Tag: oppression

The rot in academia is very deep-rooted

The poison Ivy League
The poison Ivy League: pushing bigotry as goal #1!

Last week I wrote how the bankrupt testimony of the heads of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT in front of Congress, where all three gave legalistic answers when asked whether a call for the genocide of Jews would violate their colleges’ code of conduct, might have finally made ordinary Americans aware of the depravity and corruption that now permeates almost all of American academia.

It certainly appears so, based on the loud and almost universal condemnation of these three college presidents, with numerous calls for their resignations, from both Republicans and Democrats as well as students, teachers, and alumni.

What I did not note however was how deeply rooted that depravity and corruption is within academia, that even if all three of these presidents were immediately fired it would likely change nothing.

In fact, we can see the depth of that depravity by the response from all three colleges to this controversy. Only one president has so far been removed, and there only partly. At UPenn, President M. Elizabeth Magill submitted her resignation as president on December 9, 2023, after a meeting of the college’s board of trustees. That resignation however did not sever her ties to the school. She is still a tenured faculty member at the college’s law school, with the chairman of the board issuing his own endorsement of her good qualities (even as he resigned as well).

In other words, the university is very sorry you were offended. Magill did nothing wrong, we are doing nothing wrong, and we are going to do as little as we can to get the heat off of us as quickly as possible, so that we can then resume doing what we have been doing, indoctrinating racial hatred and anti-Semitism in all students.

Meanwhile at Harvard, the board of trustees responded by issuing a full endorsement of its own president, Claudine Gay, refusing to sanction her in any way for her willingness to allow anti-Semitism at Harvard. Worse, this endorsement occurred after news reports revealed she had repeatedly committed plagiarism in her published work. From the trustee’s statement:
» Read more

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FCC denies Starlink $886 million grant

Despite the fact that SpaceX Starlink constellation is presently providing internet access to more rural customers than any company worldwide, the FCC yesterday announced that it will not award the company a $886 million subsidy under its program for expanding broadband service to rural areas.

The FCC announced today that it won’t award Elon Musk’s Starlink an $886 million subsidy from the Universal Service Fund for expanding broadband service in rural areas. The money would have come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (RDOF), but the FCC writes that Starlink wasn’t able to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” and that giving the subsidy to it wouldn’t be “the best use of limited Universal Service Fund dollars.”

That was the same reason the FCC gave when it rejected Starlink’s bid last year, which led to this appeal. SpaceX had previously won the bidding to roll out 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload “low-latency internet to 642,925 locations in 35 states,” funded by the RDOF.

This decision can only be explained by utterly political reasons. SpaceX right now is experiencing a booming business, with its traffic up two and a half times from last year,almost all of which is in rural areas. That number is from a news report today, the same day the FCC claims Starlink can’t provide such service. As noted by one SpaceX lawyer:

“Starlink is arguably the only viable option to immediately connect many of the Americans who live and work in the rural and remote areas of the country where high-speed, low-latency internet has been unreliable, unaffordable, or completely unavailable, the very people RDOF was supposed to connect.”

The initial award was made in December 2020, when Trump was still president. It was first canceled in August 2022, after Biden took over. SpaceX appealed, but today’s announcement says the FCC rejected that appeal.

While there is absolutely no justification to give any company this money — SpaceX is proving private companies don’t need it to provide this service to rural areas — this decision is clearly political, driven by the hate of Elon Musk among Democrats and the Biden administration. They don’t care that SpaceX is a successeful private company providing tens of thousands of jobs as well as good products to Americans. Musk does not support them, and so he must be squashed.

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Today’s blacklisted American: The University of Washington proudly says “no whites need apply!”

University of Washington: dedicated to the new segregation!
University of Washington: dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” According to a recent investigation [pdf] completed by the University of Washington, its Department of Psychology broke numerous civil rights laws as well as the university’s own rules by using race as a criteria in the hiring of five new tenure track assistent professors. From the report’s summery:

The review showed that both the hiring decision and the hiring process were inconsistent with EO 31 [the university’s own anti-discrimination rule], as race was used as a factor. Specifically, faculty inappropriately considered candidates’ races when determining the order of offers and altered the process to provide disparate opportunities for candidates based on their race.

The investigation’s report was obtained by the National Academy of Scholars (NAS), which noted that the department rejected the recommendations of its hiring committee expressly because one candidate recommended was white, and then arbitrarily rearranged the rankings so that all five positions would be filled with people of “color,” as the department’s own Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office so proudly notes, even now.

This racist hiring practice was then used as the template for a handbook [pdf] to set these discriminatory policies in stone, guaranteeing that future hiring practices continue to exclude whites and especially white men. As noted by the City Journal,
» Read more

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NIH workers vote to form union

What could possibly go wrong? The newest workers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have now voted overwhelmingly to unionize, thus shifting power from research to workers’ rights.

Hundreds of early-career researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have voted overwhelmingly to form a union, nearly completing the official process required to do so. They plan to call on the agency — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research — to improve pay and working conditions, and to bolster its policies and procedures for dealing with harassment and excessive workloads.

