The lawless left

Nazi brown shirts destroying Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht
Nazi brown shirts destroying Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht

While there remains a shrinking percentage of Democrats who strongly believe in the law and the Constitution, the leadership of that political party is largely now controlled by those who believe otherwise.

Two incidents the past week illustrated this fact most starkly.

First a pro-Hamas protest in front of the White House on January 13, 2024 became so violent that many staffers inside the building were evacuated for their safety.

“During the demonstration near the White House complex Jan. 13, a portion of the anti-scale fencing that was erected for the event sustained temporary damage,” the statement read. “The issues were promptly repaired on site by U.S. Secret Service support teams.”

The U.S. Secret Service told Fox News Digital that some fences were damaged outside the White House, and that staff members and journalists were “relocated” as a result. “As a precaution, some members of the media and staff in proximity to Pennsylvania Avenue were temporarily relocated while the issue was being addressed,” the statement continued. “The Secret Service made no arrests associated with the march and there was no property damage to the White House or adjacent buildings.”[emphasis mine]

You can see video of these attempts to break into the White House here. Though the White House grounds were never penetrated, the violent self-righteous attitude of the mob is quite clear: They have the right to break in, because their cause is just. The law does not apply to them.

The highlighted words in the quote above provide a further explanation as to why this violence happened. » Read more

College professors insist all private activity in space must be regulated, by them

Now that private enterprise and free civilians are beginning to fly missions to space, independent of the government, “an international team of experts” have published a paper that demands that all future private activity in space be strictly regulated. From an article in the student newspaper of the University of Alberta:

Private citizens or corporations that collect data or research in space pose unique ethical concerns, Caulfield said. Previously, space travel was “largely funded by the public purse.” For example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) receives its funding from the United States government. Publicly funded research has to follow certain rules and there is a degree of oversight, Caulfield explained. But, “if space flight is funded primarily or largely by private companies like Blue Origin [and] SpaceX, what rules do they need to follow?”

Caulfield is Timothy Caulfield, the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and a professor in the University of Alberta’s faculty of law. He is also one of the twenty co-authors of this paper, the authors of which somehow think that because they teach at colleges they have better ethics that the owners of private space companies. Not only do they want to establish strict rules over what can be done in space, they want all research and data to be open source. The private data obtained by missions paid for by others must be available to everyone, even if they didn’t do a damn thing to get it.

These control freaks also insist that commercial space must follow standards of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

“This has been for too long dominated by old white men,” [Caulfield] said. “We’ve got to change that.”

O joy! We are here to help you! These idiots have ruined the entire academic community, making colleges worldwide cesspools of bigotry and race hate. They now want to impose their Marxist ideals to commercial space, probably because deep down they resent the fact that others are doing it and they are incapable of accomplishing anything on their own.

That Alberta’s student newspaper is all-in on these foolish ideas is especially disturbing. The students appear to have been brainwashed to accept such stupidity, and since they represent the future, it tells us what that future will be like.

Toxic and incompetent academia

Coca-Cola's bigoted company policy
Examples of the DEI materials from Coca-Cola,
developed in academia and now used in corporate America

The effort nationwide in many legislatures to end the very racist “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) departments that now poison universities everywhere are not only failing, they are illustrating the emptiness of most of that effort.

In Georgia, for example, political pressure on the state’s university system forced it last year to ban DEI statements from any applicants for teaching positions. The university system was also required to “…eliminate references to ‘diversity’ and ‘diverse’ from the standards and replace them with the terms that are allegedly easier to understand.”

These mere semantic demands were quickly warped by the universities, which instead of eliminating such bigoted programs, which create quota systems that favor the hiring of some races over others, the universities simply renamed the statements and the DEI programs to meet the letter of the ban, but not its spirit.
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Can the shift in black vote to Trump overcome the Democratic Party’s vote tampering?

The Democratic Party: Fostering election tampering everywhere
The Democratic Party

Today JJ Sefton in his daily morning report (also available here) included some excellent commentary about the growing polling evidence showing the black vote shifting rightward to Trump, in numbers that are unprecedented in more than a half century.

