Tag: politics

The Obama administration budget proposal for NASA includes shutting down Opportunity in 2015.

8:16 pm

Penny wise pound foolish: The Obama administration budget proposal for NASA included shutting down Opportunity in 2015.

This is very stupid. It costs about a billion dollars to build a rover and get it to Mars. And that’s assuming everything works. Opportunity is already there and functioning flawlessly at a fraction of that cost. Rather than cutting Opportunity, NASA should consider cutting the new rover mission so that the money could be used for other planetary exploration, such as a mission to Titan.

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The faculty at Rutgers have voted to demand the university rescind its speaker invitation to Condoleezza Rice.

3:22 pm

The bigotry of modern academics: The faculty at Rutgers have voted to demand the university rescind its speaker invitation to Condoleezza Rice.

They aren’t bigoted against blacks, they are bigoted against Republicans and conservatives. As I’ve said before, they want to stand there with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears chanting, “La-la-la-la-la-la-la-LA!” so they don’t have to hear any alternative perspectives.

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The evil polices of that evil Republican Scott Walker has now produced a $1 billion budget surplus in Wisconsin.

10:16 am

The evil polices of that evil Republican Scott Walker has now produced a $1 billion budget surplus in Wisconsin.

Senate Republicans Tuesday narrowly passed Gov. Scott Walker’s $541 million tax cut proposal in a vote that guaranteed the cuts will become law.

The tax decreases — the third round of cuts by Republicans in less than a year — passed 17-15 with GOP Sen. Dale Schultz of Richland Center joining all Democrats in voting against the proposal. The proposal now goes to the Assembly, which passed a different version of the tax cuts last month with two Democrats joining all Republicans in supporting it.

With growing tax collections now expected to give the state a $1billion budget surplus in June 2015, Walker’s bill will cut property and income taxes for families and businesses, and zero out all income taxes for manufacturers in the state. [emphasis mine]

Why is it that even with gigantic and yearly surpluses Democrats still oppose tax cuts? Or do we already know the answer?

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The senator who aggressively supported the federal government’s illegal spying on innocent Americans is shocked and offended that they also spied on her.

9:42 am

The senator who aggressively supported the federal government’s illegal spying on innocent Americans is shocked and offended that they also spied on her.

For liberals, the rules are never meant for them. Instead, the rules are made by liberals to be imposed on everyone else, whom they consider too stupid to deserve either privacy or freedom.

Update: I have to amend my previous sentence. It isn’t just liberals who think the rules should never apply to them. We also have to include pompous power-hungry politicians on the right as well.

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“What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates.”

9:31 am

Climategate continues: “What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates.”

That’s the opinion of one of a number of scientists who were classified by a study to be part of the 97% consensus that supports human-caused global warming. The article asked them if the study’s classification was true, and their response was that the study was a fraud, a lie, a distortion, and simply untrue. The so-called 97% consensus was manufactured out of thin air, as many of the scientists included in it are actually global warming skeptics.

The quote that stood out most to me in the article was this one:
» Read more

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Emails now show that the the closure of open access monuments that needed no staff during October’s government shutdown was planned by National Park management

7:19 pm

Petty fascist thugs: Emails now show that the the closure of open access monuments that needed no staff during October’s government shutdown was planned by National Park management.

The emails show that park employees knew there was no reason to shutter these monuments and doing so would actually cost money, something that made no sense since the shutdown was supposedly preventing them from spending money.

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Connecticut police are now threatening to refuse to enforce that state’s new oppressive gun control law.

11:47 am

Pushback: Connecticut police are now threatening to refuse to enforce that state’s new oppressive gun control law.

250 law enforcement officers in Connecticut have signed an open letter stating that they will not enforce the new anti-gun and magazine laws, which they consider to be a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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A major union charges in a new report that Obamacare will reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance for the lower middle class.

7:18 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A major union charges in a new report that Obamacare will reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance for the lower middle class.

Union head Donald “D.” Taylor, in a note also being sent to Congress, demands changes and admits to being reluctant to bash a president his union supported. “Believe me; I enter this entire debate about the consequences of the ACA with a deep reluctance,” he wrote. “Unite Here was the first union to endorse then-Senator Obama. We support the addition of health care to millions of Americans. Yet facts are facts, and Obamacare will cost our members the equivalent of a significant pay cut to keep their hard-won benefits.”

In other words, he is a blind partisan fool. His partisanship is so strong that even now he is reluctant to attack the President or the Democrats for creating and forcing Obamacare on us. He also is so partisan that when they were writing the bill he accepted blindly what they were telling him and thus didn’t bother to read the law himself. Then again, he really didn’t have to read it, all he really had to do was listen to just a handful of conservative thinkers who were saying then that Obamacare would “reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance.”

The most shameful part of this whole thing is that come the next election, this union chief and his union will almost certainly still back the Democrats blindly.

