A collection.
Well, someone had to do it — certainly the MSM wasn’t going to. They only do that to Republicans.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
The Legal Problems Of Space Junk
Some thoughts from space law professor Glenn Reynolds.
Cash For Clunkers
…is already broke, after less than a week. It was supposed to have enough money to last through October.
Yeah, let’s put these people in charge of health care.
I’m One, And Didn’t Know It
John Bossard coins a useful concept: Exvironmentalism:
…whereas Environmentalism is focused on conservation and improvement of the environment of the Earth, Exvironmentalism seeks to turn the focus outwards, so that the ideas of conservation, and improvements of terrestrial environments are part of much broader and more inclusive notions regarding life not just on Earth, but also of life in our solar system, and out into the Cosmos.
I think that there is another important distinction between Exvironmentalism and Environmentalism. I believe that Exvironmentalism should see human beings as part of the solution, as opposed to being part of the problem. Humans can and must play an important role in enabling the growth of living creatures, plant, animal, and other, in the otherwise sterile exvironments of the cosmos. As such, human life has intrinsic value and worth, like all living and sentient creatures, and therefore is also worthy of respect and should be valued.
Just the opposite of the misanthropic Deep Eeks. I like the logo, too.
He Still Doesn’t Get It
Mike Griffin tried to defend (pathetically) the status quo before the Augustine panel. Vision Restoration shreds the attempt, fisking it beyond recognition:
Did Dr. Griffin give advice that attempts to expedite a new U.S. capability to support use of the ISS? No, he chose to defend the current Constellation situation. By definition, the current situation cannot deliver a capability faster than itself. In fact, he attacked an approach that might achieve this HSF objective. Did he give advice on fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration? No, he actually asked for more money. Did he suggest ways to stimulate commercial spaceflight? In fact he launched an attach on one promising area of commercial spaceflight. Did he suggest ways to make human spaceflight activities more productive through robotic activities or research and development? No. Did he give insight into how to extend ISS support beyond 2016? No. Did he describe a role for a mutually beneficial sort of international participation in exploration? No. Did he have a plan that is more safe, innovative, sustainable, and affordable than the current one? No.
In fact, the only HSF objective that Dr. Griffin addressed is “missions to the Moon and beyond”. Recent suggestions that the Constellation approach will cost incredible amounts of money to develop, incredible amounts of money per mission to operate, and perhaps will not be ready for lunar missions until 2028 or 2035 do not make the Constellation approach without modifications seem attractive even for that particular objective.
Having described some of what Dr. Griffin did not write, it seems fair to evaluate some of what he did write…
There’s a lot more. I think that most on the panel are too smart to fall for Dr. Griffin’s nonsense.
If I Forget Thee
Jerusalem. Next thing I expect they’ll have one of those maps of “Palestine,” that doesn’t include Israel, on the State Department web site. And then there’s this:
Robinson’s record is well known to most Jews with even a passing familiarity with the Jewish media. It cannot be a surprise that honoring Robinson in this way would be anathema to the Jewish community. In addition, I know from having worked in the White House that these selections go through extremely careful vetting of public and non-public databases to make sure that they would not embarrass the president in any way. The staff secretary’s office, which clears all paperwork that goes to the president, would also make sure that all of the relevant offices sign off on important selections before they happen. The two most important sign offs on something like the Medal of Freedom would be the chief of staff’s office, now headed by Rahm Emanuel, and the senior advisor’s office, now run by David Axelrod. For the Obama White House to have made this selection could mean one of only two possibilities: that they did not vet and clear the candidates, which suggests a level of incompetence beyond even missing tax evasions by cabinet nominees. Uncaught tax evasion does not come up on Google; Robinson’s record does. The other, more likely, possibility is that they knew and did not care.
It’s almost like they’re on the other side. And American Jews continue to play the sucker.
[Update a few minuts later]
But wait! There’s more:
Israel has a less favorable view of the United States now than it did in 2007 — by 6 points. Aren’t you glad we’ve appeased places like Syria and Venezuela and Cuba and Burma, though?
But a few other interesting data points come from the Pew survey as well: The Palestinian territories — run by Hamas and Fatah — do have a better opinion of the United States. So our chief ally in the Middle East is more nervous, and Yasser Arafat’s legatees are more happy.
