Tag: Trump

Iran officials thumb their noses at Trump

10:28 am

Responding to Trump administration statements “putting Iran on notice” for its ballistic missile tests in violation of UN resolutions, Iran officials responded today by saying they don’t care and that there is nothing the U.S. can do to stop them.

The most frightening quote from this story however is this:

While Iran says its missile program is aimed at displaying the country’s “deterrent power and its ability to confront any threat”, some IRGC commanders have said that Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles were designed to be able to hit Israel.

Iran refuses to recognize Israel.

Remember, Iran has already had one leader who advocated wiping Israel off the face of the Earth.

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Almost 200 federal workers to take “civil disobedience” class

9:50 am

One hundred and eighty federal workers have signed up to take “civil disobedience” class on how to resist the Trump administration.

Dozens of federal workers have reportedly attended a support group for civil servants that serves as a forum for discussing opposition to the Trump administration. Some federal employees have already expressed defiance against the Trump administration following a gag order, which has since been lifted, that restricted the Environmental Protection Agency and departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services from contacting the press or posting about the administration on social media.

This will not end well for these federal workers, which in the long run will be good for the American public. These people are not qualified to work in the federal government, because they think they are there to tell us what to do, rather than work for the American taxpayer who pays their salary. They will “resist”, Trump will find out who they are, and then he will fire them.

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The private weather industry moves forward

9:23 am

Link here. Key quote:

Early next month, aerospace start-up Spire Global of Glasgow, UK, will send a mini-satellite into space aboard an Indian government rocket. This ‘cubesat’ will join 16 others that are beaming a new type of atmospheric data back to Earth — and some scientists worry that such efforts are siphoning funding away from efforts to push forward the science of weather forecasting. Spire will begin providing observations to the US government on 30 April.

The probes track delays in radio signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites as they pass through the atmosphere — a technique known as radio occultation. Researchers can use the data to create precise temperature profiles of the atmosphere to feed into weather-forecasting models — and eventually, perhaps, climate models.

Spire and its competitor GeoOptics of Pasadena, California, are participating in a pilot project announced in September by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is under pressure from the US Congress to determine whether it can cut costs by using commercial weather data. But scientists worry that such efforts are hampering the development of radio occultation. For years, they have sought federal funding for a project to advance the technique, but Spire and its competitors say they can offer high-quality data for a fraction of the price. [emphasis mine]

The quotes I have highlighted illustrate the hidebound leftist scientific opposition to introducing private enterprise into weather research. The article, published in the journal Nature, never once articulates in any way how these private efforts will hurt scientific research. What it does show is that the private effort will cost a tenth of the government effort while getting launched much faster. The money, however, will go to these private companies, and not the scientific factions that up until now have lived on the government money train.

The complaints here are the same as those I saw in NASA back about a decade ago when NASA first considered hiring private companies to provide it cargo to ISS. This is a turf war. NOAA is now being pressured by Congress to do the same: stop building big expensive weather satellites and buy the service for much less from the private sector. The scientific community sees this as a threat to its funding and is trying to stop it.

With Republicans controlling all three branches of the federal government I think this opposition will be fruitless, and we shall see the shift to private enterprise in weather data-gathering to accelerate.

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Gorsuch picked by Trump for Supreme Court

6:38 pm

President Trump tonight named Neil Gorsuch as his pick to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

My fear that Trump would go for the more moderate Thomas Hardiman has proven unfounded. Instead, this more conservative choice once again suggests that Trump is shifting increasingly to the right.

In fact, I think the insane and insulting attacks brought against Trump by the left have actually served to make him more conservative. As Rush Limbaugh noted today,

Would you like an illustration of what I mean by Donald Trump not being ideological and how it’s a problem? He understands he has opposition. How could he not? (chuckles) I mean, I’m sure he knows that he’s got opposition. Don’t misunderstand me, now. And I’m sure that he may have had his eyes opened about some of these people. In his mind, they’re Democrats. Liberal, conservative, that’s not in his lexicon, folks. I’m not offering this as a criticism. It’s just a truth. It’s something that, if you want to understand Trump, then there’s no better deconstructor of Trump and explainer of Trump who’s not in the inner circle than me.

