Comment by ajross
2 hours ago
> It's an extremely dumb law that's been passed and reauthorized repeatedly by every single administration and Congress since Obama who it was passed under.
The United States Code is filled with extremely dumb laws though. Should congress have better constrained it and anticipated the ways in which it could be abused? Obviously yes.
NONETHELESS, "every single administration and Congress since Obama" did not, in fact, abuse this law in capricious and political ways. So implying that it's somehow the fault of the law and not the administration executing it seems... misplaced.
I understand that bothsidesism is a shibboleth denoting "serious" in this forum, but no: this is the Trump administration's doing. Period.
You are arguing against facts right now, the only reason china built their space station is that Obama slow rolled them while waiting for congress to pass a law.
You can read the history and Obummers' statements here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
Not that any of this matters, space is where dreams go to die.
The space station thing is a side quest that has nothing to do with the linked article. I'll happily concede the point, even though it seems pretty questionable to me.
It's still not remotely true that (sigh) "Obummer" was using the law to threaten grants and censor research. Trump did that. Only Trump did that. And that's a whole lot worse than wasted effort on a dumb space station.
I think the dude above was just explaining the Wolf amendment origins, I don't think it was an attempt to shift blame away from Trump for the current policies or both sides it. Just giving more context as to one specific item listed in the original article, and the ridiculous knock on effects it's had.
Which, in itself, is interesting, and is something that I wasn't aware of. Think it's just an innocuous tangent in this case.
1 reply →