Tag: oppression

Congress micro-manages rocket engineering again

9:56 am

In an effort to funnel money to Aerojet Rocketdyne at the cost of every other rocket company in the nation, the House Armed Services Committee has written a bill that tells the Air Force exactly how it will build its future rockets.

“The Committee shares the concern of many members that reliance on Russian-designed rocket engines is no longer acceptable,” the committee said April 25. “The Chairman’s Proposal, as recommended by Chairman Rogers of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, denies the Air Force’s request to pursue the development, at taxpayer expense, of new commercial launch systems. It instead focuses on the development of a new American engine to replace the Russian RD-180 by 2019 to protect assured access to space and to end reliance on Russian engines. The Mark also holds the Air Force accountable for its awards of rocket propulsion contracts that violated the FY15 and FY16 NDAAs.”

…“The funds would not be authorized to be obligated or expended to develop or procure a launch vehicle, an upper stage, a strap-on motor, or related infrastructure,” says a draft of the 2017 defense authorization bill.

As presently written, the bill would leave the Air Force only one option: use engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

If anything demonstrates the corruption or foolishness of our elected officials, it is this proposal. Not only are they telling the Air Force how to design rockets, they are limiting the options so much that they are guaranteeing that it will either cost us more than we can afford, or it won’t be doable at all. As I say, either they are corrupt (working to benefit Aerojet Rocketdyne in exchange for money), or they are foolish, (preventing the Air Force from exploring as many inexpensive future options as possible).

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Soyuz rocket launch scrubbed due to faulty IMU

8:51 am

Uh-oh: A Soyuz rocket launch from French Guiana was scrubbed an hour before launch on Sunday because of detected problems with the inertial measurement unit (IMU) in its navigational system.

Arianespace chief executive Stephane Israel tweeted Sunday that the faulty inertial measurement unit, or IMU, will be replaced overnight in time for a launch attempt Monday. The IMU is located on the Soyuz rocket’s third stage and is used to determine the heading and orientation of the vehicle in the first nine minutes of its mission, feeding critical attitude data to the launcher’s guidance computers, which transmit steering commands to the engines.

The venerable Soyuz booster flies more often than any other launcher in the world, and delays due to technical causes are rare. [emphasis mine]

This is not good news for Russia’s aerospace industry, as it suggests that the quality control problems Russia has experienced with the company that manufactures its Proton rocket are now beginning to appear with the different company that manufactures the Soyuz rocket.

If true, this is also very bad news for American astronauts, who must use this rocket to get to and from space.

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Brown shirts attempt to silence conservative speaker at American University

11:17 pm

Fascists: 150 protesters harassed and tried to prevent a lecture by Breibart editor Milo Yiannopoulos at American University on Thursday.

According to onlookers, there were nearly 150 protesters outside the venue at American University, screaming at event goers as they quietly entered the building for Yiannopoulos’ lecture. As the event began, Milo threatened to donate $20 to the Donald Trump campaign for every unnecessary disruption, a remark which received significant applause and laughter.

Despite this warning, Black Lives Matters protesters accused Yiannopoulos of “white supremacy” for his decision to wrap up the event when an African-American student was waiting at the microphone to ask a question. They called him a “f**cking racist” and yelled at other students in the room who were defending Yiannopoulos’ right to speak.

The only hate I see here is coming from the protesters, who are filled with so much venom that they can’t permit themselves (or anyone else) to hear anything the speaker has to say.

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Bigots harass white woman for singing music from India

8:01 pm

The bigoted left: Thugs at Brown University harassed a performer Thursday because she dared sing music from India even though she happened to be white.

But to some students, it was actually an intimate evening of gruesome cultural appropriation, because Grossman had the temerity to sing chants from India despite being white. “How does your whiteness impact how you engage with these cultures?” a student asked Grossman prior to her performance, according to The Brown Daily Herald. Another denounced her for “disturbing and appropriative language” on her website.