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Connecticut seniors are in an uproar because their AARP health insurance plan was forced to sever ties with their hospital and doctors because of Obamacare.

6:35 am

Finding out what’s not in it: Connecticut seniors are in an uproar because their AARP health insurance plan was forced to sever ties with their hospital and doctors because of Obamacare.

AARP was a big supporter of Obamacare. A majority of these blue-state seniors probably voted for Obama as well.I wonder if they will now wake up and change their support now, or remain blind followers of a disastrous policy.

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“I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system.”

8:22 am

From a Nobel Prize winner: “I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system.”

Read the whole interview. The scientist outlines problems not only with peer review journals but with the whole structure of modern academic science, which to his mind would have prevented him from doing his Nobel Prize winning research had this system existed then.

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How Washington journalists conspire to not report accurately the President’s yearly budget proposal.

5:47 am

How Washington journalists conspire to not report accurately the President’s yearly budget proposal.

The article focuses on the bad reporting in connection with the Obama administration’s most recent budget proposal, but the criticism applies to every budget announcement since the 1970s.. Each year, the President’s budget proposal in the January/February/March time frame increases the amount the federal government will spend from year to year, as far as the eye can see. Washington journalists however report that the proposal cuts the budget instead. How can this be? As the writer notes,

In the 1970s, Congress tortured the English language by requiring that if federal spending grows less than expected, it should officially be called a spending cut. Outside of the beltway bubble, nobody talks like that. Reporters are letting the public down by accepting the word games of politicians and not reporting the real numbers in the language of ordinary Americans.

I have been fighting this dishonest reporting for decades. It is not the business of reporters to help the federal government get more money. They should report the budget, as it is.

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According to two surveys a large majority of the previously uninsured are uninterested in signing up for Obamacare.

5:25 am

Finding out what’s in it: According to two surveys a large majority of the previously uninsured are uninterested in signing up for Obamacare.

You can read one of the surveys here.

The main reason they are rejecting Obamacare is cost or “affordability challenges,” as the report so euphemistically call it. (See page 5 on the second link above). The simple fact is that the reason most of these people didn’t have health insurance before is because it didn’t make economic sense for them to buy it. Most are probably young and don’t need to visit a doctor very often. Why pay for insurance in that case? And since Obamacare has significantly raised the cost of insurance, these people have even less economic reason now to sign up.

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Thousands of union workers in Las Vegas might go on strike because of the increased costs of healthcare, imposed on them by Obamacare.

4:12 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Thousands of union workers in Las Vegas might go on strike because of the increased costs of healthcare, imposed on them by Obamacare.

On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks.

Rising health care costs due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act could put those benefits in jeopardy, the union says.

I bet that most of these workers voted for Obama and Harry Reid. I also bet that most of them will continue to do so, despite the obvious policy failures imposed on them by these Democratic politicians.

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In testimony to Congress Wednesday, Elon Musk described how allowing SpaceX to compete as a military launch provider would significantly lower costs.

7:49 am

The competition heats up: In testimony to Congress Wednesday, Elon Musk described how allowing SpaceX to compete as a military launch provider would significantly lower costs.

[Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama)] said the Air Force EELV contracts require compliance with complex oversight and accounting practices that add costs to the program. As a result, he suggested comparing the cost of a SpaceX Falcon 9 and a ULA Atlas or Delta was comparing apples and oranges.

Musk agreed “there is additional cost for U.S. government missions due to the mission assurance process.” And he said SpaceX’s costs for launching a military mission would be 50 percent higher than for a purely commercial launch. Even so, he said, SpaceX could provide a Falcon 9 rocket for around $90 million as opposed to nearly $400 million for a ULA launcher. “Even when you add the Air Force overhead, there’s still a huge difference,” he said. [emphasis mine]

The only reason that Congress is against eliminating the military launch monopoly given to ULA and allowing SpaceX to compete is because the monopoly feeds a lot of pork to the districts of certain but powerful legislators like Shelby.

ULA and Shelby are losing the argument however. The cost differences are too high, and SpaceX has proven that it can do the job efficiently and effectively. Eventually the monopoly will die, and the sooner the better.

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A look at the President’s overall budget for science, which finds spending levels remain flat.

9:54 am

A look at the President’s overall budget for science, which finds spending levels remain flat.

What makes this story significant is that the budget is really flat. Some agencies will get more money, others less, with the total spent about the same as the year before. They are not discussing, as had been typical in the past, the rate of increase in spending, where a reduction in that rate would be reported falsely as a “cut.”

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The Obama administration released its 2015 proposed federal budget today, including its proposals for NASA.

10:00 pm

The Obama administration released its 2015 proposed federal budget today, including its budget proposal for NASA.

The spending plan supports the Obama administration’s decision to extend U.S. operations of the International Space Station to 2024 with about $3 billion, funds NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule with nearly $2.8 billion, and requests $848 million for development of commercial spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and end U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles.

