The Drone Ranger.........

Somebody at woek had copies of this spoof plastered all over the breakroom and we being a cynical jaded lot thought it was great!  Here is the picture courtesy of MAD magazine.


    

    

Impeachment possibilities and Monday Music

I still an seeing on the blogosphere that there is a lot of people that want to see Obama and his minions impeached.  From what I am seeing on the news...Eric Holder may be the first one to get picked off.  Mr Holder D.O.J have a lot of things going on from "Operation fast and Furious" to failure to prosecute the black panthers voter intimidation case from 2008 to visiting the AP and getting a bunch of phone records from the reporters and The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.
The new details are revealed in a court filing detailing a back and forth between the Justice Department and the federal judges who oversaw the request to search a Gmail account belonging to Rosen, a reporter for Fox News.
The new details show U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Fox News reporter James Rosen. Justice wanted to secretly monitor Rosen’s Gmail account.
Machen, through a separate court order, also successfully stopped Google from telling Rosen that the government was spying on his e-mail account. Machen demanded to see all of Rosen’s e-mail records, including his deleted messages, e-mails in his trash folder and all attachments sent to and from the reporter.

The government successfully argued to keep the search warrant under seal for 18 months before making it public in November, 2011.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department said on Friday that senior officials including Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search an email account belonging to a Fox News reporter whose story on North Korea prompted a leak investigation.  The D.O.J lied  mislead to a judge to get the wiretap warrent and search warrent to Rosen.  This is a continuing scandal that will continue to stir problems for the Obama Administration.  Also We still have Bengazi in the news, this will hurt Hillery in 2016, from what I have seen and read, the Clintons have no love for Obama and crew who ripped her off on the democrat nominations for president in 2008 relating to her delegates.  She may wind up taking the fall on account of Bengazi.  Only time will tell.
    We also have the IRS scandal continuing to cause more headaches for the Obama administration, there are democrat and republicans talking about a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS targeting conservative groups.   If a special prosecutor is appointed, he will have the authority to dig much farther and this will cause a major embarrassment for the Obama whitehouse.  I believe that this goes all the way to the top.  This is Chicago politics writ large.  Obama is doing the same thing he did when first started his political career.  Dig up all the dirt on your opponents and use your friends to make things difficult for your enemies. 
    There may be a unanticipated factor in all this.  You know that if Obama steps down because of all the scandals...guess who will take over.  Vice President Biden.  I am positive that Biden is out of the loop, he is a loose cannon and cannot keep his mouth shut.  I belive that he was excluded on account of his "open mouth first and insert foot then think about what he said".  Imagine President Biden.....Now that is scary.

    On a different note, we will have our Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower.  I thought about this when my job went away at Ford motor company.

"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100,^[1] spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.

    
The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure.^[1] Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^{[citation needed]}
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
    
When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.
Truly, though as he was struggling for a title for the song(who knows). I met Billy in a bar in Washington D.C. called the "Crazy Horse". I was sitting at the bar and this guy next to me asked me for a cigarette. I said "sure", he said "thanks, I'll dedicate my next album to you". I said, "what, are you a star or something?" He said, "kinda". I asked him, what's your name, he said "Billy" (and I began thinking of who was named Billy that was a star).
The night went on, he was enticed with the waitress at the bar (this is before C.B.) and wrote her a note on a napkin (and signed it)(keep in mind we are still sitting next to each other). She threw the note the trash (discreetly).
So, were sitting there, having a good time, and it dawns on me, who he may be. I turn to him and asked "are you Billy Joel?" he says "don't let anyone know I'm in here". I say "OK" and we just kept sitting there and having a good time joking around and stuff. Anyway, later, he asks me if If I want to meet some of his friends who were with him and I said "OK". We strolled around the club and he introduced me to his brother and some football players that were accompanying him. That was all cool (wish I could have remembered all their names).
So were hanging out, walking around and talking and he asks me if I want to go to a party with all of them later on, I said that would be cool (or something like that). We shook hands and departed each others company. Well, that's kinda where the story ends as, we went our separate ways (around the club). Never hooked up with them (the entourage) again.
Although he didn't dedicate the album to me, I think the thought stuck in his head "I'll dedicate my next album to you". He did, my name is Allen Hinton and whether you believe it or not, it's my story................ ask Billy if it's true or not. I am Still alive and well Billy, Still alive and well, in North Carolina now my home.
Peace Billy, you've done well! Hope all is well with you, my friend. Hope all is well with you!
A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying the following:

Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here).

When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths:

This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar.

Reaction to song in Allentown

Allentown, Pennsylvania, for which the song is named, 2010

The song was met with mixed responses in Allentown. Some criticized the song as degrading and full of working-class archetypes.^[4] But when Joel returned to the area following the album's release and the song became a hit record, he was awarded the key to the city by Allentown's mayor, who praised it as "a gritty song about a gritty city."
Before a sold-out crowd at Stabler Arena in neighboring Bethlehem, People magazine reported that Joel was greeted enthusiastically with a five minute standing ovation as he closed his third encore with "Allentown." At the end of the song and extended ovation, Joel was greeted with even more sustained applause when, in an apparent defense of the song's meaning, he pointedly told the Allentown crowd, as is his wont at the end of every one of his concerts: "Don't take any shit from anybody."^[5]

Music video

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original airing of the video featured partial male nudity in the opening of the song as steelworkers showered in their locker-room, but this scene was edited from subsequent airings on MTV.
    