Whatever one thinks of polling especially this far out (or near, since elections are either light years away or right around the corner depending upon one’s perspective!) is an eye-opener. In normal, non-rigged elections, if Dem support from blacks drops below 93%, that is a major alarm bell for the former. What this aggregate poll [21.9% of blacks for Trump] shows is a potential disaster. Even if as we can all assume the key swing states which have large urban areas that will be rigged for Biden, the amount of cheating will have to be so massive that it would be even more obvious than what we witnessed four years ago. [emphasis mine]

I want to focus on the highlighted sentence, and try to bring some reality to it. Only by doing so will the Republican Party and Donald Trump have any chance of winning.
» Read more

Elon Musk’s employee update released January 12th

I have embedded below an employee update of the status of all of SpaceX’s projects, given by Elon Musk and released publicly on January 12, 2023. The video has been edited only to remove the many enthusiastic applauses by Musk’s audience of co-workers in order to shorten it.

Though Musk provided a lot of general information about the company’s long term goals with Starlink, Starship, Mars, the Moon, and other topics, these are the most important take-aways relating to its ongoing efforts now:

  • Falcon 9: The company is now upgrading its first stage so that it will be able to fly reused forty times, not twenty. Musk also noted that they have now reused the rocket’s fairings more than 300 times.
  • They are now aiming for about 150 launches in 2024. (It appears now that the biggest obstacle to this goal will be weather, as seen by the weather delays that have stalled Falcon 9 launches this very week.)
  • The Dragon fleet has now spent more days at and flights to ISS than the NASA’s entire shuttle fleet.
  • Starlink: It is a supplement to present phone and internet service, not a replacement, serving remote areas. Its biggest obstacle now however to providing that service is government approvals. The company is blocked by regulators in many places where the service is operational.

On Starship/Superheavy, he revealed these facts:

  • They are planning to double its payload capacity to 200 tons to orbit, twice the Saturn-5.
  • Starship would have made orbit on the second orbital test if it had had a payload. To simulate the weight of payload it had carried extraoxidizer, and when it vented these as it approached orbit it caused problems that activated the self-destruct system.
  • The third orbital test flight will thus almost certainly reach orbit, and will then test engine burns, some refueling technology, payload deployment, and de-orbit procedures.

Musk emphasized that they must be able to fly these tests frequently to get Starship/Superheavy functioning, not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Artemis program. As he said, “Time is the one true currency.” With each launch they refine the system to make it more reliable and operational. Without those launches they can’t.

He did not mention why launches might not happen frequently, probably because the last thing he needs to do is antagonize the regulators who are slowing him down. I (and other journalists) however are not under that restriction. The biggest obstacle to SpaceX’s success is the red-tape being wound around it by the Biden administration and its love of strict regulation, possibly instigated by its political hostility to Elon Musk as a person.

This government action to stymie freedom must end, and the sooner the better.
» Read more

Another look at the increasing regulatory burden impacting commerical space

Link here. The author does a nice job summarizing the problems now becoming evident as the administration state strives to expand its power and control. Though he gives space to both sides, allowing the defenders of that administrative state to explain why strong regulations are good, he doesn’t bow to those defenders, as do too many modern journalists.

That he quotes me extensively (and has has told me personally that he is a regular reader of Behind the Black), might have something to do with this. He isn’t parroting my positions, however, in this essay, but giving his own perspective.

Definitely worth reading.

Fauci: Now an admitted liar as well as incompetent scientist

Fauci: Washington's top liar
Anthony Fauci: the liar-in-chief during
the Wuhan panic

This week Anthony Fauci was brought before a committee in the House of Representatives for closed-door hearings on his actions during the COVID epidemic in 2020-2021. Though supposedly private, the committee has been providing detailed recaps of Fauci’s testimony.

What it has learned is that Fauci was not only a chronic liar during his time as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), he was also utterly incompetent as both a scientist as well as an administrator.

None of this really is news. As early as December 2020 Fauci admitted publicly that he had purposely misstated facts and scientific data for political reasons. Repeatedly I have reported many other examples of his dishonesty and incompetence (see for example these posts from June ’21, April ’22, September ’22, November ’22, and September ’23).

Nonetheless, Fauci’s testimony now is worth reviewing, because it underlines starkly how he misled and misinformed the public, causing great harm for no gain.

First, he admitted in testimony that the demands by him and the government that everyone maintain a six-foot distance during the epidemic was utter garbage, based on no scientific data at all.

