lol spacex has apparently lost attitude control of the big metal spaceship after the cargo bay door failed to perform a simulated satellite deployment
— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) May 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM
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I dunno, man. These rapid unscheduled disassemblies seem like they all keep happening right on schedule.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha1.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:44 PM
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By "80%" Elon really meant 0%
— Anthony Pesec (@anthonypesec.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 9:03 PM
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have been watching a documentary about starbase, that town elon musk is using to destroy the world and burst out laughing at this part about cybertrucks
— onion person (@junlper.beer) May 28, 2025 at 8:13 PM
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UNDEFEATED
bsky.app/profile/maxt…— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) May 27, 2025 at 8:14 PM
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Elon Musk donating $300 million to Trump and the Republican Party is fucking insane. This is exactly why we need massive campaign finance reform to save our democracy.
— Mike Nellis (@mikenellis.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:53 AM
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Elon Musk gave about $250 million more to Republicans than the next closest Democratic billionaire (Bloomberg). Dems have nothing close—except low-dollar online donors, which is why Trump’s going after ActBlue.
— Mike Nellis (@mikenellis.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:57 AM
NotMax
If that’s the same short form documentary I mentioned here months ago it’s revelatory regarding the negative and detrimental impact on the area and its native populace.
Marc
The booster didn’t make it back to the pad [I was wrong, it exploded before the planned off shore hard landing], either, so this one was a double fail. Musk was supposed to give a big speech about his future Mars plans just before the launch, it was cancelled at the last moment. I assume he knew by then the odds had slipped somewhere below 80%.
NotMax
@Marc
“Vonce ze rocket goes up who cares vere it comes down?” says Elon the clown.
//
sab
@NotMax: Not wanting to laugh too much, but what is it with Musk’s accent. Shades of Henry Kissinger.
He has been in this country since he was eighteen, and in Canada before that. But he still talks like a South African. That is deliberate.
Over my life I have moved around this country and have had to adjust my accent from various Southern accents to various midwestern accents, just to fit in.
I know immigrants who came here as children knowing no English whatever that in ten years speak perfect American English with the accent of their region. Older immigrants struggle. I respect their challenges in a new country. But that isn’t Musk. This is his choice.
Every time I hear Musk I am offended. He is just pretending to be American.
Gloria DryGarden
Reposting this article about Elon, From “downstairs” earlier
Elon runs company town, star base and starlink outside of legal regulation- a study in power and control
Sure hope it gives y’all fodder for discussion. It seems a very big deal, that has been sliding right under all the radar. It’s troubling, and I didn’t understand all the ramifications.
Also, I’ve noticed something in elons face, a few days ago, in a blue sky post. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. A level of demanding and cruelty, like he’s not a good man to cross, ever. Don’t let your daughter go out for coffee with him.
Baud
@Marc:
I think he should go to Mars in the next launch.
rekoob
@sab: @NotMax: Pretty sure NotMax was evoking Tom Lehrer’s accent of Wernher von Braun in mimicking Musk.
Central Planning
@Gloria DryGarden:
And apparently your wife:
I saw rumors they were a throuple. It’s irresponsible not to speculate!
montanareddog
@Central Planning: Stephen Miller, the kosher Heydrich, cucked by an immigrant. You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: You know, I’m not going to fault him for *that*. My accent still has traces of the upper Midwest in it even though I moved to Virginia at age four and Massachusetts at 22. A northeastern prep-school kid once said I talk like the characters in Fargo (though I’m pretty sure it’s more Cleveland than Minnesota, or Fargo for that matter).
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@sab: I don’t know what’s with his accent because I spent 6 months in South Africa and never heard anyone speak with that accent. Most of the Caucasians spoke either with an English/UKesque accent or something resembling a soft Australia-New Zealand accent.
That said I didn’t really meet anyone from the Dutch descendants contingent – except for one guy I spoke with briefly about guide services in the Drakensberg but he kept breaking into full on Afrikaans so I couldn’t really understand him.
So it could be that accent he has, except my understanding is his family is from the English descent contingent so it wouldn’t have been the accent he grew up speaking in. So it seems like an affectation but I could be wrong.
montanareddog
@Matt McIrvin: I am in agreement with you. I left my birth region at the age of 18, and my country of birth at 28 and, decades later, I still have the same accent.
