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Politics
posted by janrinok on Friday April 20 2018, @07:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the when-politics-runs-science dept.

Oklahoma Representative James Bridenstine, a Navy Reserve pilot, was confirmed as NASA's 13th administrator on Thursday.

In a 50-49 vote Thursday, Oklahoma Representative James Bridenstine, a Navy Reserve pilot, was confirmed as NASA's 13th administrator, an agency that usually is kept away from partisanship. His three predecessors — two nominated by Republicans — were all approved unanimously. Before that, one NASA chief served under three presidents, two Republicans and a Democrat.

The two days of voting were as tense as a launch countdown.

A procedural vote Wednesday initially ended in a 49-49 tie — Vice President Mike Pence, who normally breaks a tie, was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida — before Arizona Republican Jeff Flake switched from opposition to support, using his vote as leverage to address an unrelated issue.

Thursday's vote included the drama of another delayed but approving vote by Flake, a last-minute no vote by Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth — who wheeled onto the floor with her 10-day-old baby in tow — and the possibility of a tie-breaker by Pence, who was back in town.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:23AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:23AM (#669924) Journal

    The frustration and anger is real. We like Trump, we chose him, and we want him to have his way. At this point, seriously, an awful lot of us would go for an "enabling act". We're pissed.

    And other people didn't choose him and don't want him to have his way. Welcome to democracy.

    The problem here is that Trump's administration is incompetent and he hasn't developed many political allies, which you need in order to get things done in Congress. I oppose altering law for the convenience of an incompetent leader.

    In the long term, whether you know it or not, you want this too. Things can go two directions. In one direction, we MAGA, and the USA doesn't really change that much. It gets to be a powerful country with a traditional American culture.

    I imagine there's a lot of US citizens who want MAGA. They just don't agree on what it is or how to get it. I think the Trump approach will fail, but he's free to prove me wrong.

    In the other direction, you don't let us MAGA, and the USA collapses like the Roman empire -- well, nothing is forever -- and a century later some sort of "caliphate" pretender runs a brutal 3rd-world islamofascist dictatorship.

    Nonsense. China would keep that from happening. They'll be the power of that time. Besides I think the problem ideologies of a century from now will bear little resemblance to the ideologies of today, among other things being heavily based on technology and infrastructure rather than raw belief. Islam could be a component of that, but it's unlikely IMHO.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:42PM (#670033)

    China would keep that from happening. They'll be the power of that time.

    No comment.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:15PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:15PM (#670042) Journal

      This is your vision of a bright future?

      Guess what buttercup? I didn't say the future would be absolutely perfect. In China's defense, they're already vastly better than they were thirty years ago, and not just in terms of economics.

      The hysteria over Islam is way misplaced. I think it's already on its way to being resolved with such things as the "Arab Spring" - it just takes time. I find it remarkable, for example, that someone can babble about a nonexistent global caliphate and completely ignore China.