Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being an insufferable reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man Fox News boomer. No one yet has guessed a scholar, or multiple people. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
11mo ago
The third Starship test in March of this year reached orbit, then was lost.
You are seeing what the early part of an era of exploration or expansion looks like.
Commercially-driven exploration starts by trying to focus on the most profitable quickest returns, which are often closer, to further expand the new technology. When the Europeans began to build ships capable of traversing the world, they did not, in fact, immediately use most of those ships to traverse the world- they used them primarily for more profitable ventures closer to home. However, it was the capacity to go further which enabled the outlier minority to do the things that got famous.
Technological era innovations have similar examples. Yes, the telegraph enabled long-distance communications... but most investments were within or between cities already relatively close together. Yes, electrification has massive implications for making rural regions more efficient and profitable, but most electrical wiring started and focused in the cities. Yes, the American automobile revolutionized how people viewed distance and the ability to move across state and even continental scale, but things like the Interstate System trailed far behind. It didn't make the technologies less revolutionary.
What is currently going on with SpaceX and the reusable rocket technologies is that it is still scaling to meet the latent demand for low-earth investments that were previously priced out of application. There is still considerable profit, and market share, to be made, and currently SpaceX is about the only one making it. SpaceX is in turn using those profits to both expand capacity and develop new capabilities. The Falcon series is what prototyped the technologies for the Falcon Heavy, and the Falcon Heavy for the Starship.
Starship, in turn, is the new emerging and still experimental technology combination that- if it can be made to work, which yesterday was a significant step towards- will unlock a significant amount of lift capacity potential for beyond LEO activities.
The lift capacity gate is what limits what you probably think of as exploration, because the ability to lift fuel and resources is what increases range into deeper space. If you want deep-space transit, you want to lift material into space, where it is cheaper / easier / more technologically feasible to package it up and start pushing from a space gathering point than to lift all pieces at once from earth. That means cost-efficiency of lifting stuff, not just the capacity of stuff you can lift.
For example, the Saturn 5 rocket of the Apollo program to the moon had a LEO lift capacity of 118 tons, and about $5.5k per kg. The Starship is expected to have a LEO lift capacity of 100-150 tons, with a forecasted cost of around $1.6k per kg... possibly falling to $0.15kg ($150/kg) over time due to to reusability reduce the cost per flight as you don't have to keep re-making the whole thing.
Not only is Starship offering capacity on par or better than some of the heaviest lift rockets in history, but with a cost profile that is -70%of the Saturn 5 on the near-term side to -98% less expensive per launch over time, while offering more launches because the components can be reused rather than having to be built per launch. If you built 5 saturn-5 rockets a year, you could only have 5 saturn-5 missions a year to move stuff into space. If you build 5 Spaceships a year, you can have 5 + [Sum of all still-mission capable rockets from all previous years] missions a year, which is to say a heck of a lot more missions over time.
More missions means more opportunities to get stuff into space, including eventually deeper range mission preparation material.
To bring this all back to the age of exploration comparison- imagine if Caravels had the characteristic of having to be sunk the first time they landed on any foreign shore. Now imagine what exploration looks like if Caravels can land, restock, and go out again. This is the technological implication difference of SpaceX's reusable rocket technology.
In turn, the first caravels were in the 13th century. Magellan wouldn't circumnavigate the world until the 1500s. The carracks that Columbus used to reach the Americas were developed more than a century prior.
So when you ask-
Do you think we'll get there any time soon?
Then given that we are literally on the 5th test flight ever of a new degree of capability, historically speaking 50 years from now would be very soon, let alone 15 or 5.
Dean
Flairless
11mo ago
SpaceX is effectively the non-missile orbital launch capacity of most governments in the world, with something like 85% of all upmass movement in 2023. It's not that the Americans bought all that mass lift, as much as it is that other countries spend buy the space for their needs rather than very expensive rocket programs themselves.
Dean
Flairless
11mo ago
Nostalgic, in a way.
When I was younger, I vaguely recall sci-fi where ships landing like that was how spaceports worked. I thought it was distinct rather than cool since it seemed so unrealistic, but here I am decades later suitably impressed.
