Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

No Justins, No Peace

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

We won’t go back.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Accountability, motherfuckers.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

People are weird.

Republicans in disarray!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / This may be the only post about Elon Musk you will ever see from me

This may be the only post about Elon Musk you will ever see from me

by | 112 Comments

This post is in: 

I think you should be able to watch the video from here without being taken to twitter.
Let me know if I’m wrong.

I usually avoid even reading posts about Musk, let alone writing about him, but I hope everyone watches this short video.
It’s important.

They are both fucked if Trump loses.

If that’s not enough reason to vote for Harris, I don’t know what is.

This may be the only post about Elon Musk you will ever see from me

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    I maintain that if Trump loses on Tuesday, it will be followed in short order by Musk having the Twitter meltdown to end all Twitter meltdowns.

    Get your popcorn ready.

  2. 2.

    Aussie Sheila

    When Harris/Walz win this week, Elon is going to go through some things.

    Like losing his security clearance for a start? Maybe Garland can manage that before he too leaves his post.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    My most fervent hope is that behind that dazzling, winning smile, POTUS-elect Harris is ready to go hammer and tongs against the enemies of our democracy.

    foreign, domestic, AND incel

    fire at will, MVP!!

  7. 7.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @dmsilev: I maintain that if Trump loses on Tuesday, it will be followed in short order by Musk having the Twitter meltdown to end all Twitter meltdowns.

    I am so looking forward to it.

  9. 9.

    KatKapCC

    I was gonna say that Musk is free to go back to South Africa, but I don’t wanna inflict him on South Africans any more than I want him to continue to be inflicted on us.

  12. 12.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @mrmoshpotato: Hey Elon, want to be the first person on Mars?

    Oh shit Elon, there were wrong coordinates in the system on your launch and now mission control is locked out. Looks like you’ll have to trust the Full Self Launching mode of the rocket.

  13. 13.

    West of the Rockies

    Too bad a B-52 sized glide plane can’t find its way into the Kremlin and a dacha or two

    Odd.  I thought I was putting this in Adam’s post.

  18. 18.

    danielx

    @dmsilev:

    I’m enjoying the fantasy of Trump having the meltdown of all meltdowns if he ends up getting beaten the way i hope he does.

  20. 20.

    West of the Cascades

    Is there any chance that Elon really did violate immigration law as a student, and thereby lied on his naturalization application? I’ve seen headlines but am so repelled by reading things about Musk I didn’t look closer. Seeing him denaturalized and deported would be glorious.

  21. 21.

    Jay

    WarTranslated (Dmitri)
    @wartranslated
    13h
    Russian channels have noted that in the battalions and companies, the auxiliary units such as UAVs and machine gunners are being reduced. The text is long, but to summarise, there is a catastrophic shortage of personnel for meat assaults in the companies, and all the more or less smart guys are hiding in these auxiliary units. However, simply sending everyone into meat assaults is a bad idea, as these units, despite the lack of uniformity, provide some support to the remnants of the suicidal soldiers in the trenches. This could lead to even greater losses.

    At the same time, when discussing the lack of a unified communication system, it is noted that command posts are consistently operating foreign Starlinks.

    https://nitter.poast.org/wartranslated/status/1853041908315996492#m

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev:

    I maintain that if Trump loses on Tuesday, it will be followed in short order by Musk having the Twitter meltdown to end all Twitter meltdowns.

    God, I hope so.

    I hate these people. I really hate these people.

  23. 23.

    Jackie

    @KatKapCC:

    I was gonna say that Musk is free to go back to South Africa, but I don’t wanna inflict him on South Africans any more than I want him to continue to be inflicted on us.

    Why not? They had no issue with giving him to us!

    Maybe do a swap? We’ll keep him on the stipulation South Africa takes TCFG.

  26. 26.

    Jay

    @Jackie:

    When South Africa ended Apartheid, to it’s shame, Canada took in a lot of racist, well off, white South Africans, basically Afrikkkaner’s, as economic migrants.

    But we ain’t taking Elon and his parents back.

    Maybe he can wind up in ruZZia since he pimps for it on the Dead Bird Site all the time.

  29. 29.

    danielx

    @Suzanne: ​
     May as well. Cole noted years ago that they (admittedly an amorphous designation) hate us but I’m kind of past that whole “they go low, we go high” thing.

    Fuck those guys.

  38. 38.