I pulled this off Rush's website.  It pertains to the other posts that I have posted(pardon the pun) in the past week.  I have heard the people from the I.R.S. say " it was low level operatives" that did it.  Well that was crap.  It was sanctioned by the upper staff and management of the agency.  Between the union offering their support and the upper management backing the play, it was open season on the TEA PARTY and other groups.  Really...Do you know a  bureaucrat that would stick their neck out?  Not a chance..being a bureaucrat. they learn to blend in, not make waves...Don't do more than anybody else...Unless it was sanctioned and encouraged.  Let this continue, lets keep digging.  The article is from Rush, The cartoons are from me.

The IRS Suppressed the Romney Vote

May 24, 2013

Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If you're just really hankering to write some e-mails to people about your true thoughts of the IRS, this is the day to do it.  They're furloughed.  This is May 24th, the IRS is furloughed today because of the sequester, and then of course Monday is Memorial Day, they're not working.  You might have an entire weekend where you can unload. Plus Lois Lerner, in the, whatever it was, three or four years, it's now scrolled out of my vision, Lois Lerner was paid something like $780,000 over four years, or three years, where she was engaged in all of this activity that was aimed at denying tax-exempt status to Tea Party groups.  Salary and bonus.  She was earning more than members of Congress.  She was earning more than some senators, some committee chairmen.
And now she's been placed on administrative leave.  Do you know what that means?  Paid vacation.  Not paid leave.  Paid vacation.  Lois Lerner.  So the IRS, it's the first day of the Memorial Day weekend, and everything's pretty much changed its vibe.  There isn't a whole lot of going on.  Everybody psychologically, mentally, already is engaged in the long weekend.  Look, Lois Lerner from 2009 to 2012 earned about $780,000.  That was for a job well done.  Paid more than $740,000 between 2009 and 2012, which is the period that the IRS was targeting the Tea Party.  Her salary, therefore, averaged more than $185,000 a year, which is higher than congressmen and senators.  On top of that, she received more than $42,000 in bonuses.

But if she helped Obama get reelected -- two days ago, three days ago, folks, I spent a lot of time -- by the way, I've now seen this reported in a number of places, and again, it's cutting edge stuff.  We've been talking for the longest time about the phenomena of the 2012 election.  Obama got millions fewer votes in 2012 than he did in '08, but so did Romney get many million fewer votes than did McCain.  And up until this IRS scandal hit, the analysis of Romney's low vote turnout centered on white voters.  There were supposedly four million white voters who just didn't show up.  And then people began to offer their theories, me included, as to why, based on that statistic.
And you remember the theories; they ran the gamut.  Well, a lot of these people were conservative and didn't like Romney, he wasn't conservative enough, and so they sat it out.  Another explanation was these people, they're the backbones of the country. They're the ones getting up and going to work every day. They're the ones losing their jobs. They're the ones that are trying hard to improve, play by the rules, and nobody's paying attention to them.  Everybody's focused on the illegals. Everybody's focused on gay marriage. Everybody's focused all these other things, "to hell with it," and they just stayed home.
Now we know it may have been all that, but there was also vote suppression. That's what this IRS scandal is, folks, voter suppression.  This election, the 2012 election honestly deserves an asterisk next to it.  Lois Lerner and the IRS made sure -- oh, and here's another thing.  It is still going on.  Don't think that it's ended.  Let's say you're a Tea Party group and you're applying for tax-exempt status.  You don't have to be denied in order to be discriminated against.  What if your application has been in for years and it's still open and you just haven't heard?  It's the equivalent of being denied.  You still can't get into action, you can't get you can't get into gear.
So this partisan attack on Tea Party and other conservative groups concerning tax-exempt status is still going on.  There are groups who have applications in, and they're just languishing, no action has been taken.  So the IRS doesn't have to flat-out deny you your status.  They can just delay the approval.  So you're sitting out there in limbo.  And that is continuing to happen.  And the upshot of it is that a lot of Tea Party money was never raised, and therefore was never spent on this campaign.  A lot of Tea Party enthusiasm was tamped down.  A lot of religious Tea Party groups never got into gear. They were never authorized to. They were never authorized to start.  They needed to be able to fund-raise in a tax-exempt way in order to get starts and they weren't.
There is no question about it now.  That's what this is all about.  There was a flat-out effort to suppress the conservative vote in this election while everybody was listening to the allegation that conservatives wanted to suppress the black vote or the gay vote, all the attention focused on photo ID, to be able to vote.  The Democrats, "That's racism. That's an effort to suppress the black vote."  You remember all during that campaign the Democrats worried about Republican vote fraud and suppressing the vote.  Well, where it really happened was the government, the IRS, another political arm of the Obama regime literally suppressing conservative voting, fundraising, and turnout.