All during the campaign I did my best to explain to everybody — leftists, media, conservative, Republicans, Never Trumpers — who Trump is, why Trump is, why Trump was winning, who Trump’s supporters are. And the thing that I kept saying is, “He’s not ideological.” So he knows he’s got opposition, he knows Democrats, and he’s probably had his eyes opened here. I’m sure that over the course of his life some of these people now calling him names trying to destroy him have been his friends. So his eyes are no doubt opened. I don’t doubt that.

When Trump first announced his candidacy, everything he did and said at that time fit with Limbaugh’s analysis, except that at the time I think Trump was much more middle of the road. I think he truly believed his liberal background working closely with Democrats would make them treat him decently. Instead, they have come at him guns blazing, calling him the worst sort of names, making the most vile accusations against him, and even attacking his family and his children.

The result? Trump has, as Limbaugh notes, had “his eyes opened.” He might not be a philosophical conservative, but more and more it appears that he recognizes the corrupt hate coming from the left, and is less and less inclined to give them an inch. Instead, he moves rightward. I also think this is the same pattern we are seeing nationwide among voters.

Right now the Democrats in the Senate look like they are planning to copy the strategy to try to block Trump’s Cabinet appointees used by Texas and Wisconsin Democrats in 2003 and 2011 respectively.

This is not the first time Democrats have blocked a Republican majority from proceeding by refusing to take their seats and thus denying Republicans a quorum. In 2003, 11 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives literally fled the state for weeks in order to prevent a redistricting plan favored by Republicans. Eventually, one of them returned and the redistricting plan was passed. More recently, in 2011, Wisconsin Democrats fled to Illinois for three weeks to avoid a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill because of provisions that were opposed by Wisconsin unions. However, the GOP-controlled legislature defeated the Democrats’ maneuvers by separating these bills from the budget and passing them separately.

In both cases, the Democrats not only failed to win, but their actions caused the voters to move to the right, voting in more Republicans and significantly reducing Democratic influence in both these states. With Wisconsin the result has been the shift of that state from a blue to a red state.

They say that Einstein called insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think this nicely defines the Democratic Party these days.

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Trump fires acting AG for refusing to defend his executive order on immigration

8:05 pm

At last! President Trump this evening fired the acting attorney general because of her announcement earlier today saying that the Justice Department would not defend in court his executive order on immigration.

The Trump announcement:

The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.

Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.

It is time to get serious about protecting our country. Calling for tougher vetting for individuals travelling from seven dangerous places is not extreme. It is reasonable and necessary to protect our country.

Tonight, President Trump relieved Ms. Yates of her duties and subsequently named Dana Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as Acting Attorney General until Senator Jeff Sessions is finally confirmed by the Senate, where he is being wrongly held up by Democrat senators for strictly political reasons.

For more than a quarter century I have watched Republican leaders back down the instant a Democrat whined at them. Every. single. time. This time is different. Trump is not a fearful politician. He is a businessmen, an executive, and someone who expects his employees to support his actions. My first reaction when I read Yates statement earlier today was, “Fire her!” I then laughed because I haven’t seen that common sense reaction from a Republican for decades. I have seen it now.

There is still no guarantee that Trump’s policies or actions are going to be very conservative. For example, the one person out of five listed for possible Supreme Court nominee that I have found very questionable has now risen to the top of the list. Yuch. Nonetheless, Trump seems determined to make significant and positive changes in a number of areas, from immigration to environmental policy and administration. If he only does these things, he will have accomplished much.

Update: State Department officials are putting together a memorandum that will announce their opposition to President Trump’s executive order on immigration. I wonder how long these individuals will survive working for Trump after they do this.

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Iran tests ballistic missile despite UN ban

9:52 am

Does this make you feel safer? In direct defiance of a UN ban on such tests, Iran on Sunday completed a new test of a medium range ballistic missile.

The Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile flew 600 miles before exploding, in a failed test of a reentry vehicle, officials said. Iran defense minister Brigadier Gen. Hossein Dehqan said in September that Iran would start production of the missile.

I am very curious what Trump will do to try to rein in Iran. I suspect his options will be as limited as Obama’s were, except that he is not likely to sign any make-believe nuclear deals, as Obama did.