Dean
Flairless
11mo ago
As expected, you still haven't identified a specific process the President is required to do that Trump failed to follow. Feel free to come back when you do.
Dean
Flairless
1yr ago
Obama's executive order remained in effect because executive orders are not automatically null when a President leaves, and President Trump did not null them.
Executive 13526 does not establish a procedural requirement for the President to follow any particular process to declassify information. Therefore, there is nothing for Trump to null.
Which is unsurprising for you to not have caught on to, as you seem to have gone straight to Section 1.6, Identification and Markings, and so skipped or never got to various relevant sections.
These includes-
Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority.
(a) The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by:
(1) the President and the Vice President;
(2) agency heads and officials designated by the President; and
(3) United States Government officials delegated this authority pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.
...establishing a categorical difference in offices who can inherently originally classify and delegated classification authorities, of which later sections apply different standards to...
and
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
(a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
...which is to say prevent or delay a President's decision to declassify, who as the ultimate classification authority gets to decide what does not require protection in the interest of the national security (other than atomic secrets)...
and
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
(c) Information may not be reclassified after declassification and release to the public under proper authority unless:
...which is to say there are a number of caveats which are not even alleged to have been met by the prosecution, even without the executive superiority of a Presidential declassification...
and
Secs 1.8 and 1.9, Classification Challenges and Fundamental Classification Guidance Review ...which focus their guidance to Agency Heads and below, which a President is not....
and
PART 3 -- DECLASSIFICATION AND DOWNGRADING ...which in general establishes the President as an appeal authority to for standards ascribed to agency heads and below, but not the President...
and
Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification.
(b) Information shall be declassified or downgraded by:
(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position and has original classification authority;
...
(3) a supervisory official of either the originator or his or her successor in function, if the supervisory official has original classification authority; or
...which, per Sec. 1.3 establishing that the President has original classification authority and authorized the original classification via delegated original classification authority and is the supervisory official of all executive branch agencies...
and
PART 4 -- SAFEGUARDING
Sec. 4.1. General Restrictions on Access.
(i.) (2) *Classified information originating in one agency may be disseminated by any other agency * to which it has been made available to a foreign government in accordance with statute, this order, directives implementing this order, direction of the President, or with the consent of the originating agency. For the purposes of this section, "foreign government" includes any element of a foreign government, or an international organization of governments, or any element thereof.
...demonstrating that Presidential direction has its unique force without process requirement as well as authority to disseminate to any other agency (which includes the office of the White House)...
and
Sec. 4.3. Special Access Programs.
(a) Establishment of special access programs. Unless otherwise authorized by the President, only the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each, may create a special access program.
...demonstrating again that Presidential direction has its unique force without process requirement in the handling of classified information...
and, of course, definition (gg)
(gg) "Original classification authority" means an individual authorized in writing, either by the President, the Vice President, or by agency heads or other officials designated by the President, to classify information in the first instance
...which is to say, all EO 13526 requirements placed on Original Classification Authorities do not apply to the President, the Vice President, or by agency heads or other officials designated by the President, because for the purpose of policy those people (who have original classification authority per Sec. 1.3) are not, themselves, Original Classification Authorities (proper noun).
There are more, but they'd require more characterization and this review of American regulatory requirements has gone long enough.
Plus, it's all redundant, since none of them actually, you know, identify a required process for the President.
Since you have failed to identify a specific process the President must follow to declassify information, feel free to return when you find one.
No allegations?! For the umpteeth time, There is literally a recording of him doing so! It's 2 minutes long, listen for yourself.
Your own link doesn't claim it was an argument, but Trump supporting his recounting of events of someone not present to someone else not present... and this in turn goes back to automatic declassification authority powers for when he took documents away.
Moreover, and in contradiction to the prosecutions' own thesis, the clip is raised for Trump saying that the document is classified... but the later argument (and your concluding argument) is that Trump is no longer President, and thus does not have classification authority to make- or reverse- a decision already made. However, the decision to take the documents was a decision as a President, as would have been the accompanying declassification authority implications.