You know, even I end up taking too much at face value.  The reason that I thought all of the pre-election polling in 2012 was wrong was 'cause they were using '08 turnout for their models.  And I was sitting here telling you, all frustrated, "What about 2010?  Does nobody remember the 2010 midterms?"  The 2010 midterms, the Democrat Party got smoked, and it was the Tea Party that did it.  The Democrat Party got smoked all the way down to local elections, where they got beat.  I think the Democrats lost close to 700 seats nationwide, including the Republicans taking back the House.  It was of a huge turnaround in 2010.  It was massive.  And I just naturally concluded that that turnout would show up again in 2012 because what was it that inspired that turnout?
Obamacare.  And the stimulus.  And every other assault that Obama had made on this economy in this country.  Nothing had changed.  It had only gotten worse.  And I kept looking at these pre-election polls which show Obama winning by five or six, said this doesn't make sense to me.  The election happens, I look at the exit polling data: "55% still blame Bush for the economy." When I saw that, I knew it was over. Five o'clock exit poll, I knew it.  And then the other question that sealed it for me was: "Cares about people like me."  That one broke out 81 to 19 for Obama.  And that was the five o'clock exit poll.  It's over.  The whole night then, everybody kept waiting for Ohio as the last chance.
So the election's over, we're analyzing it, talking about this, "What happened to the 2010 turnout?"  Now we know, folks, now we know.  The Democrats did take note of what happened to 'em in 2010.  They did take note of what the Tea Party did, and by God, they made sure they weren't gonna be able to do it in 2012, and they did.  And those pre-election polls that were using a 2008 turnout for their modeling.  And you remember we would marvel here at the samples that would have Democrats plus 11 and plus eight, and they were basing that on what happened in 2008, and nothing changing in 2012.  So what about 2010?  I said, "Now, 2010, especially, there wasn't even a Republican on the ballot."
There wasn't a Republican issue on the ballot.  There wasn't a single thing on the ballot that would unite and inspire Republicans.  What that 2010 turnout was about was stopping Obama.  I thought, "Well, those people are gonna show up again."  And then we were told "Nope, Romney made 'em stay home."  That never made sense to me.  I'm sorry, it just never made sense to me.  I never understood intellectually how people who were so opposed to Obama in 2010 because of what was happening to the country could, in two years, end up having more dislike for Romney.
That just didn't fit.  But we didn't know then what we know now.  We had to accept that explanation, and I'm feeling like an idiot here for doing so.  'Cause now we know there was utter -- there's no other way to describe this.  It was pure, utter voter suppression.  That's what the IRS was doing.  It was no different than what the New Black Panther Party did at places in Philadelphia.  There was voter intimidation there at those polling places.  So this is really serious stuff.  And it's not getting traction really beyond the political class.  Not yet, be honest about it, low-information voters, the polling data anyway says they don't care, who knows.  But I'll tell you, I never forget that Thomas Edsall piece.  I quoted this over and over, New York Times column.  It was in November of 2011, which they admitted that Obama was gonna abandon the white working class vote and try to suppress it.
That's what the purpose that column was.  They came out and said what they were going to do.  They were going to try to depress and dispirit the conservative vote while giving up on the white middle class vote.  They were gonna give up on getting the vote, but they were gonna do what they could to make sure they didn't show up, and they did.  It was just another form of election fraud.  Now, in hindsight, nothing you can do about it, other than learn from it in the future, but it really is maddening.

Memorial Day

 I honor Memorial Day because it honors veterans that have died in the service of their country.  I know people and have lost friends in service to this country.  Memorial day is more than the start of the summer break.  

     Honor those that served and died.

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday which occurs every year on the final Monday of May. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.
Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountains. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with kinfolk and others. There often is a religious service and a "dinner on the ground," the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.
Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day; Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans, living or dead.

    

Impeachment of President Obama?

I have been reading some of the blogs in the blogosphere and there is a push to impeach President Obama for failure to heed his oath of office and corruption, basically the High Crimes and Misdemeanors" and haul him in front of the senate to face charges.   For the many scandals and irregularities that are evident.  In a perfect world, I would say " sure".  But we don't live in a perfect world.  The republicans got burned big time trying to get Clinton for perjury or "lying under oath"   Remember the Monica Lewenski scandal?  Well the democrats and the media turned it into " It is all about sex" and is oral sex or not?  The media trumpeted the line that it is all about sex, sex,sex...nothing about perjury .  They controlled the initiative and Ken Starr who is a honest prosecutor was vilified in the media.  A lot of the republicans got burned by this.  Also in a perfect world, the rule of law would be sacrosanct but we live in a country that the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of man or the rule of the mob.  The republicans won't have the stones to try an impeachment of President Obama no matter how many laws he breaks.

      President Obama has the control of the mob.  If the republicans tried to do an impeachment , the narrative would be " well it is because he is a black man"  The inner cities and area that are overrun with urban yoots and other hard core democrats will explode in riots since they believe that President Obama is persecuted because he is a " Strong black man" and "whitey don't like that".  Don't like those words...They ain't mine..I have heard this from Al Sharpton and other race pimps since President Obama burst into the scene back in 2007.   We will just have to keep pounding on his administration and pick off the people around him.  Forget going after President Obama, he has the trump card, he can play the race card and get a pass from the guilt driven liberals and the conservatives will be called "racist" or Goodwins Law  will be enacted.  We have to just marginalize him as much as possible.

     The Obama Administration is more like something we’d see in a corrupt African country, run by someone like Idi Amin than an Administration run by Americans in a free Republic.  This is what happens when "hope and change" is elected.  The founding fathers feared such base emotions, we were formed as a constitutional republic not a democracy.  The founding Fathers considered "Democracy" or the Athenian way to be mob rule.  Constitutional Republic safe guards everything under the rule of law.  Not the rule of the mob that can be swayed by emotions that are counter to the long term interest of the country.


    Here are some more pictures that I have used on the past to compare President Obama to the 3rd world countries that use the same tactics that he uses against his political enemies.

 

Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, it used to be the breadbasket of Africa, but due to misrule and corruption, they now have to import foodstuff to feed its population.  He uses mob rule and uses the organs of the state to target his political enemies.

President Obama, the President of the United States, We used to be the beacon of freedom and a country that believed in its own exceptionalism.  Now we have 1 out of 7 people drawing some kind of government assistance and he promises Obama Phones to his loyal subjects.  He also uses mob rule, he uses the organs of the state to go after his political enemies.
   

NTEU "Government Union" possible influence on the IRS scandal.