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A review of Trump’s first 17 executive orders

9:04 am

Link here. The leftwing gnashing of teeth over Trump’s first actions since becoming president have routinely been based not on reality but on their false bigoted perceptions of Trump. The review at the link reveals how incredibly ordinary almost all of Trump’s initial actions have been. Most have been similar to the actions of past newly arrived presidents, from both parties. Many are no more than memos giving his subordinates guidance on what they should do.

Most disturbing has been the uproar over Trump’s suspension of the refugee programs from the seven Middle Eastern Arab countries. He hasn’t banned Muslim immigration. He hasn’t banned travel by those with legitimate green cards. All he has done has taken the seven countries listed by the Obama administration as the worst sources of terrorism and temporarily suspended any immigration from those countries pending a review of the vetting process. This seems completely reasonable, especially considering the number of terrorist attacks the west has experienced in recent years coming from immigrants from these countries. For politicians and academics and entertainers to try to turn this into something it is not out of what seems a blind hatred of Trump tells us how much western intellectual society has declined in recent years.

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Trump’s top five picks for Supreme Court

11:06 am

Link here. The author argues, that though some of these individuals have made decisions that some conservatives dislike, their general philosophical and analytical approach to their court decisions make them all strong conservative picks.

I’ve spent the better part of a week researching many of their writings and talking to stalwart constitutionalist leaders about them. All of them are clearly textualist-originalists to a degree Chief Justice Roberts never appeared to be, even when many on the right were applauding Roberts’ 2006 nomination due to his clear sense of one sort of judicial “restraint” and generally conservative political leanings.

Sure, these judges may reach differing conclusions from each other in particular cases, but these will likely be with the infrequency and integrity of, say, the occasional differences between Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. What’s important is that each one of them is clear and forthright in applying the same basic method of analyzing each case — namely, by hewing closely to the facts at hand, and carefully considering those facts in light of the exact language of the statutes and/or Constitution (whichever applies) relevant to that case.

All of them do so while clearly operating from a legal-philosophical framework/understanding very much in line with the philosophies so well explained in the seminal Federalist Papers that explained how and why our Constitution was designed as it was.

If that honest decision-making process sometimes leads to individual case results that do not comport to the policy preferences of a subset of conservatives, so be it. The real safeguard for our liberties lies in that analytical process undertaken by those well steeped in a Federalist-paper worldview. The reality is that in the vast majority of cases, the right constitutional approach will lend aid to the right policy results, because the Constitution and conservative policies both tend toward limited government, maximum liberty under straightforward law, and a respect for the realms in which traditional institutions of family and faith are honored and cherished. For every policy disappointment that might result from such an approach to constitutional jurisprudence, surely 15 or 20 policy triumphs will occur. [emphasis in original]

While I agree with the author in general, his discussion of one particular candidate, Thomas Hardiman, did nothing for me. Based on what I read, Hardiman is now my least favored choice among the names Trump is considering.

Regardless, read it all. The article indicates once again that while Trump might have once been a liberal Democrat, his leanings now are increasingly in a conservative direction.

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Trump “clamp down” no different than past transitions

5:35 pm

It seems that the so-called clamp down on press releases and announcement by the Trump administration is not that unusual and is actually comparable to what was done when Obama took power.

The memo at the USDA was especially routine, despite the reports.

Similar news came out about a “gag order” for a small branch of the Department of Agriculture, which led to Buzzfeed to report “USDA Scientists Have Been Put On Lockdown Under Trump.” “Starting immediately and until further notice” the Agricultural Research Service “will not release any public-facing documents,” reads the memo obtained by Buzzfeed. The memo was rescinded Tuesday after a media firestorm.

But Trump never ordered the “lockdown.” In fact, the memo to USDA researches was sent by Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack, President Obama’s appointee. “This memo is not some sort of creative writing exercise,” Michael Young, acting deputy secretary of the Agriculture Department, told NYT. “This is almost exactly what was issued eight years ago. I just updated it a bit.”

As much as I want such a clamp down, especially for those agencies that have become badly politicized, it does appear that the only thing happening here is a bit of panic by the left, by the media (I repeat myself), and by some federal workers. Essentially, they are squealing like pigs out of fear that they will no longer have their way, and the press is picking up the oinks and running with it.