    Anoniminous

    @Suzanne:

    Calm down.

    Tens of thousands of young black women have registered to vote in Pa for the specific reason to vote for Harris.

    Women in Pa are just as angry at Dobbs as the rest of you.

    Pa is going Dem

  39. 39.

    Eolirin

    @Other MJS: There’s just one problem and that’s that Starlink has a questionable business model and may not be able to manage sustainable profits. Which could cause all sorts of issues if the whole initiative ends up a bust and there’s like 100,000 low earth orbit satellites that all need to be decommissioned.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    538 has Dolt 45 at +0.3 in PA,

    Keep in mind, 538 is just an aggregator, they don’t “weigh” the polls they aggregate, so all those garbage ReThug polls are included.

    +0.3, -0.3 is usually within the margin of error of most reputable polls.

    And to end, most polls have been garbage for a long time.

    ETA, in Pennsylvania, 1,427,436 people have already cast their ballots, with data from TargetSmart showing 55.6% of these early voters are women and 43.2% are men.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    @danielx: Oh, I am keenly aware how much they hate us.

    I think it is, essentially, a worldwide condition that men were raised to see leadership of a family as a birthright. I remember Rick Perlstein referring to it as “being promised a petty lordship” for having been born male. And I think sex and gender is the most salient aspect of identity for a lot of people this cycle. So I’m freaked.

  46. 46.

    realbtl

    I can’t wait to see the breakdown of people who voted for Harris and R the rest of the way down.  Ought to be a nice present for TCFG.

  48. 48.

    dmsilev

    @Eolirin: One saving grace about StarLink is that most of the satellites are in pretty low orbits. Atmospheric drag will take care of them in not too many years if all of the control thrusters are turned off.

  50. 50.

    Urza

    @Other MJS: Would have thought the diapers would be the wakeup call to most anyone but they definitely have a sunk cost fallacy going on for the last 8 years.

  51. 51.

    oldgold

    60 Minutes exacted a bit of revenge on Trump tonight. The first story eviscerated the Big Lie Trump has been pedaling for 4 years.  The second story featured how abysmal health care in Texas is for pregnant women post Dobbs.  The show ended with a short story about Lincoln’s preparations for the peaceful transfer of power on the eve of what was expected to be his political defeat in 1864.

  52. 52.

    Kirk

    I’m confident she’ll win. Except I was confident in 2016, and we know how that turned out. At which point I have to remind myself I’m confident she’ll win.

    I don’t know if I’ll be online watching results Tuesday night or curled deep in a blanket with a strong drink and a good book instead.

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Kamala will take the muzzle off the IRS and set it on Leon.  I can’t wait to watch.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: I watched it – thanks for the prodding.

    I’m impressed with Reich in some ways – it’s kinda amazing that he’s still so earnest given his long career.  Props to him for continuing to do the work.  He’s not always my cup of tea (I think he sometimes simplifies things too much), but I’m not his audience (I don’t need to be convinced about the benefits and need for higher taxes on the wealthy, etc.).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    dm

    Over at TPM, Josh Marshall has been looking at the Republican ground game, which is a Musk project, and appears to be a shambles: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musks-vapor-ware-ground-operation

    So, if Trump loses, some of the blame will accrue to Musk and his superpac.

    Re: Starlink satellites being decommissioned: there are enough of them that their debris can have a big impact on the atmosphere.

    Ozone hole 2.0:

    https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-reentry-ozone-depletion-atmosphere

    https://www.science.org/content/article/burned-satellites-are-polluting-atmosphere

  58. 58.

    eclare

    @Kirk:

    I was not confident at all in 2016, even before Comey’s whack job, but I am pretty confident now.

    Harris has momentum, she has joy, I love it.

  60. 60.

    gene108

    @West of the Cascades:

    Is there any chance that Elon really did violate immigration law as a student, and thereby lied on his naturalization application? I’ve seen headlines but am so repelled by reading things about Musk I didn’t look closer. Seeing him denaturalized and deported would be glorious.

    The details are sketchy.

    People on student visas can work, otherwise they couldn’t take up internships or other types of co-op and work-study opportunities as students.

    They need to get a work permit and be enrolled at the university or after graduating can work for year on this work permit.

    Elon was accepted in Stanford. Did he enroll for classes? Did bother getting the necessary work permit? The reporting seems to imply he didn’t enroll for classes and didn’t bother with a work permit.