I did a post on May 14th about the government union might be involved in the IRS scandal with the Union leadership pushing to help the Chicago Messiah get reelected.  Y'all can read it here.  Now I see this on American Spectator and it confirms my initial assessment that the government union went all out to help the the democrats and their obamamessiah get reelected.
     This shows a serious disconnect, the government is supposed to stay out of the election process, this is what the people who formed the merit system for hiring of government employees to preclude political patronage and having peoples jobs tied to politicians.   Now we are seeing the effect of the chicago system or the Tammany Hall type system.  This doesn't bode well for the Republic with the advent of a new political machine in the works.  This will cause a major disconnect with the average American citizen who will see a government less responsive to their concerns and more beholden to political interest and actually a threat politically or financially or worse to the American way of life.

AMERICAN SPECTATOR:
-------------------------------------------------------------
March 31, 2010.

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.
The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:

Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30

In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:

April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates."

In addition, Kelley ALSO met with the First Wookie! Kelley, Colleen Potus/Flotus 12/03/2009 18:30.

Kelley ALSO met with Obama aides.

“Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 11/04/2009 10:00”
“Kelley, Colleen Weiss, Margaret 12/01/2009 12:00”
“Kelley, Colleen Nelson, Greg 01/14/2010 13:40”

Obama Administration targeting Fox Reporter and other tidbitsof information.

I saw this on back to back on Yahoo News.   You know that it is really big when the mainstream media is starting to pile on the Obama administration.   I am hopeful that the blinders and blind devotion that the lamestream media has the their chicago messiah is starting to fall.....bit late since they shamelessly toted his water through 2 election cycles

President Barack Obama crosses the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, May 19, 2013. (Jonathan Ernst/ …The Justice Department spied extensively on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, tracking his movements in and out of the State Department and seizing two days of Rosen’s personal emails, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI agent also accused Rosen of breaking anti-espionage law with behavior that—as described in the agent's own affidavit—falls well inside the bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts Rosen among his friends.)
UPDATE: Fox News responds with a blistering statement that asserts Rosen was "simply doing his job" in his role as "a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”
The revelations surfaced with President Barack Obama’s administration already under fire for seizing two months of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press. Obama last week said he makes “no apologies” for investigations into national security-related leaks. The AP's CEO, Gray Pruitt, said Sunday that the seizure was "unconstitutional."
The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined.
Read more here

As the chair of the Tea Party Caucus, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R – Minn.) is railing against the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups, saying: “clearly, this had political implications…that would benefit President Obama.”
“Over and over and over, the common thread is the Obama administration was too willing to use the government to advance their agenda, their political agenda,” Bachmann tells The Fine Print.
Bachmann says individuals in the Tea Party have been voicing concerns to her about getting “ridiculous questions” from the IRS for quite some time and asserts that other groups, in addition to the Tea Party, were also targeted.
“The IRS couldn't do enough to part the waters to make sure that every progressive, left-wing leaning organization got their new tax-exempt status,” she says. “So they were able to get a favorable tax treatment, while Christians, pro Israel, conservative, Tea Partiers, pro-growth, pro-job, pro-business, they were hurt.”
The congresswoman says the recent controversy highlights her broader concerns that the IRS may gain access to people’s medical information under the Affordable Care Act.
“When people realize that their most personal, sensitive, intimate, private healthcare information is in the hands of the IRS that's been willing to use people's tax information against political opponents of this administration, then people have pause and they pull back in horror,” Bachmann says.
The Obama administration has refuted the claim that the IRS will handle people’s medical records, but Bachmann is not convinced. The long-time critic of the president’s health care plan led a vote in the House last week calling for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“Well the ball is in Harry Reid's court now, because the House of Representatives has done its part,” Bachmann says of the measure that passed the House, but is not expected to gain traction in the Senate.
While the former presidential candidate says she isn’t thinking about running for president again, she isn’t exactly ruling it out either, saying: “you never know.”
“My calculus never has been about politics,” Bachmann says. “It’s really about the issues. And I will tell you, the reason why I ran for president is because I knew I had the backbone and the spine to repeal Obamacare.”

Monday Music, cub scouting and other stuff.

I just came back from camping with the cub scouts, and I am tired, we have been wide open since before Christmas and I am just pooped.   We had an abundance of rain Liquid Sunshine so it was a bit messy but the kids had a good time.  I mentioned to my wife on the road trip back, "I am camped out".  Well I have cub day camp in june and the wife is taking our son to Webelo Day camp in July so she took some time off for that one.  I am hoping my days settle down, I have a lot of stuff that needs to be handled at home and I am hoping to find the time soon. 
    On a different note, I see the spin meisters trying to cover the Obungler administration on Bengazi, the IRS targeting Tea Party groups and his justice department pulling phone records from the AP.   Goebbels would be proud to see the big lie repeated again and again, if they keep saying it, they are hoping that the American citizens will swallow the deception.  I heard on some poll that 53% of the American public approve of his handling of the situation and I keep thinking " What survey and who are they asking these questions to"?  They must have gone to their super duper secret roster of hardcore democrat supporters to get those numbers.

    Well anyway here is another installment of "Monday Music.  I decided to go with "Pressure" from Billy Joel, it is off his Nylon Curtain album and I considered it a very good album.  I still have my record that is LP at home. 

"Pressure" is a synthesizer-driven song from 1982 by Billy Joel about difficulty dealing with the stress of daily living. The song was a single from the album The Nylon Curtain.

Themes

In Night School, a show airing on MTV in 1982 that ran roughly a half-hour long, in which he answers questions posed by audience members, Billy Joel reveals that the pressure he was talking about in the song was something along the lines of writing pressure and pressure to provide.