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Trump threatens to “send in the Feds” to control Chicago violence

9:24 am

Not good: In a tweet late Tuesday President Trump threatened to send federal officials to Chicago if that city doesn’t do something to reduce its out-of-control homicide rates.

No one knows what Trump really meant, since this was merely a tweet on Twitter, but to suggest that he thinks the federal government has a place fixing local police crime is very inappropriate. Even if the federal government succeeded once in shutting down Chicago’s crime rate, it would set a bad precedent, expanding terribly the power of the federal government into very local matters.

Trump has enough problems to fix at the federal level, in his own executive branch. He should stay focused on that.

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Project Veritas videos lead to one arrest

8:14 pm

The undercover videos released last week by Project Veritas, showing evidence that anti-Trump protesters were planning violent acts of terrorism during the Trump inauguration, have now led to one arrest.

More important, the police think the videos acted to stop much of the mayhem the protesters were planning.

A D.C. police spokesman has confirmed that a secret video recording made Dec. 18 by one of O’Keefe’s operatives led to the arrest of one man and foiled an alleged plot to spread acid at the DeploraBall for Trump supporters at the National Press Club. It was not clear whether the alleged plotters ever obtained the acid.

Law enforcement authorities said they think that the successful penetration of DisruptJ20, an umbrella organization for a number of groups that police said sought to wreak havoc at the inauguration, forced it to abandon plans to try to shut down Metro trains and block entrances into the District, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation.

The police are also looking for two other men on the videos.

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Trump shuts down public communications at numerous federal agencies

8:07 pm

As part of their effort to gain control of the executive branch, the new Trump administration has ordered a range of federal agencies to cease all press releases and other forms of public communications.

New restrictions on social media use and interaction with press and lawmakers at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and the Interior have sparked concerns of a President Trump-backed effort to silence dissenting views.

The Trump administration’s newly imposed communications rules vary at different agencies. At the EPA, staffers were ordered to stop issuing press releases, blog updates and social media posts, according to a memo to employees. The Agriculture Department’s research arm was reportedly told by its chief of staff to stop issuing news releases, photos and other “public-facing” documents — although the agency disavowed the order late Tuesday, saying that new guidance would replace it.

The new prohibitions come as Trump seeks to reverse many of former President Barack Obama’s policies, which requires the cooperation of a federal workforce that is broadly perceived to be hostile to him.

As is typical for an article written by a mainstream Washington news outlet, the story does whatever it can to take the side of these federal employees, all of whom work for us and for the President. They don’t have a say in this. If they don’t like Trump’s policies, then they can quit and find jobs in some leftwing Democratic political organization, not paid for by tax dollars.That is their right, just as it is Trump’s right to clamp down on their leftwing advocacy.

Or they can be fired, as will likely happen to many managers at the National Park Service, based on the following quotes from the article:

In an apparent act of defiance, the official Twitter account for Badlands National Park in South Dakota on Tuesday afternoon posted information about climate change.

And this:

The moves come after Trump was reportedly infuriated over reporting on the turnout at his inauguration, which included a viral photo comparison showing Friday’s crowd next to the one that attended Obama’s 2009 swearing-in. The tweet was retweeted by the National Park Service (NPS).

In the first case whoever runs the official Twitter National Park service account at Badlands acted in outright defiance of his employer, certain grounds for firing anywhere in the real world. In the second case the Park Service very clearly was pushing a political agenda, something that is none of their business, and also justifiable grounds for dismissal.

Then again, the management at the National Park Service has been working for the Democratic Party and its political goals for years. Firing the entire upper management there would probably be entirely appropriate, even if they didn’t do something defiant at this particular moment.

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Trump’s 1st NASA appointees suggest future policy

9:49 am

A memo released January 20 from NASA’s acting administrator accepting the job also announced the first Trump appointees to NASA. The history and policy positions of those two appointees I think once again give us a very clear indication of where NASA might be going in the coming years.

[Acting administrator Robert] Lightfoot, in the memo, said that the administration has appointed Erik Noble to serve as White House senior advisor and Greg Autry to be White House liaison. The two are the first members of the so-called “beachhead team” of administration staffers assigned to NASA, at least on a short-term basis.

Autry is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California who has been a proponent of commercial space activities. Autry was one of eight members of the agency review team, or “landing team,” assigned to NASA by the transition office of then President-elect Trump.