My personal observation is accent adjustment in individuals tends to correlate to musical ability, of which I have none, especially singers. At least, they tend to have the best accents when speaking a non-native tongue.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Matt McIrvin: I grew up in Grand Rapids MI and got the same thing from the East Coasters I went to college with except Fargo hadn’t come out yet so they didn’t have that frame of reference. The GR accent is no where near as pronounced as in Fargo though but when I go back home I can hear it now. Not everyone there has it though – it’s a bit hit or miss.
The Audacity of Krope
So, the mother from Bobby’s World?
Baud
@montanareddog:
Now there’s an abuse of immigration power I can get behind. I hope the jealousy is overwhelming.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@The Audacity of Krope: I don’t know who that is. They didn’t point to any pop culture characters just said upper Midwest.
Princess
@Central Planning: Katie Miller has a new Twitter banner that is a SpaceX rocket blasting off. That’s the only evidence I need that she and Musk are schtupping (hey, it’s still Balloon Juice After Dusk on the west coast).
EarthWindFire
Never thought of this but agree 100%. My mom was born and raised in Worcester, MA but moved west with my dad in her 20s. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard her drop an r. She’s also been in choirs for much of her life. Good observation.
MagdaInBlack
@Princess: Ah, the strange and extremely fupped up mating rituals of the maga elite. Where’s Margaret Meade when we need her?
AM in NC
If I were in Dem leadership, I’d make getting money out of politics a HUGE part of my message. Americans HATE Elon Musk and the power the rich have over us. It’s a great message, and makes the GOP look horrible every time they defend letting billionaires buy our government. Put it to EVERY GOP elected official in every paired interview with them -“well, it is going to be hard to solve that problem for regular Americans until we get billionaire money out of the system, because it seems their needs always come first. Congressman X, do you and your fellow Republicans support re-instating limits on campaign donations so billionaires don’t functionally own our government?” And when they flail around go for the kill – “Why are you in favor of letting the richest people in the history of the human race own and direct our government? I (and the Democrats) think our government should be of, by, and for the PEOPLE, not the billionaire class”.
prostratedragon
Baud
@AM in NC:
I’m not opposed to the message, but I have yet to see any evidence that it drives votes. Or that enough people care about money on the Republican side. Musk didn’t hide his support for Trump during the election. There was no outcry from anyone except people like us who were already committed.
People do seem to care that Dems are not sufficiently billionaire free to be worth supporting. I’m skeptical that we’ll ever be good enough for those people.
But 2028 is a long ways away. Maybe attitudes will change.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
So much for the gift.
MagdaInBlack
@AM in NC: The “normies” I know are oblivious to the billionaire involvement.
Just sayin’
lowtechcyclist
@AM in NC:
We had campaign finance reform, but the Citizens United decision killed it. We’d need either Dems controlling the White House and Senate long enough to install a much improved Supreme Court, or a Constitutional amendment.
When the Dems are in a position to do so, I’d like them to propose a simple one: “Corporations are not people. Money is not speech.” Vote against that one, Repubs.
Professor Bigfoot
@EarthWindFire: That’s an interesting observation– I was always able to switch accents and usually defaulted to the Standard Midwest I saw on CBS News. I got SO MUCH shit for my habits of speech I was referred to as “propa-tawkin’ Johnny ____” all the time.
I was also, for a few weeks, “the best lead guitarist in Ventura County.” (I WAS pretty good in those days, tho’ ;)
Never thought of any correlation between them; just thought I had a good ear– as I think of it now, for music and for accents.
NotMax
@Professor Bigfoot
Reminded of a moment in a semi-weird Canadian series.
A carnival of questionable pedigree comes to a small town. One of the attractions is the freak show, featuring “the world’s oldest Red Hot Chili Peppers fan.”
:)
Geminid
@prostratedragon: A lot of consequential developments came out of Trump’s trip to the Gulf. Trump’s announcement that the US would lift sanctions on Syria, and his meeting with Syrian President al-Sharaa the next day were just two of them.
But if you ask Americans what came from that trip almost all would reply, “that Qatari jumbo jet!” And all but a very few loyalists would say it reflected poorly on Trump. Even some of the loyalists said so.
