Tag Archives: oppression

SpaceX pinpoints cause of Dragon explosion during test

Points of Information

SpaceX today revealed that it has pinpointed the cause of the explosion that destroyed a Dragon manned capsule during an engine test in April.

The company believes that the problem originated with the Crew Dragon’s emergency abort system, which consists of a series of small thrusters embedded within the capsule. If all goes well during a mission, these tiny thrusters are never really meant to be used. But if there is some kind of failure during a future launch, the thrusters can ignite and carry the Crew Dragon safely away from a disintegrating rocket.

SpaceX says that a leaky valve caused the propellant needed for these thrusters to cross into another system — one of really high pressure. When this contamination occurred, the high forces slammed the liquid around, causing valuable components to fail and leading to the ultimate loss of the capsule.

Koenigsman said that this contamination definitely was not anticipated, though the kind of valve that leaked has been known to have some internal leakage problem. Ultimately, he acknowledged that, to some extent, this was a design issue. “It’s something that the components should not have done,” Koenigsman said. “But at the same time, we learned a very valuable lesson on something going forward, one that makes the Crew Dragon a safer vehicle.”
““it was a huge gift for us.” ”

SpaceX will replace all of these types of valves with another component known as a burst disk, which is supposed to be much more reliable, according to Koenigsman.

The company is still hoping to fly before the end of the year, but admits that this may not be possible. Right now they have a tentative launch date in November.

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Modern Democratic Party McCarthyism

Essays And Commentaries

Are you a registered Democrat? Do you want to find out who you are really supporting? Then I think you need to watch Congressman Jesus Garcia (D-Illinois) two days ago during House hearing on the southern border crisis while questioning former ICE Director Tom Homan. He encapsulates perfectly the bigoted, hateful, and oppressive attitudes of the modern Democratic Party.

Most news sources have focused on Homan’s immediate visceral response, calling Garcia’s comments “disgusting.”

I think it more important to listen again to Garcia and his ugly slanderous and uncalled-for ad hominen attack on Homan’s character. My focus here is on the politicians now running the Democratic Party, not the ordinary citizens who are still registered Democrats and are unaware of the cruel, mean-spirited, and bigoted nature of those who now lead their party. If you still vote Democrat you need to know what you are voting for. It is not pretty, and it should make you ill.

I have therefore embedded the video of the exchange below, along with a transcript of Garcia’s words. Though my focus is on Garcia, it is worthwhile to watch the whole clip.

» Read more

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500 protesters block access road on Mauna Kea

Points of Information

About 500 protesters this morning blocked the access road on Mauna Kea that construction vehicles were going to use to begin construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

More than 500 protestors blocked Mauna Kea Access Road and chanted at the sun rose this morning, including seven who chained themselves to a cattle guard near the base of the road.

A convoy of state Department of Transportation vehicles carrying traffic control signage passed the intersection but made no effort to turn onto the access road.

More than a dozen elders with the protest movement sat on folding chairs and were joined by two protestors in wheelchairs at the bottom to the road as the crowd chanted and sang.

Police made no effort to disturb the protest. Gov. David Ige announced last week that the access road would be closed at 7 a.m. today to clear the way for heavy equipment for the controversial $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope.

Based on this report it sounds like the protesters have successfully prevented construction from beginning.

Several points: First, these protesters are breaking the law.

Second, these protesters had their day in court, and lost. In a civilized society, you accept such decisions. No civilization can function if some people think they will always get their way, even if the law and the majority rule against them.

Third, at this moment it appears that David Ige, the Democratic governor, is doing exactly what I expected. He is mouthing platitudes about supporting the law and the construction, while allowing the protesters to block it. Unless he takes action in the next day or so to remove the protesters and clear the road, the protests will grow and become unmanageable. At that point Ige will say that construction must be stopped to avoid bloodshed, and to honor the wishes of what must be a large percentage of the population.

That last part however is a lie. Polls have all indicated that the public wants TMT. And the law is on the public’s side here. It is Ige’s job to support both, not a small minority of unruly spoiled agitators.

Being a modern Democrat however, I expect Ige to favor the lawbreakers.

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Two new science papers strongly question theory of man-made global warming

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The uncertainty of science: Two new science papers, from researchers in Finland and Japan respectively, both strongly question the theory that human activity and the increase of carbon dioxide are causing global warming.