When I was starting out and trying to get things going, the pressure was if you don't get things going, they're going to throw you out of this apartment. There was that kind of pressure. "I'm hungry," my stomach was going, "pressure, food." I think that's pretty intense pressure. The pressure I was writing about in this song wasn't necessarily music business pressure, it was writing pressure. ... At the time, I was saying, "Well, I gotta write some more stuff for the album"; I was about halfway through, and I said, "Well, what am I gonna do? I don't have any ideas, it's gone, it's dead, I have nothing, nothing, nothing. There's nothing." And then the woman who is my secretary came into the house at that point and said, "Wow, you look like you're under a lot of pressure. I bet you that'd be a good idea for a song." And I went, "Thank you!"

 Single and album edits

The single version removes the third verse (starting with "Don't ask for help, you're all alone") and the second bridge. This version of the song was included in the original release of the Greatest Hits I & II compilation album, but the full album version was restored for the remastered edition, as well as the Complete Hits Collection in 1997. Radio stations vary in whether they play the shortened or the full version of the song. The song is written in a minor key. In playing the song on a TV special, Joel played the song in a major key, and commented that it sounds like a polka when played that way.

 Music video

The music video of the song features the full version, instead of the shortened one. A common motif in the video is the use of water, whether splashed on Joel's shoes, rushing out from school desks, or flooding his apartment. The video was directed by Russell Mulcahy and made its premiere on MTV on September 9, 1982. Several scenes in the video make references to movies such as A Clockwork Orange and Poltergeist. During a game show parody two-thirds of the way through the video, a bio for Joel briefly flashes on the screen. It reads: "William Joel, Age: 29, Occupation: Computer Software, Interests: fast bikes, cooking, water sports, satellite." Joel was actually 33 when the video was shot.

After Latest IRS scandal. Right Wing fear of government isn't paranoid.

I pulled this off Yahoo News and cut and pasted it.  It has information that I never knew about.  I thought it was ironic that I saw this on Yahoo News.

After IRS scandal: Right-wing fear of government isn't paranoid

Whatever the motivations for the IRS targeting conservative groups, it has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Liberals also worry the scandal will feed right-wing paranoia of government. But for conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not hysteria.

By Nicole Hemmer | Christian Science Monitor – 5 hrs ago

Last week’s revelation that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups was met with near universal disapproval. The IRS singled out organizations with words like "tea party" and "patriot" in their name for scrutiny. In the words of Treasury officials, this focus was clearly “inappropriate.”

What’s less clear is whether the IRS’s motivations were partisan or practical. Were they deliberately trying to stifle conservative voices? Or were they simply using a shortcut to weed out new political groups who don’t meet tax-exempt status? Whatever the motivations, the results have drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. But criticisms from the left have also been tinged with concern about how the episode would bolster the conservative argument against big government.

Many liberals worried the IRS scandal would feed what one Democratic aide called “the right-wing paranoia that the government is out to get them.” MSNBC host Chris Matthews grumbled recently, "They always expect the worst." But for conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not hysteria.

Fifty years ago this month, journalists Donald Janson and Bernard Eismann published “The Far Right,” a catalogue of conservative organizations across America. Raising the alarm about the coming conservative threat was something of a cottage industry in the early 1960s. “The Far Right” would share shelf-space with books like “The Radical Right” and “Danger on the Right.” But what separated “The Far Right” from the rest was its revelation of the Reuther Memorandum.

Commissioned by Attorney General Robert Kennedy and penned by labor leader Victor Reuther, the 24-page memo detailed “possible Administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.”

Reuther defined the “radical right” as “bounded on the left by Senator Goldwater and on the right by [John Birch Society founder] Robert Welch.” And he suggested plenty of ways for the government to curtail the right’s influence, from putting conservatives on the attorney general’s subversive list to using the Federal Communications Commission to limit their airtime.
But the administration’s real power, Reuther argued, lay with the IRS. Conservative media and organizations needed money to function. Therefore, “action to dam up these funds may be the quickest way to turn the tide” against right-wing groups.
He called for revocation of organizations’ tax-exempt status, a tactic similar to the approach which the IRS is currently under fire for possibly employing. Reuther also suggested the IRS investigate corporations that advertised in right-wing media, contending they were peddling propaganda rather than selling products.
Finally, Reuther hinted conservative donors and media personalities should be audited, noting “there is the big question whether [they] are themselves complying with the tax laws.”
While it is unclear whether the memo served as the basis for policy, during the Kennedy administration the IRS cracked down on “ideological organizations” and the FCC targeted conservative broadcasters.

When conservatives learned of the memo’s existence in 1963, they began to see their audits and increased regulation as part of a larger effort to silence right-wing voices. Writing about the memo soon after it was made public, the National Review’s editors remarked, “[I]t is chilling to reflect on the fact that the machinery for intimidation, for discretionary harassment, is right there and in perfect running order.”

That machinery – the federal bureaucracy – was conceived by the Progressives (and the goo-goos, their “good government” predecessors) as a haven from political influence rather than a repository of it. They believed that through civil-service reform they could create government without politics.

But as conservatives (as well as many on the left) have been constantly reminded – in battles over the Fairness Doctrine and tax-exempt status and subversive lists – power is never neutral.
In 1971, well before Americans were aware of the Nixon administration’s weaponized bureaucracy, conservative newspaper publisher Eugene Pulliam ran a lengthy ad in the Washington Post to make just this point.
Pulliam argued America had a three-party system: the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Bureaucrats. And the Bureaucrats, he said, were the “strongest and most powerful” because they are accountable to neither politicians nor public opinion.
Pulliam had a point. There were limits to what Nixon could make the IRS or the FBI do (and it’s hard to imagine a president trying harder than Nixon to make the bureaucracy bend to his will). Nor could the Reuther Memorandum transform the federal government into an efficient conservative-crushing machine. But it made clear that the right couldn’t count on the neutrality of the bureaucracy.
Yet the current IRS scandal demonstrates how far conservatives have come in 50 years. In 1963, the Reuther Memorandum gained traction in conservative media but nowhere else. It barely merited a mention beyond right-wing publications and broadcasts.