This jet’s value for Trump is mainly as an object of prestige, but for most onlookers it’s a negative prestige. I doubt if it will ever be utilized as Air Force One on account of the costs of retrofitting an obsolescent airplane with the requisite upgrades, and the time it eould take. It might “grace” a future Trump Library but if it does it will be a symbol of his corruption.
This affair reminds me of the proverbial “White Elephant,” a gift with no practical value that eats up an inordinate amount of fodder to no purpose. In this case the fodder is political capital.
The original White Elephants were gifts from one Indian prince to another as an elaborate prank. I don’t think the Qataris meant to prank Trump when they tried to unload a superfluous jumbo jet on him, he he sure pranked himself.
AM in NC
@lowtechcyclist: Yep. I’d use this as a cudgel to emphasize how important it is for Democrats to get to appoint Justices – among other reasons.
We need to start DRIVING the message and moving public opinion, like Republicans do, rather than focus-testing what works right now and trying to model our message to fit that. Republicans repeat, repeat, repeat visceral messages and MOVE public opinion.
Tie billionaires’ owning our government to rural hospitals closing in those districts and attack the local GOP rep – why are billionaire tax cuts more important than cancer treatment for our town’s people? Because billionaires OWN you. Get billionaire money out of politics!!
Why is our drinking water undrinkable now? Because billionaires bought an end to the protections our town relied on to keep us safe. Why is Senator X prioritizing the corporate right to pollute our wells over your child’s health? Get billionaire money out of politics!
If Republicans can drive public opinion on trans people being the most severe threat in all of US history, then we should be able to drive public opinion on issues that are actually true and relevant to all Americans. But it takes concerted effort and constant repetition.
We are being RIPPED OFF so the wealthiest people in the history of the entire human race can buy a yacht for their yacht. And it’s REPUBLICANS allowing them to do it.
We can’t just “hate on the rich” because that message is a loser. We need to specifically tie the owning of our government by billionaires to specific harms people are experiencing because the billionaire class owns the GOP. Make it personal.
Edited to correct typos
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Overriding the Citizens United ruling would indeed be a long term project.
in the medium term, I think Democrsts could do a lot by reforming the existing campaign finance laws. We might not be able to “drive money out of politics ” but we could add a lot more transparency to the system, and restrict the abuses by entities like the 501(c) political groups.
JML
@Baud: correct. campaign finance reform, no matter how you label it, polls well, but doesn’t move votes. It doesn’t turn out voters, it doesn’t change minds. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, and it can be part of the platform as a way of generally improving people’s impressions of the party, but you can’t spend too much time on it because it doesn’t move votes as an issue.
The Audacity of Krope
@AM in NC: This. All of it.
BarcaChicago
@montanareddog: Absolutely. As someone who studied language as my major in college and spent 10 years living in Spain, I can attest to a strong correlation between musical ability and the ability to master accents. It just makes sense: both require a facility in distinguishing sounds and reproducing the same sounds. Often, that person might not even use their musical ability, but the capacity is there. I think it’s like a spectrum and some people are on the far right and some the far left, while most of us are in the middle. I met a Scottish guy who had lived many years in Catalonia, whom the Spaniards really admired for his rich and beautifully-spoken Castellano – however, he had a terrible accent. He would be farther on the left side of the spectrum :-) Native speakers didn’t care about his accent, it probably sounded charming to them.
NotMax
@BarcaChicago
Obligatory?
:)
TONYG
@Central Planning: It’s like a really bad romance novel. Katie Miller finally found a man who is more of a toxic psychopath than her husband!
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Maybe why they’re now insisting it wasn’t their idea.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: THIS! Get $ out of politics is one of those sentiments that is wildly popular but seems to have zero ability to move votes. Everybody knew damn well that Trump was going to cut taxes on Billionaires, and take bribes from them. People, including Dems, still couldn’t be bothered to vote. Harris, Biden, Hillary (not to mention pretty much EVERY one of the 22 candidates in the 2020 Primary) all ran on promising to make the super-wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and against political corruption. It isn’t the winning issue that some people think it is.
TONYG
@montanareddog: That’s right. My wife came to the U.S. from Japan when she was 24. She quickly became fluent in English and speaks English with no noticeable accent. Musk wants to sound like an apartheid South African.