From the Finnish paper’s [pdf] conclusion:

We have proven that the [climate]-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot compute correctly the natural component included in the observed global temperature. The reason is that the models fail to derive the influences of low cloud cover fraction on the global temperature. A too small natural component results in a too large portion for the contribution of the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. That is why 6 J. KAUPPINEN AND P. MALMI IPCC represents the climate sensitivity more than one order of magnitude larger than our sensitivity 0.24°C. Because the anthropogenic portion in the increased CO2 is less than 10 %, we have practically no anthropogenic climate change. The low clouds control mainly the global temperature. [emphasis mine]

From the Japanese paper:

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has discussed the impact of cloud cover on climate in their evaluations, but this phenomenon has never been considered in climate predictions due to the insufficient physical understanding of it,” comments Professor Hyodo. “This study provides an opportunity to rethink the impact of clouds on climate. When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds, and when cosmic rays decrease clouds do as well, so climate warming may be caused by an opposite-umbrella effect. The umbrella effect caused by galactic cosmic rays is important when thinking about current global warming as well as the warm period of the medieval era.”

Essentially, both criticize the climate models for not considering changes in cloud cover and how those effect the global climate. The first paper looks back at the known climate data and compares it with known changes in cloud cover, and finds that cloud cover is a major factor in temperature changes.

The second paper looks at the causes for some of the changes in cloud cover, noting how the increase in galactic cosmic rays during the solar minimum can be tied to an increase in cloud cover, and thus colder temperatures.

Do these papers disprove man-made global warming caused by the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Of course not. They just demonstrate again that the science here is very unsettled, that there are many large gaps in our knowledge, and that it would be foolish now to abandon western civilization and replace it with socialist totalitarian rule in order to prevent a disaster that either might not be happening, or if it is we may have no power to control.

I want to also point out that this post talks about scientists challenging the theory of man-made global warming. Attention must be paid to their conclusions. As for the ignorant opinions of politicians on this subject, who cares?

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Satire website bluntly but correctly summarizes Democratic Party policy

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That website is the Babylon Bee, and the satirical article that does this is headlined: “California Governor Clarifies That Free Healthcare Only Offered To Illegal Immigrants Who’ve Made It Safely Out Of The Womb.”

The article opens with this quote:

California is offering free healthcare to illegal immigrants, once again becoming the first state in the nation to enact a wacky proposal that sounds like the right’s satire of the left and not an actual policy.

While satire, the article then goes on to describe quite accurately, though with an over-the-top bluntness, actual policy decisions in California that clearly represent modern Democratic policy, whereby the party puts first priority on giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants, people who broke the law to enter the country but are not U.S. citizens, while telling legal U.S. citizens that they will have to wait.

At the same time, the Democratic Party has become so radicalized on the issue of abortion that it now supports killing anything that is in the womb, right up until birth, and has also even advocated murder just after birth, which means, as noted by this satirical but accurate article, that illegal immigrants only get treated with compassion by Democrats after they are born.

The insanity and lack of intelligent thought illustrated here by the modern politicians of the Democratic Party should make every normal and sane registered Democrat rethink their support for this party. It has very much lost its way, and is now traveling down a very dangerous and evil path. A house-cleaning is desperately needed, so that it can maybe right itself and provide a reasonable alternative to the Republican Party.

The responsibility for that house-cleaning lies with the voters, especially Democrats. The question is whether they will do it. I pray that they will. I unfortunately do not see much solid evidence yet of that happening.

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TMT construction begins July 15

Points of Information

According to a press announcement today from the governor’s office in Hawaii, construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope will finally begin during the week of July 15 following several years of delays due to protests.

The State Department of Transportation announced that Mauna Kea Access Road will be closed and there could be lane and other road closures associated with large equipment movement beginning July 15. In addition, hunting units A, K, and G in the Mauna Kea Forest Reserve area will be temporarily closed to hunting effective July 15. Both measures are being taken to ensure the safety and security of the public and personnel involved in moving equipment for the TMT project up the Mauna Kea Access Road.

Expect more protests. The real question is whether the Democratic governor David Ige can stand up to them, especially because these protesters have been using the kind of identity politics that the Democratic Party relies on. Ige would have to defy that, and I haven’t seen a Democrat do that in decades.

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Trump drops plan to establish independent climate review panel

Points of Information

The Trump administration has abandoned a plan to create a more balanced climate science review panel to review the climate change claims within government research.

It appears that while the idea to put government-paid research under a wider range of scientific review was laudable, the White House could not figure out how to do it, even as factions within the administration fought the proposal.

The idea to create the panel has caused strife within the White House. Among its critics are deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell; Kevin Hassett, the outgoing chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council; and Kelvin Droegemeier, the president’s science adviser. Those supporting the plan include Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and Brooke Rollins, assistant to Trump in the Office of American Innovation.

An official at NSC disputed the characterization that the panel was dead, even while confirming that it had been indefinitely delayed. The plan has suffered several downgrades over the months. It was initially proposed as a rapid response team of climate science critics who would challenge government publications on human-caused warming. Recent discussions have centered on the idea of forcing government climate scientists to participate in a debate with critics of their work who deny that humans are causing widespread changes on Earth (Climatewire, June 6). Most recently, the plan was diminished to creating dueling white papers that would elevate climate denialism to the level of consensus science.