About 98% of the research fellows who participated in the ballot voted on 6 December to form the union, with 1,601 voting in favour and just 36 against. Barring any objections, the result will be certified by the US Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) after five business days, and the union will become the first ever to represent fellows at a federal research agency and the largest union to form in the US government in more than a decade.

Routinely these government unions have been a disaster for both the taxpayer and the work the agency does. The focus becomes pay instead of doing the job. And because it is a government operation, politics always plays a hand. In most cases the government works hand-in-glove with the union. The union donates money to the politician’s campaign coffers, the politician then passes legislation favoring the union or the pay scales.

We have seen this disaster most horribly in our public schools. During and after the Wuhan panic the unions have consistently fought to keep schools closed, pushing remote teaching so that the teachers can stay home, not teach, while still getting paid. Before COVID the unions forced high wages and low standards, which has resulted in kids leaving schools badly educated at great cost.

It should be noted that the existence of these federal government unions began with a presidential executive order by John Kennedy in the early 1960s that a future president has the ability to cancel. One wonders if such a thing might happen in the future.

In the meantime, expect research coming out of the NIH to continue to go downhill.

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GAO wants the FAA to exert more control over future launch mishap investigations

We’re here to help you! A new GAO report now calls for the FAA to change how it does investigations after launch mishaps, both exerting more control of the investigations as well as demanding companies release more proprietary information after the investigation is complete.

The Government Accountability Office wants the FAA to improve how it investigates space launch mishaps, especially how it decides whether to do an investigation itself or allow the operator to do it. Historically operators are allowed to investigate their own mishaps under FAA supervision, but over the course of 50 mishaps since 2000, GAO found the FAA has not evaluated whether that’s an effective approach. GAO also champions creating a mechanism for sharing lessons learned among operators even though efforts in the past have not succeeded.

This GAO report proves several conclusions I have noted in the past year.

First, the so-called “investigation” by the FAA into the first Starship/Superheavy launch was utterly bogus, as I have repeatedly suggested. The FAA had no ability to do any investigations on its own. It merely rubber-stamped SpaceX’s conclusions, but did so as slowly as possible so as to delay the company’s effort. Before Joe Biden was installed as president, the FAA would quickly permit further launches once a company completed its investigation. Under Biden, that policy has changed to slow-walk approvals.

This also means the present “investigation” by the FAA into the second Starship/Superheavy launch is bogus as well. When SpaceX announces its investigation is complete and all engineering fixes have been accomplished, any further delay from the FAA will be entirely political.

Second, it appears the Biden administration is applying pressure to both the GAO and the FAA to increase this regulatory control. It wants the FAA to write new procedures for determining when it will take control of an investigation rather than let the company do it. While providing some clarity to this decision could be beneficial, it is likely this change under the Biden administration will work against free enterprise. It will give the government a procedure for grabbing control, and holding it for as long as it desires. Politics will become part of any mishap investigation, rather than leaving it solely to engineering.

Third, the desire of the goverment to make companies reveal the details of the investigation, including propertiary information, will only squelch future innovation. Why develop new technology if you will be forced to give it away free during testing, when things are certain to go wrong?

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Pakistan creating a national space policy

Pakistan, as a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, is finally creating a national space policy as the treaty requires.

That policy however is not yet finalized, nor has it been published. The only information at the link states this:

Under the policy, a National Space Agency would be established in the country and satellite service providers who intend to provide satellite services in the country would be required to register themselves and obtain a non-objection certificate (NOC), sources added.

Bottom line: The government of Pakistan will retain full control over any future industry proposal.

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Americans might finally be noticing the depravity in academia that has existed for more than two decades

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Has the bankrupt testimony of three college
presidents finally awakened ordinary Americans?

For more than two decades conservatives have been reporting the growing immoral and depraved culture on the campuses of America’s most prestigious colleges, all to no avail.

These colleges instituted bigoted and racist policies of hiring, admissions, and funding that favored some races over others, so much so that today there are so few conservatives on their campuses that debate is impossible. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges worked to censor and silence the few conservatives that remained or came to speak as a guest, sometimes even allowing riots by leftist students to make sure such speech was prevented. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges further acted to remove and fire anyone, whether they were conservatives or not, who dared criticize any of the above actions. Often the terminations were done with no due process, and in direct violation of law and the colleges’ own rules. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges have steadily reshaped their curriculums so as to indoctrinate students into Marxism, “safe spaces”, and close-mindedness, instead of teaching the values of Western Civilization, liberty, the rule of law, personal responsibility, and most important, the requirement that an educated adult must be able to think critically. Students now come out of these colleges hostile to any debate, their minds closed to thinking because such thinking makes them uncomfortable.

The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

As was the case in the early years of World War II, before the attack of Pearl Harbor (which occurred 82 years ago today), Americans were asleep. Then, Americans didn’t want to face the evil that was growing in Europe and threatened to engulf the world in war, and inevitably did so. Now, Americans have done everything they could to avoid facing the evil that has been growing in their own backyard. The result is the chaos we see today, with a younger generation that ignorantly believes America is the root of all evil, and that the best policies for the future should be censorship, socialism, and racial discrimination.

The situation has gotten desperate, and threatens to engulf us in another world war, potentially far more deadly than World War II. Worse, that war will be fought here, in America, from the start, because the enemies of Western Civilization have been deeply impregnated in our society by these corrupt colleges.