    A startup probably isn’t big on HR compliance. He has a Social Security Number, which students* can get, and that was enough to stick him on the payroll would be my guess on how skated around needing a work permit.

    Also, pre-9/11 immigration enforcement wasn’t as strict as it’s gotten now. It was easier to skate by without a proper visa.

  62. 62.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Another Scott: I’m grateful he simplies things; I might always be a biginner about economics. Maybhe needs a second tier, gif the deeper, more complex in depth explanations

  63. 63.

    Ksmiami

    @dm: my friend canvassed in Nevada today. Said there’s no Trump ground game… but is this effective effort anymore? I don’t have a lot of hope in US voters

  66. 66.

    Jay

    @gene108:

     

    Elon was accepted in Stanford. Did he enroll for classes?

    According to both Felon Musk and his Brother, recorded at the time, No.

    Did bother getting the necessary work permit?

    As above, no.

    A startup probably isn’t big on HR compliance. He has a Social Security Number, which students* can get, and that was enough to stick him on the payroll would be my guess on how skated around needing a work permit.

    Once the start up was aware of his Immigration status, they got nervous, so they got him a work permit and later, a green card.

  67. 67.

    Eolirin

    @Ksmiami: Ground game can swing a couple of points difference, and in a close race like Nevada that may be determinative. But Nevada’s gonna be close. Much closer than I’d like it to be.

  68. 68.

    gene108

    I live next door to Philly, in NJ.

    For Dems to win in PA they need to make sure the turnout in Philadelphia and its suburbs, Pittsburgh and its suburbs, plus the college towns can outweigh the Republican votes from “Pennsyltucky”.

  69. 69.

    Ksmiami

    @Eolirin: I think the worst part of a Trump win will be his supporters triumphalism as everything in America degrades. From women’s rights to the environment

  70. 70.

    gene108

    @Jay:

    Once the start up was aware of his Immigration status, they got nervous, so they got him a work permit and later, a green card.

    Makes sense.

    If it wasn’t for his current hypocrisy on immigration, this would be a very minor issue.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I don’t know if you mess with Twitter, but Ron Filipkowski and Aaron Rupar posted a lot about Trump’s three rallies today. Rupar said about the rally in Kinston, North Carolina that Trump was “by far the lowest energy” Rupar had seen since he started covering Trump rallies. The crowd looked low-energy too.

    So Rupart and Filipkowski posted various clips of Trump saying weird and goofy shit, and while I was scrolling through their commentary I realized something: I’m not gonna be doing this any longer. I’ve followed Trump’s public appearances through these guy for quite now, but that’s all but over now. I won’t miss it either.

    Virginia may have a tossup race in the 2nd Congressional District. A Christopher Newport Univesity poll released Friday showed Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans leading Democrat Missy Cotter Smasol by only one point, 46-45% with 7% undecided. A CNU poll taken mid-September showed Kiggans up by five points, so the momentum seems to be in Smazol’s favor. I think the district is rated R+2.

    Both Kiggans and Smasol are retired Navy officers. So is Elaine Luria, who flipped the 2nd in 2018 and lost to Kiggans in 2022.

  74. 74.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Eolirin:

    What happened to the Harry Reid machine? Unlike many here, I like machine politics. They aren’t necessarily corrupt, in fact they are less corrupt imo than the haphazard jockeying for primary wins in disorganised and demoralised electorates where money and local influence (but I repeat myself) is permitted to play an outsized influence in the final representative(s).

    More efficient machines and less last minute scrambles would be better for US democracy all round.

  77. 77.

    Jay

    @gene108:

    Under US law, he can be stripped of his Citizenship and Deported.

    If he were a “Quiet Billionaire”, this would be a non issue, but he can’t stop trying to out asshole himself and suck up to Dictators.

  79. 79.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Suzanne:

    And I think sex and gender is the most salient aspect of identity for a lot of people this cycle. So I’m freaked.

    It is, and I’m nervous too. If the monster wins, then I will freak out completely. However, it hasn’t happened yet. I might as well spare myself any advance misery, especially when she might just pull it out. So, I’m thinking happy thoughts, for now.

  80. 80.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Baud:

    Well if his death meant the end of the machine, it wasn’t really a political machine. It was an organisation reliant on the personality and organisational skills of one man. That’s no way to build and hold political power.
    At all.