In Tuesday’s session, Fauci admitted that the six-foot social distancing recommendation “was likely not based on any data,” according to the committee. “It just sort of appeared,” it wrote, quoting Fauci.

In August 2020 I found evidence suggesting the only source for this absurd rule came from a high school science project. Fauci has now essentially confirmed this, admitting that there is no legitimate science behind the six-foot rule.
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Democrats get a taste their own vicious swatting tactics

The first amendment: no longer honored
No longer honored.

For more than a decade anonymous leftists have used the ugly tactic of swatting to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who opposes them, with the hope that in some cases it might even cause the attacked person or someone in his or her family to be killed.

For those still unaware of what swatting is, let me explain. The attacker simply calls the police and reports falsely a dangerous gun-related crime in progress at the victim’s home, often suggesting there are hostages involved. The police then respond in full force, guns drawn and in large numbers. The victims, who are often asleep at the time, are suddenly faced with a military style attack by SWAT teams, at their home with their family (including children) present, with the real chance that someone will make a mistake, overreact, and begin firing.

The left has been doing this to conservatives both in and out of the political world for years (for a few specific examples going back to 2012, go here, here, and here). In some cases the perpertrators have been caught (with many being teenage boys reacting to the leftist press and thus acting out stupidly), but usually the evil-doer is not identified or punished.

Without question however this tactic has become increasingly popular on the left, which in itself has become increasingly radicalized and intolerant of any opposition.

It now appears the left is beginning to reap what it has sown. In the past few weeks a number of very prominent Democrats have been swatted themselves.
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SpaceX: Ready to launch Starship/Superheavy by end of January but it won’t

Surprise! During the NASA press update yesterday making official the new delays in its entire Artemis lunar program, a SpaceX official revealed that the company will be ready to launch the third orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket by end of January, but it also does not expect to get a launch approval from the FAA for at least another month.

Speaking during the press conference, SpaceX Vice President of Customer Operations & Integration Jensen said Starship hopes to be ready to test Starship once more by the end of January and to receive the necessary license from federal authorities to do so by the end of February.

During the conference Jensen made it repeatedly clear that it will require numerous further launch tests to get ready ready for its lunar landing mission for NASA — about ten — and that the company hopes to have this task completed by 2025 so that the agency’s new delayed schedule can go forward as now planned.

Yet how will SpaceX do this if the FAA is going to delay each launch because of red-tape by at least one month? SpaceX might be confident the FAA will give the okay for a launch in late February, but no one should be sanguine about this belief. Bureaucrats when required to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, as it appears the Biden administration is demanding, can be infuriatingly slow in doing so, even if they wish to hurry.

This news confirms my prediction from November that the launch will happen in the February to April time frame. It also leaves me entirely confident that my refined December prediction of a launch no earlier than March will be right.

SpaceX wants to do about six test launches per year. I don’t know how it can do so with the FAA holding it back.

Proposed removal of William Penn statue proves the Democrats really are anti-American

The William Penn statue in Welcome Park
The William Penn statue in the center of
Welcome Park. Note the panels on the wall
behind, describing the achievements of his life.
The park service was also planning to “rehabilitate”
this as well.

Though the Biden administration and the National Park Service immediately backed down from its proposal to remove the statue of William Penn from the Pennsylvania park dedicated in 1982 to honor his memory, the very proposal proved without doubt how much the Democrats who dominate our government truly hate America, its founding, and everything it stands for.

First, let’s review the proposal that has now been dumped. According to the National Park Service press release issued on January 5th,

The proposed rehabilitation of Welcome Park includes expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia and was developed in consultation with representatives of the indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. The reimagined Welcome Park maintains certain aspects of the original design such as the street grid, the rivers and the east wall while adding a new planted buffer on three sides, and a ceremonial gathering space with circular benches. The Penn statue and Slate Roof house model will be removed and not reinstalled. [emphasis mine]

In other words, a park built at the site of William Penn’s pioneer home and designed expressly to honor his achievements as the founder of Pennsylvania as a religious haven for all people was to be redesigned instead as a memorial to the primitive stone-age Indian tribes that once lived there, focusing instead on how Penn and the Quakers oppressed them by coming to America. And to rub salt in the wound, this change was to be done in connection with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

As I said, the Democrats who dominate our federal bureaucracy as well as academia are our enemies. They truly intend to wipe any positive mention of America from every history book or place, and replace it with Marxist icons and false anti-American propaganda.