And as happened on December 7, 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it appears that something has finally happened that has at last maybe wakened Americans up. Our Pearl Harbor today might simply be the bankrupt clueless testimony of three college presidents in front of Congress on December 5, 2023.

First everyone must listen to the most revealing moments of that testimony. If you haven’t seen the video below, you need to watch it now. And if you have already seen it, watch it again. It is short, and quickly illustrates the moral depravity of the leadership at three of America’s most elite colleges, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania.
» Read more

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Another example of the inability of Democrats to condemn bigotry

House vote condemning anti-Semitism
Final totals of House vote condemning anti-Semitism.
Click for source.

This column today might sound familiar, as I have reported similar examples numerous times before (See previous essays here, here, here, here, and here). Yet, it is important to document the inability of the modern Democratic Party to unequivocally condemn bigotry, because so much of its base and membership are actually are in favor of such things.

Yesterday the House passed a resolution condemning the horrible rise of anti-Semitism seen nationwide and globally, mostly expressed during pro-Hamas demonstrations that have often descended into violence and calls for the murder of all Jews in Israel.

The resolution [pdf] is quite clear. After listing numerous examples of harrassment and violence against Jews in the U.S., Australia, Israel, and globally, it condemned such behavior, and made it clear that the term “anti-Zionism” is simply a euphemism for anti-Semitism.

The final vote totals are shown in the screen capture to the right, taken from C-SPAN. As you can see, except for one nay vote and four not voting at all, the entire Republican caucus voted in favor of this resolution.

The Democrats however were not so unanimous. While a little less than half of the Democrats in the House voted in support of this amazingly simple resolution, half voted “present”, following the instructions of Congressemen Jerry Nadler (D-New York), Dan Goldman (D-New York), and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) (all members of the Democratic Party House leadership). These Congressmen opposed the resolution because it is…
» Read more

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Pushback: Macy’s sued for its illegal discriminatory hiring policies

Banned at Macy's
Banned at Macy’s

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The pro-bono non-profit legal firm America’s First Legal (AFL) has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Macy’s for its blatantly illegal diversity and inclusion policies that required hiring quotas bases solely on race.

You can read the complaint here [pdf]. AFL’s letter to Macy’s announcing the complaint is here [pdf]. As noted in AFL’s press release:

In a 2019 press release entitled “Bold Vision To Advance Diversity and Inclusion and Ensure The Company Reflects The Diversity Of The Customers and Communities Served,” Macy’s details its five-point plan with specific directives focused on achieving greater diversity for all aspects of the company’s business model.

The plan explicitly instructs Macy’s management to “[a]chieve more ethnic diversity by 2025 at senior director level and above, with a goal of 30 percent,” as well as to initiate a “12-month program designed to strengthen leadership skills for a selected group of top-talent managers and directors of Black/African-American, Hispanic-Latinx, Native American and Asian descent.” Quotas such as these are patently illegal under the law.

The language of that release is quite appalling. » Read more

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Cowardice and fear from Western leaders; Courage and determination from Israel and its Arab allies

The model presently used by all leaders in the free world
The model presently used by today’s leaders
in the free world

If you wish to understand why the Middle East in general has had relatively few pro-Hama demonstrations — even in the Arab territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — while the western nations have been largely engulfed by them — some of which have been violent and bluntly anti-Semitic by actually advocating the genocide of all Jews — you need only listen to the leaders of these countries, because those leaders reflect their populations and their overall attitude to the murder, rape, and beheading of innocent civilians, including children, by Hamas on October 7th.

In Israel Benjamin Netayahu made it once again very clear his country’s determination to eliminate Hamas and its terrorist cell in Gaza in a speech to his nation on December 2nd.

I state clearly and unequivocally: We will continue the war until we achieve all of its goals and it is impossible to achieve these goals without continuing the ground incursion. The ground incursion was essential in order to bring about the results up to now, and it is necessary to bring about future results.

I tell our friends around the world, you share our goal of eliminating Hamas and releasing our hostages; therefore, I also emphasize to them that there is no way of achieving these goals except by victory, and there is no way to achieve victory except by continuing the ground incursion. The IDF and the security forces are doing this with determination, strength and while upholding international law.

The second paragraph above was very specifically but carefully aimed at the leaders of Israel’s allies in the west, who from day one of this conflict have repeatedly waffled in their support, constantly looking for a way to stop Israel’s effort, to appease Hamas, and to make believe that an early end to this fighting, with Hamas still intact and in control of Gaza, will somehow bring peace. French President Emmanuel Macron illustrated their weaselly cowardice quite well during a press conference that same day:
» Read more

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Boeing dropped from competition for Air Force “doomsday” plane

It appears that by mutual agreement the Air Force has eliminated Boeing in the competition to build a new replacement for the E-4B Nightwatch, what the military calls its “doomsday” airplane, designed to survive a nuclear war.

Sources told Reuters that Boeing – the incumbent manufacturer of the E-4B Nightwatch – could not agree with the USAF on data rights and contract terms for the replacement plane that began flying in the 1970s. In other words, the planemaker did not want to sign a fixed-price agreement.