But now get this from the survey: There is little evidence that support for suicide bombing in the Muslim world has decreased.
You don’t say.
The Unseen Costs
…of the minimum wage:
Several years ago, the city council of Santa Monica, Calif., decided to make the town a workers’ paradise by passing a union-backed law requiring everyone to be paid at least $12.25 an hour.
At the time, restaurant owner Jeff King complained to me that that law would “dry up the entry-level jobs for just the people they’re trying to help.”
He was right. It’s why gas stations no longer hire teenagers to wash your windshield. Wage minimums tell employers: “Don’t give a beginner a chance.”
Such losses are hard to see, but they are widespread. One company closes because it can’t afford to pay higher wages. Another decides to produce its product with fewer workers, and another never expands. Perhaps most importantly, there’s the business that never opens. The people who were never hired don’t complain—they wouldn’t know whom to blame—they don’t even know that they were harmed. They are the unseen victims.
And many of them are black, and the people that the economic ignorami, including the African-American one in the White House, falsely purport to be helping.
The President’s “Science” Advisor
The more we learn about John Holdren, the more of a whack job he seems to be:
Holdren’s harebrained endorsement of the arboreal legal rights comes on the heels of learning he had previously advocated:
Laws requiring the abortion or adoption of illegitimate children; sterilizing women after having two children; legally requiring “reproductive responsibility” to those deemed by pointy-headed eugenicists to “contribute to general social deterioration”; and incredibly, putting sterilizing agents in the drinking water.
All this in the name of dealing with an impending overpopulation crisis that never materialized. When the news broke about Holdren’s troubling views, I thought it was particularly telling that despite the fact that Holdren thinks that Dr. Strangelove is a how-to manual, the New York Times ignored the revelations about Holdren’s past writings.
But as Mark Hemingway points out, at least he’s not a Christian.
More “Acting Stupidly” By White People
Obama administration political operatives overruled DoJ career professionals in the decision to not prosecute Black Panther voting intimidators. I guess that means that it would be OK for KKK members in hoods to hang around voting places with guns, too. Right?
[Friday morning update, with a bump]
More thoughts from Andrew McCarthy:
Republicans…are pressing for details about internal DOJ deliberations on the case, particularly the role played by Obama political appointees in the dismissal. Holder, Mr. Transparency, is naturally stonewalling. Obviously, the enforcement of the civil rights laws is not as important as the discretionary firing of U.S. attorneys (regarding which congressional Democrats demanded, and got, reams of DOJ documents and testimony). Nor is transparent law-enforcement as critical as the top-secret prisoner photos that Holder wanted disclosed to the world despite warnings from military and intel officials that disclosure would endanger our troops.
Seper recaps the sordid facts: “Two NBPP members, wearing black berets, black combat boots, black dress shirts and black jackets with military-style markings, were charged with intimidating voters, including brandishing a nightstick and issuing racial threats and racial insults. A third was accused of managing, directing and endorsing their behavior. The incident was captured on videotape…. Witnesses said [Minister King] Samir Shabazz, armed with the nightstick, and [Jerry] Jackson used racial slurs and made threats as they stood at the door of the polling place.”
I’m sure you’ll be stunned to learn that the sweetheart settlement Holder’s Department gave these defendants does not require them to refrain from election activities. So of course Jackson, the alleged menacing racist who is also — surprise! — a Democrat Party operative, is right back in business again…
Change! But not much hope.
[Update mid morning]
Clarice Feldman has more:
The attorney general who engaged in this inexplicable act was appointed by President Barack Obama, who was sold to the voters as a post-racial figure and a constitutional law scholar.
In 2004, the misnamed left-wing outfit People for the American Way (PFAW) put forth a report entitled “The Shadow of Jim Crow,” which risibly confused efforts to prevent obvious voter fraud with intimidation and suppression. It concluded on this pot-banging note:
Robbing voters of their right to vote and to have their vote counted undermines the very foundations of our democratic society. Politicians, political strategists, and party officials who may consider voter intimidation and suppression efforts as part of their tactical arsenal should prepare to be exposed and prosecuted. State and federal officials, including Justice Department and national political party officials, should publicly repudiate such tactics and make clear that those who engage in them will face severe punishment.