NotMax
@TONYG
PridePrejudice and Prejudice.//
prostratedragon
@BarcaChicago: That has become my approach to trying to speak a foreign language: make my poor accent nonetheless charming.
tobie
This isn’t exactly a campaign finance issue, but I’ve been wondering what help prominent social media influencers have had to rise to the top. I don’t think Joe Rogan or Tim Pool or Benny Johnson became prominent through the force of their personalities. They had backers. A lot of GenZ, GenX and millenial progressives are pretty connected onlineand yet there isn’t any equivalent voice shaping public opinion and mainstreaming fringe ideas like “vaccines are bad” (Joe Rogan) or “Ukrainians are the aggressors” (Pool). I’m not looking for a Democratic version of Rogan. But I am interested in figuring out how media personalities funded and groomed.
TONYG
@Princess: From what I’ve read, Elon doesn’t do any actual schtupping (he says that it’s not an efficient use of his time), and that his legion of baby-mamas get pregnant through in vitro fertilization. This is all very normal, you see!
TONYG
@NotMax: A romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor funny!
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: I think it’s like the “why don’t we have a Fox News?” question, though. You could fund it as well as you liked and you wouldn’t get anyone of Joe Rogan-level prominence because stupid conspiracy ideas have a natural demagogic appeal that sensible ones do not.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson goes on Rogan’s show mostly pushing real science, but it doesn’t get the same kind of traction, and I suspect it might be affecting Tyson’s brain negatively.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Trump is pardoning rich criminals left and right. Ho hum, says the public.
BellyCat
@TONYG: Did not know that Elon was so “handy”!
tobie
@tobie: No doubt Bondi’s DOJ kiboshed this indictment but the charging document itself should be useful for future investigations assuming we get to that point. From CNN:
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
People think expertise automatically gives one good debating or rhetorical skills. It doesn’t.
Bupalos
@AM in NC: The challenge in implementing this politics is that while it’s true that the Democratic Party would be relatively advantaged by getting the big money out, it’s not as overwhelmingly in the interest of the individual politicians.
Baud
@Bupalos:
In what way?
BarcaChicago
@prostratedragon: Self deprecation and wit, as demonstrated in your comment, will pull it off for you :-)
I had a hell of a time achieving fluency myself – I had learned to read and write well in Spanish while doing my degree but I had barely opened my mouth. That meant my inner critic was extremely sophisticated in its knowledge of Spanish grammar, while my speaking and comprehension skills were nonexistent – I never wanted to bumble around verbally, which you need to do for quite a while before you can become fluent. The irony is that, generally speaking, people really appreciate your learning their language and don’t give a damn about the mistakes you make.
NotMax
@BellyCat
Self-driving spermatozoa.
//
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Maybe getting the money out would advantage activists and upstarts among the Democrats. The leadership…not so much.
That money is time on the airwaves and the ads on videos people choose for themselves. It drives decisions on who gets and gives the big interviews.
prostratedragon
Keep drumming!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure how it plays out. In the general election, whoever our candidates are, they’ll still be competing against Republicans and all of their advantages.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
TONYG
@tobie: Somewhat off-topic, but I’ve read about the most recent catastrophic failures of Space X rocket tests. Elon has apparently said that when he achieves an 80% success rate with Space X tests that he’ll be ready to go to Mars. So his fan-boys and fan-girls will be ready to accept a one in five chance of dying a horrible death for the glory of Elon?
NotMax
@BarcaChicago
Amazed how readily my Spanish comes back some 60 or so years later when conversing with Mom’s housekeeper while visiting.
TONYG
@BellyCat: A jerk off with skills at jerking off.
BellyCat
@NotMax: Remarkable that they reach the proper destination.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: That money is one of the big advantages Republicans have. Not only in the form of political donations, political support for Republicans will often drive business decisions.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Right. So giving up money gives them a bigger advantage. So what do people think we’ll gain politically by doing it?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
We might be talking about two different things. I’m talking about Dems voluntarily giving up rich people support to win elections. You seem to be talking about how to reform the system assuming we can win elections.
Baud
@TONYG:
Darwinism in action.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I don’t think anyone is saying Democrats should unilaterally decide to absolve themselves of money. Making the money an issue and, as stated above, connecting it directly to bad outcomes people are experiencing could be part of a successful strategy. And a necessary part if we would like to implement legislative fixes once returned to power.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Did someone say drumming (51:37 – 54:57)?