…”Rest assured, we haven’t signed any fixed-price development contracts nor (do we) intend to,” Brian West, Boeing’s chief financial officer, told investors in October.

With Boeing out of the competition, Sierra Nevada (the parent company of Sierra Space) is left as the only bidder. It is also quite willing to operate under a fixed price contract.

As I noted in a comment thread after a reader first posted a link to this story,

Boeing is signing its own death warrant. The entire federal defense and space agencies are steadily switching to fixed-price, and will simply go to others if Boeing refuses to accept those terms.

In fact, those agencies will want to go to others, because Boeing is making it clear it can’t meet its contractual obligations.

This decision also tells us a great deal about Boeing as a company. Its inability to fulfill any contract under a fixed price means it no longer has the discipline to do anything right. It seems buying products from it at this point might be a very foolish proposition.

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Minnesota school brings sanity back to the classroom by banning smart phones

The smart phone: Bad for kids
The smart phone: Proven very bad for kids

Making schools productive again: A Minnesota middle school has found that banning smart phones from all students during the school day has improved behavior both in and out of the classroom while improving the learning and social environment.

“I believe (the ban) is game-changing and will have lasting impacts on our students for years to come,” Maple Grove Middle School Principal Patrick Smith told WCCO. “There was no cross-the-table conversations, there was no interaction in the hallways,” he said. “And let’s be real, with these devices, our students – especially our teenagers – there’s a lot of drama that comes from social media, and a lot of conflict that comes from it.”

Last year, school officials banned student cell phone use for the entire school day, from 8:10 a.m. to 2:40 p.m., following a variety of issues at the school tied to the devices. “We have a culture and climate concern. We see issues that kids are getting on their phones through interactions of bullying, of setting up fights, just the gambit of a lot of the negative things kids are going back and forth on social media,” Smith said on the Chad Hartman Show, adding that the distraction from learning was also a major concern.

After a year school officials and parents are enthused by the results. Not only has the social atmosphere improved at the school, parents are reporting improvements in learning in their kids.

None of this is a surprise. » Read more

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Angola signs Artemis Accords, becoming the 33rd nation to join the alliance

Angola today officially signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 33rd nation to join this space alliance conceived during the Trump administration as a way to get around the limitations of the Outer Space Treaty.

The full list of signatories is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The competing alliance of communist nations, led by China, includes only Russia, Venezuala, Pakistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and South Africa. That former deep Soviet bloc nations like Bulgaria and Romania, as well as previously very Marxist Angola, went with the west rather than China illustrates the international distrust of China and its authoritarian methods.

As bilateral agreements between the U.S. and each nation. the accords were designed to create for the U.S. a strong political alliance focused on protecting private property and capitalism in space, something the Outer Space Treaty essentially forbids. As I think it was conceived, the plan had been to use this alliance to eventually either force changes to the Outer Space Treaty, or abandon it entirely. Whether that plan will continue under Biden is unclear, and in fact there have been indications it will not.

These trends could all change should a different president take over after 2024.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay for cluing me in to this story.

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GAO: First Artemis manned landing likely delayed to 2027

A new GAO report says that the first Artemis manned landing on the Moon is almost certainly not happen in 2025 as NASA presently wants, but will probably be delayed to 2027.

You can read the report here [pdf]. It clearly references the delays experienced by SpaceX due to regulatory roadblocks, but couches its language carefully so as to lay no blame on the government for those delays, placing the problem entirely on SpaceX instead.

In April 2023, after a 7-month delay, SpaceX achieved liftoff of the combined commercial Starship variant and Super Heavy booster during the Orbital Flight Test. But, according to SpaceX representatives, the flight test was not fully completed due to a fire inside the booster, which ultimately led to a loss of control of the vehicle. Following the launch, the Federal Aviation Administration—which issues commercial launch and reentry licenses—classified the commercial Starship launch as a mishap and required SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed the August 2023 mishap report submitted by SpaceX and, as a result, cited 63 corrective actions for SpaceX to implement before a second test.

SpaceX had planned this demonstration as the first test flight of the booster stage, as well as the first test with the Starship riding on the booster and the whole system experiencing stage separation. However, SpaceX representatives said their Autonomous Flight Safety System initiated the vehicle self-destruct sequence and the vehicle began to break up about 4 minutes into the flight after the vehicle deviated from the expected trajectory, lost altitude, and began to tumble. HLS [Human Landing System] officials said that while the flight test was terminated early, it still provided data for several Starship technologies, including propellant loading, launch operations, avionics, and propulsion behavior.

GAO graphic

Note how this language makes it seem like the launch was a failure, when in fact SpaceX never expected it to reach orbit and instead intended to use the problems that occurred during this engineering test launch to find out what engineering designs needed to be reworked.

This language illustrates the fundamental dishonesties that routinely permeate government actions. The funniest and most absurd example of this intellectual dishonesty however has to be the graphic posted to the right, taken from the GAO report. The graphic gives the false impression that Orion and Lunar Gateway are far larger than Starship, when in fact, several of both could easily fit inside Starship’s planned cargo bay. In fact, when Starship finally docks with Lunar Gateway the size difference is going to make NASA’s effort here seem very picayune. Apparently, the GAO (or possibly NASA) decided it needed to hide this reality.