Noble did not serve on the landing team, but worked on the Trump campaign as a political data analyst. Noble, who earned a Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of Colorado, spent seven years at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, working on weather and climate models. [emphasis mine]

Autry, believes strongly in private space, and has also been a critic of SLS/Orion. Being placed at NASA as Trump’s first appointee strongly suggests that a Trump administration is going to accelerate the commercial space push that was begun by the Bush administration and then strongly supported by the Obama administration. It also suggests that the SLS and Orion projects are going to face a difficult future and will likely be phased out.

Noble’s appointment is more important. As a former scientist at the Goddard Institute, he is now well positioned to possibly appoint a new head to that organization, or even become its head himself. The present person in charge there, Gavin Schmidt, has increasingly become suspect as a scientist, instead appearing more as global warming political advocate. Since he took over that Institute, the climate data there has been increasingly tampered with, with past data being cooled and recent data being warmed, thus creating the impression that the Earth’s climate has been warming more than indicated by all previous research. Schmidt’s explanations for these “adjustments” (the term he uses) have never been satisfactory. He then uses the results from these “adjustments” to make annual press releases declaring each year as the “hottest” ever, though the raw data shows no such thing.

Even if Noble does not replace Schmidt, Noble appears well positioned to force Schmidt to either finally justify his data adjustments, or remove them from the data stream so that the raw data will be allowed to dominate policy decisions once again.

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Anti-Trump protesters riot in DC

1:28 pm

Fascists: Anti-Trump rotesters from the same coalition that Project Veritas taped planning violence in DC on inauguration day are now rioting and committing violence in DC on inauguration day.

The violence includes blocking roads, checkpoints, breaking windows, and setting fires, among other nasty behavior. The link provides a nice roundup, with videos.

Note that I call these protesters fascists not because the oppose Trump, but because they are willing to commit violence against him and his supporters, merely because they disagree. Note too that I myself would even support such violence, if a president started abusing the consitutional rights of citizens and begin ruling like a dictator. So far, however, no one has the right to accuse Trump of doing this, as there is zero evidence of him being anything more than a moderate liberal who appears to be shifting rightward as he ages.

One more point: These protesters are probably doing more to encourage a second Trump term than they can imagine. They are revealing their fascist nature for all to see. And I strongly believe that most Americans will be turned off by this.

Posted from lovely McCarran airport in Las Vegas, where I am stuck for an extra hour because of weather delays.

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Second video released of planned violent protests at inauguration

2:54 pm

Project Veritas has released its second video of planning meetings by violent leftwing protest groups as they prepare for shutting down the Trump inaugural, including blocking roads, causing the DC metro to close, and physically attacking Trump supporters.

The video is embedded below the fold. At the moment we have no word on what the CIA, FBI, and DC police plan to do about this.
» Read more

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Some background on leftist terrorist Colin Dunn

10:46 am

A friend emailed me this story, describing how Colin Dunn, one of the three leftists who were videotaped planning violence during Trump inauguration events, was previously arrested interfering with firefighters as they fought a fire in West Virginia.

Two people claiming to be volunteer firefighters from Maryland have been arrested, charged by West Virginia State Police with obstruction for taking an emergency vehicle and driving it into the tunnel. According to news reports, 30-year-old Colin Dunn and 30-year-old Virginia Price of Maine came southbound through the East River Mountain Tunnel in their own vehicle as the fire was being fought on the northbound side. When they reached the Virginia side, police claim the couple put on gear and took a county emergency vehicle.

Samantha Perry, Bluefield Daily Telegraph: “They ran into the tunnel, in their infinite wisdom,” (West Virginia State Police Sgt. D.W.) Miller said. “They said they were attempting to help their friends — they are volunteer firemen in Maryland. We explained to them they were not in Maryland, and did not have friends in the tunnel. They had no authority to do that here, basically.”

Dunn is obviously a dangerous person who thinks he has the right to grind his boot into the face of anyone he dislikes or opposes.

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Big money offered to protest Trump

10:05 am

Advertisements in two dozen cities offered protesters a $2,500 monthly retainer plus $50 per hour to be professional protesters against Donald Trump.

Demand Protest, a San Francisco company that bills itself as the “largest private grassroots support organization in the United States,” posted identical ads Jan. 12 in multiple cities on Backpage.com seeking “operatives.”