Today, the IRS story – whether it turns out the IRS had partisan intentions in discriminating against right-wing groups or not – is at the center of national debate. As it should be. However Americans may disagree about the role of government, the dangers of politicized bureaucracy are not necessarily the fever-dreams of a paranoid mind but appear to be one of the troubling realities of modern governance.
Nicole Hemmer is a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. She also teaches history at the University of Miami.

IRS Leaked information about Conservative groups and donors to leftist groups...

So, here we have the IRS leaking information to the media. Confidential tax data that found its way to Romney's opponents and into the hands of Harry Reid "The word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t." Reid on the Senate floor, August 2012. Let us not forget that in 2010, Obama's economic adviser  Goolsbee stated to reporters that Koch Industries did not pay any corporate taxes! This, of course, is not public information and Obama trotted out Baghdad Bob to lie that Goolsbee misspoke. Good God folks, the US Treasury Department was in on it, the Department of Justice was in on it, the White House was in on it, the Department of Labor was in on this, funneling applications from TEA Party folks into the crapper. God only knows who else was involved and what offices THEY are from.

How many voters were swayed by this leaking confidential information, thinking Romney was some rich guy in the 1% while ignoring the fact that not only is Obungler in the 1%, HE IS BACKED BY THE .01%, i.e., Soros, Bloomberg, Spielberg, Hanks, and the rest of the Hollywood Limo Libs! How many American Conservative voters were disenfranchised by the tyranny of the White House and Obama's minions? How many Conservative activists were denied their right to work for the candidate of their choice and who ended up staying home instead of being out rallying the base? How many Tea Party participants were tyrannized into silence by being targeted for audits by the Infernal Revenge Service?

There can be no doubt that election 2012 was gamed and rigged by the community organizer and his Alinskities Axelrod, Jarrett, and the rest of the Chicago gang and since it was "mission accomplished," they got their reward by fat bonuses and went back richer to liberal sewers like Harvard.

FACTS TO PONDER:

1.   The IRS targeted over 500 conservative groups going back through TWO election cycles by illegally obtaining information on donors, volunteers, members, speakers, and anyone else connected.
2.   The IRS, with help of other agencies, gathered all social media, emails, phonecalls, and other media, for use by the Obama Cartel.
3.  The IRS targeted pro-life groups which denied them their First Amendment right to protest abortion clinics or other "democrat" interests.
4.  The IRS targeted Christian Ministries who spoke out against the Left, including Billy Graham.
5.  The IRS targeted Conservative Jewish groups who were pro-Israel.
6.  The IRS illegally provided confidential tax infomration to ProPublica, a left-wing organization who then disseminated the information to other groups.
7. The IRS also illegally released the confidential donor lists and other data on Romney donors.
8. The Obama campaign outed the top eight Romney donors and they were then audited.
9.  The chief of the IRS division,Lois Lerner, blamed two "rogue" agents yet her name appears on MANY letters sent to the Tea Party groups and not just out of Cincinnati but also California and the District of Corruption.  
10.  NOW, four agents from the Ohio office have said that they were just following orders. (HINT: That did not work in Nuremberg.)"Dienst ist Dienst..."

There can no longer be any doubt that Election 2008 and Election 2012 were as rigged at Election 1960, oddly enough which hinged on...Chicago...

Life Under Obamacare.....

I and many other conservatives railed against Obamacare since its inception, we knew that this wasn't about covering the so called 30 million uninsured or some crap, this was control pure and simple.  it is easier to control a populace if they are disarmed and depend on the government for many services. including medical care.   People become very malleable when it comes to the care of loved ones.   Imagine a person that has strong political beliefs and is vocal against the democrats and the obamamessiah,,,all of a sudden the care for his elderly mother or his wife or kids comes into question....Have an IRS agent....you know the organization that under Obamacare has the authority to hire 16,000 additional agents to enforce obamacare...you know the organization that got caught auditing conservative groups either on their own violation which shows an agency that has gone rogue and believes that it is untouchable or at the behest of either the democratic party or the union bosses or even at the behest of President" We have an election to win"  Obama.   They will make an appearance and "remind" you that certain things can happen unless you are very supportive of the President and his policies.  This shows that the IRS doesn't believe in the word of Law...rather it selectively enforces rules to its or its benefactors benefits.   This doesn't bode well for the country.   I wonder if there will be a push to defund Obamacare...or will congress just have hearings to give the Republicans and Democrat politicians political cover since they are all statist anyway and they like a cowed populace, makes it easier for them to remain in power.   You wonder why there has been a concerted push against the second amendment?  The Justice department that is selectively enforcing laws got caught pulling phone records of the AP staff?  This is by accident?   Nothing here but to remind the Obamamedia what can happen if they deviate from the crafted script.

 All of this is be design to make the citizenry helpless.  They just got their hand caught in the cookie jar...this time.  I wonder what other scandals are floating out there compliments of the most transparent administration in history.

The cartoon is compliments of Bracken   the Rant is mine.

Airbus 350 rolled out.

I do publish aviation news along with my rants on politics and the governments attempt to seize the second amendment and the bengazi debacle and the IRS targeting conservative groups....

Airbus is rolling out a new airplane,  Airbus airplanes normally look plain, but this one has the characteristics of a Boeing 757, the long and sleek look.   The winglet design looks interesting.