The real problem NASA’s Artemis program faces is red tape coming from the FAA and Fish & Wildlife. The GAO fails to note this fact, which makes its report far less helpful than it could have been.

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Sutherland spaceport reconfigures design in effort to satisfy environmental concerns

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

The Sutherland spaceport being built in the north of Scotland has announced plans to shrink its size in order to satisfy environmental concerns, likely raised by the many bureaucrats in the United Kingdom that have to approve its spaceport license.

Orbex is now consulting with the local community on proposed changes, including a smaller launch pad, to better protect the surrounding environment. There will also be smaller access roads, and the size of the integration facility, where rockets are assembled before launch, is to be reduced.

The company said: “These changes will make the building footprint smaller, leading to a reduction in peat disturbance and a lower impact on the groundwater ecosystem. The visual impact of the site will also be reduced, and there will be less disturbance to local watercourse crossings, with mammal migration paths widened to better preserve the natural environment.

Orbex has signed a 50-year lease to use this spaceport, and has been building its Prime rocket in a facility nearby. It had hoped to complete a first launch in 2023, but that is clearly not going to happen. It had applied for a launch license in February 2022, but apparently the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the United Kingdom has still not issued it, almost two years later.

Much of the environmental opposition to the Sutherland spaceport was initially instigated by a billionaire who had invested in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands. Though his lawsuit was dismissed in August 2021, this does not mean that the opposition by him and others has ceased.

Overall, it appears that like at Saxavord in Shetland, work at Sutherland has significantly slowed in recent months. It appears both are being blocked for regulatory reasons, delays that once again provide an opportunity for the spaceports being developed in Norway and Sweden.

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Real pushback: Corporate America eliminating college degree requirements for new hires

Increasingly viewed at useless educational institutes
Increasingly viewed at useless educational institutes

According to a new survey of 800 American companies, about half say they have now dropped their requirement that new employees have a college degree, with some businesses replacing this requirement with actual apprenticeship programs.

For example, Accenture launched an apprenticeship program in 2016 through which it has since hired 1,200 people, CNBC reported. Some 80 percent of those people joined the company without a four-year-degree.

Earlier this year, the company expanded the program with the goal of filling 20 percent of its US entry-level roles. ‘A person’s educational credentials are not the only indicators of success, so we advanced our approach to hiring to focus on skills, experiences and potential,’ CEO of Accenture North America, Jimmy Etheredge, told the outlet.

According to the report, 45% of all businesses surveyed intend to eliminate college degree requirements next year, while 55% say they have already done so. Major companies like Walmart, IBM, Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft have been public about their shift away from college degree requirments, while others like Google and Apple have done so more quietly.

According to this survey [pdf] from the Burning Glass Institute, which analyzed trends across 51 million job postings, this trend appeared to begin before the Wuhan panic, was accelerated significantly by it, but has continued subsequent. This short quote from that report however says it all:
» Read more

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House committee passes its new commercial space act on partisan vote

By a party-line vote of 21-17, the Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee yesterday passed the proposed new commercial space act that had been earlier formulated with industry input and approval, rejecting the alternative proposal that the White House had suddenly dropped on them two weeks ago.

The head of the committee, Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma), outlined the problems with the White House proposal.

For Lucas, the Space Council’s proposal is a “needless expansion of government authority.” Instead of consolidating new regulatory authority at the Department of Commerce as proposed in H.R. 6131, the White House would assign some activities there and others to the FAA. “Whereas our bill creates a one-stop shop to the extent possible, under this proposal, organizations would be forced to get multiple licenses from multiple cabinet-level departments.” Along with other objectionable provisions, he concluded that “instead of streamlining already convoluted processes, the Space Council is adding to bureaucracy and stifling innovation.”

That White House proposal was also opposed by the industry, which saw it as a power grab that would stifle the industry.

Whether this bill will become law remains to be seen. The full House still has to vote on it, and then the Senate, and then Joe Biden has to be wheeled into his office, a pen handed to him, and someone must guide that hand to sign the bill. Considering that the White House staff opposes the bill, it might refuse to do this latter guiding. Similarly, the Democratic Party’s eagerness to expand regulation and the power of the federal government means that in the Senate it will likely oppose this bill as well.

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Blacklisting is no longer enough, now the goal is justifying mass murder

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
When will Americans finally wake up?

It seems the rising effort of many — mostly on the left but not entirely — to blackball and censor their opponents in the past decade is no longer satisfied with these ugly goals.

Now it seems the goal is to justify mass murder and the rape and torture of women and children. We can see this by what happened during a city council event in Oakland, California yesterday. When one Jewish council member, Dan Kalb, attempted to add language condemning Hamas to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, he was greeted by boos and an unrelenting stream of locals not only opposing his amendment but denying that the mass murder by Hamas had even occurred, that it was instead committed by Israeli troops, and that anyone who dared disagree with them was a “white supremacist.”

The video below provides a quick selection of this hate and ignorance:
» Read more

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Space industry expresses opposition to White House regulatory proposal

Not surprisingly, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), the industry group that represents pretty much the entire new commercial space business, has sent a letter to both the House and Senate expressing strong opposition to the November 15th White House regulatory proposal that would impose heavy regulation on both launches and the construction of any private facility in space.