Eventually, Grossman’s performance began, but the protesters in the audience continued to shout out questions, which caused attendees who actually wanted to hear the performance to turn around and tell them to be quiet. Students were induced to move outside after announcing they would hold their own competing kirtan (notably, a photo of the protesters suggested only a handful were ethnically Indian).

What was really going on here was an example of pure bigotry. They attacked this woman merely because of her skin color. They hate her because she is white, and want to destroy her because of it.

Note that this isn’t the first example of thuggery by jack-booted brownshirts at Brown. Nor do I expect it to be the last..

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The failed predictions of Earth Day

5:47 pm

On this anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970, it behooves us to once again review the predictions of the environmental experts that even today the environmental movement relies on and continues to worship, men like Paul Ehrlich and David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club.

The Daily Caller today provided us a list of the seven most significant predictions from that day, all of which turned out to be wrong. For example, Ehrlich repeatedly predicted that millions would starve in the coming decades:

Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably grown despite increases in population.

Ehrlich is largely responsible for this view, having co-published “The Population Bomb” with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country’s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.

Brower meanwhile revealed the tyrannical aspect of the environmental movement, stating that “[a]ll potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” He went on to found Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters.

Ehrlich continues to push the same predictions, even though none of his past predictions have come true. But, then, what does that matter? Why should reality have anything to do with anything? It’s that he cares that matters!

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More evidence you can’t trust anything Donald Trump says

10:57 am

Just go to this link and read it. Trump has increasingly reminded me of Clinton in everything he has said and done in the past few weeks, with only one problem. Clinton has more style and a greater understanding of policy, even if I disagreed with him and considered him a liar in almost everything he said.

More and more I am convinced that this prediction of Trump’s administration will turn out to be exactly right.

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Obamacare bankrupting state governments

9:53 am

Finding out what’s in it: States that agreed to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion are now discovering that it is bankrupting them.

[T] he budget scuffle [in Arkansas over the expansion] has highlighted the harsh fiscal reality emerging in the Obamacare Medicaid-expansion program — and these lawmakers will have to own it. Beginning next year, Arkansas is obligated to share 5 percent of the program’s cost. Doing this would account for a whopping 60 percent of the year-over-year growth in the state’s budget. With a 10 percent state match on the horizon — coupled with the program’s over-enrollment, cost overruns, and waste, fraud, and abuse — Medicaid expansion will devour Arkansas’s budget over the next ten years.

The budget picture is similarly bleak in other states that took the plunge. Only 18 months into Ohio’s expansion, the state’s total Medicaid costs nearly doubled, to $4.05 billion. By next year, Buckeye taxpayers will be on the hook for over $130 million to meet the 5 percent state match, more than double the projected $55.5 million.

The worst part of this story however is that voters in Arkansas clearly indicated in elections that they wanted the expansion to end. Despite this, the governor (a Republican) and elected officials are still maneuvering to maintain the expansion. Like Congress after 2010 and 2014, landslide victories by conservatives seem to have no meaning to these people.

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Shelby blocks Export-Import Bank nominee

9:38 am

In a move that is preventing the recently renewed Export-Import Bank from functioning, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) has been blocking the nomination of a new board member.

Until the board position is filled, the bank cannot finance any deals greater than $10 million, which essentially prevents it from doing much.

I find this story quite surprising. It says that Shelby has opposed the Ex-Im Bank because he considers it the worse form of “crony capitalism”. Yet, Shelby is also the king of aerospace pork, pushing NASA to fund SLS (thus pouring money into Alabama and the Marshall Spaceflight Center), despite the fact that SLS is a gigantic boondoggle that will never accomplish anything in space.

I suspect that Shelby’s real goals are twofold: 1. He doesn’t like the deals the bank has been financing, and wants to apply pressure on them to instead give deals to his own corporate buddies. 2. He is trying to extort campaign contributions from the parties involved.

Sadly, I can’t believe for an instant that Shelby has altruistic motives.