  81. 81.

    Eolirin

    @Aussie Sheila: What Reid built is still involved in pushing turnout, and it’s part of why we managed to eke out a narrow senate victory there in 2022, even though we narrowly lost the governorship, but Nevada is a hard state and there’s the potential for real erosion there, both in the changing electorate and the weakening of our organizational abilities in a world without Reid there to head things up.

    I think Harris can afford to lose the state, but we can’t afford to lose Rosen’s senate seat. So Nevada will concern me.

  82. 82.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @gene108: Melanin count is central to “illegal immigrants”, even if they’re actually legal (see Haitians in Springfield, OH).

  83. 83.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Suzanne:

    Guys, I am getting really freaked out about PA. There’s so many resentful dudes.

    Before you let them get to you, ask yourself, are there more of them than there were in 2020? I’m thinking no. Of course YMMV, as they say on the internet.

  84. 84.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Eolirin:

    I understand the concern. But after this is over and everyone is on the other side of this utterly unbelievable scramble, some hard thinking needs to go into Dem Party organising in Counties and districts that appear to be harder to win than they should be.

    I utterly understand that changing demographics can have impacts on electorates that make it difficult to replicate the same kind of election results every time.

    However a collective political machine embedded deep in every remotely winnable community can make a huge difference at the margins. Particularly in Senate races.
    Ask me how I know!

  86. 86.

    Stuart Frasier

    @Eolirin: The one good thing about Starlink is that the satellites are low enough to experience drag and would all de-orbit on their own in a few years.

    edit: already pointed out by dmsilev above

  87. 87.

    janesays

    As much as it pleases me that Elon Musk may experience some extreme displeasure at the outcome of Tuesday’s election, I have a hard time believing that a man with a net worth exceeding a quarter of a trillion dollars will ever truly know what it means to be “fucked” in any meaningful sense.

    There will probably never be a day in which that Apartheid beneficiary asswipe is not wealthier than every single person you know. He could literally lose $100 billion tomorrow and still have more money than 99.9999% of the entire human population. To the best of my knowledge, no person who has ever reached the Top 5 of the Forbes 400 richest people in the world list has ever ceased to be a billionaire in their lifetime. When he says he’ll be fucked if Trump loses, what he means is that he probably won’t become the world’s first trillionaire by the end of the decade.

  89. 89.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Aussie Sheila:

    The other thing that political machines are good for is building and maintaining political engagement. That is the bedrock upon which electoral results are built. That’s why high unionisation levels assists in mobilising voters at election time.

    That link is quite obvious here, and in electorates where unions work to maintain their presence at a local level election results for centre left parties are always better than otherwise. Always.

  91. 91.

    hrprogressive

    @Geminid: ​
     

    VA-02 is essentially getting a rematch of Kiggans/Luria, except swapping out Cotter-Smasal for Luria.

    Cotter-Smasal has run a couple of “I’ll stand up to my own party, too” ads which honestly I am sick and tired of Democrats pre-conceding like that.

    Having lived in the Hampton Roads metro region my entire life, I am well aware the 2nd District has always been super swingy, and military heavy since Virginia Beach has pretty much always encompassed most if not all of the district.

    But why not just come out and say “Hey, I’m So and So, I believe in blank, and my opponent sucks, so, you know, vote for me?”

    I’m not saying Smasal is a bad candidate, she’s done reasonably well enough. The ads hitting Kiggans for being BFF’s with Fascist Margie I think have helped drive home the anti-abortion message a bit.

    That Kiggans went from up 5 to statistically tied helps, I think, feed the Harris/Walz momentum narrative, and I am hoping that enough people help send Kiggans to an early retirement.

    I haven’t spent a ton of time in Virginia Beach lately. I am sure the super conservative areas are still pretty Trumpy, but I’ll note that in surrounding cities, there does not appear to be nearly the enthusiasm for Trump that there was 8 or even 4 years ago, so.

    One can hope.

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Geminid:

    Rupar said about the rally in Kinston, North Carolina that Trump was “by far the lowest energy” Rupar had seen since he started covering Trump rallies. The crowd looked low-energy too. 

    Sounds like the orange shitstain doesn’t have the stamina to run for office.

  94. 94.

    Fake Irishman

    @Aussie Sheila:

    The Harry Reid machine is still there. It has been cutting the relative GOP improvement in the early vote in comparison to 2020 steadily for the last week now.