Which creates the quandary of the prosecution claiming that non-President Trump's claim (which should be taken as objective and legal and not at all performative because we all know Trump would never exaggerate) overturns the inherent decisions of President Trump's declassification authority when President Trump decided what to take.
Yes, and when the government told Biden to return the documents, he did. Trump is an outlier in that he allegedly attempted to hide documents to prevent them from being returned, That's the difference here.
No, the difference is that Biden did not have the authority to declassify the documents, whereas Trump did. This is also a significant part of the distinction between Trump and Clinton, and Trump and Pence. Of the four cases, the only one pursued has been the one against the only figure with the actual declassification authority, who also happens to be the political opponent of the party pursuing the charges, despite the Espionage Act having no obligation to spare the former or pursue the later.
The choice to prosecute was just that- a choice. It was also a choice pursued in parallel with multiple other lawfare efforts intended to hobble the ruling party's primary political opponent.
They aren't going to show the actual confidential documents of course.
Sure they are. They have to. Again, the classification cover sheets have no evidentiary power on their own, and so if photos are to be presented as evidence it will have to be photos of the actual confidential documents. If the photos are not going to be provided as evidence, there is no reason to take them.
Classified evidence not a new dilemma, and the US justice system has ways for showing limited classified information to a judge to validate a claim of secrets that won't be shown publicly.
But as you stated the cover sheet doesn't make them confidential. The contents of the documents will not be revealed to the public, but the case is immediately dead if Trump's lawyers prove the documents are not confidential. So yes, the cover sheet snafu is immaterial.
No, the cover sheets are not immaterial- they are demonstrative of how the FBI attempted to shape public (and worse for them, court) perception by altering evidence they claimed to be presenting that characterized the alleged crime, and demonstrate the unnecessary but existent coordination between the Executive Branch and the partisan news agencies who received and publicized the photos that had no evidentiary purpose.
You think the government doesn't have procedures for declassifying?
For the President? Heavens no. Nor has the prosecution, the current White House, past White Houses, Congressional Intelligence oversight committees, or lawyers identified a specific process that is required to be followed by the president before the President can treat a document as unclassified. Nor have you, for that matter.
The better question, then, is what procedure you think was violated by the President.
(And not, for example, a staff who failed to complete any supporting paperwork to note the decision after the fact.)
If you believe Trump has committed an open and shut case in not following a procedure applying to the president, you should at least be able to identify what procedure was violated, no?
(The answer to this is yes, by the way. If you reply without actually identifying the alleged procedure that specifically applies to the President, the response will merely be a question of if you've found that procedure yet.)
Trump could have changed the procedures, but he didn't do so.
Prove it. Which procedure, specifically, did Trump need to have changed?
If this is as cut and dry as you think, this should be very easy for you. Instead, I suspect what you are going to do is fumble around a bit because the media reports that alleged a process violation never actually specify a Presidential process to be violated. You will find some articles on how declassification processes work for agencies, you will find notes that declassification is typically noted in memos after a decision has been made, but you will not find a standard that says that the President has to go through a process before his decision to declassify information becomes legal.
The more politically minded will note that this is a form of how partisans can lie without technically lying- they are only implying the existence of a thing (a specific procedural requirement), but never actually make the claim of what the thing actually is, which might discredit them if examined. Then they move forward on acting on the basis of the implied thing.
More contemporary historically minded people will remember that this was a routine part of anti-Trump media coverage and probes for years, including in the contemporary legal environment when Trump was being accused of fraud in which the victims testified on his behalf, an accusation which in turn was used to levy historic fines.
You are correct that Trump doesn't need to explain why he is declassifying something, but incorrect that a document is declassified simply by thinking about it.
No, that's pretty much exactly how it works. That's what ultimate declassification authority entails and enables.
The archetypical example of ultimate declassification authority is that if a President decides in the middle of an a phone call with a foreign leader to reveal information, there is no legal issue even though the same could send other government employees to jail. The authority to do so does not come from the context, but from the position, and requires no more pre-work than the act. The action is not legalized retroactively, it was legal in and of itself.
