Tag: politics

House leadership reinstates conservative lawmaker

10:05 am

Only days after stripping him of his chairmanship, the moderate House leadership has reinstated the lawmaker who is a member of the House Freedom Caucus and who had voted against the leadership during the fast track trade debate.

It appears the pressure coming from the conservatives in the Freedom Caucus forced the leadership to back down. Good! More pressure should be brought to bear, as the voters elected these guys to pass conservative legislation, not negotiate with the Democrats to get the liberal agenda passed.

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Hawaii governor halts TMT construction again

9:30 am

In a very vague statement the governor of Hawaii has once again stopped construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) while he reassesses the situation after protesters yesterday blocked the road to the mountain summit with boulders.

“We are disappointed and concerned that large boulders were found in the roadway leading to the summit of Mauna Kea,” McCartney said in the statement. “This action is a serious and significant safety hazard and could put people at risk. “Because of this, we are making an assessment to determine how to proceed,” he said. “We will be working to clear the roadway tomorrow. Therefore, construction is on hold until further notice.”

The statement implies that he is trying to figure out a way to prevent the protesters from blocking the road, without causing more conflict. I instead suspect he sympathies with the protesters, and is looking for a way to stop construction, which he legally cannot do.

If the road is not reopened by the end of this week and construction is still blocked, I think the TMT managers, as well as the operators of the other telescopes on the mountain, should seriously consider moving from Hawaii. I also repeat that a boycott of Hawaiian tourism might also be appropriate now. This is what these nativist activists want, no more outsiders. We should give them what they want.

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“Words no longer have meaning.”

9:17 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The Supreme Court today upheld the Obama administration’s decision to award subsidies under Obamacare to individuals in states lacking a health exchange, even though the law expressly excludes such subsidies.

Justice Antonin Scalia summed up the situation quite nicely in his dissent:

“The court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government,’ Scalia wrote. “That is of course quite absurd, and the court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”

He also complained that, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ … Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.”

Once again Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the liberal side, indicating again that he is willing to “evolve” to the left, as it seems so many Republican appointees have done in the past.

In the end, the ruling only leaves us where we were before, which means, to get rid of Obamacare, we as citizens are going to have to elect more legislators willing to repeal it, and then get it repealed. Doing that will also help heal the court, which today is very clearly willing to ignore the law to prop up the political positions of the Democratic Party.

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Conservative journalist harassed by customs agents

10:52 pm

Conservative muckraker and video journalist James O’Keefe was told on Monday by custom agents that they intend to harass him every time he crosses the border because he made a video that made their border control work look like a joke.

Read the transcript. The Customs agent clearly tells O’Keefe that they will delay him every time he goes through customs specifically because of his journalist work critical of them.

Why are they wasting their time with this petty stuff? They should simply arrest him and put him in jail already for daring to oppose the will of the government. Isn’t that the politically correct thing to do?

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Construction crews turned back by protesters at Mauna Kea

10:34 pm

Despite an announcement that construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea would resume today, construction crews turned back when faced with protesters who blocked the road at 10,000 foot elevation.

The protesters, who number about 200, left the road when police asked them to, then regrouped further up the road. The caravan came to an abrupt stop at the 10,000-foot level at about 12:30 p.m. because protesters had placed boulders in the road, blocking the vehicles.

Andre Perez, a Hawaiian activist and teaching assistant at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was among the protesters arrested at about 11:30 a.m. “We have a human right to control our land. This is not American land,” Perez said as police took him away.

The first arrest happened at 8:39 a.m. and police arrested more people as the protest moved up the mountain. [emphasis mine]

First, I want to know exactly when this activist purchased the land, since he claims he has the right to control it. Second, what right does he have to rank himself above everyone else in this matter? Does he consider native Hawaiians superior to non-natives? If so, isn’t that somewhat racist and bigoted?

Finally, based on his own words above I think the activist revealed the true hatred that fuels his actions (as well as his fellow protesters). He really doesn’t care about the mountain’s sacredness. He simply hates the United States and wants to destroy it.

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House conservatives push back against Boehner

9:57 pm

The conflict between the moderate House leadership under John Boehner and the conservative House Freedom Caucus appears to be heating up.

The opening lines of the article are quite intriguing:

The House Freedom Caucus has a secret it wants to share with Democrats. “If the Democrats were to file a motion to vacate the chair [remove Boehner] and were to vote for that motion unanimously, there probably are 218 votes for it to succeed,” one member of the House Freedom Caucus told CQ Roll Call Tuesday night, as he exited an meeting in the basement of Tortilla Coast.