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San Francisco requires new buildings have solar panels

9:10 am

Another reason to leave California: San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a local law that will require all new buildings, both commercial and residential, that are lower than 10 stories tall to install solar panels on their roofs.

San Francisco’s new regulations add to already existing Californian laws which require 15 percent of rooftops on buildings of 10 stories or less to be unshaded and solar ready. Under the new law, buildings must have either solar photovoltaic or solar water panels installed, or a mix of the two.

As part of a concerted effort to one day run the city entirely on renewables, the mayor set up a taskforce in 2011 to develop policies and programs that steer it in this direction. It hopes to achieve this goal by 2025.

1. This will add a significant cost to the construction of new buildings, guaranteeing that there will be a decline in construction of such buildings in San Francisco.

2. I am certain that the task force that the mayor set up in 2011 was dominated by individuals in the solar power industry, all of whom are going to benefit greatly by this new law. I would also not be surprised if I learned that they donated money to the mayor’s campaign fund.

3. This law, as well as the city’s plan to run itself entirely on renewables by 2025, are pure fantasies based on ideology that no law can dictate. They must evolve, based on the realities of economics and technological discovery. That San Francisco’s political leadership can’t understand this fundamental fact of life indicates that this city is going to bankrupt itself in the near future, especially since its population overwhelming agrees with the fantasies of their political leaders. Expect more stupid laws like this, and except the situation there to become increasingly oppressive as these ideologues increasingly impose their unworkable fantasies on everyone.

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California’s Democratic fascist attorney general loses in court

9:52 pm

Link here. In her campaign for California governor, Attorney General Kamala Harris has been demanding that conservative organizations hand her their confidential tax information so she can obtain the names of their donors.

Her obvious intent was either to publicize the names of donors, which are confidential under federal law, so that they could be threatened by liberals, or else to shut them up herself through bogus investigations. Americans For Prosperity brought an action in federal court, seeking an injunction barring Harris from seeking Schedule B to its Form 990. Today, following a full trial on the merits, Federal Judge Manuel Real granted AFP’s motion and issued a permanent injunction against the Attorney General.

Go to the link and read it all. The reasons that the judge ruled against this fascist thug who is using the power of her position as attorney general to attack her opponents are quite ugly. It seems the court recognized that Harris and her liberal supporters posed a violent threat to those donors.

During the course of trial, the Court heard ample evidence establishing that AFP, its employees, supporters and donors face public threats, harassment, intimidation, and retaliation once their support for and affiliation with the organization becomes publicly known. For example, Lucas Hilgemann, Chief Executive Officer of AFP, testified that in 2013, the security staff of AFP alerted him that a technology contractor working inside AFP headquarters posted online that he was “inside the belly of the beast” and that he could easily walk into Mr. Hilgemann’s office and slit his throat. (Hilgemann Test. 2/23/16 Vol. I, p. 57:2–14). That individual was also found in AFP’s parking garage, taking pictures of employees’ license places. (Id. at 57:15–23). Another witness and major donor, Art Pope, testified about an AFP event in Washington D.C. in 2011. Mr. Pope testified that after protestors attempted to enter the building and disrupt the event, they began to push and shove AFP guests to keep them inside of the building. (Pope Test. 2/24/16 Vol. II, p. 47:7–15). Mr. Pope attempted to help a woman in a wheelchair exit the building; however the protestors had blocked their path. (Pope Test. 2/25/16 Vol. I, p. 21:20–22:12). Once they finally exited the building, they still had to go through a hostile crowd that was shouting, yelling and pushing. (Id. at 22:22–23:2). At another event in Wisconsin, after speaking to a crowd of AFP supporters, Mr. Hilgemann was threatened by a protestor who used multiple slurs and spit in Mr. Hilgemann’s face. (Hilgemann Test. 2/23/16 Vol. I, p. 48:12–49:15). Again, at another event in Michigan where an AFP tent was set up, several hundred protestors surrounded the tent and used knives and box-cutters to cut at the ropes of tent, eventually causing the large tent to collapse with AFP supporters still inside. (Id. at 50:16–51:25).