Which, in turn, goes back to why the reporting on Presidential declassification that you will focus on are ex post facto recordings of the declassification, rather than pre-requirements. Classified information really can be declassified simply by an original classification authority deciding in the midst of a conversation that they really want to use a piece of information. The declassification does not get retroactively re-classified if they don't do paperwork, and that paperwork is in turn is owed to... the President, as the Chief of Executive. Not by the Executive, to someone else.
According to this article, it doesn't even matter. The Espionage Act criminalizes mishandling information "relating to the national defense" not "classified information." Meaning that theoretically you can be guilty of sharing information that was never even classified.
I laughed, but no.
In short, setting aside the various precedents that limit the Espionage Act to its historic limited utilizations, the Executive Branch has systems for designated information that it believes warrant information controls. Information that is not bound by information controls, categorically cannot be mishandled, because handling standards are established by the Executive Branch under the authority of the President.
The President, in turn, has ultimate authority over all Executive Branch information security programs. There is no one in the executive branch who can impose information control restrictions on the President, or who can reverse his decisions. If the President judges that something is unclassified and without restrictions, it is, unless the restriction is legislated by Congress.
Note, in turn, that the indictment and prosecutors have not actually cited a law under which the information could not be declassified.
False. An ex-President is not a President, and the actions of a former President are by definition not official acts.
Thank you for repeating the previously supplied summary of the prosecution's position.
The Biden Administration's effort to target Trump in the classified document case rested on an argument that Presidents have to go through a formal process for declassification, insist that because Trump did follow the process the documents were still classified, and thus that once Trump left office with them he could no longer declassify them and thus it was improper holding.
However, the prosecution's failure to demonstrate a process failure still stands-
However, there is no required procedure, the current White House does not assert it has created a required procedure, and neither the National Archives or FBI ever actually identified a required process that Trump failed to follow to lead to the judgement of 'improper' holding.
...which returns to assuming the conclusion as the basis of this prosecution.
Rather than proving the President Trump did not declassify the documents, which could be done by identifying a required process for the President to declassify, the prosecution is instead claiming the documents are still classified and demanding Trump prove otherwise, when the basis of proving otherwise would be a process that is not required to declassify and could be used in the stronger first form if such a requirement existed.
In shorter terms, rather than prove that Trump did not follow a required process to declassify information, the prosecution is asserting an inverse- that Trump must prove he declassified information by following a process that is not required.
The issue of demanding the target prove their innocence by compliance to a standard that does not exist should be obvious to those not partisan inclined.
Way to undercut your credibility, lol.
2017 was practically an archetypical example of American ethnocentricism of thinking their internal political squabbles reflect how other key actors view the world. No one who remotely paid attention to Korea for any amount of time was particularly surprised by rhetoric that wasn't matched by mobilization by North or South, and no one whose seen a 'don't hold me back, bro' moment of bar-posturing would have missed the caveats on both sides were using throughout. Variants of 'If you attack me, then you will regret it' were blatantly (and politically) being misrepresented and misreported by actors whose motive was to inspire panic and fear in the audience.
Meanwhile, in Korea, coverage of the 'crisis' had far more of a 'wow, the American media are talking' tone than one of concern... if they covered it at all. Certainly the South Koreans weren't mobilizing their society for a conflict.
How and why the Americans would wage a war against North Korea without South Korean support or ascent was, of course, rarely if ever raised and never addressed beyond possible dismissals of 'the South Koreans don't have a choice.'
Well, you're certainly demonstrating the classic failure mode of utilitarians, who struggle to conceptualize or deal with conceptual infinities and start doing irrational things on the basis of existential dread spirals.
No, the Chinese are not about to try and cold-rush Taiwan, or try to start a war via blockade that would be publicly jumped on by both US political parties for electioneering purposes. No, there isn't any particular grounds for panic-buying resiliency goods beyond the universal basis to have a stockpile for emergencies. No, the nukes (and the satellites) are not about to fall.
You are doomposting. Go back to bed and sleep it off.
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