Very quickly there was an uproar against this plan. » Read more

UK spaceports to UK government: There’s too much red-tape!

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

At a hearing this week before the Scottish Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom’s parliement, the heads of the two spaceports being built in Scotland demanded that a single senior minister be assigned to handle all regulation for space launches, because the present system involves too many different agencies from too many different UK governments.

The result has been endless delays, and no launches.

“For me, there’s almost too many cooks involved,” [according to Scott Hammond, deputy CEO of SaxaVord Spaceport.] “I think what we need to look at is having a senior politician directly responsible for space and space launch and I would suggest that at cabinet level.” Despite the UK Government space portfolio, he said it is still “difficult to know who’s actually running launch in the UK”.

He gave the example of seeking permissions from Scottish Government’s marine directorate, something he said was taking six months rather than 14 weeks as promised.

The CEO of the company Orbex, which has a fifty-year lease to launch from the other spaceport in Sutherland, admitted that the spaceport “had appeared to be in a ‘better place’ in 2018 but acknowledged circumstances had changed since then.” In other words, regulation was now threatening the company’s operations at Sutherland, and it is beginning to look elsewhere for future launches.

Saxaford had hoped to do its first launch this year, but now is looking to the summer, all because of the long delays experienced in getting government approvals.

The map shows other space ports being developed in Europe. These, as well as new spaceports elsewhere, might end up getting all of this UK business because of the continuing red tape issues in Great Britain.

Americans push back against government overreach with some real defiance

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

Bring a gun to a knife fight: For the first time since 2020, when state and federal governments nationwide decided the Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer applied to them and began imposing a whole range of abusive illegal regulations and lockdowns and mandates and blacklisting on Americans everywhere, we are now finally beginning to see some real push back from ordinary people, in ways that leave these tinpot dictators no choice but to back down.

Two examples in the past week. First in St. Louis the city government (controlled by radical leftist Democrats) decided it was time to institute a new panic over COVID, likely to give them the ability to once again easily manipulate voting in 2024, by instituting a new city mask mandate. Though it only recommended strongly that everyone wear masks everywhere, its director of health Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis said that masks were required of government employees if they were indoors or in a car with another person.

Davis’s problem was that, unlike 2020, almost no one obeyed her demands.
» Read more

SpaceX sues to have NLRB complaint dismissed

SpaceX yesterday filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to have the employee complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed as a violation of the company’s fifth and seventh amendment rights as well as article II of the Constitution.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit here [pdf]. It specifically lists as defendants the board members of the NLRB, as well as the unnamed administrative judge who will run the NLRB’s case, once it begins.

The SpaceX lawsuit is interesting in that it challenges the very legal structure that has established the NLRB, stating that its actions are illegal because that structure forbids the President from having full control over its actions, as required by article II of the Constitution.

Whether this lawsuit succeeds is of course unknown, but its quick filing tells us that SpaceX was prepared for this NLRB action, even before it was filed. It also tells us that the company now recognizes the overall threat to it by the Biden administration, which appears to be trying to weaponize every agency in the federal government to destroy the company, and is prepared to fight long and hard against this abuse of power.

Japan delays launch of Mars sample return mission due to problems with its H3 rocket

Japan’s space agency JAXA last week officially delayed the launch of its MMX Mars sample return mission, from later this year until the next Mars launch window in 2026.

A September 2024 launch would have seen MMX reach the Red Planet in August 2025 and return to Earth with around 0.35 oz (10 grams) of samples of the Mars moon Phobos in 2029. But the mission now must wait until the next Mars launch window opens in late 2026; its samples are slated to reach Earth in 2031.

The delay is because of JAXA’s ongoing problems getting its new H3 rocket off the ground. The first test launch last year failed, and though the next launch attempt is now scheduled for February, the agency decided it wanted more time to prove out the rocket before putting the Mars mission on it.

This decision once again highlights the overall failure of JAXA to produce for Japan a viable space effort. It is long past time for the Japanese government to take control from this agency, and allow the private sector to compete freely for business. Right now Japan’s continuing failures in space are downright embarrassing, compared to its Asian neighbors of China, India, and South Korea.