“Get paid fighting against Trump!” says the ad. “We pay people already politically motivated to fight for the things they believe. You were going to take action anyways, why not do so with us!” the ad continues. “We are currently seeking operatives to help send a strong message at upcoming inauguration protests.” The job offers a monthly retainer of $2,500 plus “our standard per-event pay of $50/hr, as long as you participate in at least 6 events a year,” as well as health, vision and dental insurance for full-time operatives.

Though the article does not say where the money is coming from, it really doesn’t matter. It proves that the protests we will see are generally fake, and not expressing a real undercurrent of protest. Congressional Republicans and Trump should thus ignore them.

The

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Inaugural event organizer to bring charges against leftists for their terrorism threats

11:31 pm

Pushback: The organizer of the inaugural ball event that leftist groups were filmed planning a terrorist attack against announced tonight that they are filing charges.

They made a real big mistake,” [organizer Mike] Cernovich said about the ‘Disrupt J-20’ organizers. “When you’re threatened with terrorism, and you have people saying they’re going to commit terrorism at a party you’re hosting, you have to take that quite seriously.”

“They seem to think it is just a prank, and I would refer them to the Dept. of Justice’s website — This is actually a felony,” he continued. “This isn’t funny at all. It is terrorism… We have filed a criminal complaint against the conspirators, and the FBI is investigating that right now. Tomorrow we will be filing a civil action against them also. Against the domestic terrorists who purchased tickets… This is a criminal conspiracy to commit terrorism, and we are treating it like the serious criminal conspiracy that it is.”

Cernovich also notes that the three leftists caught on camera had already bought tickets to his event, so he can document that they planned to come. The video proves they planned an attack. Combined, this evidence exposes them and makes them very vulnerable to both criminal charges and civil suits.

For too many decades the left has been allowed to get away with these kinds of illegal and sometimes violent behavior. It is time they learned that they can’t do that any longer.

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Video of leftists planning terrorist acts during Inauguration events

4:07 pm

Fascists: A new video from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, the first of a series, shows the leaders of a variety of leftwing organizations planning terrorist acts during the inauguration and related events.

I have embedded the video below the fold. It is very damning, and definitely involves the planning of illegal acts of violence. Worse, this is only part 1.

I wonder if the DC authorities will do anything about this.
» Read more

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NASA names acting administrator

8:36 am

NASA yesterday named Robert Lightfoot as the Acting NASA administrator, taking over from Charles Bolden when he leaves on January 20, 2017 at the start of the Trump administration.

Lightfoot is a former Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, having begun his NASA career there in 1989. He transferred to NASA Headquarters in 2012 to serve as Associate Administrator, the highest ranking civil service position in the agency. It is traditional for the highest ranking NASA civil servant to take over as acting administrator during changes in presidential administrations. The Trump transition has not always followed traditional paths so today’s announcement provided some degree of reassurance. Bolden said the Trump transition team officially told NASA yesterday that Lightfoot will serve in that job. A mechanical engineer, he has served in many capacities at Marshall, Stennis Space Center and Headquarters, including assistant associate administrator for the space shuttle program (2003-2005) at headquarters and manager of the space shuttle propulsion office at MSFC (2005-2007). He was named MSFC Deputy Director in 2007 and Director in 2009.

Essentially Lightfoot will act as a placeholder until the new administration names its pick for the position.

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Handicapping Trump’s Supreme Court pick

6:32 pm

Link here. The analysis is not only thoughtful, it is very entertaining. He also provides a lot of information about the people on Trump’s shortlist, while also admitting quite heartily that his prediction is worth nothing, based on the events of the last year.

Nonetheless, the data here once again suggests that, despite Trump’s past history as a moderate liberal Democrat, he is going to rule from a conservative perspective. At least, that is what it looks like, based on his list of possible Supreme Court nominees. We have of course no guarantee at this time whether he will stick with that shortlist.

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GOP schedules six confirmation hearings for one day

5:50 pm

The Senate Republican leadership has scheduled six cabinet appointee hearings all for one day, next Wednesday, despite Democratic demands that they not do this.