So when I read this story from the Washington Times yesterday, I checked to see if PFAW had anything about it at all. I could find not one word.
Maybe PFAW missed the story, so I checked the NAACP website. I didn’t see a single thing criticizing the politicization of the Department of Justice in a way which undermines every citizen’s right to fair and free elections without intimidation.
Shocking. But expect commenter “Jim” to continue to shill and lie for this fascist and his (now) state-sanctioned black shirts. It’s what he does.
And she has a suggestion:
Perhaps in honor of the cop Obama unfairly maligned we ought to call this kind of racial discrimination “Jim Crowley.”
I like it.
[Update a few minutes later]
And more, from Heritage:
The Department’s spokeswoman says that “the facts and the law did not support pursuing the claims.” Really? Then why is the Department refusing to allow the trial team who actually investigated the “facts and the law” or the chief of the Voting Section who supervised the investigation to brief members of Congress? We all know why – because those lawyers would dispute the spurious claim being made by their political superiors.
Justice even sent a letter to Cong. Lamar Smith claiming that one of the defendants was dismissed because he was a resident of the building in which the polling place was located, a “fact” that is completely false. The Department’s own pleadings publicly filed in court in Philadelphia, as well as a poll watcher certificate issued to the defendant by the Democratic Party, show that that this defendant did not live at the polling place (a senior living center). This basic factual error shows just how unimportant the real facts were to those dismissing the case. And that defendant, whose MySpace page lists one of his general interests as “Killing Crakkkas,” was dismissed just in time to be reappointed as a poll watcher for the May 19 primary in Philadelphia!
When the facts don’t fit the narrative, the facts have to be ignored.
Not A Jobs Program?
A couple months ago, I offered some advice to the Augustine panel:
Ignore the politics
Yes, of course Senator Shelby (R-AL) is going to want to see a new vehicle developed in Huntsville, Alabama, and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) is going to want to ensure the maintenance of jobs at the Cape, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and various Houston-area congressmen are going to want to maintain jobs at Johnson Space Center. That will take priority in their minds over actual accomplishments in space.
But your job is to tell the policymakers how to give the taxpayers the best value for their money — and how to maximize our space-faring capabilities as soon as possible, so that if we do see something coming at us or find riches off the planet, we can take advantage of it.
Think of yourself like a Base Closing and Realignment Commission that provides recommendations for the nation as a whole, not local interests. Let the politicians argue about how to preserve jobs (while ignoring all of the jobs and wealth not being created due to the opportunity costs of their parochial decisions).
I don’t know whether he read it or not, but he seems to be following it:
A presidential space panel on Thursday challenged NASA’s vision of establishing a base on the moon and instead weighed other ambitious options that include free-ranging spaceships that could visit destinations throughout the inner solar system.
Noticeably absent, however, was discussion of NASA’s work force — despite a packed hotel ballroom filled with dozens of Kennedy Space Center workers worried about pink slips.
“We’re not designing any option with the idea in mind of preserving or not preserving the work force,” said Norm Augustine, the retired Lockheed Martin CEO who leads the 10-member panel named by the White House to evaluate NASA’s human spaceflight program.
…But even testimony from Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp did little to steer the conversation in that direction. He warned that Florida faces an “economic shock wave” during the time between the shuttle’s retirement and the first launch of its problem-plagued successor, which may not be ready until 2019.
“Due to the impending gap, Florida is bracing for a hardship — the magnitude of which the state has not seen for decades,” said Kottkamp, who estimated that the 7,000 job losses at KSC could ripple into 20,000 more unemployed workers on the Space Coast.
Defense has the same political problems, of course, with the fight in Congress to keep the F-22 funded being the latest example, and one in which the arguments are explicitly made that they have to do so to preserve jobs, with whether or not it actually helps us defend the country a second-tier issue at best. It’s even harder to fight this pork mentality when it comes to something as unimportant as space exploration and development, so we’ll see how long Augustine’s attitude remains once the politicians get involved. But I’m glad that we will at least make clear the difference between a program designed to explore and develop space, and one designed to make work for the politically connected.