The budget proposal of $17.5 billion is essential flat, with a 1 percent cut from last year. It also includes proposals for several Earth science missions as well as a mission to Europa. In addition, it grounds the SOFIA airborne telescope, which has turned out to be as expensive to operate as Hubble while being far less productive.

The $848 for the commercial program is approximately the same number the Obama administration has requested every year. Congress has routinely cut this number, but has cut it less each year as time has passed. I suspect that they will cut even less this year, considering the tensions with Russia right now over the Ukraine. We need our own vehicles to ferry astronauts into space, and commercial space is right now the only way it is going to get done.

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“What happens if Russia refuses to fly U.S. astronauts?”

7:58 am

“What happens if Russia refuses to fly U.S. astronauts?”

The problem: the situation in the Ukraine. If tension between the U.S. and Russia worsens then Russia might suspend carrying American astronauts to and from ISS.

The fault here belongs with Congress and George Bush, who decided in the 2000s to let the shuttle retire before its replacement was ready. In addition we can blame Congress in the 2010s for forcing NASA to spend billions on the unaffordable Space Launch System rather than focus on getting humans into space cheaply and quickly.

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After six months of trying and failing to cancel an unwanted Obamacare health insurance plan, a Florida man is now considering shutting his bank account to prevent the plan from automatically withdrawing money from his account.

3:43 am

Finding out what’s in it: After six months of trying and failing to cancel an unwanted Obamacare health insurance plan, a Florida man is now considering shutting his bank account to prevent the plan from automatically withdrawing money from his account.

Remember, the Democrats in Congress and President Obama refused to negotiate any changes to Obamacare in October, thereby forcing the government shutdown. They also were the only ones to vote for Obamacare. These facts must not be forgotten come November.

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One of the publishers who had published fake peer-reviewed papers generated by a computer program has responded aggressively to fix the problem.

12:15 am

One of the publishers who had published numerous fake peer-reviewed papers generated by a computer program has responded aggressively to fix the problem.

And by aggressive I mean positively. They have removed the fake papers and are reviewing everything they’ve published, with the help of the guy who exposed the fakes, to make sure there aren’t any other fakes not yet identified. They also say they are reviewing their procedures to figure out how this happened and to prevent it from happening again.

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Just hours before she was scheduled to testify about IRS harassment of conservatives, the head of a conservative organization was called by an IRS official, telling her that her organization’s tax exempt status had finally been approved, after waiting more than 3 years.

12:06 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Just hours before she was scheduled to testify about IRS harassment of conservatives at a House hearing, the head of a conservative organization was called by an IRS official, telling her that her organization’s tax exempt status had finally been approved, after waiting more than 3 years.

As she noted, “And this is not political?”

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A federal appeals court has ruled that schools can ban the American flag in order to prevent violence.

11:40 pm

Bad news for free speech: A federal appeals court has ruled that schools can ban the American flag in order to prevent violence.

The court’s ruling: School administrators can force you to remove your American-flag tee if the alternative is a classmate punching you in the face. That’s because, per the Supreme Court, students don’t have the same free speech rights at school that adults do on other public grounds. At school, the name of the game is order and instruction; you’re entitled to free expression to the extent you don’t interfere with those goals, but once you do, the school’s entitled to limit your expression accordingly.

In other words, a bully can get the principal’s office to silence you by promising to beat your ass if they don’t.

This is, as Eugene Volokh notes, a classic “heckler’s veto” in that it rewards a violent actor by suppressing the speech that’s irritated him instead of punishing him for being violent.

So, according to this ruling, the only people who will have free speech will be those willing to threaten, and even use violence. A foolish and mindless ruling, if I ever saw one.

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Even as the IRS was admitting last year that its harassment of conservatives was a mistake, the agency was working up its new rules to make the harassment official policy, under pressure from Democratic elected officials.

11:32 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: Even as the IRS was admitting last year that its harassment of conservatives was a mistake, the agency was working up its new rules to make the harassment official policy, under pressure from Democratic elected officials.

And what about the new official policy?

The tax agency has floated an outline of new rules that would limit those groups’ ability to host candidates, distribute voter guides or conduct voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives. A three-month period for public comments closed on Thursday, and the IRS had posted more than 115,000 comments. They were overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed rules, with both conservative and liberal-leaning groups saying the rules would stifle their ability to participate in important public debates.

One joint comment, filed by a dozen groups ranging from the immigration advocacy America’s Voice and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union to the right-leaning American Conservative Union and tea party-aligned FreedomWorks, asked the Obama administration go back and start over on the rules.

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The harassment of conservatives by the IRS was instigated by Democratic elected officials in plain sight for all to see.

9:26 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The harassment of conservatives by the IRS was instigated by Democratic elected officials in Congress and the White House, in plain sight for all to see.

Read it. The author documents numerous examples of Democrats from 2010 to 2013 demanding the IRS do exactly what it ended up doing, harass and shut down the activities of their opponents. And they did it publicly, with pride. And they are still doing it.

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