Fun novelty bit. ;)
Bupalos
@UncleEbeneezer: It’s not that people don’t support it, it’s simply that people don’t believe it will happen. People have heard politicians saying this for decades. The only way it can command political attention anymore is for someone to appear to be breaking with politics as usual, and the only way to demonstrate this potential is to loudly clash with other existing policy positions of their own party.
This is how Trump has managed to remake the right wing coalition, he demonstrates an appetite for conflict and destruction with the traditional Republican policy slate. It allows people to believe he might actually do things he talks about and invites the electorate to reengage with politics. Bernie did a somewhat quieter and earlier version of this, but the party didn’t quite seal the deal on a realignment.
BarcaChicago
@NotMax: Wonderful, isn’t it? It seems like if you get to a certain level with it, it remains with you and will happily pop out when activated. It always feels really good when I’m able to speak Spanish with someone (I returned from Spain in 2007), which I’m able to do pretty often here in Chicago. I will always have Spain in my Spanish, which the speakers from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central America that I generally speak with tend to enjoy – it must be similar to when we Americans hear British English spoken.
TONYG
@TONYG: What I find fascinating (in a nauseating way) is how deeply weird, aside from their political policies, so many of the current icons of the American right are. Elon Musk! Stephen Miller! JD Vance! RFK Junior! Pete Hegseth! And, of course, the God-Emperor Donald Trump. I honestly don’t get it. Why these particular assholes?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m not sure no one is saying this
That goes back to my original thought on this. It could be. But I certainly am not convinced that it resonates with voters. I could be wrong. I only object to the idea that it’s so obvious that it will be successful that we create a litmus test that prevents other people from disagreeing.
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: I agree that Dem-leaning audiences don’t have the conspiratorial outlook that the Republican base does. Rightwing populism thrives in an environment where people believe there are nefarious forces trying to dupe the true inheritors of the earth and the only antidotes to this are “homespun wisdom” (see MAHA) and “common sense.” Still I have a hard time believing Rogan is an organic phenomenon. Maybe that’s conspiratorial on my part but there’s evidence that rightwing influencers had foreign backing, and that may be dwarfed by support from super-wealthy Americans.
Denali5
The problem with getting any control over the billionaires’ influence is that most people Would like to have the power of having a lot of money. It is part of the aura of success in this country. Where does the line get drawn? If we had a President who had the values that we share, wouldn’t we be happy to see billionaires funding those values?
Of course billionaires should pay taxes. I think Democrats should keep pounding this basic issue of fairness. They should pay their share.
Soprano2
@Baud: They don’t see that crime as affecting them negatively, so they don’t care about it. People aren’t scared of financial crimes (even though they should be), they’re only afraid of violent crimes.
Baud
@Soprano2:
That’s understandable, but it’s not an either/or situation except for people who believe Dems are in league with violent criminals, and those people are not reachable.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
That’s so fucking weird! I mean, I hire a plumber because earning the money to pay him is a more efficient use of my time than trying to fix it myself and screwing things up even worse than they were to begin with. But that’s because plumbing isn’t something I want to do in the first place.
But sex, OTOH, is one of those things that most of us really want out of life. We have sex because we’d rather be having sex with a person we desire than doing most other things we could think of. But I guess if getting to Mars is more important to him than sex, maybe
he ought to put himself in his next Starship* rocket and aim it towards the Red Planetthat makes some sort of weird sense for him.*And he’s so clueless, he’s named his rocket after Jefferson Airplane’s mediocre descendant whose biggest hit was “We Built This City” which the less said about it, the better.
tobie
@TONYG: I hadn’t thought about that. Who will sign up to be the guinea pigs for SpaceX’s trial flights to Mars?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Thanks to the influence of porn, I thought you were going somewhere else with your comment.
Bupalos
@Baud: Well, the same way that a team with fewer power hitters is advantaged by moving the fences back.
I’m not talking about unilateral disarmament, I’m talking about which party would benefit from a switch to a system that ended big donors. And saying that one of the reasons the party has a hard time embracing the politics that might push towards that end state is that while the Democratic Party would be politically advantaged, the individual politicians would not be.
NotMax
@BarcaChicago
Am but a poor piker. Mom speaks nine languages!