If that’s true, Democrats could certainly use a vote to remove Speaker John A. Boehner as leverage in any number of upcoming battles: the Export-Import Bank, a highway bill, all sorts of spending measures. But absent any real talk from Democrats, the official response from Boehner’s communications director, Kevin Smith, was simply to dismiss CQ Roll Call’s reporter. “Matt Fuller is a prop for Freedom Caucus propaganda,” Smith wrote via email.

What this suggests is that the Freedom Caucus is looking for ways to pressure the House leadership to pay more attention to their concerns instead of Democratic concerns. And if the data from the article is correct and that the caucus’s membership has swelled to as much as 70 members, then Boehner is in deep trouble.

Then again, this could all be a game to make the caucus look more powerful than it is. If it can work out a deal to depose Boehner, however, even if it is weak, it might still be able to get a true conservative Republican named as House Speaker.

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One month after it realized it needed them, IRS erased email backups

4:02 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: One month after the IRS realized it had lost many of Lois Lerner emails demanded by a number of investigations looking into the tax agency’s harassment of conservatives, IRS employees erased the backup tapes for those very emails.

The lost emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. In June 2014, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner’s emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011.

The IRS had discovered that the emails were lost in February 2014. A total of 422 computer backup tapes were erased a month later, George says in his testimony. At the time, IRS officials said the emails could not be recovered.

[IRS Inspector General J. Russell] George says the workers were unaware of a 2013 directive from the agency’s chief technology officer to halt the destruction of email backup tapes. The IRS says it has produced 78,000 Lerner emails, many of which have been made public by congressional investigators. George says his investigators were able to recover more than 1,000 additional Lerner emails. However, he said, as many as 24,000 emails were destroyed when IRS employees erased the computer tapes.

And then there is this: “The investigators, however, concluded that employees erased the tapes by mistake, not as part of an attempt to destroy evidence.”

They really do think we are stupid. This scandal has been a major story for several years, one that every IRS employee has got to be aware of. In March 2014 it was an especially hot story, with IRS commissioner John Koskinen about to testify to Congress about it (which is when he revealed the loss of these emails).

For them to continue to routinely destroy backup tapes at that time, and for their bosses to do nothing to stop them, can only because they wanted those tapes destroyed.

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The disaster of state-run Obamacare health exchanges

2:35 pm

Finding out what’s in it: This article, mostly about the impending Supreme Court decision on whether individuals in states with no state-run health exchanges can receive federal health insurance subsidies, contained this significant little bit of information about the overall failure of Obamacare:

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia established state-based exchanges. But more than half of these exchanges are already inoperable or are facing budget shortfalls. Even after spending $4 billion in federal grants, the track records of state-based exchanges have been nothing short of calamitous. In fact, at least three state-based exchange efforts — Maryland, Oregon and Massachusetts — are now the subjects of federal investigations.

This astonishing track record bears repeating: Only 16 out of 50 states chose to create state health exchanges, even though the law stated that by not doing the citizens of the remaining 34 states would not get federal subsidies (the whole point of the Supreme Court case). Yet, of those 16 that did create exchanges, more than half have failed to work or have gone over budget, after wasting more than $4 billion in federal funds. On top of that, three are now under investigation.

And obviously, according to many mainstream press reports, if the Supreme Court upholds the actual language of the Obamacare law — written and voted for solely by Democrats — and voids federal subsidies in the remaining 34 states, it must be the Republicans fault. They had the nerve to not agree to this law, and refused to vote for it!

But then, this all fits in with the modern logic of our cultural elites, who also think a man can be a women and a white person black, merely because they say so.

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Republican-led Senate proposes big budget boost for NIH

9:06 am

This is fiscal restraint? The Senate, under the leadership of the Republican party for the first time since 2006, has proposed a $2 billion increase in the 2016 budget for National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The House Republican leadership hasn’t shown much restraint either, proposing $1 billion boost in the 2016 budget. And this in the context of a flat budget for NIH during the period from 2006 to 2014 when Democrats controlled either both or at least one house of Congress.

Since Congress completed a 5-year doubling of the NIH budget in 2003, the agency’s funding level has fallen more than 20% below the 2003 level after taking into account the rising costs of biomedical research.

This is once again evidence to me that the Republican leadership in Congress really has little interest in reining in the out-of-control federal budget. They talk a conservative game during elections, but when it comes time to write the budgets, the Republicans in charge of committees become spendthrifts to support the pork in the government agencies they are assigned to manage, and are almost always centered in their own districts.

