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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Didn't NASA also have some down-to-Earth research that Trump shut down because it highlighted climate change?
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Carmine at the Beach
Surrounded by weirdoes
Given recent events, don't raise hopes until you see the guy walking out in cuffs.
Wake me up at your own risk.
I can't read it right now, but does the article describe the SD legislature breakdown? I know it's a a red state but if the guy's getting impeached to begin with it may not be so cut and dry
Figure of Hourai
It was a bipartisan effort to start with.
Avatar Source
It sounds just awful CBS News
Ravnsborg appeared unsure of many details in the crash, but investigators told him Boever's glasses had been found in the attorney general's Ford Taurus and bone scrapings were found on the highway shoulder. As investigators described how his car swerved onto the shoulder and struck Boever, causing major damage to the car hood and windshield, Ravnsborg appears distressed.
Per Wikipedia, the South Dakota Senate is 32R-3D, and its House is 62R-8D. You're going to need a lot of Republicans for impeachment.
Edited by nova92 on Feb 24th 2021 at 11:06:34 AM
Low my expectations may be, I don't see Republicans deciding that provable manslaughter is a hill they want to die on. Especially if they kick in out he'll be replaced by another Republican.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
I'll believe the Republicans voting to convict when I see it.
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This is the best position for any context.
@Fighteer:
Do you have a source for this handy?
They’ve already decided that provable insurrection is the hill they want to die on. This is NOTHING compared to that.
Well, I know who Dear Leader Donald J. Trump is. Mr. Attorney General of South Dakota, you are no Dear Leader Donald J. Trump.
I think his chances to get away are lower.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Like I said, the possibility that he's facing impeachment in such a red environment at all is something.
Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 24th 2021 at 1:27:04 AM
This is also on the heels of the Governor (also a Republican) requesting his resignation. Still a shame that he didn't get hit with a more serious charge, but that's likely because the cops can't disprove his claim that he didn't know he'd hit a person.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
The major difference here is that the democrats gain nothing from this and the Republicans will just seat another Republican. They have nothing at all to gain by backing him and nothing to lose impeaching him.
That Guy
Not to mention impeaching him would actually probably get brownie points from their voters.
Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
Its a very open and shut case with no wiggle room to defend beyond "Maybe he didn't know he hit someone".
Exactly, there seems to be no political capital involved with it.
No political capital except once again proving the law doesn’t apply to Republicans.
So I stand by what I said that, unless and until he actually goes to jail, I think they’ll acquit just to own the libs.
Lost in Space
~Ramidel: The figure comes from a NASA study (pdf) dated August 2020. There are a lot of numbers in it but the relevant passage is here:
The quoted multiplier there is 7 (labor) and 7.7 (output) but I've heard other values informally. Presumably this depends on the time period that it's assessed over.
The "procurement spending" clause makes me think that this isn't quite the same as a true multiplier, since it's using the total NASA budget as a numerator and the NASA civil service budget as a denominator.
However, the report does state that the total amount of employment sustained by NASA is 312,630 jobs and the total economic output is $64.3 billion. If you estimate NASA's budget to be $25 billion that's a raw multiplier of about 2.5.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 24th 2021 at 6:54:12 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Okay, so by the looks of it, it's slightly less raw multiplier than infrastructure, but with hard-to-quantify technological benefits. Thanks.
Lost in Space
~Medinoc: To answer your question, the Trump White House kept trying to eliminate NASA's Earth science budget as well as its STEM outreach budget but Congress kept putting them back. Of course, Congress has also seriously underfunded the Human Landing System program that is crucial to getting Artemis to land on the Moon. HLS is commercially contracted, so the Senate isn't interested in giving it money. The lobbyists want those contracts canceled and one of the Big Three (Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop) to be assigned instead.
If that happens (difficult since HLS now enjoys some pretty strong publicity with its three competitors), we probably won't set boots on the Moon until 2030.
It is difficult to understate just how much Congress hates commercial space contracting. It's one of the constant struggles between NASA and the rest of the government. The engineers who actually build and operate things love their private partnerships and see huge benefits from letting companies do the grunt work, letting them concentrate on the scientific aspects of the missions. But the lobbyists and Members of Congress are deeply in bed with each other and, as I've said before, view NASA through the lens of "jobs for my state/district" far more than they do through the lens of scientific and cultural value.
If there's one and only one thing that I can unquestionably and enthusiastically give credit to Jim Bridenstine for, it's marketing NASA to the public: getting people excited about what it's doing and engaged in these projects; communicating the value of public-private partnerships; and giving due credit to the people who do the real work.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 24th 2021 at 7:13:52 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Biden just announced 3 nominees to the Post Office Board of Governors.
Combined with the 2 token democrats that were appointed under Trump, that actually gives the Democrats a majority on the board. That might be just barely enough to oust Dejoy and get someone who wants the Post Office to function in charge.
While I do agree that it firing at least part of the board of governors is an option that should be considered, it's still a bit of a nuclear option and it's preferable if we can get rid of Dejoy without going that far. Heck, simply considering it might be enough to swing one or two board members against Dejoy since they might (probably correctly) figure that Biden will be less interested in perusing more extreme options if the end goal is already achieved.
Lost in Space
Getting DeJoy out of that office is one of the most important things Biden can do for the government.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
He was deeply involved in space policy as a Senator, mainly in forcing the Obama administration to compromise in 2010 over the cancellation of the Constellation program. This gave us the Commercial Crew Program that spectacularly delivered astronauts to the ISS last year for the first time since the Shuttle program ended, but was chronically underfunded for a large period thanks in large part to Sen. Nelson.
It also gave us SLS, the giant orange boondoggle that's gone 10 years and $20 billion without leaving the ground, although that may happen in 2022.
Nelson did fly on the Space Shuttle once as a "payload specialist". He effectively bullied his way into that position on patronage and had the nickname "Ballast" during the mission because he wasn't allowed to touch any of the payloads.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"