“We oppose the recently released National Space Council (NSPC) proposal on the topic in its current form, which fails to consider the points that CSF and many other stakeholders raised during the NSPC listening sessions last year,” CSF said in its letter to Congress.

The organization raised several concerns, including how responsibilities would be split between the two departments and the potential for “duplicative and conflicting” requirements between Commerce and Transportation. “For some operations, it is unclear which agency would hold the authority to issue a relevant license, or if multiple licenses would be needed,” it stated.

The group is concerned about giving additional responsibilities to the FAA’s commercial space transportation office without also significantly increasing its budget, noting that the office is struggling to keep up with its current launch and reentry licensing. At an October hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, industry officials recommended increasing that office’s budget to handle launch licensing work, without any discussion of it taking on additional responsibilities.

CSF was also worried that the proposed mission authorization system could disrupt plans by NASA to shift from the International Space Station to commercial stations by the end of the decade. “Introducing a bifurcated and unclear regulatory regime for commercial space stations,” the letter stated, “could risk U.S. leadership in low-Earth orbit.”

Apparently the entire space industry came to the same conclusion I did after reading the White House proposal after its release:

Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.

Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.

It must be noted that the entire Democratic Party caucus in the House apparently approves of this power grab, because they immediately abandoned all support of the previously negotiated proposal that the industry and Congress had worked out and a House committee was about to pass. Their opposition forced that committee vote to be canceled. According to that committee, it will resume its consideration of that bill today. We shall see if this industry opposition changes any of their minds.

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Postwar in Gaza: some educated guesses

The first child hostage, 9-year-old Ohad Mundar, being released by Hamas
The first child hostage, 9-year-old Ohad Mundar,
being released by Hamas. Click for video.

The ongoing pause in fighting in Gaza in order to get some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas out of the war zone — most especially the children — has resulted in a lot of hand-wringing about whether Israel will allow this pause to short-circuit is effort to destroy Hamas.

It will not, though the post-war situation will remain complex and difficult, as is always the case in the Middle East.

First, we must recognize that Israel is not leaving Gaza at any time in the near or even distant future, no matter what Joe Biden and the United Nations demands. Its army has now captured and controls the northern half of the strip, and it fully intends to take full control of the southern half as well, once this hostage exchange agreement concludes. It made this intention very clear just before the hostage pause was announced, when it dropped leaflets in south Gaza, warning citizens to leave. That southern campaign has not yet happened, but only because of the ongoing hostage release operation.

Nor will it matter if that exchange agreement gets extended for weeks, day by day as Hamas releases ten hostages at a time. At some point Hamas will either run out of hostages, or decide it needs to keep the hostages it has left as later bargaining chips. At that moment Israel will resume its offensive with full force. And it will do so with even more force, as there will no longer be child hostages held in Hamas control.

The political situation in Israel demands this. The Israeli public wants nothing less. Politicians and pundits in the west might whine and demand appeasement from Israel, but Israel is no longer interested in appeasing Hamas. It will no longer tolerate a terrorist base on its southeastern border, and it fully intends to re-occupy all of Gaza and make sure its leadership there is completely cleansed of the Hamas gang.

The eventual result will be a Gaza strip controlled entirely by Israeli security forces. » Read more

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Abraham Lincoln proclaims a day of Thanksgiving in the middle of the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

The date was October 3, 1863. The Civil War was at its height, with no end in sight and no clear sign yet of victory for the Union. For all anyone knew, the great American experiment in self-government, freedom, and constitutional law was about to end in failure, with one half of the nation continuing on founded on the idea that it was okay to enslave other human beings, based on their race.

In such a moment, President Abraham Lincoln did what all past leaders in America had done, call for a day of prayer to God for the future while giving thanks for the blessings still abounding. For this purpose he set aside the last Thursday of November of that year.

Since then, Americans have never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving on that day. Today comes another Thanksgiving during a time of chaos, hate, violence, and oppression. There is much to invoke horror and outrage.

There is much more to be thankful for. As much as some have tried to squelch freedom here in America and abroad, all signs say that freedom-lovers everywhere are refusing to go down without a fight. Let us join together to renew that effort, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Below is Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation. If only we had leaders today who could think and write with similar elegance and humility.
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A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
» Read more

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Real pushback: Soldiers punished by Biden for refusing jab now sue for billions

Fighting the left's playbook
Fighting the left’s playbook

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The many military soldiers punished by Biden for refusing the Covid jab have now filed a class action lawsuit for what they expect to be worth billions.

Former troops are suing the U.S. government for lost pay and benefits due to the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, one of the lawyers who successfully brought down the Anthrax vaccine told Breitbart News.

Attorney Dale Saran, a retired Marine, and fellow attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson are representing the former troops in three separate lawsuits they plan to turn into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all service members who were either kicked out or illegally ordered to stop drilling, resulting in loss of pay or benefits. Saran said the amount is in the “billions.”

“It’s worth billions. That’s just flat-out. That’s what it is in backpay. It’s billions of dollars,” he said.