The bottom line remains that a lot of climate research being done on the government dime today is, at a minimum, very suspect, and at the worst, demonstrably corrupt. A house-cleaning is necessary, even though it will likely be accompanied by a lot of squealing from those who get cleaned out.

It seems that the Trump administration is not prepared to deal with that squealing, especially because it appears that Trump himself is not passionate about this subject. He went after EPA aggressively, cutting the size of the agency and changing how it did business, but these actions were because he saw EPA as an out-of-control government agency imposing inappropriate regulations on American citizens. Corruption and data tampering and the politicization of the climate research field does not concern him so much. It appears he does not see this as directly affecting the American citizen.

For now.

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Battle over ownership of dinosaur fossils could upend paleontology research

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A dispute over the land rights on a property where several significant and valuable dinosaur fossils have been discovered could completely change how future fossil digs are run.

The fight is between the ranchers who own the surface rights to the property in question, and the owners who possess the mineral rights. The latter are claiming, and have won in federal court, that fossils are minerals and thus belong to them.

That court decision however upturned more than a century of practice, where fossils were always considered part of the surface rights only.

The ruling sent shock waves through the paleontology world, threatening to upend the way fossil hunters have operated for decades.

It would make searching for fossils extremely complicated, said David Polly, a former president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, based in Bethesda, Maryland, because paleontologists would need to navigate both surface ownership—to get to the dig location—and mineral ownership of a parcel. Often, mineral rights are hard to find and frequently change hands between large corporations.

The article says this decision could threaten previous finds, but I think that is hyperbole. On issues like this the statue of limitations would apply, and would make almost all challenges on earlier fossil finds moot.

Nonetheless, the issue is still before the courts. The federal court has decided to vacate its decision and has instead let the case shift to the state supreme court in Montana, which is expected to take up the case later this year.

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White House objects to House language on military space

Points of Information

The White House today released a detailed statement listing its objections to the House language on the upcoming military space authorization bill and threatening a veto if the Senate version is not passed.

Their objection seem to center on two issues. First, while the administration has accepted the idea of a space corp within the Air Force rather than a separate new military branch, they appear prefer the Senate language for this change. This disagreement appears relatively minor in the entire scheme of things.

Second, and more significantly, the White House has objections to the planned launch contract set up the Air Force has been pushing that would have them pick two launch providers now for all their launches through 2024, rather than allow all comers to bid on those launches as they came up.

On the National Security Space Launch program, the administration “strongly objects” to HASC [House Armed Services Committee] Chairman Adam Smith’s Section 1601 language “as it would increase mission risk for the nation’s national security satellites.”

Section 1601 would mandate that the Air Force compete contracts for any launches beyond 29 launches during the period from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2024. This section would also mandate that the Air Force provide up to $500 million to launch companies that either win a Phase 2 contract after fiscal year 2022 or win a Phase 2 contract but are not part of a Launch Service Agreement, in order to meet national security-unique infrastructure and certification requirements for a Phase 2 contract. This section also require a notification of the selection in fiscal year 2020 of the two providers for Phase 2 launches.

The administration opposes these provisions. “After careful and considered study, DoD determined that a contract for national security space launch requirements over the course of five years would optimize warfighter flexibility, minimizes mission risk, and provides exceptional value to the taxpayer,” says the White House statement. “Confining Phase 2 to fewer missions would increase per-launch cost while simultaneously introducing risk and costs for some intelligence payloads. Finally, notifying Congress prior to a contract would be a departure from long-standing tradition and might put DoD at a greater risk of a protest.”

To put this in simple terms, the House language was an attempt to open up the bidding, while also offering $500 million development money to any company who missed out initially. The White House, and the Air Force, wish to restrict the bidding process, and don’t want to pay that extra $500 million.

All of this I think will become irrelevant the first time the Air Force issues a bid offer for a launch contract but restricts bidding to only two launch companies, even if a third or fourth is available and capable of fulfilling the contract. The excluded launch companies will sue for the right to bid, and they will win.

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Threats of violence force cancellation of pro-life film screening

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They’re coming for you next: A theater has cancelled a planned five day run of the pro-life film Unplanned because of numerous threats of violence against its management.

Salmar Community Association board member Chris Papworth confirmed on Thursday, July 4, that the board has agreed to pull the movie’s five-day run, which was set to begin on July 12 at the Salmar Classic. He said the difficult decision to cancel the film was made out of concern for the personal safety for Salmar Theatres management, who had received personal threats via social media.

