also ordered the Justice Department to provide Congress a list of withheld documents so that they will have a better idea of what documents should be made available.

Michael Mann’s court suit under attack

Good news: Groups from across the political spectrum are expressing their opposition to Michael Mann’s court suit against his critics.

On Monday, The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press — along with 26 other groups including The Washington Post, Bloomberg and Fox News — filed an “amici curiae,” or “friend of the court,” brief with the D.C. Court of Appeals. An amici curiae is a brief submitted to a court to raise additional points of view to sway a court’s decision.

“While Mann essentially claims that he can silence critics because he is ‘right,’ the judicial system should not be the arbiter of either scientific truth or correct public policy,” the brief states, adding that “a participant in the ‘rough-and-tumble’ of public debate should not be able to use a lawsuit like this to silence his critics, regardless of whether one agrees with Mann or defendants.”

Just as Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg said it, I will say it also: Michael Mann is a fraud. He has no idea what it means to be a scientist, and should have been fired by his university after his climategate emails were uncovered. Instead, his university’s investigation was a whitewash and as much a fraud as Mann is.

Another former SpaceX employee sues

SpaceX has been hit by its second lawsuit in a week from a former employee.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that SpaceX supervisors impose schedules on their employees that make it impossible for them to take statutorily required rest periods every four hours or first or second meal breaks as required by California law.

I consider this suit a bigger threat to the company than the first. The first suit merely claimed that the company didn’t give its fired employees the 60 day warning as required by law. If they win, they will get some payments, but the company will be able to continue as before.

This second suit, if successfully, could force the company to change its aggressive culture, where employees are expected to work very hard, sometimes 60-80 hour weeks, to make things happen quickly. While those work hours might seem abusive to some, to most of the people working there it is what they want to do. A successful lawsuit here could force the company to literally stop them from working. The conditions then might be more relaxed, but the ability to make progress will be stymied, and the costs for making that progress will go up considerably.

Second judge demands explanation from IRS

A second judge has now ordered the IRS to explain under oath how it lost Lois Lerner’s emails central to the agency’s harassment of conservatives.

The article does not tell us if this second judge has put a deadline on his demands. I expect we will learn more by the end of the day.

Update: This article provides more information. It appears he wants his answers fast, but is also willing to defer to an IRS inspector general investigation into the lost emails that is ongoing.

At a hearing Friday, [U.S. District Judge Reggie] Walton warned government lawyers that he wanted a quick turnaround on that information, saying he would likely require it by the end of next week. Walton said he expected to officially make his order by the end of Friday, but also suggested that he was willing to defer at least somewhat to the inspector general’s investigation and to the multiple congressional inquiries into the IRS. “I am one of the judges that believes the judicial branch has a limited role” in these sorts of cases, Walton said.

Federal judge gives the IRS 30 days to come clean

A federal judge has given the IRS 30 days to testify under oath how the Lois Lerner emails were lost.

This testimony will be far different than congressional hearings, in that it will be wide-ranging and will not have Democratic legislators present to provide cover. It will also not be under the time constraints that limit congressional hearings.

In related news, Congressman Steve Stockman (R-Texas) has filed a resolution calling for the arrest of Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress.

Two California residents have filed a class action suit against their health insurance company for misrepresenting the doctors and hospitals that their plan would include.

Finding out what’s not in it: Two California residents have filed a class action suit against their health insurance company for misrepresenting the doctors and hospitals that their plan would include.

The lawsuit accuses Blue Shield of advertising “one of the largest networks in the state” – with more than 60,000 physicians and 351 hospitals – and of failing to disclose that the networks for certain plans were substantially smaller. After receiving medical treatment numerous times between January and March, Harrington and Talon later discovered that their providers were not covered, forcing them to pay the charges out-of-pocket, the complaint said. The lawsuit alleged claims of false advertising, unfair business practices and breach of contract under California law.

We must remember that though Obamacare itself is not the subject of this suit, the law is still the root cause of the problem. It forced these individuals to buy insurance they might not have wanted, and it forced the insurance companies to restructure and narrow their insurance plans to meet the dictates of the law.

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