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Government celebrates ten years of stealing private land

9:55 am

Today is the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision permitting the town of New London, Connecticut to take land from one private owner so that they can sell it to another private owner.

And what do we have in New London ten years later? An empty field. The town essentially stole the homes of local residences, supposedly a “blighted” neighborhood, so they could tear the homes down and replace them with an empty abandoned lot.

Government marches on!

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Ted Cruz outlines why he now opposes fast track trade

9:14 am

In an op-ed Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has outlined why he will now vote against giving President Obama fast track trade authority.

Why does Republican Leadership always give in to the Democrats? Why does Leadership always disregard the promises made to the conservative grassroots?

Enough is enough. I cannot vote for TPA unless McConnell and Boehner both commit publicly to allow the Ex-Im Bank to expire—and stay expired. And, Congress must also pass the Cruz-Sessions amendments to TPA to ensure that no trade agreement can try to back-door changes to our immigration laws. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to vote no.

Combine this with the increased public dissatisfaction by House conservatives of their leadership suggests to me that unless the leadership changes its political methods, one of two things could soon happen: Either the Republican Party will oust its leaders in the Senate and House and install people more allied with the party’s conservative base, or the Republican Party will split, with its more moderate members moving to the Democratic Party (which God knows needs some moderation) while the rest form a real conservative party.

Meanwhile, the revised fast track trade bill that the House passed last week was approved today by the Senate 60-37 and will now go to Obama for signature.

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When to doubt a scientific consensus

9:39 am

Link here.

This is a beautifully written and thoughtful analysis of the state of climate science, and why intelligent and educated citizens should continue to remain skeptical of the claims coming from the global warming activist community (which now includes the Pope).

He gives a dozen different reasons for remaining skeptical of the claims of the global warming community, based both on the science as well as how they sell their position. Number 10 — “When [the claimed consensus] it is being used to justify dramatic political or economic policies” — is probably the most important:

Imagine hundreds of world leaders and nongovernmental organizations, science groups, and United Nations functionaries gathered for a meeting heralded as the most important conference since World War II, in which “the future of the world is being decided.” These officials seem to agree that institutions of “global governance” need to be established to reorder the world economy and massively restrict energy resources. Large numbers of them applaud wildly when socialist dictators denounce capitalism. Strange philosophical and metaphysical activism surrounds the gathering. And we are told by our president that all of this is based, not on fiction, but on science — that is, a scientific consensus that human activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, are leading to catastrophic climate change.

We don’t have to imagine that scenario, of course. It happened in Copenhagen, in December 2009. It will happen again in Paris, in December 2015.

Now, none of this disproves the hypothesis of catastrophic, human induced climate change. But it does describe an atmosphere that would be highly conducive to misrepresentation. And at the very least, when policy consequences, which claim to be based on science, are so profound, the evidence ought to be rock solid. “Extraordinary claims,” the late Carl Sagan often said, “require extraordinary evidence.” When the megaphones of consensus insist that there’s no time, that we have to move, MOVE, MOVE!, you have a right to be suspicious.

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Government forces closure of another Christian business

9:04 am

Fascists: Another Christian business forced to close because the owners refused to host a homosexual wedding.

If the trend continues as it has, expect the homosexual community to soon demand the imprisonment of some Christians for their beliefs, and expect some to go to prison as a result. And expect this to happen even though no one is preventing any homosexuals from having homosexual relations.

And we all know that the gay agenda has everything to do with tolerance, don’t we?

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Federal Court rules in favor of lawsuit against IRS for harassment

12:29 pm

The federal court of appeals today ruled in favor of the pro-Israel organization Z Street in its lawsuit against the IRS for specifically harassing them because their positions disagreed with the Obama administration.

To review:

Z STREET filed its lawsuit against the IRS in August, 2010, on the basis of statements made to its counsel by the IRS agent reviewing Z STREET’s application for 501(c)(3) charitable tax exempt status, filed in 2009. That agent revealed that the IRS has an “Israel Special Policy” which gave differential treatment to tax exemption applications from organizations holding views about Israel inconsistent with those espoused by the Obama administration, scrutinizing such applications differently and at greater length, than those made by organizations which did not hold such views. [emphasis mine]

As I like to say, the IRS, rather than doing tax enforcement, has been instead very specifically working as a lobbying agent for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. The Z Street case documents it, and is now going to document it far more thoroughly than any Democrat or Obama can imagine.

The organization says it looks forward to the discovery phase of litigation in which it will seek to learn the nature and origin of the “Israel Special Policy” which the IRS applied to Z Street’s tax exemption application. Z Street will seek to learn how such a policy was created, who created it, who approved it, to whom it was applied, as well as all other information regarding this policy.