“…[These threats included] an effort to dox employees or, specifically, the general manager, by releasing their personal information on social media and then encouraging people to go after them as the one responsible for some heinous act. We just aren’t prepared for those levels of hostility towards our general manager.”

I want to once again note the irrational level of hate and anger coming from the leftwing community (which is generally pro-abortion). Their disagreement with the political position of the film now apparently justifies violence and personal threats.

None of this will end well. Eventually the left’s hate and anger is not going to be satisfied with verbal threats or minor physical attacks. It is eventually going to compel them to acts of murder, because mere verbal threats and minor physical attacks will not be getting them what the want, emotionally. Only by killing their enemies can they satisfy that irrational hatred.

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UCLA professor found guilty of stealing military technology for China

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A UCLA professor has been found guilty of stealing military technology and sending it to China.

UCLA adjunct professor Yi-Chi Shih was convicted June 26 on 18 federal charges, Newsweek reported, and could now lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also facing up to 219 years behind bars for numerous violations of the law. These include conspiracy to break the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), committing mail and wire fraud, lying to a government agency, subscribing to a false tax return, and conspiring to gain unauthorized access to information on a protected computer, according to a Department of Justice news release.

Shih and co-defendant Kiet Ahn Mai tried to access illegally a protected computer owned by a U.S. company that manufactured semiconductor chips called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs). MMICs are used by the Air Force and Navy in fighter jets, missiles and missile guidance technology, and electronic military defense systems.

The chips were exported to Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC), a Chinese company, without a required Department of Commerce license. Shih previously served as the president of CGTC, which made the Commerce Department’s Entity List in 2014 “due to its involvement in activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interest of the United States – specifically, that it had been involved in the illicit procurement of commodities and items for unauthorized military end use in China,” according to court documents cited by the DOJ.

The only surprise here is that the these guys got caught. Since the late 1990s China has been making aggressive effort to steal American know-how, and has largely been successful. The visible result of that effort has been their space program, almost all of which began with technology thefts.

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University student attacked for wearing MAGA/Trump paraphernalia

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They’re coming for you next: A University of Florida student was attacked for wearing a MAGA hat and other pro-Trump clothing, with the attackers screaming obscenities at him while trying steal some of that clothing.

As Weldon grabbed a late-night snack on July Fourth across the street from campus he said he was surrounded by a group of college-aged peers who verbally harassed him, pushed him, ripped a Trump pin off his shirt, and tried to swipe his MAGA hat.

“It just goes to show there is a lot of people on the Left that don’t care or know anything about you, but they see one aspect of who you are and instantly have this blind hatred for you,” Weldon told The College Fix in a telephone interview Sunday. “It’s extremely disappointing.” [emphasis mine]

At first he did not report the incidence to the police because no real harm had been done, but then changed his mind and filed a police report, for this reason:

[H]e thought about it some more, especially the argument that while he was a “big guy” and could handle the situation, what if the next person couldn’t?

I want to focus on the highlighted words “blind hatred.” It encapsulates the modern left and their attitude towards Trump and any of his supporters. They no longer are rational. They simply hate. This vicious emotional response now has them cursing Trump vilely for no reason, and attacking America and our history, merely because Trump happens to have said a good word about America and that history.

This hatred is also causing them to increasingly turn to violence and abuse against anyone who supports Trump, as illustrated by this story and innumerable others. Support Trump and their hatred immediately causes them to see you as a jack-booted thug who deserves to be beaten to a pulp.

The problem is that this hatred then causes the left to act exactly like the jack-booted thugs they imagine Trump and his supporters to be.

Hate is a very bad thing. It is even worse in the field of politics, because there it leads to the abuse of power and oppression, for no reason other than hate. And unless the left takes a breath and starts to use its brain instead of blind emotional hate, we can expect them to do some very bad things to their opponents should they regain power.

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An inteview with George Zimmerman

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Link here. Read it all if you have any interest at all in finding out the truth. The key part of this story, which was confirmed by a not-guilty jury decision, is this:

Headed in the direction that the lights came from coming around the side of one of the townhouses to the “T” in the sidewalks [Zimmeran] was, without notice, punched in the face by Trayvon, instantly breaking his nose. Trayvon then grabbed George and tried to throw him to the ground multiple times. George held his own for a little bit but eventually was thrown to the ground. Once again George referred to the sketch showing me where they were by this time, which was a little further up the sidewalk from the initial attack. He said that the ground sloped down on one side of the sidewalk and his legs were down the hill while his head was on the sidewalk. Trayvon was now on top of George punching him repeatedly in the face, MMA style, as George described. Every time George tried to sit up Trayvon would slam him back down to the ground and in-turn his head would bounce off the sidewalk, causing him excruciating pain.

