Category Archives: Law

The Space Frontier Act

It passed the Senate. I like the name, but the Lefties will hate it. I’m glad that the Office of Space Commerce is no longer under NOAA (I had discussed that issue with Jason Kim at lunch during the Galloway Symposium a couple weeks ago), and I don’t think we have to assign regulatory authority to it yet. Before we do that, we need to understand very clearly exactly what orbital activities are being regulated. Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether it will get through the House before the session ends.

[Update late morning]

Apparently the House is voting for it today, under suspended rules (they’ve pre-reconciled with the Senate), so it looks like it will go through as is.

Carter Page

Ten pieces of evidence he’s the most diabolical Russian spy evar:

As of now, Carter Page hasn’t been charged with so much as lying to the FBI or filing a faulty tax return, let alone Russian spying. He endured the most intrusive, intimidating methods the government has at its disposal. He was the subject of media leaks. His reputation was destroyed. If he’s never charged with being a Russian spy, he’s either that slippery … or it would suggest that the top intelligence officials who targeted him were either incompetent or corrupt. It would seem to border on criminal.

I don’t think it “borders” on criminal.

[Update a few minutes later]

The results of the second interview of the corrupt James Comey. I’ve never seen such a disgusting display of arrogant sanctimony. And no, “Republicans” did not pay for the dossier. They initially hired Fusion GPS, but it was the Clinton campaign who paid for the dossier itself. I wonder if Comey really doesn’t know that?

[Noon update]

More thoughts from Neo-Neocon:

Here Comey is repeating MSM and Democratic talking points about Fusion which have been shown to be untrue. Republicans had zero to do with the funding of the dossier, as Comey either knows or should know if he’s at all competent. What he probably does know, however, is that Republican involvement is the fiction the MSM was pushing and that many many Americans probably believe that to be the case, so Comey’s answer will appear to make some sense to those people even though it is based on a falsity.

Comey’s lack of specific interest in who funded the dossier (if he really didn’t know and didn’t ask, which may or may not be the case) would have come from his need to get that investigation going and to use the dossier to jumpstart it no matter what. Why question its provenance if you’re already dedicated to using it despite the fact that Trump’s enemies paid for it, which should have made it highly suspect as a source?

Of course, it turns out that Trump’s oppponent’s campaign funded it, which if anything would make it even more suspect than if other Trump enemies had funded it. But to Comey, all of that was irrelevant (or at least he’d like us to think it was irrelevant). In his previous career, had he really lacked curiosity to that degree? I doubt it very much. But he’s a clever enough lawyer to use it as an excuse now. He’d prefer that we think him a fool rather than a knave, if he has the choice of shaping our opinion.

I say “knave.” The man is no fool, not by a longshot.

Knave indeed.

Gun Control

A statistician changes her mind after actually looking at the data:

“A reduction in gun deaths is most likely to come from finding smaller chances for victories and expanding those solutions as much as possible,” Libresco concludes. “We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.”

Libresco says she still does not endorse gun ownership, “but I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them.”

What a concept.