NASA and one private company respond to Navaho nation’s demand to cancel lunar mission

Both NASA and one of the private companies involved in ULA’s first Vulcan rocket launch on January 8, 2023 that will carry the Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon have now responded to the Navaho nation, which has stated its religion gives it the unlimited right to decide what can go there.

Navaho President Buu Nygren had claimed earlier this week that the “Moon is sacred to numerous Indigenous cultures” and the payloads of human ashes being sent to the Moon was “tantamount to desecration.” He demanded the mission be delayed or canceled.
» Read more

Can the Democrats offend enough people to make even their aggressive election tampering impossible?

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

I normally pay little attention to polls, since for the last two decades they have not only been unreliable but generally weighted unfairly against Republicans. More often than not they have been used not to give us a sense of the state of the political campaign but to make us all believe a Democratic Party victory was inevitable.

However, a poll this week was so astonishing that I think it deserves some discussion. According to a national USA Today-Suffolk University poll published on January 2, 2023 by USA Today, large numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and young voters are now willing to abandon the Democratic Party, and do so in numbers that are shocking and unprecedented. As noted in this article about the poll,
» Read more

National Labor Relations Board files complaint against SpaceX

Elon Musk, a target for destruction by Joe Biden
Elon Musk, a target for destruction
by Joe Biden

The Biden administration’s continuing legal harassment of SpaceX and Elon Musk was escalated yesterday when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a new complaint against the company, accusing it of firing eight employees illegally for writing a public letter criticizing the company in 2022.

The letter, circulated in 2022, criticized Musk’s actions and the allegations of sexual harassment against him, claiming they were negatively contributing to the company’s reputation. The letter also said the company was failing to live up to its “No Asshole” policy and its policy against sexual harassment.

The letter, whose authorship was not known at the time it was first reported, called on SpaceX to “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” to “hold all leadership equally accountable” for bad behavior, and to “clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s ‘no-asshole’ and ‘zero tolerance’ policies and enforce them consistently.”

According to the NLRB, one SpaceX employer held interviews to determine the writers of the letter, after which they were fired. The case will go before the NLRB in March.

Is this another case of blacklisting, similar to the numerous stories I’ve reported for the last four years where someone was fired for having political opinions? I don’t think so, though some could argue otherwise. In those many other cases, the opinions expressed were generally political in nature and unrelated to the work environment itself. If a company is demanding you bow to critical race theory and admit you are racist simply because you are white and fires you when you refuse, that is not the same as writing a letter accusing your employer of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, and then soliciting signatures from the entire workforce before releasing it publicly. The first case is a direct slander against the employee and is an unreasonable demand. The second is a concerted effort to foster a workplace mutiny, something unacceptable to all employers. It seems the company would have the right to remove such malcontents from its place of business.

Gywnne Shotwell, SpaceX’s CEO, made these facts very clear at the time the letter was published.
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The global launch industry in 2023: A record third year in a row of growth, with dark clouds lurking

In 2023 the world saw a continuing rise in the global launch industry. As happened in 2021 and 2022, the record for the most launches in a single year was smashed. In 2023 nations and companies managed to complete more than 200 launches for the first time ever, with the number of launch failures so small you could count them on one hand.

Furthermore, if the predictions by several companies and nations come true, 2024 will be an even greater success. These predictions however all depend on everything continuing as it has, and there are many signs this is not going to be the case. More and more it appears the political world will act to interfere with free world of private enterprise, in some cases intentionally, in others indirectly.

Let us begin by taking a look at 2023.
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China launches “test satellite for satellite internet technologies”

China today launched what it described as “a test satellite for satellite internet technologies,” its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

No word on where the lower stages crashed, both of which use very toxic hypergolic fuels. Nor was there any additional information about the satellite, though the description suggests this is a prototype satellite for a Starlink-type constellation, several of which China’s government has proposed building.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

96 SpaceX
66 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 110 to 66, and the entire world combined 110 to 103. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 96 to 103.

SpaceX successfully completes static fire tests of both Superheavy and Starship

SpaceX today successfully completed static fire tests on both Superheavy and Starship prototypes intended to fly on its next orbital test flight.

