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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @06:06PM (1 child)
Yes, gov't is inefficient, but the alternatives have other problems. Letting people in a jam die is one approach. Obviously, dying is no fun. The private sector is usually more efficient, but also have an incentive to try to trick and trap consumers/users above making a better mouse-trap. The problem is that humans suck, not gov't specifically. Just be glad civilization mostly works: there's no guarantee it will keep working.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 24 2018, @04:12AM
And I guess we shrug at this point and just continue believing whatever because inertia?
The problem here isn't that humans and their things are imperfect, but rather that a bunch of people are completely ignoring rational sources of disagreement and then blaming dissenters when things don't work as perfectly as expected.
But why aren't the advocates for these programs insuring that any interference isn't so destructive? The "reds" can't operate in a vacuum. They are successful only because they aren't strongly opposed. And why aren't the naysayers just killing the supposedly problematic programs outright? That's the half-assed efforts right there.
Who really believes the people who have made the current political system such a slimy mess would make less of a mess, if they were even less supervised? Some accounting is just being sane. But what makes the current accounting so screwed up is that it keeps track of insignificant details like the disposition of screws and blows off huge details like how much the latest jet fighter costs.