This is only one excerpt of the judge’s detailed opinion, which goes on to list more examples of liberal thuggery and brown-shirted violence.

The worst part of this is that I expect Harris to win the election and become governor of California. That will put her in an even stronger position of power in the Democratic Party, allowing her to shape it to become an even more oppressive engine for hate and tyranny. If you are conservative and live in California, be very afraid. The government will soon be knocking on your door, and the visit will not be friendly.

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“You have no right to speak.”

6:35 pm

The quote in the headline gives only a taste of the thuggery, bigotry, and hate expressed by the protesters at the University of Missouri last fall against whites and anyone who dared disagree with them. Go here to get the full flavor, which includes women being harassed and threatened merely because she happened to be white, protesters threatening to kill whites because they weren’t immediately getting what they wanted, and of course, at least one teacher, Melissa Click, threatening a student journalist with violence for reporting on the protests.

I am still only giving you a taste. The worst part of the story is that the fascists on all of today’s campuses were very well represented by the thugs who took over the University of Missouri last year. It isn’t any different elsewhere. Don’t dare express dissent to the left wing orthodoxy, or you might find yourself the target of violence and hate.

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The coming dark age, part 2,322

11:32 am

The first story below tells us that a significant number of voters in New York are so ignorant of the political process that they haven’t the slightest idea who is running for president. The second story tells us that we have decided to use the principles of western civilization as the basis for a suicide pact The third story is about a video of college students (which I have embedded below the fold) who are unable to challenge a 5’9″ tall white guy who tells them he is actually a a 6’5″ Chinese female child in the first grade. Watch it and weep for the future.

» Read more

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Senate committee throws money at NASA

9:13 am

The Senate appropriations subcommittee has announced its proposed 2017 budget for NASA, including significant budget increases for SLS and Orion.

SLS is the big winner in the bill, according to a summary of its contents provided by the committee. The heavy-lift launch vehicle would get $2.15 billion, $150 million more than it received in 2016 and $840 million above the administration’s request. The SLS funding includes $300 million directed for work on the Exploration Upper Stage with the goal of having it ready as soon as 2021, the earliest planned date for the first crewed SLS/Orion mission.

The bill also provides $1.3 billion for Orion, $30 million above 2016 and $180 million above the administration’s request. It also directs Orion to be ready for its first crewed mission in 2021.

The bill provides $5.4 billion for science programs overall, $200 million below the request. The summary does not break out spending among the various science mission directorates. Commercial crew would get $1.18 billion, the amount requested by NASA, and space technology would get $687 million, the same as 2016 but $140 million less than requested.

Meanwhile, in order to keep NASA’s overall budget about the same as last year the subcommittee, led by porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), apparently trimmed the agency’s science budget.

The full plan will be revealed tomorrow. Moreover, the House still has to make its budget proposal, and then the House and Senate have to agree. Regardless, this Senate budget proposal is more indication that this Republican Congress is going to throw endless gobs of money at SLS and Orion, so the boondoggle can fly once, maybe twice, and then get mothballed. What a waste.

It also tells us how insincere many Republican elected officials are when they claim they are for fiscal responsibility.

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UnitedHealth abandoning Obamacare

9:01 am

Finding out what’s in it: Because of significant loses due to Obamacare, the nation’s largest health insurance company, UnitedHealth, will cut participation in all but a handful of public health exchanges next year

CEO Stephen Hemsley said Tuesday that the company expects losses from its exchange business to total more than $1 billion for this year and last. He added that the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers. The state-based exchanges are a key element behind the Affordable Care Act’s push to expand insurance coverage. But insurers have struggled with higher than expected claims from that business.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it now expects to lose $650 million this year on its exchange business, up from its previous projection for $525 million. The insurer lost $475 million in 2015, a spokesman said. UnitedHealth has already decided to pull out of Arkansas, Georgia and Michigan in 2017, and Hemsley told analysts during a Tuesday morning conference call that his company will not carry financial exposure from the exchanges into 2017.