Though only about 8,000 active-duty troops were kicked out of the military due to the Biden jab mandate, the lawyers estimate another 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers are due compensation for lost benefits because they were made inactive or forbidden from participating in drill activities.

The lawsuit has been filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, a specialized court where illegal military discharges are heard. Lawyer Saran won a similar suit in that court over the military’s anthrax mandates back in the late nineties. The case now is likely stronger because, as he notes,

They were basically [without] the benefit of any due process. No boards were held. They didn’t hold any administrative separation boards; they didn’t hold any hearings. They didn’t do any federal recognition boards; none of the administrative or judicial procedures were used. They just flat-out did it.

This willful refusal to follow the law has been typical behavior by the left since the start of the Wuhan panic. The law no longer applies to them. They want to do something, they do it, even if it is illegal and hurts someone else. Shutter businesses illegally, silence opponents illegally, favor some races illegally, fire soldiers illegaly, mandate jabs and masks illegally, demand health records illegally: All okay because the good people are doing it! How dare you question their righteousness?

The worst aspect of these violations of law has been the meek willingness of everyone to go along with them. Most shameful.
» Read more

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North Korea launches spy satellite

In its third attempt this year to launch a spy satellite, North Korea today succeeded at last, its new Chollima-1 rocket lifting off from Sohae spaceport on the country’s western coast and placing in orbit what is probably a relatively primitive spy satellite with a limited lifespan.

Though launched on the coast, the flight path crossed over North Korea, with drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages in the Yellow and East China seas. The previous two launch failures (in May and August) did the same, with South Korea salvaging stages and the satellite from the first failure. The data recovered suggested the spy satellite was of “no military utility” according to the South Korean military.

As usual, U.S. and South Korean officials condemned the launch, calling it a violation of UN sanctions. Note too that this was not North Korea’s first successful launch, having managed launches in 2012 and 2016 previously, with a different rocket.

Because this was North Korea’s first success in 2023, the leader broad in the 2023 launch race remains unchanged:

86 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

However, the launch was the 180th in 2023, setting a new global record for the launches in a single year, eclipsing the record set last year. Since Sputnik in 1957 the average number of successful launches globally was generally less than a hundred. This year it is very possible the world will double that average, almost entirely because of American private enterprise, which leads China 98 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 82. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 82.

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Will libertarian Javier Milei actually be able to institute his revolution in Argentina?

The victory of libertarian and outsider Javier Milei in Argentina this past weekend has been met with joyous approval on the right and outright horror on the left. Both expect Milei to immediately begin imposing his radical anti-government polices that will eliminate whole agencies of Argentina’s federal government.

This video by Paul Joseph Watson I think provides an excellent summary of Milei’s agenda. Though Watson sees the agenda from a wholly conservative perspective, he also covers the wide range of Milei’s goals and ideas quite nicely.

After Milei’s election many other news sources did the same, describing his goals in detail. Practically none however took a close look at the reality of Argentina’s new government, and how that reality might impringe on Milei’s plans.

You see, Argentina still has a constitutional government with a federal legislature made up of a Chamber of Deputies (its House of Representatives) and a Senate. Any analysis of Milei’s future plans has got to consider the political make-up of these bodies.

And yet, though I searched hard, I could find almost news reports that discussed that make-up in any way. Politico, NPR, and CNN didn’t mention it all. The only mainstream source I could find that even mentioned the make-up of that legislature was Reuters, but it did so in a short paragraph near the end of its report, with few details.

So, though this is not my area of expertise, I decided to try to find out, both for myself and my readers.
» Read more

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North Korea announces it will attempt orbital launch of spy satellite this week

North Korea has announced that it will make a third attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit this week, lifting off anytime between November 22nd and December 1st, with drop zones of the rocket’s lower stages over the Yellow and East China seas.

The North initially planed to make the third launch attempt in October following two botched launches — in August and May. But it did not press ahead with the plan last month, raising speculation that it might need more preparation time.

As expected, South Korea has protested. It is also likely gearing up to attempt to recover as much debris from the launch as possible, as it did successfully on the previous launches.

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Musk: Next Starship/Superheavy test launch could happen in only 3 to 4 weeks

Superheavy & Starship, on their way
Superheavy & Starship, shortly after liftoff on November 18th

In a tweet on November 19, 2023, Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX could be ready for its next Starship/Superheavy test launch in only a matter of weeks, assuming federal red tape doesn’t get in the way.

Starship Flight 3 hardware should be ready to fly in 3 to 4 weeks. There are three ships in final production in the high bay (as can be seen from the highway).

In reporting on the second test launch on November 18, 2023, I noted that with prototypes ready to go SpaceX could probably launch within a month. Musk has now confirmed that assessment.

I also predicted that the FAA and Fish & Wildlife would not allow such a thing, and though they will determine there is no reason not to launch again, they will not issue a launch licence until the February/April time frame.

I want this prediction clearly on the record. It is important for the public to know the source of these delays.

It is also important for the press to apply pressure on these government paper pushers so they don’t feel encouraged in their intransigence. When I made a similar (and wholly accurate) prediction in May about the second launch, many in the press criticized that prediction (directly and indirectly) for daring to say bad things about government regulators. Now it appears that others in the press are no longer so naive, and are willing to note the slowness of the licensing process.

