Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Latest Idiocy At NASA

4 Comments

Loren Grush has the story on the cancellation of the lunar Resource Prospector:

Metzger can only speculate as to why the mission was moved. “I don’t really know what the motive was, but I’m guessing it was probably budget related,” he says. NASA’s human exploration program is currently working on a giant new rocket, the Space Launch System, which takes up a sizable portion of the annual human exploration budget. It’s also behind schedule, so it’s possible Resource Prospector was moved to the science directorate to free up funds to prevent further delays.

[Update late morning]

Does Bridenstine know this is happening?

[Noon update]

FWIW, here’s what Mary Lynne Dittmar has to say:

[Afternoon update]

This is good news.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Comey And McCabe

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The media hasn’t been reporting much on the initial release from Horowitz, but it looks like some potential bombshells in here for the Democrats.

[Update a while later]

More from Andy McCarthy.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And it wasn’t Comey’s decision to exonerate Hillary; it was Obama’s:

Bottom line: In April, President Obama and his Justice Department adopted a Hillary Clinton defense strategy of concocting a crime no one was claiming Clinton had committed: to wit, transmitting classified information with an intent to harm the United States. With media-Democrat complex help, they peddled the narrative that she could not be convicted absent this “malicious intent,” in a desperate effort to make the publicly known evidence seem weak. Meanwhile, they quietly hamstrung FBI case investigators in order to frustrate the evidence-gathering process. When damning proof nevertheless mounted, the Obama administration dismissed the whole debacle by rewriting the statute (to impose an imaginary intent standard) and by offering absurd rationalizations for not applying the statute as written.

[Update a couple more minutes later]

More thoughts from (still Democrat, as far as I know) Jonathan Turley.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Jack Goldsmith on the Deep State. It also seems relevant to this post.

[Friday-morning update]

Is Comey lying about his memos?

Probably.

In the future, I’m going to take encomia and praise of the “integrity” and probity of these Beltway denizens from other Beltway denizens with a truckload of salt.

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

Donald Trump and the star chamber of horrors:

As the past year-plus of Robert Mueller’s tedious investigation has proven, there is no very great crime behind Trump’s very great fortune of having been elected the 45th president of the United States. The entire notion of Russian “collusion” (not in itself actionable in the first place) was cooked up in the witches’ cauldron that was Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The resulting brew was liberally dispensed to the cadres of media operatives pretending to be dispassionate reporters in order to assuage the failed candidate’s rage over losing what she thought—what she was assured by her friends at the CIA and the FBI—was a fixed fight.

And so the Big Lie—that Trump had collaborated with Vladimir Putin to change the course of an American election—was born.

There was and is nothing to it, of course. But that hasn’t stopped the Democrats, whose sterling moral history of slavery, segregation, secularism, and sedition has prepared them for just this moment.

Don’t hold back, Michael, tell them what you really think.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Comey makes surprising new claims in a disastrous Fox News interview.

Business, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Bridenstine Era Begins

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A report on yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony from Marcia Smith. And another from Eric Berger. He seems to be off to a good start. I think he’ll be one of the best administrators NASA has had. He’ll certainly be refreshing after Charlie “Muslim Outreach” Bolden (Note: That was never actually a thing, but his idiotic interview with Al Jazeera made it hard to defend otherwise good space policy from the Obama administration).

[Update a while later]

Thoughts from Newt Gingrich, including some mild SLS bashing.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Web And Social Media

20 Comments

I’ve never abandoned this blog, but I have been posting to it a lot less, for a number of reasons (less time, other outlets). I didn’t move to Facebook, but I do spend a lot more time on Twitter.

John Hinderaker says it was a mistake for conservatives to move from the web to social media. Glenn has also noted recently that the old days of blogging were a lot more free wheeling, with less ability of the left to control it. Anyway, I’ll try to do more here.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Gorsuch And The Administrative State

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Along with the “liberals” on the court, he just struck a blow against it. As Will says, it would be nice to see the conservative justices see the light. But I suspect many conservatives will rail against him, calling him a “liberal,” “soft on crime and illegal aliens.”

[Update a while later]

This seems related: The SEC’s administrative judge scandal. I’d love to see this sort of thing struck down as unconstitutional. Same with the IRS tax court.

Business, Law, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The New Commercial Space Bill

1 Comment

Brian Weedon analyzes it, on Twitter.

It looks like a significant improvement over the current situation. It’s worth noting that in moving regulation to the Commerce Department, it could set the groundwork for a U.S. Space Guard. There have been times in history in which the Coast Guard was under Commerce.

[Late-morning update]

The Bridenstine era at NASA (finally) begins.

I think he’ll be one of the best administrators in recent history. I should add that Rubio’s (and others’, like Bill Nelson’s) statement that NASA should be run by a “space professional” are historically ignorant. Jim Webb was not a “space professional.”