To get away from the pain being inflicted on his head, George tried sliding down the hill out from underneath Trayvon. This caused George’s red windbreaker to slide up revealing his Kel- Tec PF-9 9mm handgun holstered on his hip.

Trayvon noticed the gun and said, “You’re gonna die tonight!” At that point, George realized that it wasn’t his gun or Trayvon’s gun, it was “the” gun in the fight!

Without any prior experience of drawing and shooting from the holster, George knew it was either now or never. He unholstered the firearm and fired one shot at the man who he felt was trying to take his life. The response from Trayvon was like that of an old Western movie. He said, “Ya got me!” At that second George thought his shot missed. To him, it seemed as if Trayvon was making a statement to concede defeat and not that he actually was hit by the bullet.

In that instance George wasn’t worried about his safety or that somebody was trying to kill him, he was more concerned that he missed Trayvon and might have hurt somebody else in a nearby house. To me, this was one of many enlightening times in our meeting. More concerned for the life of his neighbors than his own life.

All Zimmerman was doing at that moment was trying to save his own life. All of this was obvious at the time, for all those who were willing to do any research into the facts. Yet, as punishment for not allowing himself to be killed by a street thug, our bigoted and political cultural elites decided to destroy this poor man’s life anyway, because it gave them a great vehicle for ramping up race hatred and anti-American propaganda.

This says far more about them than it does about Zimmerman, or Trayvon Martin.

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Paper ballot count puts establishment Democrat ahead of socialist in NYC primary

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The count of paper ballots submitted during last week’s Democratic Party primary for Queens district attorney has put the establishment candidate Queens Borough President Melinda Katz ahead–by 20 votes–of Tiffany Cabán, the socialist endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz is now leading lefty insurgent Tiffany Cabán in the Democratic primary for Queens district attorney — a stunning reversal of fortunes after the race went into a paper ballot count with Cabán ahead by more than 1,000 votes last week.

About 6,000 paper ballots remained to be counted, and as the Board of Elections tallied the final votes Wednesday night, Katz was leading Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-backed Cabán by a razor-thin 20 votes, two sources told The Post.

Both sides acknowledged the narrow margin would trigger a recount — but that didn’t stop Katz from declaring victory Wednesday night.

I find this story most amusing, as it reminds me of Minnesota and the recount of paper ballots that gave Democrat Al Franken his victory over Republican Norm Coleman in 2008. Many fishy things seemed to occur during that recount that has always made it suspicious.

Either way, it appears the Democratic establishment, having realized what a political disaster Ocasio-Cortez has been, did not want another such socialist representing them in New York and appears to have moved to make sure it didn’t happen. For example, there’s this story: Queens DA frontrunner Tiffany Cabán dedicates ‘victory’ to Rikers inmates

Rikers Island inmates are first in Tiffany Cabán’s heart.

“Our victory belongs to folks who have been locked up on Rikers simply because they could not afford their bails,” she said Saturday, days after early results showed her the likely winner of the Democratic primary for Queens district attorney.

Though politically this position by her, allied more with criminals than ordinary honest citizens, isn’t really much different than the bulk of today’s Democratic Party, her willingness to state those positions openly is why the establishment Democrats in Queens are desperate to stop her.

Hat tip reader Cotour.

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Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters dox and threaten little girl

Points of Information

They’re coming for you next: The family of a little girl who had been doing silly videos making fun of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has shut down all of her social media accounts and will no longer allow her to do videos because they were doxed and they have been receiving death threats on their home phone.

Here is the family’s tweet:

MiniAOC tweet

Words fail me. I wonder what Ocasio-Cortez’s response will be for this disgusting behavior. I expect nothing, or if she does say something she will equivocate somehow, trying to put some of the blame on the little girl and her family.

It increasingly appears that the left and the Democrats (I repeat myself) are now willing to threaten little children for making silly fun of the politicians they support.

As I have said repeatedly, they’re coming for you next.

UPDATE: More details here, including one of the girl’s truly hilarious videos.

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Democratic congresswoman wants to prosecute anyone who ridicules a member of Congress

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They’re coming for you next: Democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Florida) said today that she wants to “shut down” and “prosecute” those online who have been ridiculing members of Congress.

“Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable,” Wilson said during a press conference. “We are going to shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted.”

The Democratic Party today is a party of fascists. If you are registered Democrat you better start reconsidering who you are supporting, or else you will be complicit in some very oppressive abuses of power.

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Strike on July 4-5 against censorship on Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc

Points of Information

A strike protesting the censorship of conservatives on social media giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, is being organized for July 4 and 5.

According to organizer Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia (who has since split with the project), “This means we will not use social media on those days, except to post notices that we are on strike. We’re going to make a lot of noise. Nobody will be able to ignore what’s happening. We’re going to flex our collective muscles and demand that giant, manipulative corporations give us back control over our data, privacy, and user experience.”

