Also laughing. Russia is building nuclear power plants in Syria, Iran is full speed ahead making nuclear bombs, North Korea is exporting WMD, and Owebama just created an 80 billion dollar deficit in April, up from 20 billion in 2009, if you take 80 billion dollars and times it by 12 you get a deficit of close to 1 trillion dollars. The inflation that’s coming will make the Jimmy Carter years look like paradise. But hey, if France likes us better its all worth it.

[laughing]

How does civil space have anything to do with this? And what are you talking about “restoring” the U.S. as a respected world power? That’s complete nonsense! The U.S. is riding high in world opinion now, unlike a few years ago when we were viewed as a bully and a rogue state.

yeah right if we only spent 1 trillion dollars on our defense then the world would think we were a really tough power…gee you use to be a serious person on politics

Robert G. Oler

Mollohan is the helpful soul who cut NASA’s 2010 budget by 16%, doing his part to help Augustine conclude that Constellation is behind schedule.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2009/06/11/nasa-budget-cut-by-congressional-committee.htm

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-West Virginia), called the budget cut a “time out,” while Congress and the White House awaited the results of NASA’s review of its post-space shuttle plans for human space exploration, including returning to the moon by 2020.

That is almost certainly wrong. The tsunami that is about the cleanse Congress will not just be about fiscal prudence, but the restoration of the United States as a respected world power, I suspect that both defense and space would stand to benefit.

I think the proponents of HSF will have bigger things to worry about than Obama. The “mighty wind” that’s brewing for Nov 2010 (and most likely 2012) is all about fiscal responsibility and restraint. I bet that many of the new congressional members swearing in next year will view HSF as a technotainment extravaganza that we can no longer afford. In a few years, you may very well be looking back at Obama as the last presidential supporter of HSF.

Oliverio argued that Mollohan had accepted campaign contributions from a corrupt (Republican) developer in California; Mollohan’s backers argued that the man had not yet been convicted, so the contribution was okay. Bigger factors were that Mollohan had not sufficiently resisted anti-coal energy legislation (they seem to mine a lot of coal in West Virginia) and that Mollohan had voted for Obama’s health care bill, and therefore had demonstrated his pro-abortion sentiments, against his constitutents wishes.

Oliverio is reported to have support from WVa tea-baggers. His opinions on spaceflight didn’t seem to merit newspaper coverage.