And why have they been losing so much money? It seems that only sick people are signing up, resulting in expensive claims that the insurance companies cannot afford to pay because they have too-few healthy customers buying their insurance. And why do they have too few healthy customers? They can’t avoid the higher prices for insurance that Obamacare has forced upon them.

This monstrous law, which the American public never wanted, should never have been passed. The sooner it can be repealed, the better for everyone.

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The commerical battle over U.S. surplus ICBM’s

8:48 am

Link here. The article provides a good summary of the conflict between Orbital ATK and Virgin Galactic over the Defense Department’s possible sale of surplus ICBM’s for commercial use.

While Orbital has been lobbying to get Congress to lift the ban on the Pentagon selling its surplus rockets to the private sector, Virgin Galactic has been harnessing the industry lobbying arm to convince Congress to keep the ban. They fear that if the missiles become available, their as yet unflown LauncherOne will not be able to compete.

I find it very revealing that Virgin Galactic wants to use regulation to hinder their competitors. To me, this is another sign that they are not very competitive or competent in actual rocket building. Rather than build and launch their rocket at a competitive price, they want to stifle an opportunity to lower launch costs.

A hearing on this issue is taking place today. Stay tuned.

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Tucson to be sued over space tourism deal

10:35 am

In the heat of competition: A think-tank has announced that it plans on suing the Tucson city government over its deal with the space tourism balloon company World View.

Jim Manley, Senior Attorney with the conservative think-tank Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, told us he’s filing the suit tomorrow on behalf of three Pima County residents. “We’re asking the court to put a stop to the World View deal and all of the deals that come out of it.”

Manley calls the World View deal “illegal” for, among other things, violating Arizona’s Gift Clause. He says, “What the Gift Clause requires is that money be spent for a public purpose, and that the government receive fair compensation in return.” The lawsuit will also state the deal violates competitive bidding laws, because, Manley says, it was negotiated in secret, with no public bidding.

As much as I think it smart of the city government to try to encourage this business to settle in Tucson, I know, living here in Tucson, that a taint of corruption lingers over the city’s very liberal government. It would not surprise me if this deal includes some of that.

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More Obamacare exchanges expected to fail

4:30 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Eight of the remaining eleven Obamacare co-op exchanges are expected to default or go out of business before the end of the year, according to a new analysis.

Data compiled by TheDCNF based on the co-op 2015 annual reports suggest eight are likely to default and only four of them will be in business by year’s end. The co-op documents obtained by TheDCNF were annual reports filed before state insurance regulators. The reports must accurately depict the financial health of the co-ops and are current through the end of calendar year 2015. The annual reports became available to the public in mid-March.

More than half of the original 23 co-ops have already gone out of business, leaving hospitals and doctors with millions of dollars of unpaid bills.

Obviously, we must elect Clinton or Sanders, because they want to use the government to do more1

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North Korea might have mobile ICBM capability

10:52 am

Does this make you feel safer? Satellite data suggests that North Korea might be preparing to test launch a mobile ICBM.

North Korea could launch either its Kn-08 or Kn-14 mobile ballistic missiles which would have a longer range and could potentially hit the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The Kn-14 is thought to be a more precise version of the Kn-08, and it is believed the regime showed it for the first time at a military parade in 2015, officials say.

…if the North were, for the first time, to launch a mobile missile with these types of ranges, it would be a significant military advance and a change in the North Korean calculus for the U.S., military officials say. In a conflict, mobile launchers can quickly shoot and move to a new position making it very difficult for satellites or spy planes to track them. It would also be a violation of U.N. resolutions banning North Korea from ballistic missile tests.

Well, why worry? Those U.N. resolutions will obviously prevent North Korea from doing anything. So will harsh words from Obama and his diplomats. Hasn’t that always worked?

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French court rules against freezing Russian assets

9:38 am

In a complicated court battle involving multiple courts, multiple nations, multiple companies, and multiple industries (including Roscosmos), a French court has ruled in favor of Russia and against the shareholders of the liquidated Russian Yukos oil company.