More details at the link.

I would love to join them, but since I do not use any of these corrupt social media, essentially striking against them continuously, there isn’t much I can do. However, if you use Facebook for example you might be able to have an impact.

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Chick-fil-A vandalized in NY during gay pride march

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They’re coming for you next: A Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant was vandalized in NY during gay pride march, with the obscene graffiti clearly political.

The damage was relatively minor, but this is only the beginning. Anyone with that much anger and hate for a store simply because it closes on Sunday and its owners are devout Christians will eventually decide that more violent action is justified.

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Fascist mob sends journalist to emergency room in Portland

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They’re coming for you next: A fascist mob today attacked a journalist so violently today that they sent him to the emergency room.

Andy Ngo, a photojournalist and editor at Quillette, landed in the emergency room after a mob of antifa activists attacked him on the streets of Portland during a Saturday afternoon demonstration.

The assailants wore black clothing and masks, and were engaged in a counter-protest against several right-wing groups, including the Proud Boys. Ngo is a well-known chronicler of antifa activity, and has criticized their illiberal tactics on Fox News. He attended the protest in this capacity—as a journalist, covering a notable public event.

According to Ngo, his attacker stole his camera equipment. But video footage recorded by another journalist, The Oregonian’s Jim Ryan, clearly shows an antifa activist punching Ngo in the face. Others throw milkshakes at him:

It increasingly appears that Portland is now controlled by the modern version of the KKK, fascist hooded thugs who act to physically attack anyone who might be opposing them in any way at all. And like the KKK, these modern fascist thugs have deep links with the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the police and government in Portland does nothing.

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Seminar at Cornell will question use of “reason” and “rationality”

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The coming dark age: A six-week seminar this summer at Ivy League Cornell University will question the use of either “reason” and “rationality.”

The goal of the entire seminar is to demonstrate that knowledge, and truth, is always tied to power, which means that all knowledge, and truth, is entirely subjective, and if discovered by some ethnic groups in power (whites or Christians or Jews), other ethnic groups out of power have the right, the obligation, to reject that knowledge, and truth, in order to establish their own power base.

So, if an leftist Antifa fascist thug hits me, a white Jew, over the head with a rock and kills me, I can declare I am still alive because my interpretation of knowledge and truth is different than that leftist Antifa fascist thug.

Even more important, that leftist Antifa fascist thug will be justified in claiming he or she did nothing wrong, because from his or her perspective of knowledge and truth they did not kill me, but merely stopped me from oppressing them unjustly.

That dark age is coming on very fast. Be warned.

Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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Court reduces Oberlin total judgment by smallest amount

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The court in Ohio has reduced the total jury award in the Oberlin slander case against Gibson’s Bakery to $25 million total, but by what looks like the smallest amount possible based on its interpretation of the law.

The jury originally returned a total compensatory verdict of $11 million and punitive verdict of $33 million. In these posts we detailed the arguments of the parties as to how to Ohio’s tort reform caps applied to the calculation:

The key disputes as to how to apply Ohio tort reform caps on noneconomic compensatory damages centered on whether each claim for each plaintiff was separately subject to the cap, or did the cap apply to all claims of each plaintiff. The court appears to have ruled, as plaintiffs argued, that the cap was per claim.

More significantly, the tort reform law limits punitive damages to 2X compensatory, but the issue was whether that applied to pre-cap compensatory damages or post-cap compensatory damages. That was about a $10 million swing. The court appears to have agreed with the plaintiffs argument that under the plain reading of the statute, the 2X cap applied to pre-cap compensatory damages.

Another way to put it is the court has awarded Gibson’s the maximum award possible based on its legal interpretation. To me, this suggests that the court is as offended as everyone else by Oberlin’s refusal to accept the decision while spreading falsehoods about the case and maligning the jury.

They will have a hearing on how much Oberlin will have to pay for Gibson’s attorney’s fees on July 10.

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Leftist backed by socialist Ocasio-Cortez wins in Queens

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They’re coming for you next: A leftist candidate, Tiffany Cabán, backed by socialists Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), has won an election for Queens District Attorney in New York.

Cabán, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s preferred pick for the office, garnered 39.5% of the vote compared to Democratic rival Melinda Katz’s 38.3% with 98% of precincts reporting.

…Cabán is a 31-year-old public defender who wants to decriminalize sex work, close Rikers Island and end cash bail. The young lawyer was joined on stage with city Comptroller Scott Stringer and state Sen. Jessica Ramos.