May 13, 2013
Credit: Airbus

Airbus on May 17 will hand over the first A350-900, MSN001, to it’s flight-test department, industry sources tell Aviation Week.
Once transferred to the flight-test department, the aircraft will undergo the last phases of ground testing, including high-speed taxi tests. Airbus will not comment on the exact timing of these tests.
Sources familiar with the program say that it will take about 20 days to prepare the aircraft for first flight, although Airbus only will say that the aircraft will make its first flight “this summer.”
The manufacturer has indicated that it is unlikely the A350 will fly before the Paris Air Show in June, but the 20-day period ends about one week before the opening of the event at Le Bourget.
First-flight dates can be affected by weather problems or last-minute technical issues.
Airbus today rolled out MSN001 from the paint hangar. The aircraft was painted in less than a week and it’s flight-test instrumentation is largely installed, along with it’s Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines. MSN001 also has completed a series of ground vibration tests.
Industry sources say the aircraft is sufficiently complete to fly very soon.
Unlike previous aircraft debuts, Airbus did not hold a roll-out ceremony, but it did present the aircraft to a group of employees.
Airbus lists 414 firm orders for the A350-900, 92 for the A350-800 and 110 for the A350-1000. Given a recent surge in demand, Chief Operating Officer-Customers John Leahy has indicated that he would like to see production rates for the aircraft increase sooner rather than later

IRS giving special scrutiny to conservative groups...

I have my theories what had transpired.  I used to work in a union shop at Ford.  The government unions were different, they were omnipotent and untouchable.  I am convinced that the AFGE or some of the other smaller unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella had promised Obama and the democrats all the assistance possible, and I am convinced that the employees that did this were "encouraged" to do so by their shop steward.  Anything to help " their" man.  And they told the democrats and Obama that they will render all aid possible.  I don't think Obama and crew knew the specifics of the assistance.   On the other hand, it could be part of the "Chicago way" that is endemic with this administration.   I hope more details will come out.

    

Breaking: IRS Apologizes for Targeting Tea Party and Patriot Groups

Finally, for those of you have not seen it, the IRS today admitted that they unfairly targeted conservative tax-exempt organizations for further review during the 2012 election cycle.  As many of you know, organizations that included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their tax-exempt applications to the IRS were targeted for additional review and required to submit unnecessary and private information.  This is another example of extreme overreach by this Administration and the Tea Party Patriots is rejecting the apology of Lois Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups at the IRS.  The apology comes 6 months after one of the most important election cycles, and it is quite clear that this was deliberate harassment of the Tea Party Patriots and other organizations with similar missions, orchestrated by IRS officials who have, thus far, not been fired.  The Tea Party Patriots will continue to push for more transparency about what took place last year, and we are urging the IRS to fire all individuals who took part in this illegal harassment.

EXCERPT:  "Just months after being slimed by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Mitt Romney supporter and businessman Frank VanderSloot was informed that he was going to be audited not only by the Internal Revenue Service, but by the Labor Department as well."

The Obama campaign stated about VanderSloot that was one of the: ”wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.”

Now even WITH the new liberal math of 2+2 = whatever makes your self-esteem feel good, Obama outs this guy, his CAMPAIGN outs this guy, and then he gets audited by the IRS AND the Dept of Labor! This has the fingerprints of Obama, Axlerod, and Valerie "Rasputin" Jarrett, all from Chicago, all over it.

Monday Music.......Manic Monday

The sound is kinda appropriate since it has Monday in it and I am featuring it as part of my Monday Music.  I remember this song hit MTV real hard in early in 1986 while I was at A.I.T at Fort Devens., and we would watch this song on TV while waiting to form up in formation to march to class about a mile away.   Even now I don't know about most people but i associate music with where I was when I first heard the song.  To me I associate it with Fort Devens, most of the memories were not good in the beginning but the place introduced me to Boston, and I loved going to Boston and following in the footsteps of major historical figures and I actually drank a beer at the Bullfinch Pub off Boston Commons where they got the idea for "Cheers".   I hated Massachusetts but I loved Boston.  Well anyway, here is Manic Monday.

    
"Manic Monday" is a song by the American pop rock band The Bangles, and the first single released from their second studio album Different Light (1986). It was written by Prince, using the pseudonym "Christopher". Originally intended for the group Apollonia 6 in 1984, he offered the song to The Bangles two years later. Lyrically it describes a woman who is waking up on Monday, wishing it was still Sunday.
Released to generally positive reviews from music critics and some comparisons with The Mamas & the Papas' "Monday, Monday", it was the band's first hit, reaching number two in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as in Austria, Canada, Germany and Ireland, and within top five in New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. It was later certified silver in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The song was covered by several artists in 2005 and 2006.

Hero takes a fall

Prince wrote "Manic Monday" in 1984, and recorded it as a duet for the band Apollonia 6's self-titled album; however, he eventually pulled the song. Two years later, he offered the single to The Bangles under the pseudonym "Christopher", a character he played in the 1986 film Under the Cherry Moon. It was rumored by various writers that after Prince listened to the band's 1984 debut album All Over the Place, he gave the song to Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs, so that in return she would sleep with him.
Peterson explained in an interview with MTV UK in 1989 about why Prince gave them the song: "[Prince] really liked our first album. He liked the song 'Hero Takes a Fall', which is a great compliment, because we liked his music. He contacted us, and said, 'I've got a couple of songs for you. I'd like to know if you're interested,' and of course we were. One of the songs Prince brought to the group was 'Manic Monday', written under the pseudonym of Christopher." Peterson talked about the evolution of what Prince brought them: "It was a Banglefication of a Prince arrangement. He had a demo, that was very specifically him. It was a good song, but we didn't record it like 'This is our first hit single! Oh my God! I can feel it in my veins!' We just did the song, and the album, and then sat back and thought about it."
A pop song written in D Major, "Manic Monday" moves at a tempo of 116 beats per minute and is set in common time. The song has a sequence of G–A₇–D–G–A₇–D as its chord progression.Lyrically, the song is about someone waking up from a romantic dream at six o'clock on Monday morning, and facing a hectic journey to work when she would prefer to still be enjoying relaxing on Sunday—her "I-don't-have-to-run day".Actor Rudolph Valentino is referred in the introduction.