The Ivry First Instance Court ruled in favor of Roscosmos in a dispute with Cyprus-based offshore company Veteran Petroleum, a shareholder in the former Yukos oil company, according to Roscosmos. “They have acknowledged that our arguments are correct and that there is no need to seize the money,” Roscosmos representative Igor Burenkov told the TASS news agency.

France has seized Russian assets worth $1 billion in total following the Kremlin’s refusal to pay damages to former Yukos shareholders. The seized assets included $400 million owed by French-based satellite provider Eutelsat to the Russian Satellite Communications company and $300 million owned by French space launch provider Arianespace to Roscosmos.

More details here. The dispute here is not just between Russia and the shareholders of Yukos. There is also a battle going on between the Hague International Arbitration Court and the French courts. Whether Russia will be able get its money however remains unclear at this moment.

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Russian assets in France seized

8:59 am

Russia’s refusal to pay damages in a court case has forced France to seize $700 million owed to Russia’s aerospace industry.

In total, France has seized Russian assets worth $1 billion following the Kremlin’s refusal to pay damages to former Yukos shareholders.

In July 2014, The Hague international arbitration court ruled that Russia must pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos. The seized assets include $400 million owed by French-based satellite provider Eutelsat to the Russian Satellite Communications company and $300 million owned by French space launch provider Arianespace to Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, the magazine reported, citing the Shearman & Sterling legal firm which represents the Yukos shareholders.

This story is similar to the Sea Launch court suit by Boeing, whom the Russians owe $300 million. In that case Boeing has moved to block Russia from selling Sea Launch.

Both stories suggest that the Russians are in big financial trouble, partly caused by a lack of understanding of capitalism. In both cases, they formed partnerships with western businesses and failed to realize that those partnerships placed financial obligations upon them. From its Soviet days Russia probably thought they could ignore those obligations if it became inconvenient, and they are now discovering that this is not really possible if they wish to sell their goods to the rest of the world.

I expect Russia’s space industry to increasingly become isolated from the rest of the world market, partly because of these events.

In related news, Roscosmos has revealed that after the initial launch at Vostochny in April, the second launch will not occur until 2017. This indicates that the first launch is merely a face-saving effort to hide the fact that construction is really more than a year behind schedule, not three months.

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Delusional banking

9:39 am

Time to consider holding more of your money in cash: The International Monetary Fund said on Sunday that it now supports the idea of imposing negative interest rates on depositor money at some central banks.

In other words, steal the money, placed originally in the banks for safety from theft.

The following quote from the article, however, reveals how truly hopeless the situation really is:

Critics argue that the move to negative rates, especially in Japan where the central bank has failed to ignite growth or shift inflation upwards, are a sign of desperation. What is needed they say is additional government spending instead of more loose monetary policy. In addition, they charge that the move may damage the economy by inflating financial market asset bubbles and squeezing bank profit margins. [emphasis mine]

The idea that more government spending will solve the problem of too much government spending, which is why these central banks are in debt and need to steal the money of the depositors in order to become solvent again, is absurd. That the world’s economic experts can see no other solution, like maybe getting government spending under control so that reasonable taxes can pay the bills, tells us that no reasonable solution will be tried, and that eventually everything is going to crash badly.

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Serious security flaws found in Obamacare websites in three states

9:58 am

Finding out what’s in it: Federal investigators have found significant security problems with the Obamacare health insurance websites in the states of California, Kentucky, and Vermont.

The GAO report examined the three states’ systems from October 2013 to March 2015 and released an abbreviated, public version of its findings last month without identifying the states. On Thursday, the GAO revealed the states’ names in response to a Freedom of Information request from the AP.

According to the GAO, one state did not encrypt passwords, potentially making it easy for hackers to gain access to individual accounts. One state did not properly use a filter to block hostile attempts to visit the website. And one state did not use the proper encryption on its servers, making it easier for hackers to get in. The report did not say which state had what problem.