The election was close enough that they will do a recount, but I don’t think that will change the result, which clearly shows that New Yorkers have not been put off in the slightest by Ocasio-Cortez’s extreme leftist positions, as many conservative pundits have assumed. If anything, her upfront willingness to push her beliefs, no matter our senseless or impractical or ignorant, have garnered her side more support.

I am reminded again of this quote from Walter Miller’s great end-of-the-world science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz:

Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk. Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America–burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again.

Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?

It doesn’t seem to matter that communism, socialism, fascism, Nazism, all top-down authoritarian systems no matter what their name or design, have consistently failed, and failed horribly, causing the deaths of millions and millions. Worse, these failures have not been in the distant past, but within the lifetimes of almost everyone living today. Several (Venezuela and North Korea) are occurring right this minute.

Yet, Americans want to try it for themselves. Sadly, they (and we) will reap the whirlwind, for it will fail again, as horribly as it has every other time.

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Google censors Project Veritas expose on Google censorship

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Leftist fascism: While I have noted this in my earlier post about Google’s effort to block both Trump’s election and many conservative sites, it is necessary to highlight: Google, the owner of youtube, has removed Project Veritas’s video expose from youtube.

The only reason they could have to do this is to block people from knowing about Google’s partisan and fascist behavior. You can still watch the video at the Project Veritas site.

As I said, people have to stop using Google. Both DuckDuckGo and StartPage are viable search engine alternatives, though the former is preferred because the latter depends on Google’s search engine.

If you have gmail, find an alternative. There are many.

And as I have said numerous times in the past, I would love it if those suggesting evening pauses for this website could find alternative sources other than youtube for those videos.

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Google’s hidden agenda: Stop Trump’s re-election

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Project Veritas strikes again! A whistle-blower at Google has revealed that the internet company that dominates all search engines has a conscious policy to oppose the re-election of Donald Trump while simultaneously suppressing conservative websites.

Jen Gennai is the head of “Responsible Innovation” for Google, a sector that monitors and evaluates the responsible implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. In the video, Gennai says Google has been working diligently to “prevent” the results of the 2016 election from repeating in 2020: “We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.

“We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?”

There’s more at the link. For example, Google is also working to adjust its search algorithms to automatically suppress conservative websites from those searches. The goal, to use Google’s own words, is to make the company “the single point of truth” for news, with a perspective that is decidedly leftist and partisan.

The public has got to stop using Google. There are plenty of viable search engine options, such as DuckDuckGo and Startpage. I’ve been using both for almost a decade.

Regardless, it appears that this information will likely fuel the political movement to have the government break this company, as well as Facebook, apart. Though I’d rather the market did the job, these companies are very clearly violating the law that treats them not as news sources but as objective utilities, and thus protects them in certain ways. They need to find out that breaking the law will have negative consequences.

I have embedded the Project Veritas video below the fold. Watch it. It will horrify you. Not surprisingly, the fascists at Google/Youtube have censored the video. If you wish to see it, you need to go the Project Veritas link above.
» Read more

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Opposition candidate wins redo election in Istanbul

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The opposition candidate to the party of President Erdogan in Turkey today handily won the redo election in Istanbul.

Turkish opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu won the redo of the Istanbul mayor’s race by a landslide on Sunday, in a stinging indictment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s economic policies and his refusal to accept an earlier defeat.

Imamoglu, backed by opposition parties including CHP, won 54% of the vote, and the ruling AK Party’s candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim captured 45%, according to state media. The political upstart broadened his margin of victory to nearly 800,000 votes from 14,000 in the March 31 balloting, in a clear sign voters are concerned about the crumbling of Turkey’s democratic foundations and an economy reeling from a spike in consumer prices and unemployment. [emphasis mine]

What this victory suggests is that there still remains in Turkey a semblance of democracy, despite the effort of Erdogan to eliminate it. What will happen next will tell us whether that country will reinforce that democracy, or end it entirely.

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Anarchists threaten to dox any new student for joining conservative groups at Texas university

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They’re coming for you next: An anarchist organization with many ties within the University of Texas at Austin has now publicly threatened to reveal the personal contact information of any new student who dares join several different conservative organizations.

“Do you wanna be famous? If you join YCT or Turning Point USA, you just might be. Your name and more could end up on an article like one of these,” the tweet said, linking to previous doxxing posts of conservative students at the school. “So be sure to make smart choices at #UTOrientation.”

Last year the network released extensive personal information of pro-Brett Kavanaugh demonstrators at UT Austin, including their names, photos and contact information. It went so far as to post some of the phone numbers of the employers of students and encouraged its adherents to call them to get them fired.

Composed mostly of students at UT Austin, the group also actively encourages the harassment of conservative students, having praised the destruction of signs and tactics of physical intimidation during the pro-Kavanaugh demonstrations.