    ^{I also added a song from ther later album that I liked a lot.  Eternal Flame}

     
"Eternal Flame" is a ballad and love song by The Bangles from their 1988 album Everything. It became a hit single, when released in 1989, peaking at number one in the charts in nine countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was written by popular songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and The Bangles' own Susanna Hoffs. With this song and "Walk Like an Egyptian", The Bangles became only the third girl group to score multiple number-ones in the United States, after The Supremes (twelve) and The Shirelles (two).

Virgin Galactic breaks sound barrier....

I pulled this off "Aviation Week".  Since the shuttle is grounded and we are having to pay the Russians a LOT of money to get our astronauts to the International Space Center.  I am very happy that private ventures are picking up the slack.  Virgin Galactic has broken the sound barrier with first powered flights.  More flights and faster speeds are in the works for 2014.  I will cut and paste the article.

     

SS2 Breaks Sound Barrier On First Powered Flight

By Guy Norris

Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

May 06, 2013
Credit: Virgin Galactic

Guy Norris Los Angeles
Powered flight tests of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital spaceplane are expected to resume by early June following the vehicle's first rocket-propelled flight over Mojave, Calif., on April 29.
Although only 16 sec. of SS2's 13-min. flight were powered by its hybrid RM2 rocket motor, the event was hailed by Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson as the “single most important flight test to date.” Coming 2.5 years after the first glide flight of SS2, the powered test also marks the start of the final envelope-expansion phase and the “very realistic goal of full spaceflight by the year's end,” he adds.
Whether that is achievable will depend on the success of the forthcoming flights that will end with a maximum apogee demonstration flight to 361,000 ft. At that point, SS2 developer Scaled Composites will turn the vehicle over to Virgin Galactic, which plans to begin commercial suborbital services from Spaceport America, N.M., in 2014. Tests will follow a “methodical build-up” to the maximum apogee flight says Scaled President Kevin Mickey, gradually expanding the supersonic aerodynamic flight envelope, launch weight and structural loads.
Scaled is optimistic tests will remain on track partly because of experience gained during flight tests of the SpaceShipOne (SS1) vehicle during the build-up to winning the Ansari X-Prize almost a decade ago. “We learned a tremendous amount on SS1, which will minimize any test surprises,” says Mickey. The 17-flight SS1 test program included just six rocket-powered flights in 2003-04, and uncovered several issues with directional stability, flight control and avionics systems.
“With SS1, we leapt to the ultimate goal fairly quickly. The goal of this program is different to SS1. It is our job to help Virgin and The Spaceship Co. mature this into a commercial operation, and we'll take steps to ensure the vehicle's safety and robustness,” he adds. The Spaceship Co. (TSC) is Scaled Composites' wholly owned manufacturing sister business .
Although Mickey acknowledges that “with any testing, you don't know what you don't know,” he says the overall level of maturity of the SS2 design and systems makes the upcoming test effort more predictable. For example, maximum dynamic pressure (Max q) testing, which is the next major target, was almost completed on the rocket-powered April 29 flight. “That will be an important data point,” Mickey says.
The powered test flight began when SS2, mounted below the wing of the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, took off from Mojave at 7.03 a.m. local time. Launch occurred 45 min. later from an altitude of almost 47,000 ft. Following release from the carrier aircraft, Scaled test pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury “lit the rocket almost immediately,” says Mickey. The rocket boosted the vehicle to Mach 1.22 and an apogee of 56,200 ft. following rocket burnout after 16 sec.
    
“The pilots described it as being a gentler ignition than they expected. It was a smoother, gentler acceleration,” Mickey says. Transonic transition was nominal “which was the milestone of this flight,” he adds. The vehicle glided back to Mojave where it landed safely just after 8 a.m.
“It's a good start, but we still have to get through Max q and supersonic reentry and various other milestones,” says Virgin Galactic President/CEO George Whitesides. However, in terms of the overall flight-test program, Whitesides says the success of the initial powered flight is a pivotal achievement. “If you look at the overall risk embedded in the program, this flight reduced a large portion of that risk. With any supersonic vehicle, this is probably one of the most important test milestones to get through, and the vehicle's performance through Mach 1 looked good in terms of flutter. In terms of a single flight, this was probably the greatest burden of risk in the flight-test program.”
The start of powered tests is also expected to boost business for Virgin Galactic, the world's first registered spaceline. Passenger bookings have passed 570, according to Whitesides. “We are looking at up to 600 pretty soon. Most people are probably eager to have it tested out,” he says. In addition, business is anticipated from scientific experiments, including flight tests of developmental space-access technology payloads for NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.
Work on additional RM2 rocket motors meanwhile continues at Sierra Nevada Corp., which Whitesides confirms will continue to be the baseline choice for propulsion. “We've had a bunch of contracts looking at tweaks to the hybrid rocket, but our baseline is what we're doing now. We will keep working with different folks to keep improving (the propulsion system) but the qualification program went really well.”