The video at the link is four hours long. The Starship engine burn occurs at 1 hour 15 minutes and lasts about five seconds. The Superheavy burn takes place at 2 hours 42 minutes, and lasts about ten seconds. Both burns appeared to operate exactly as planned, though obviously an inspection of the launchpad under Superheavy will have to take place to see if its deluge system operated as intended.

Once again, SpaceX is demonstrating that it will be ready to go for the third orbital test launch of this rocket in mere weeks. Based on these tests today as well as past operations, it seems that all the company needs to do now is stack Starship on top of Superheavy, do another dress rehearsal countdown, and then go.

It won’t however. There is no word from the FAA on when it will issue a launch permit. Based on the previous launch, it will likely not issue the permit when SpaceX says it has completed its investigation of the last launch and is ready to fly again. Instead it will take another month or two writing up its own report (which will essentially reword what SpaceX has told it). Then, once the FAA is finished only then will the Fish and Wildlife Service begin to write up its report (as happened in the fall), causing further delays.

I repeat my prediction from November: No launch until March, at the earliest. The federal government continues to stand in the way of progress, and freedom.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

Republicans propose another deep state bureaucracy to enforce civil rights laws

Failure Theater!

Failure theater: In their typically impotent attempt to fight the leftist movement that is imposing a new racial bigotry across America, several Republicans in Congress have proposed a new special government office in Washington that will be specifically assigned the job of preventing racial discrimination at universities.

The College Admissions Accountability Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), would establish a special inspector general within the Education Department—separate from the Office of Civil Rights—to probe potential violations of the colorblind standard set forth in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that race-conscious admissions programs violate the 14th Amendment. The bill would also bar schools that flout the decision from receiving any form of federal aid.

…The bill, which appropriates $25 million for the new role and is cosponsored by Sens. Ted Budd (R., N.C.), Mike Braun (R, Ind.), Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.), and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), does include a sunset clause that would terminate the office after 12 years. Republicans seem to be betting that recalcitrant universities will, after a decade of robust enforcement, throw in the towel and evolve colorblind norms.

These senators and congressmen, along with several conservative think tanks, think naively that this office will the place for anyone of any race to go to get justice should a university receiving federal funds create a program that specifically excludes them solely because of their race. The aim will supposedly be to target specifically the new Diversity-Inclusion-Equity programs at universities and in governments that are imposing this new discrimination against whites, Asians, and Jews.

The foolishness of this plan is hard to measure. » Read more

Navaho Indians attempt to claim ownership of the Moon, delay Vulcan launch

The president of the Navaho Nation has asked NASA to delay the first launch of ULA’s Vulcan rocket because it carries ashes from a number of people (none who were members of its tribe) that Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will place on the Moon.

The remains are a payload purchased by the company Celestis, which offers this burial option to anyone who wishes it. On this flight that payload includes a wide range of ashes, including many actors and creators from the original Star Trek series.

Navaho President Buu Nygren claims that the “Moon is sacred to numerous Indigenous cultures and that depositing human remains on it is ‘tantamount to desecration.'”

Nygren highlighted this commitment in his letter, as well as a 2021 memo signed by the Biden administration that pledged to consult the tribe on matters that impact them. “This memorandum reinforced the commitment to Executive Order 13175 of November 6, 2000,” President Nygren wrote. “Additionally, the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Indigenous Sacred Sites, which you and several other members of the Administration signed in November 2021, further underscores the requirement for such consultation.”

In other words, though the Navaho have no plans to ever go there, have done nothing to try to explore it, and have no remains of any tribal members on the flight, he wants to claim the Moon as controlled entirely and forever by the Indian tribes of North America because of a law designed solely to protect specific archeological sites on Earth, where Indian remains are discovered.
» Read more

Today’s blacklisted American wins $185K settlement from college that fired him

St. Philip's College, home to blacklisting and censorship
St. Philip’s College, the poster child of academic
blacklisting and censorship

They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist story is a follow-up on a July 2023 essay about the oppressive atmosphere at St. Philip’s College in Texas, where two different professors were fired in 2023 for political reasons.

First, Dr. Johnson Varkey, was fired because in teaching human anatomy he had the audacity to mention that sex is determined by the X and Y chromosomes, a very basic fact of biology that any medical student has to know to become a competent doctor. Four students walked out on him for saying so, and when they complained to the administration it fired him without due process. He is presently suing the college.