Baud
@Bupalos:
The only problem is that we have embraced campaign finance reform consistently for a long time. Maybe the party has learned the lesson that voters don’t care that much.
jonas
This is a big point Chris Murphy has been making lately when talking about How to Fight Back. It’s how AOC and Bernie are packing stadiums with their No Oligarchs tour. Dems need to make overturning Citizens United as much of their brand identity as Republicans did with overturning Roe.
UncleEbeneezer
@tobie: Racism is much more popular than Anti-Racism. Misogyny is much more popular than Feminism. Etc. I wish it was otherwise but that’s the harsh truth. There was an image showing Right vs. Left podcasts a while back with each one in a bubble sized to fit their market-share/ratings. It was practically a sea of Red bubbles with Joe Rogan, Bognino, and other toxic, right-wing (or like Rogan, podcasters who let right-wing bullshit go unchallenged) shows with only a couple Blue ones. The Blue ones were shit like PSAmerica, CharlemagneTheGod and smaller Progressive podcasts that hate/bash Dems even more than Republicans do. It’s not just a matter of funding/backing, toxic shit attracts more viewers/listeners than non-toxic shit. That’s been the truth forever and it’s the reality of landscape that we need to overcome.
Baud
Semafor, via reddit.
Soprano2
@Baud: What I’ve found is that a lot of people will be scandalized by people like Robert Menendez and Elizabeth Holmes, and they’ll say “Oh that’s terrible” about what they did, but they aren’t afraid of them being out in society like they’re afraid of people they perceive as violent criminals, so them being pardoned isn’t that big of a deal to them. In fact, a lot of people will shrug their shoulders and say something like “The rich always get away with stuff, why is this any different?”. I think it’s something we should point out, how much FFOTUS helps criminals who haven’t even served their sentences or shown remorse or accepted responsibility (those things will outrage people more if they’re aware of them), but most people don’t think there’s any way to stop rich people from getting away with all kinds of things.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Those people are happy to pounce on Dem pardons. They just don’t want to weaken Republicans.
NotMax
@Baud,/a>
“My opponent is a dyed in the wool pediaphile” ads in 3…2…1….
//
Anyway
Yep, look at all the recent pardons to people convicted of corruption — should have been a big scandal. But barely a ripple. Only Ds and D-leaning care about hypocrisy, corruption, consistence. Enough to make you give it all up and retire to the woods.
NotMax
Argh. Fix.
Baud
“My opponent is a dyed in the wool pediaphile” ads in 3…2…1….
//
RevRick
The failures of SpaceX launches very much reminds me of the pathetic attempts to launch the first US satellites with the hastily designed Vanguard missiles. The Eisenhower administration didn’t want our space program associated with the military Jupiter rockets, but after two humiliating failures, they gave in and launched the Explorer satellite on top of the Jupiter.
Hard to believe, but my paternal grandmother and maternal grandparents, who were born before the first airplane, lived to see a man walk on the moon.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: I wonder if R.T. Erdogan put the bug in his “friend’s” head. The Qataris gave Turkiye a Boeing 747 for Erdogan’s use in 2018.
I saw it in a picture of Egyptian President al-Sisi welcoming Erdogan at the Cairo airport. That is an impressive looking jet. It was like Erdogan showed up in a vintage Cadillac.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
We can take great amusement from the fact that these people deserve each other.
Bupalos
@Baud: My take is that voters simply do not believe it will happen. It’s really hard to care about something that you simply believe can’t happen.
If someone came along that voters believed was going to be able to make that system reform possible, then it would become a salient issue. To gain that kind of credibility, they would have to appear to be a true enemy of the existing political system more broadly.
This is what Trump pulled off, and he now gets an amount of political attention, consideration, and support for his (generally insane, conflicting, impossible) policy preferences that is totally out of proportion to what anyone would have thought possible. This happens because his “outsider” persona creates political oxygen where there otherwise would be none.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
How much of the public is even aware that this is happening?
lowtechcyclist
@tobie:
The Moscow – Mar-a-lago axis!
Baud
@Bupalos:
I guess we’ll just have to wait for that person to come along.
I for one don’t put much faith in individual personalities, but I freely admit my views aren’t the norm.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Don’t know.
Denali5
It was said that overturning Roe vs Wade would not happen and then it did.