The regulators might not want to stand in the way and are simply following procedure. The press however mustn’t treat them gently. It must hold their feet to the fire to make sure they don’t take their time doing so.

Moreover, we have seen fewer headlines claiming falsely that the rocket “blew up” or “exploded.” Instead, a large percentage of the press now got it right and noted the mission’s success and that the destruction was not an accident but part of the self-destruct system.

After the last launch I lambasted the press for getting these facts wrong. Maybe holding their feet to the fire forced a reassessment and better reporting this time around.

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Jan 6th tapes prove Biden prosecutors knowingly falsified the charges that caused Matthew Perna to kill himself

Matthew Perna, dead because he expressed his opinion
Matthew Perna, essentially murdered by the Biden Justice Department

They’re coming for you next: Thirty-seven-year-old Matthew Perna came to Washington DC on January 6, 2021 to peacefully protest Joe Biden’s election. During those protests, Perna admitted he entered the Capitol through a door that had been opened by others (possibly government security police themselves). While inside he said he had walked through the building for a few minutes, didn’t touch or damage anything, and simply stayed within the normal walking path for visitors as he took pictures.

For this “criminal activity,” Biden prosecutors at the Department of Justice had charged him with multiple crimes, including a felony for committing terrorism that could have resulted in a twenty-year prison sentence. While Perna was willing to accept a trespassing misdemeanor — he recognized he had entered a closed facility without clear authority — the felony for terrorism crushed him. He knew the January 6th trials were imposing the harshest penalties. He knew the prosecutors and judges were not taking reasonable plea deals. And he knew that even if he agreed to a deal, the best he could expect would still be many months or even years in prison.

This unjust fate was something he could not face. On February 25, 2022 he killed himself.

Biden prosecutors immediately thereafter dropped the trumped-up charges against him, admitting that the felony charge itself would likely have been dropped during trial.

In other words, the government not only rubbed salt in the wounds of his family, it admitted openly that its charges against Perna were a sham to begin with.

We now have visual proof that Perna was innocent, and that proof was in the hands of federal prosecutors from day one.
» Read more

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House committee delays vote on commercial space bill due to new White House proposal

Because of the sudden announcement by the White House of its own version of a new commercial regulatory space bill, the House Science committee was forced to delay the voting on November 15, 2023 of its own new commercial space bill, put forth by Republicans.

The committee met Nov. 15 to mark up the Commercial Space Act of 2023 and one other bill. At the end of the markup, lasting more than three and a half hours including a recess, the committee’s chairman, Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) said the committee would delay votes to advance both bills until after the Thanksgiving break because of votes on the House floor and “and the nature of additional information that has become available to us.”

The latter comment appeared to be a reference to a legislative proposal released by the White House’s National Space Council less than an hour before the markup regarding a mission authorization concept for new space activities. That proposal would establish a system where both the Commerce Department and the Transportation Department would oversee activities not regulated today, based on the type of activity.

The House bill, introduced Nov. 2 by Lucas and space subcommittee chairman Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), would create its own mission authorization system at the Commerce Department. It would also direct Commerce to hand over responsibility for a civil space traffic coordination system to a consortium led by an academic or nonprofit organization, rather than keeping it within the Office of Space Commerce as currently planned. Lucas, in his opening remarks, said he was aware of the new White House proposal but has reservations about it. “These proposals, I fear, simply go in the wrong direction and hurt rather than support America’s space industry,” he said.

Both bills were aimed at realigning the regulatory regime governing private space activities. The House bill’s final form apparently had been written with a lot of industry input. The White House bill, supported by Democrats, appears designed instead to clamp down on commercial space by allowing the federal bureaucracy to regulate everything.

Both bills unfortunately give too much power to the federal government, though the Republican bill at least tries to shift some of that power to the private sector, where it belongs.

One of the main reasons we have had a rennaisance in commercial space in the past decade is that there has been little regulation. The private sector has been left to regulate itself, and it has generally done so very successfully because of the invisible hand of free market forces. Build things right and the world beats a path to your door. Do it badly and no regulation is needed, you go out of business.

Modern Americans no longer trust these fundamentals of freedom and capitalism, and so we have a rush by government to establish “rules,” none of which will really accomplish anything but slow development and innovation and squelch this emerging industry.

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Saxavord spaceport gets launch deal from German rocket startup

The Saxavord spaceport, one of two being built in Scotland, has signed a launch deal from the German rocket startup Hy-Impulse, with two suborbital test launches scheduled for next year and an orbital launch targeting 2025.

HyImpulse, a launch services provider and DLR spinoff based in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is currently gearing up for its inaugural suborbital launch early next year from Australia. It will however look to conduct two suborbital launches from SaxaVord Spaceport, located in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, from August 2024 onwards. HyImpulse has already secured an Air Navigation Order (ANO) license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority for one launch.

These will be followed by first orbital launches from late 2025 onwards. The plan envisions rising to full commercial operations by 2030.

All this assumes that the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) can issue the launch licenses in time. After all it only six to ten months to approve those suborbital launches, and almost two years to approve the orbital launch. So far the CAA has proven unable to approve anything within even those long time frames.

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