    It gutted out critical statewide wins in 2022 beating the worst GOPers, getting a key Dem Senator back and damn near keeping the governorship.

    Nevada has been a nail biter state outside of the two Obama wins.

  95. 95.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Ramona:

    Fifty years experience in industrial and political organising, and in working to build political machines in both spaces with other people to maximise the outcomes we sought in the workplace and community.

    Of course our work and everyone else’s work is immeasurably easier  in a polity where the duty to vote and the right to have every ballot honestly counted is enshrined in law.
    The Dems might start with that precept when they win on Tuesday.

    Which they will.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: I think the Reid machine is still around. At least, when some DSA-types took over the Nevada Democratic Party apparatus ~2021, I read that the more “Regular” Reid people were able to work around them until they regained control last year.

    My understanding is that labor unions are a strong component Nevada’s Democratic coalition. Workers in many large Las Vegas hotel/casinos are organized, and unions like the Culinary Local swing a lot of weight.

    But Nevada always had a strong Republican Party, and Harry served much of his Senate tenure alongside a Republican Nevada Senator. Now both Senators and 3 out of 4 Representatives are Democrats, but I think they all win by single digits.

    So Nevada is still a “purple” state I think, and hard to predict with certainty. And from what I’ve read, there’s a factor that makes Nevada particularly hard to predict, and hard to organize. That is, Nevada has more population turnover than almost any other state.

  98. 98.

    Fake Irishman

    @Gwangung:

    basically the Reid people built a parallel machine while Sanders people issued press releases after they took over the party. One was an effective orgnaization, the other was not.

  99. 99.

    TS

    @Suzanne: There are surely more resentful women who want their right to live back again. Women are also voting. From statistics we have seen, much more than the men. Young resentful men don’t always vote – they just resent

  100. 100.

    caphilldcne

    @Suzanne: I’ve been doing GOTV in PA. the GOTV did 660,000 visits in one day Saturday.  There were times during the day that we did 2000 visits a minute. In my small group we did 130 sections of turf (20-50 voters each) by 157 volunteers. I’ve done various GOTV or voter protection activities since 2004. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if we’ll win PA but I’m confident that the Harris-Walz ground game here is far outstripping their counterparts.

  101. 101.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Geminid:

    Ok I get that totally. Large demographic turnover makes organising particularly hard-industrially and politically. But there are ways to mitigate the difficulties. And it starts by having a presence in every community, no matter how small and insignificant.

    And it ends by grasping the opportunity when you get power to ensure you are able to shape the industrial and political landscape to your advantage going forward.

  103. 103.

    TS

    @Geminid:

    The crowd looked low-energy too.

    Probably the people who follow him around – they must be tired of hearing the same old rubbish every rally. trump reached his max voters weeks ago, he is probably losing more than he gains every rally since Hew York.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @hrprogressive: I’m not sure Missy Smasol is as good a candidate as Elaine Luria was. But she can still win a reportedly R+2 district in a wave year, which is how Luria won in 2018. Smasol has two good issues to pound, which would be abortion rights and a bad vote Kiggans made last year to cut Veterans Administration funding.

    Kiggans is handicapped both by her association with a dysfunctional Republican House Caucus and the presence of Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. Trump has been a potent GOTV asset for Virginia Democrats.

    And Trump’s not even that popular among Virginia Republicans. Voter roll analysis of tbe 2021 Governor’s race indicated that one factor behind a 12 point swing from Biden to Youngkin was that a number of Republicans who stayed home in 2020 came out for Youngkin.

    Independents here don’t really like Trump either, and I bet another component pf that 12 point swing was Biden-to-Youngkin Indies. CNU polling consistently shows that about 31% of Virginia voters self-identify as Independents, and that number is probably higher in the 2nd CD. So Kiggans may need ticket-splitters in order to win this year.

  105. 105.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Came across the below survey of AAPI’s attitude toward Biden/Trump from 2020 to 2024 (click through to the Twitter thread for the full results). It shows a substantial decline in support for Biden, & disturbingly large increase in support for Trump among Japanese & Chinese Americans. One hopes that the support for the Dem ticket is now higher w/ Harris at the top. Voting for Trump would as much an exercise in self-harm for AAPIs as it would be Muslim/Arab Americans, but win or lose the Dems need to come to grips w/ disillusionment in parts of its coalition, & not take all of their supporters for granted, & not completely relying upon being the lesser of two evils to win elections. At least Vietnamese Americans are now disillusioned w/ Trump.

