Posts Made By: Brian McFarland

Jim Moscheck said:

The head of Russia’s space program says "I propose that the United States delivers its astronauts to the ISS with the help of a trampoline.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/13/russia-casts-doubt-on-us-future-with-iss-over-ukraine-sanctions/

Oh course, this really doesn't mean they will stop selling tickets to the ISS. Especially at $60 million a seat. But it does say they will stop supporting the ISS in 2020, the US wants to stay until 2024.

"He also suggested that Russia could use the station without cooperation from the U.S.

"The Russian segment can exist independently from the American one,� Rogozin said. “The U.S. one cannot.""

Isn't this reason enough to fast track the new crew capsule and launch system that NASA has in the works?

Oh, as this forum has a one track mind lately I'm sure it's all Obama's fault.

Louis Busby said:

It is clear that the climate establishment has become as narrowly intolerant as any department of gender studies on a college campus, and for much the same reason. The frenetic publicity campaigns of recent months—the hyped reports of imminent climate catastrophe and the serial exaggerations of the prognosis of the West Antarctic ice sheet, polar bear numbers, extreme weather events, and so forth—were designed to provide unstoppable momentum behind the Obama administration’s remarkable assertion of executive power unveiled on June 2: regulations aimed at putting coal-fired electricity in the course of ultimate extinction in the United States.

Link to the The Weekly Standard article. Pretty much captures my position on the subject.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/climate-cultists_794401.html

Jim Brown said:

All of Richard Davis's forum posts are gone... This reminds me of the old days! Anyone know what happened?

Jim

Jim Brown said:

Colorado environmentalists (me included) have opposed famed artist Christo's plan to drape fabric over the Arkansas River in Bighorn Sheep Canyon for more than a decade. Numerous Court cases have been litigated, with "Big Art" pretty much stomping the local environmentalists into the ground. But wait - Christo has decided to abandon the project, now that Trump is president. He has apparently lost his mojo in view of the disappointing election results.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/arts/design/christo-protest-donald-trump-colorado-artwork.html?_r=1

Not surprisingly, the New York Times focuses on this as a big "protest" statement made by an influential artist. they completely overlook that fact that Christo's decision is manna from Heaven to those of us who love Colorado and the Arkansas. I don't believe that the NYT identifies the opposition to Christo's project as being spearheaded by environmental activists at all.

How ironic that Trump's election hands our local environmental activists a huge win. How unsurprising that the NYT buries this aspect of the story.

Jim

Jim Brown said:

Glance at these headlines and compare it to reality. Trump appears to simply "own" the activist/blogger elites. These pundits would have known, assuming they had an ounce of intelligence, that Trump has certainly, indisputably, been a longer-term supporter LBGQT rights than Clinton, Obama or Warren.

Paranoid Headlines:

https://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/prepare-fight-donald-trump-preparing-sweeping-anti-lgbt-executive-order/1274/

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/possible-trump-executive-order-could-allow-fed-employees-to-refuse-service-to-lgbt-people-report-says/

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/01/sources-report-trump-executive-order-lgbtq-community-coming-soon/

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2017/01/30/trump-endorse-anti-lgbt-bias-new-exec-order-report/

Reality:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/obama-trump-protections-lgbt-workers.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/lgbt-protections-trump-continues-obama-policy-federal-workers/


"President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community," the White House said in a statement. "The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact."

"Donald Trump campaigned promising to be a 'real friend' to the LGBT community, and now President Trump is delivering on that commitment," said Gregory Angelo, president of the Republican LGBT advocacy group. "Log Cabin Republicans is proud to have directly lobbied for this important preservation of LGBT equality in the federal workforce."

It is amazing how irrational discourse has become.

Jim

Jim Brown said:

Politico ran an article this morning about the reaction to Trump's speech. The initial premise is that Trump behaving presidentially might change the electoral landscape in 2018. I thought the article was reasonably balanced, especially for Politico, with quotes for D and R political operatives.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-speech-congress-midterms-235589

Obviously the D's are freaking out, and they should be - if Trump and the R Congress are successful in governing notwithstanding the blind and furious obstructionism mandated by the lefty-base, the Ds are facing a short term existential crisis. Alternatively, if the Ds work with Trump to forward what are some fairly liberal aspects of his agenda, they'll lose the support of the press and those lefty activists and again face at least a short term existential crisis. Either way, the D's are in trouble unless Trump fails spectacularly, and during the speech Tuesday night he did not look like a president who was going to fail spectacularly. No wonder the Ds are freaking out.

Anyway, all of the above is not why I am making this post...

The Democratic Party Chair in Nevada, Ms. Roberta Lange, is quoted at the end of the Politico piece as follows:

[COLOR="Blue"]"Every day in our newspapers there are at least two editorials supporting the Affordable Care Act. He could do all these things to try to get to people's emotions like he did last night, and people forget the reality," said Lange. "But he's a businessman. Businessmen say things people like to hear." [/COLOR]

(Emphasis mine)

I love the use of "our" to describe the newspapers. No doubt she would argue that she is using "our" as in "We the People" but seriously, us voters know that she means "our" to mean the "Democratic Party's" newspapers. In other words, most all of them.

I especially love the completely tone-deaf last line. No Roberta, it is politicians, not business people who exist merely' "to say things people like to hear." this "greedy lying businessman" vs. "noble politician" snobbery is so 1904. It is concisely representative of the elitist views that cost the Democrats control of every aspect of government over 8 short years. They simply don't get it.

Jim

James Lacey said:

The official narrative is that Comey bungled the HRC email server investigation and that he was routinely overstepping his role as an investigator. Besides the official reason, we have Trump's tweets and quotes that offer a different rationale for the firing, mainly that he was upset about the ongoing investigation into collusion between Russia and his campaign. As time goes by, the narrative is shifting, and now evidence is emerging that not only was Trump upset about the investigation, he was also frustrated that he could not recruit Comey and get him to pledge loyalty to the Trump team. It's impossible for us to know what happened of course exactly, but I do think that the overall account available to us points to an incredibly inept administration that had no knowledge of or respect for an independent law enforcement function. When you couple this haplessly incompetent behavior with Trump's lack of adroitness, it's no wonder this administration just can't seem to keep from careening and bouncing from one botched performance to the next. At this rate, they will never get any agenda going since they will be too busy dealing with all of Trump's self-inflicted and unexpected problems.

118 days of winning and counting!

Greg Shaffer said:

Smart like a fox.....How better to insure your enemies stay honest than to imply that there may be recordings of your conversation? So Trump has now stated there are no Comey tapes after implying there may have been......

Thus "I hope" stayed "I hope" instead of becoming "drop it" during the Comey testimony......LOL

Originally Posted by James Brown

By the way, I can't tell if your metaphor is about Flynn specifically or FBI conduct in general?  I've agreed with you that Flynn is guilty from the get go, and even made that point expressly to Richard a couple of times yesterday.  I'm having a hard time believing that you think police misconduct is acceptable, just because the perp happens to be guilty, but that is what it sounds like you are saying.  

J