Interestingly, the Democrats did exactly the same thing in 2009, when they controlled Congress. And they did it for probably the same reason the Republicans are doing it now, to hamper the opposition’s ability to obstruct the appointment process. The Democrats are of course going to squeal about this. If the Republicans do not back down, it will be a sign that they might be growing a spine and will stand up to them.

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Obamacare: The Republican strategy of partial repeal vs full repeal

10:23 am

This National Review editorial today describes very succinctly the strategy being used by the Republican leadership in its effort to repeal Obamacare.

Senate Republicans want to pass a bill that repeals the taxes and spending in Obamacare, but not its regulations. That’s because they think that they can use a legislative process to avoid Democratic filibusters only if they leave the regulations alone. They think that this partial repeal of Obamacare will set the stage for later legislation that repeals the rest of the law and creates a replacement.

The heart of the problem for a full Obamacare repeal is that in the Senate you can pass budgetary items with only 51 votes while regulatory changes require 60. The Democrats plan to filibuster any regulatory changes, thus preventing their repeal.

The editorial opposes this strategy and instead calls for removing the federal government completely from health insurance regulation, the situation that existed prior to the passage of Obamacare. While I totally agree with this stance, I also recognize that the intransigence of the Democrats in the Senate makes it difficult. The only way it could work is if the Republicans could convince 8 Democratic senators to break away from their party and support full repeal. While a large number of Democratic senators are faced with difficult elections in 2018, I don’t think the Republicans could get 8 to agree.

We are thus faced with the unfortunate and bad situation that the Republicans will repeal only part of the law, which will further damage the health care industry. While they hope this damage will strengthen their effort to get the law entirely repealed, I fear that it will instead be used by the Democrats to attack the Republicans and the idea of the repeal itself.

It seems to me that it would be better to offer a full repeal, forcing a Democratic filibuster, and then use that filibuster as a campaign weapon to defeat more Democrats in 2018.

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Trump does a clean sweep of all politically appointed ambassadors

10:42 pm

A very good sign: The Trump transition team has issued a blanket order requiring all politically appointed ambassadors “without exception” to resign their posts by inauguration day.

This order, which breaks with past precedent which allowed ambassadors to stick around until a new person was named, is actually a very good sign. It indicates that Trump really does intend to clean house. His track record in the private sector is to fire people if they are not producing. It appears he is going to bring that experience to the executive branch, an approach that the federal government has lacked for decades.

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Launch of joint NOAA/NASA weather satellite delayed again

7:48 pm

Bad timing for NASA’s climate program: The launch of the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1), a project of both NOAA and NASA, has been delayed from March 2017 to at least July because of problems with one instrument as well as delays in completing the satellite’s ground systems.

“The main factors delaying the JPSS-1 launch are technical issues discovered during environmental testing of the satellite and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) instrument,” Leslie said in a statement. ATMS issues were also one of the reasons for the previous delay. In addition, he cited “challenges in the completion of the common ground system” that will be used for JPSS and other NOAA polar-orbiting weather satellites.

The latest decays prompted NOAA to seek financial relief for the program. A provision in the continuing resolution (CR) passed Dec. 9, which funds the federal government through late April at 2016 levels, gives NOAA the authority to spend at higher levels for the JPSS program.

The goal with the JPSS program was to combine NOAA weather satellites with NASA’s climate research satellites. The program however has had technical and budgetary problems, as this is not the first launch delay or cost overrun.. Moreover, the origins of the JPSS program came from a failed effort in the 1990s and 2000s [pdf] to combine NOAA, Defense Department, and NASA weather satellites under what was then called the NPOESS program. When that program was restructured in 2010 to become JPSS the Defense Department pulled out.

Considering the strong rumors now suggesting that the Trump administration plans to slash NASA’s climate budget while shifting the remains of the program to NOAA, this delay of JPSS-1 is an especially good example of bad timing. It provides the new administration strong ammunition for such proposed changes.

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Trump interested in lunar manned mission?

3:48 pm

After meeting with Donald Trump a historian now says the president-elect appears very interested in the idea of sending a man to the Moon.