What Z Street learns will be directly useful to the conservative organizations that the IRS also harassed illegally. It might also do great political harm to a number of prominent Democratic Party elected officials.

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Supreme Court voids local sign ordiance

1:59 pm

Some good news: In a 9-0 ruling the Supreme Court struck down a local Arizona town’s ordiance that restricted a church’s right to post signs about its upcoming events.

What is most encouraging about this ruling is that all nine justices agreed to it. This suggests that there is a strong majority on the court that supports freedom of speech, and will not look kindly at the Obama administration’s effort to impose its will on the speech and activity of religious and conservative organizations.

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Some stories of hate

11:31 am

This morning civilized people the world over were greeted with several stories of hate and violence, where the perpetrators attempted to kill large numbers of people, merely because of their race or religion.

The first — and the one that our bankrupt mainstream media will spend all of its time reporting — occurred in Charleston, where a hate-filled racist killed nine black church-goers during a prayer session.

This was an evil act, committed by an evil and sick man. No sane or civilized person on the left or right condones it.

Two other stories, both reported in the Israeli news outlet The Jewish Press, described two attacks in the Middle East, one on a Jewish religious site and the other on a Christian religious site.

Both of these Middle Eastern attacks are as evil as the massacre in Charleston. Both expressed the same mass hatred of a group of people, this time based on religion rather than race. And as in Charleston, no sane or civilized person on the left or right should condone them.

Sadly, I expect America’s modern leftwing intellectual class, represented by our mainstream media, to focus entirely on the first, not only condemning the murderous attack in Charleston but to use that act as an excuse to attack all conservatives, essentially repeating the crime by expressing a mass hatred of an entire group of people, this time because of their political beliefs.

The Middle East violence will meanwhile be ignored. In fact, if you dig hard enough, you will likely be able to find examples in the left wing press where these acts are condoned.

In a sense, the reactions of people to these violent evil events provide us a litmus test for hate. They will reveal who is civilized and who is not. Those who are civilized will condemn them all, and will not spend any time trying to assign the act to their political opponents. Those who are not will try to make political points and will try to assign blame in all the wrong places.

Watch and listen. If you pay close attention over the next few days, and keep a clear mind, you will be able to learn a lot.

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Fast track trade authority passes in House

10:03 am

The House today passed a revised fast track authority bill for any trade bills that President Obama might negotiate.

This bill did not include the job training section that was defeated last week and that the Senate included in its version of fast track. Thus, the Senate must now vote again on fast track, this time on the House-passed version. It is unclear whether the Senate will agree, as Democrats have opposed fast track without the jobs aid.

Overall this whole incident illustrates how misguided our elected leaders are. Right now we have much bigger problems than negotiating a new trade agreement, especially considering the secrecy in which Obama wishes to complete that negotiation.

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The newest Republican proposal on Obamacare

9:50 am

Trying to avoid what’s in it: Faced with the possibility that the Supreme Court could declare that the Obamacare subsidies are illegal in most states, House Republicans have come up with a new bill to revise the law.

In the tentative responses discussed in separate closed-door meetings Wednesday, House GOP leaders said they would continue the subsidies for a year. Then, states could receive federal block grants for the following two years that they could structure into any kind of health care aid they wish. All of the health law’s regulations would end for those states, including popular ones like assuring coverage of children until age 26. In 2017 — when Republicans hope to control the White House — the entire health law would be eliminated.

The law would also immediately repeal the Obamacare tax on medical devices as well as the Obamacare advisory board designed to ration care to save money.

We know already that Obama will veto this plan, which to my mind is a good thing. The only solution that will work to fix Obamacare is to repeal it in toto. Partial fixes, even ones that last only a few years, can only cause more harm and will increase the chances that legislators will chicken out of full repeal when it is finally time to kick in.

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OPM ignored warnings last year its computers were insecure

10:19 am

An inspector general report last year had advised OPM to shut down many of its computer systems because they were running without sufficient security. The agency ignored that recommendation.

In the audit report published November 12, 2014, OIG found that 11 out of 47 computer systems operated by OPM did not have current security authorizations. Furthermore, the affected systems were “amongst the most critical and sensitive applications owned by the agency.” Two of the unauthorized systems are described in the report as “general support systems” which contained over 65 percent of all OPM computer applications. Two other unauthorized systems were owned by Federal Investigative Services, the organization which handles background investigations in connection with government security clearances. OIG warned bluntly, “any weaknesses in the information systems supporting this program office could potentially have national security implications.”