The article notes that though the university claims it is acting to punish such doxing behavior by its students, it does not appear that anything has really been done. This group did it last year, and seems unafraid to do it again now.

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Battery screw-up delays Russian X-Ray telescope launch

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The Russians this morning postponed today’s launch of the Spectr-RG X-Ray space telescope until July when it was discovered that one of the payload’s batteries had been drained prematurely.

[T]he Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid reported from Baikonur that the problem had been discovered at least a day earlier, but the entire project team at the launch site was kept in the dark until the launch date, not to interfere with Vladimir Putin’s annual press-conference.

According to the paper, the battery was accidentally activated on the launch pad instead of the planned moment after the separation of the spacecraft from the Block DM-03 upper stage. The error was blamed on the erroneous wiring setup by RKK Energia specialists (Block DM-03 prime contractor) between the upper stage and the spacecraft, which caused a complete drainage of the battery designed to be re-charged from solar panels. After the return of the rocket to the vehicle assembly building, the battery would have to be re-charged and the power-supply system re-wired, Moskovsky Komsomolets said. [emphasis mine]

If this report is true, it appears that the Russian government has done nothing to fix the quality control programs in its aerospace industry, and in fact is helping to contribute to them by playing games with launch procedures for the sake of its own public relations.

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Hawaii fully okays construction of TMT, removes protest structures

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The Hawaiian state government today finally gave the go-ahead for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), sending close to 100 police officers to the mountain to remove four structures built by protesters to block construction.

[Democratic government David] Ige said he believes the state now has sufficient legal basis for construction to go more smoothly than it did following the telescope’s 2014 groundbreaking. After significant protests in 2014 and 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that a 2011 permit from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources was invalid after finding the Land Board violated due process rights of project opponents by voting before the first contested case was held.

However, the Supreme Court approved an amended permit late last year, allowing the project to seek a notice to proceed. The conditions of the amended permit state that the TMT will be the last telescope to be built on Maunakea and that five other telescopes at the summit will be decommissioned and removed.

Despite Ige’s confidence in the process, opponents are preparing for further protests. Kanuha said he intends to “try and stop it the same way we did the first time.”

“This is about more than the mountain, this is about how we treat land and natural resources in Hawaii,” Kanuha said. “If we allow this to happen, we can kiss goodbye all we hold precious in Hawaii. It’s just a matter of time.”

Another protester, Lakea Trask, warned of an inevitable conflict. “The state is declaring war on Hawaiians,” said Trask, who was arrested and charged with trespassing during the 2015 protests. “The state is now using TMT to declare war, an all-out war on Hawaiians.”

First, this is the second time the state has approved this project, which followed the law both the first time and now. Second, the protests that stopped construction in 2014 and 2015 were not “significant” but were led by a very small number of people. Third, those same protesters, as quoted above, probably intend to repeat their actions once construction resumes this summer. If so, expect violence. These people know they will not be seriously punished for breaking the law, and will take advantage of this.

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Mueller probe of Manafort initiated based on fake information

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The probe by Robert Mueller that put former Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort in prison was initiated using evidence, called “the ledger,” that Mueller knew was unreliable and likely fake.

In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017 for bank records to prove he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.

There’s just one problem: The FBI’s public reliance on the ledger came months after the feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn’t be trusted and likely was a fake, according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources.

To get around this fact, which was made very clear to Mueller and his investigators, they leaked the fake data to the press, and then used the press stories to justify the investigation.

Submitting knowingly false or suspect evidence — whether historical or to support probable cause — in a federal court proceeding violates FBI rules and can be a crime under certain circumstances. “To establish probable cause, the affiant must demonstrate a basis for knowledge and belief that the facts are true,” the FBI operating manual states.

But with Manafort, the FBI and Mueller’s office did not cite the actual ledger — which would require agents to discuss their assessment of the evidence — and instead cited media reports about it. The feds assisted on one of those stories as sources.

For example, agents mentioned the ledger in an affidavit supporting a July 2017 search warrant for Manafort’s house, citing it as one of the reasons the FBI resurrected the criminal case against Manafort.

This is beyond corrupt. I would say that it should be grounds for dismissal for the charges against Manafort, even if he admitted to guilt. At a minimum, Mueller and his cohorts should be facing jail time.

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Ireland’s government releases its space strategy goals through 2025

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The new colonial movement: Ireland today released a national space strategy designed to encourage the growth of a commercial space sector by 2025.

You can download the actual report here [pdf].

They want to increase both public and private investment by 50% by 2025. Whether that means investment in private companies or simply a growth in a government bureaucracy is uncertain, based on my reading of the report. It appears their goal is to grow the private sector, but they will be using European Space Agency approaches for doing so, which tend to favor government growth and control rather than developing an independent commercial industry.

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