All of these stories continue to be speculation, but I strongly suspect that much of it also consists of trial balloons pushed by the various supporters of SLS/Orion in their effort to give that very expensive and so-far completely unproductive boondoggle a mission it can actually achieve. Right now, SLS/Orion has no mission. It is only funded through the first manned test flight in 2021 (likely to be delayed until 2023). Since it has been a pork barrel favorite of a number of Senators and Congressmen, I would not be surprised if they are trying to convince Trump to fund it by giving it a new Kennedy-like mission.

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Lobbying for the Moon

9:17 am

Several news articles in the past few days, partly fueled by the make-up of some of the new members of Trump’s NASA transition team, have exhibited a strong push to get the new administration to restart the Bush administration’s goal of returning to the Moon.

All of this might happen. What these stories suggest to me is that the big contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin who are building SLS and Orion, are pushing the new administration to give this rocket and capsule a mission, something it presently does not have. At the same time, the stories might also indicate some of Trump’s typical and very smart negotiation tactics. Unlike Obama, who never knew how to play the game, Trump appears to understand that if he is going to institute major changes in NASA’s future projects, he needs to get Congress to agree.

Rather than eliminate SLS and Orion right off the bat, as Obama tried to do when he unilaterally cancelled Constellation, Trump could offer the Moon to Congress as an interim goal for this giant rocket and capsule. This was what both were really designed for initially, as they are essentially modern copies of the Saturn 5 and the Apollo capsule. In exchange, Trump could then get Congress to place more emphasis on commercial space needs, getting the competing privately built capsules and new cargo vessels (Dragon, Starliner, and Dream Chaser) better funded and built faster. He could also propose that NASA encourage private companies to compete to design and build lunar orbiting facilities, ideas that both Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Orbital ATK have been pushing now for several years.

I should note that giving a lunar goal to SLS/Orion does not mean that the program will get bigger or last significantly longer. Congress could simply fund one or two more missions through 2024. By that time, the competing successes of private space will make it very clear that this boondoggle is not the way to go into the future. By then, the new commercial space industry will have also grown enough that Congress will have no problem letting this industry replace SLS/Orion, and will thus have less objections in letting that program die.

I must also emphasize that I am speculating here. It is probably a bit soon to predict what a Trump administration will do with NASA and space. The signs however are pointing in this direction.

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Trump puts Boeing and Lockheed Martin in competition!

6:30 pm

On Thursday President-elect Donald Trump said that, because of the high cost overruns in building Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter, he has asked Boeing to submit an offer to build their F-18 instead.

The point here is not that Trump is going to change contractors. The point is that he is making them both aware that he can change contractors. Also, his meetings earlier this week with the CEOs of both Boeing and Lockheed Martin does not mean he is going to do what they want. Trump’s pattern has repeatedly been to meet with people who are likely going to be his opponents to ease their minds, and then sideswipe them immediately afterward with plans that they would have opposed. His meetings with Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio to discuss climate change did nothing to prevent him from picking a slew of climate skeptics for every single one of the cabinet posts involved in climate policy, people that both Gore and DiCaprio oppose strongly

Getting back to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Trump’s actions in connection with their federal aviation contracts bodes well for commercial space. He is encouraging competition, a concept that the entire commercial space program is based on. I am willing to bet that when he finally begins setting NASA policy, he is going to demand SLS/Orion compete as well, or go by the wayside.

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Pressure on Trump to shift NASA transistion team towards private space

1:49 pm

The competition heats up: Several of Trump’s most listened-to advisers are trying to convince him to put more commercial space advocates on his NASA transition team.

The appointments, which are expected to be announced shortly, partly reflect Mr. Thiel’s influence, the people said. The billionaire investor, who is Mr. Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley supporter, is among more than two dozen people on the executive council overseeing the government-wide transition.

Along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican Congressman Robert Walker—two other champions of commercial space endeavors—Mr. Thiel has argued forcefully inside the transition that the original team sent to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was skewed toward appointees closely identified with legacy space projects run by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the people said.

This is good news. While my previous post, The squealing of pigs, focused on Trump’s environmental policy at NASA and elsewhere, his approach to commercial space remains unclear. These changes will help move his administration away from the pork of SLS and toward the competitive commercial space sector.

Let me add that this story reaffirms my belief that the best way to get Trump to shift to the right is to surround him with conservatives. Interestingly, it appears that Trump himself has chosen to do this. His first instincts might not be conservative, but he apparently is quite willing to take the advice of those who instincts are.

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