Then, college officials fired professor Will Moravits because he insisted on allowing free and open debate in his classroom and one anonymous student complained, and while doing so made false accusations against Moravits. The school felt so threatened by the idea of freedom of speech that it had Moravits escorted off campus by police, never to return.

Moravits has now won a $185K settlement with St. Philip’s College.
» Read more

All I feel is fury at the bankruptcy of academia decades ago


A modern Ivy League education: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
It’s got electrolytes!”

Recently Bari Weiss, former New York Times journalist who it blacklisted because she refused to follow the leftist narrative when the facts said otherwise, wrote a heart-wrenching column about the fall of American academia. She began as follows:

Twenty years ago, when I was a college student, I started writing about a then-nameless, niche ideology that seemed to contradict everything I had been taught since I was a child.

…What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: “Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”

I was an undergraduate back then, but you didn’t need a PhD to see where this could go. And so I watched, in horror, sounding alarms as loudly as I could.

I was told by most Jewish leaders that, yes, it wasn’t great, but not to be so hysterical. Campuses were always hotbeds of radicalism, they said. This ideology, they promised, would surely dissipate as young people made their way in the world.

It is essential to repeat her second paragraph again to understand the utter bankruptcy of this new “philosophy.” It was…

… a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

» Read more

The violent animals on the left who support Hamas

Hamas protesters threaten blind children
Hamas protesters threaten blind children

I am in no mood this day to be polite or diplomatic. The ugliness exhibited in the past week by pro-Hamas demonstrators — using the violent techniques of Antifa and BLM and copying Nazi storm-trooper tactics — deserve no politeness. They are no longer acting like civilized rational human beings, but mere animals eager to kill and only held back from that goal by the last few shreds remaining of civilization’s rule of law.

Thus, at this moment they only attack innocent people in ugly ways, not intending to kill but clearly hoping to intimidate and strike fear into the hearts of everyone else. Some examples from the past three days:

The last story in this list is especially egregious. The screen capture above shows two demonstrators on stage. In the video at the link they are screaming and yelling, with the one on the right charging at the children in a threatening manner. Remember, this is a fund-raiser for blind children. Those kids cannot see, so all they know is that someone unexpected has appeared on the stage and is screaming at them, and their helpers are desperately trying to get them to safety.

This behavior illustrates perfectly the hatred and viciousness of all these pro-Hamas demonstrators. » Read more

White House issues “policy framework” to lobby for its space regulatory proposal

Faced with stiff opposition from industry and politicians from both parties in Congress to its regulatory proposal issued in mid-November, the White House yesterday released what it called a “policy framework” for implementing that proposal.

You can read this policy framework here [pdf]. It is filled with high-sounding claims about its goal is to encourage private development and reduce red tape, but in the end it only adds more government entities to the entire bureaucracy that regulates commercial space. From the framework itself:

The Secretaries of Commerce and Transportation will co-lead a Private Sector Space Activities Interagency Steering Group in consultation with the Chairperson of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), comprising representation from the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, and State, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and any other Federal entities with expertise or equities pertaining to private sector novel space activities, including relevant stakeholders from the Executive Office of the President. The Steering Group serves as a coordinating body to ensure that the U.S. Government oversight system is prepared to meet U.S. priorities while taking into consideration the competitiveness of U.S. industry now and into the future.

One of the criticisms of the White House proposal from mid-November was that it would split regulation between Commerce and Transportation, thus increasing the complexity for commerical companies. This steering group is clearly an effort to answer those complaints, but based on this proposal, it simply adds one more bureaucratic layer to the mix, making things even more complicated.

The framework also calls for the expansion of the government’s regulatory footprint on several fronts, such as controlling orbital debris, and achieved through “expanding existing, or establish new, federal advisory committees to account for all expanded space authorities in furtherance of this Framework and related legislative proposals.”

From the viewpoint of freedom, this entire proposal reads like a zombie end-of-the-world horror film, with bureaucratic zombies appearing endlessly from all directions, aimed at consuming any independent private company as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

The original commercial space act proposal from Congress, that the Biden administration (and most Democrats) oppose but carries the endorsement of the private commercial space industry, was passed by its House committee, but still needs to be voted on by the full House, as well as the Senate. Because it remains in limbo, the White House has issued this framework, in the hope it can give its side the ammunition needed to defeat that bill and replace it with the White House’s.