Because of the volume and sensitivity of the information involved, OIG recommended OPM “consider shutting down systems that do not have a current and valid Authorization.” But OPM declined, saying, “We agree that it is important to maintain up-to-date and valid ATOs for all systems but do not believe that this condition rises to the level of a Material Weakness.”

The head of OPM also claimed in House hearings yesterday that their failure to close these systems down was justified since the hackers were already in the system when the recommendation was made.

In other words, we didn’t do anything to make the system secure, and when hackers broke in it was further justification for not doing anything.

Yeah, let’s put our healthcare under their control also!

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Saudia Arabia and Russia sign space exploration agreement

9:01 am

The competition heats up: Saudia Arabia has signed a deal with Russia to work together to explore space for peaceful purposes.

This deal has less importance to the exploration of space. Instead, it signifies clearly the worsening relations between the U.S. and Saudia Arabia. For decades the Saudis would always turn to the U.S. for such deals. They are now looking elsewhere, having found the U.S. to be an unreliable partner during the Obama administration.

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Federal government has no system for verifying Obamacare subsidies

3:59 pm

Finding out what’s in it: An audit by the inspector general of Health and Human Services (HHS) has found that the agency has no internal system to verify that $2.8 billion in Obamacare subsidies were paid correctly, or even to the right people.

The [inspector general] said the agency did not have a system to “ensure that financial assistance payments were made on behalf of confirmed enrollees and in the correct amounts.” In addition, [HHS] relied too heavily on data from health insurance companies and had no system for state-based exchanges to “submit enrollee eligibility data for financial assistance payments.”

The government does “not plan to perform a timely reconciliation” of the $2.8 billion in subsidies. [emphasis mine]

Not only have they given out billions without proper record-keeping or proper verification, the agency has no intention of fixing the problem. “Ain’t my job, man!”

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Anti-drilling environmentalists trash environment during protest

3:46 pm

Environmental activists protesting the launch of a drilling rig in Seattle did serious damage to a nature reserve, costing $10K to clean it up.

I am not surprised. The left and environmental movement has this annoying habit of blaming everyone else for the world’s problems, insisting that only they have the solutions. When their solutions fail, or when they screw up, however, they are never willing to admit their error, take personal responsibility, and look for a more effective solution. To them, it is always someone else’s fault.

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Maryland DJ under attack for not working a homosexual party

9:31 pm

Facists: Because a Maryland DJ refused to work a birthday party for a homosexual couple they have now registered a complaint to the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission.

In this case, Lampiris [the owner of the DJ company] said he had never heard of [Maryland’s anti-discrimination] law, “but it’s important for us to make a stand. We don’t want to go against the law, but we also sometimes are called to do that if it goes against your faith. To me it would be like a synagogue having to cater to a neo-Nazi party or black DJ having to do a KKK dance,” he said. Gay clients don’t pose a “physical threat – it’s a conscience thing, and conscience is very important for everybody. In fact, I think it’s the most important thing.

Once again, the homosexual has not been denied service. There are plenty of DJs in the DC area that would handle this party. By filing the complaint they have instead waved the flag that demands that everyone approve of their behavior, even though it is considered morally wrong by many. (I must note that no one in this case is trying to stop their homosexual lifestyle. The DJ company is merely refusing to endorse it or agree to it.)

Or to put it another way, you will be made to agree.

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The complicated status of Obamatrade in Congress

9:31 am

Link here. To sum up, the fast track trade authority for Obama actually passed, but the companion part of the law, dubbed TAA, failed badly. Since the Senate had passed both, the approved law needs to go back to conference so that both houses pass the same bill, or the House can vote again on the portion that was defeated.

That the House leadership is still fighting for this considering the strong opposition from the voters as well as from their own caucus tells us how little they understand the present political situation.

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75% of Russia’s satellite electronics come from U.S.

2:19 pm

It isn’t just us dependent on them: One Russian aerospace industry expert noted today that three-quarters of all their satellite electronics comes from the United States.

According to [Nikolay Testoyedov], up to 75 percent of the electronic components for Russian satellites come from the US. Consequently, if it retaliates should Moscow refuse to sell RD-180 rocket motors to Washington – which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has threatened – Russia’s satellite program would be frozen for at least two years. “The imported electronic components in our satellites represent 25 to 75 percent of the total in communications; in military ones, somewhat less; in commercial ones, more,” Testoyedov says. Of these imported components, approximately 83-87 percent come from the United States thus giving Washington the whip hand.

If we stop providing these electronics he estimates that after their present stock runs out in about a year it would take at least two years before Russia could replace these American-made parts.

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