According to the story, it appears that nothing has been done in two of the three states to fix the problem. Worse, the study suggests similar problems exist at other state websites.

Hey, let’s solve the problem by voting for Clinton or Sanders! Both say the solution is to give the governments that screwed up here more power, money, and control. What could go wrong?

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Fascist New Jersey threatens prison for man flying Trump flag

9:24 am

Fascists: A man in New Jersey faces jail time for flying a campaign flag for Donald Trump in front of his home.

A New Jersey man who’s been flying Donald Trump’s campaign flag in front of his home since February could face up to a $2,000 fine or jail time when he faces a judge in the case.

Joe Hornick has been flying Trump’s “Make America Great Again” flag outside his West Long Branch home on a busy corner near the Monmouth University campus for months. But he got a ticket recently citing him for illegally posting political signage more than 30 days before an election. The New Jersey presidential primary isn’t until June 7. [emphasis mine]

Where in the Constitution does it say that political speech is forbidden thirty days before an election?

Anyway, this is another reason to avoid New Jersey, the state that routinely jails ordinary citizens for daring to exercise their second amendment rights. Now the state wants to jail people for exercising their first amendment rights.

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Brownshirts shut down student Trump meeting

9:13 am

Facists: A collection of leftwing, Marxist, Black Lives Matter brownshirts crashed the first meeting of a Students for Trump club forming at Portland State University, shutting it down and threatening the participants.

I have posted the video below the fold. Be sure to watch it all. There is no doubt that if and when these fascists gain power they will use it to oppress and persecute anyone who disagrees with them. In fact, they readily admit on the video that they are doing this now, gleefully. Their hate is palatable.
» Read more

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NASA picks Aerojet Rocketdyne engine for SLS upper stage

9:49 am

Government in slow motion: Only six years after program start, NASA has finally chosen Aerojet Rocketdyne’s legacy RL10 rocket engine for the upper stage of the SLS rocket.

The RL10 is an expander cycle liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine typically used on upper stage applications. It was first developed by Pratt & Whitney in the late 1950s and first flown in 1963. It has flown on hundreds of launches, logged approximately 15,000 hot fires, and accumulated more than 2.3 million seconds of hot fire operation time with a demonstrated reliability ratio greater than 0.999 throughout its history. The RL10 – which is used in various forms with Atlas’ Centaur Upper Stage (RL10A-4-2) and Delta IV’s Upper Stage (RL10B-2) – has a history back to the Saturn I’s S-IV Stage.

No other engine exists that can be built in time. Even so, the engine will not be ready for the first SLS launch tentatively scheduled in 2018, but will instead be used on the next two flights. The article also indicates that NASA is planning to delay SLS’s second flight two years to 2023, creating a five year gap which they will use to integrate the RL10 into SLS, while also rebuilding the mobile platform used to move SLS to the launchpad. (For some reason, the reconfiguration installed for the first SLS flight won’t work for later flights.)

The delay to 2023 has not been announced officially, but I have seen too much evidence recently, including statements in this GAO report, that tells me the delay is certain. Furthermore, it seems increasingly likely that the second flight will also be unmanned, and it won’t be until the third flight (as yet unfunded by Coingress) that humans will finally fly on SLS.

The cost? I am doing an analysis of this subject right now for a policy paper I am writing for a Washington think tank, and my preliminary estimate exceeds $41 billion for NASA to fly just one manned flight of SLS. That’s a bit more expensive than the $10 billion NASA is paying SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Boeing to launch more than a dozen cargo freighters and as many as a dozen manned flights to ISS.

For those elected officials out there who have trouble with math, let’s compare again:

  • SLS: $41 billion for one flight, 15 years development to first flight.
  • Commercial space: $10 billion for two dozen flights, 5 years development to first flight.

Which costs less and gives more bang for the buck? Can you figure that out, Congressmen and Senators? If you need help I can provide you a few more fingers so you can count above ten.

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