Starship prototype #28 completes full duration static fire test

Gearing up for Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight #3: Starship prototype #28 today successfully completed a full duration static fire test, with all six engines firing for about five seconds.

The link goes to SpaceX’s X feed, and shows that test.

This is more evidence that SpaceX intends to be ready in all ways to do that third orbital test flight of Superheavy/Starship by mid-January, at the latest. It also suggests the company is getting close to finishing its investigation into the previous test flight in mid-November.

Of course, none of this means it will launch in mid-January. I predict SpaceX will be stuck twiddling its thumbs waiting for a launch license from the FAA, which will also be waiting for an okay from Fish & Wildlife. Both will likely be forced to work as slowly as possible, likely because of interference from the White House.

The Biden war against Musk is a war against America

How the modern Democratic Party has evolved madly to the left, according to Elon Musk
How the modern Democratic Party has evolved
madly to the left, according to Elon Musk

In 2022 Elon Musk essentially completed the long process of going from what he described as a moderate who had previously voted overwhelming for Democrats to a Republican voter strongly hostile to the present Democratic Party.

He announced this shift in a tweet on May 18, 2022, in which he said the following:

In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party.

But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.

Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold. [emphasis mine]

In the almost twenty months since Musk made that statement, his prediction of a “dirty tricks campaign” by the Democrats has become quite evident and true. Numerous federal agencies under the control of President Joe Biden began taking strong actions to stymie Musk’s companies, sometimes abusing the law in what appear to be legitimate ways, and sometimes abusing power in ways that are absurd. Below is a short list, many of which have been repeatedly reported here at Behind the Black:
» Read more

Congress passes short term extension of commercial space regulatory “learning period”

The Senate yesterday passed a short term extension of the regulatory “learning period” at the FAA that limits its ability to regulate commercial space.

[The Senate] quickly passed an extension of the FAA’s authorization, a final piece of “must pass” legislation before the end of the year. The bill (H.R. 6503) passed the House on December 11. Among other things, it extends the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight until March 9, 2024 that otherwise would have expired on January 1. The learning period, or “moratorium,” prohibits the FAA from promulgating new regulations on commercial human spaceflight while the industry is in its infancy.

The president still needs to sign this bill, but that is expected.

Originally passed in 2004 as an eight-year period, this “learning period” has been extended several times since. The industry wants a longer extension, as it still considers itself quite rightly to be in an experimental test phase, not operational in the sense of airplane manufacture.

Not that this extension matters. It appears in the past two years that the regulators at the FAA have decided to ignore the law and make believe this learning period really doesn’t exist, based on how that agency has treated test launches by SpaceX and others. Rather than let their launches proceed quickly as tests, the FAA has begun to treat each test as an operational flight that requires a long investigation before further launch approvals are given.

Unless there is a major change in leadership in the White House, we should expect a major slow-down of the American launch industry in the coming years, regardless of whether this “learning period” is extended or not.

Pushback? Deal between Republicans and Wisconsin University to shift away from DEI

Failure Theater!

Failure theater: In a deal worked out suddenly between the board of regents at the University of Wisconsin and the state legislature, the university will get $800 million for infrastructure improvements and pay raises in exchange for imposing some limited reductions in its Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) programs.

The deal also requires UW system campuses to refrain from adding new DEI positions through December 2026. Administrators must also reassign at least one third of their current DEI-focused employees to roles dedicated to academic and student success. Mandatory DEI statements in admissions and hiring are also to be abolished under the deal, and efforts to fund a conservative professorship at UW-Madison must be launched, according to the terms.

You can read the actual language of this deal here [pdf]. The deal also requires the university to replace its Target of Opportunity Program (TOP) — which established systems to favor hiring minorities over others — with a new “alternative program focused on recruiting faculty (regardless of their identity or ethnic/racial background) who have demonstrated the ability to mentor ‘at risk’ and/or underrepresented students to achieve academic success and who have demonstrated academic and research excellence.”

Does this deal do what it appears to, reduce or eliminate the very racist DEI program at the University of Wisconsin? Hardly. » Read more

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