    C Nguyen
    @CNguyenEc
    Oct 20

    What I have noticed is that, compared to 2016-21, the fandom for Trump this time is much less among the Vietnamese, at home and even in the diaspora, incl. the US where recent surveys have shown that decrease in pro-Trump is the largest among the Vietnamese-Americans.

    Reasons: Viet-American Gen Z as first-time voters, Trump’s hardline immigration policy hit the Viet-American community hard; at home, growing fear for escalatory trade & geopolitical wars by spillovers, far-right embrace for Trump in 2016-21 was destructive to civil society.

    Then is there is this debate clip from NH-2 Congressional race (click through the link for the video):

    promise li@promise__li

    Regardless of whether they win, Lily Tang Williams and Long David Liu show that a firebrand, immigrant Chinese/Sinophone-driven, brand of far right is becoming an emergent pillar in American neo-fascism.

    The Democrats have no solution to the rising Chinese American far-right, besides tailing the Republicans on policing and other social policies to pander to the worse political impulses of immigrant Sinophone communities, which the far-right is unabashedly capitalizing on.

    A reminder that it is not just the White ethno-nationalists & religious fundamentalists that espouse reactionary authoritarian views, there are such tendencies in every demographic. Also a reminder that being “anti-Communists” doest not make one amenable to liberal democracy, as we have seen from some Vietnamese/Korean/Cuban Americans in previous decades. I would not be surprised if Lily Tang Williams has been saturated w/ Falun Gong &/or Mile Guo CTs on both the PRC & the Dem Party. & who in the Dem established thought that, in the current populist/anti-establishment moment, it is a good idea to run a prototypically establishmentarian candidate (Maggie Goodlander is the wife of Jake Sullivan & herself a product of Groton, Yale, Yale Law, & government technocracy), in a state known for its libertarian leanings no less?!

    I hope Goodlander wins, & keep the kook out of the House.

  106. 106.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Eolirin: In which case the US government thanks Lone Skum for his service to mankind, nationalizes SpaceX, and turns the first tranche of orbit-rated Starships into astral zambonis to scoop up all but a workable number of Starlinks and bring ’em down. (Better yet, bag ’em up a hundred at a time and park ’em in geosynchronous orbit til you can set up a solar-powered mass spectrometer at the Moon’s south pole, then carry them there & smelt them for worthwhile rare elements.) And then carry on with the project of creating economically feasible offworld access for everything from hoisting next-generation telescopes to shades for climate change mitigation to mining lunar He3 for fusion reactors to asteroid mining and capture – to, eventually, after the TNTC problems are surmounted, sending scientific teams for long-term stays on Mars as a preliminary to semipermanent long-term residence circa 2200 CE.

  107. 107.

    wjca

    @Aussie Sheila: some hard thinking needs to go into Dem Party organising in Counties and districts that appear to be harder to win than they should be.

    That was the lesson of 2010.  If you neglect those, which Democrats had been doing, you get burned.  Which goes triple for years ending in zero, where the newly elected state legislatures will be drawing new legislative districts for the next decade.

  108. 108.

    wjca

    @Uncle Cosmo: Better yet, bag ’em up a hundred at a time and park ’em in geosynchronous orbit

    Do you have any idea what it takes to get something from a (very) low earth orbit, where the Starlink satellites currently are, up to a geosynchronous orbit?  Far cheaper and easier, once you “bag ’em up” to just bring them back down gently.

  110. 110.

    RationalMAN

    @WaterGirl:

    Yes, nationalize SpaceX.

    Elon Musk has no respect for law, government or democracy.

    Also prohibit Musk from being Tesla CEO or exec of any public company.

  111. 111.

    AM in NC

    @YY_Sima Qian:  Here in NC it’s the Affirmative Action issue that pushed Chinese citizens  into the Republican camp.  They believe Democratic support for Affirmative Action harmed Asian kids’ chances of getting into Harvard and UNC, and that was their primary reason for voting R in federal, state, and local races.

    It was a definite shift and they would say that’s the reason for it.

  112. 112.

    yellowdog

    @Aussie Sheila: From what I remember at the time in 2016, it was reported that Bernie supporters took over the party mechanism and screwed it up royally. Which is why NV has a GOP governor.

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