NotMax
@Geminid
Cadillac? Pfeh.
Howzabout a vintage Century?
;)
Bupalos
@Baud: I think those institution-smashing politicians show up in certain conditions, and a key one is the weakness of the underlying institution. The Republican Party in 2013 was just about as moribund as the Democratic Party is in 2025, so I could see it happening. On the other hand, having been beaten to the punch by Trump, we’re now positioned as defenders of the (depressing) status quo ante. That may work against such a figure emerging.
It could be AOC, but she’d have to go back to a more radical politics.
pajaro
I believe that the number of Democratic politicians who would stand up and oppose any effort to control campaign contributions is close to zero. As a number of you have pointed out, the ability to do much about it is close to zero, because the Supreme Court, in one of its worst decisions, declared that limits on contributions for advocacy efforts, at least, violated the Constitution. Limits on direct contributions to campaigns exist, but there are no effective ways to rein in outside money. We can have better disclosure laws, but since Republicans brag about how much they give, it doesn’t really help even if we improve those laws.
The “easiest” way to change this is to expand the Supreme Court, which will require a Democratic trifecta with a majority actually willing to support expansion, which we have never had yet, and then the hope that the Justices appointed will be open to revisiting Citizens’ United.
In the meantime, unless your desire is to have democratic candidates buried by avalanches of money contributed by billionaires, without the ability to respond effectively, we are probably going to want our political parties to accept contributions from some of the mere millionaires who support Democratic candidates.
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
Not that hard to believe. My grandparents were born in 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1905. They all lived to see the Bicentennial. Two of them lived until 1994.
Deputinize America
@Central Planning:
Elmo is absolutely boning her. It is very on-brand.
Baud
@Bupalos:
My own view is that much of the electorate isn’t fair. If it’s a Dem seeking to change the status quo, then the populist fervor will be towards defending institutions from attack (from “outsiders”).
But I put no more stock in my views than I do in other people’s.
Ocotillo
Interesting the list of top donors in the ’24 race, no George Soros. Also, I would imagine Bloomberg’s participation was goosed by Trump’s presence, if he were not on the ballot I bet Bloomberg would not have given nearly as much.
StringOnAStick
@EarthWindFire: I had a western Colorado accent, meaning some old time Missouri (or Missourah as my grandmother said) because of the farming immigrants to that region. Lots of R’s that didn’t need to be there like “warsh”, “squash” and “crick” for “wash”, “squash” and “creek”. Once I was told I had a heavy western slope accent while living in Denver, I got rid of that accent immediately at age 28. Maybe it does connect to musical ability since I’m a pretty committed musician and vocalist, though late coming to it. One of the benefits of retirement is being able to devote so much time to music.
Steve in the ATL
@JML:
Sounds like union negotiations. The international union is pushing for some initiative at their level but the local doesn’t care about it. So I ask whether it’s going to change any votes. Examples include lactation rooms at a mill with no females on the production line, and with Juneteenth at an all white facility in Iowa.
So I agree with your point about being practical. We can support lots of things, but if we ever want to have power again we have to focus primarily on issues that will motivate people to vote for our candidates.
lowtechcyclist
@Bupalos:
@Baud:
In the way that there’s a lot more big money on their side, and a lot more small donors on ours, so getting big money out of politics would be a real problem for the GOP without affecting Dems nearly as much.
We’ve got ActBlue which raises billions, and the right’s efforts to replicate it have gone pretty much nowhere.
I wonder how many Dem politicians still get more $$ from big donors than they do from ActBlue and other sources of small donations.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah, I was thinking more in terms of unilateral disarmament. I agree that laws that got money out of elections would be helpful.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: They’re trying to shut ActBlue down, though, with insinuations about “dark money”.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: If you are interested in Democrat candidates and want to put some time into research, Open Secrets is a good aggregator of campaign finance information. I’d pick four different Democratic House members and check out their campaign finances. That would not provide a comprehensive view, but it would be start.
Craig
@sab: yeah that accent is him ‘haha LOL’. I spent half a day with him 15 years ago and he talked like any other Silicon Valley White Guy.
Chief Oshkosh
@UncleEbeneezer: The message might work if we instead personalized it. People love money. They are not going to hate someone who has more money – they ASPIRE to be like them (in the matter of having more money).
People loathe Musk. They loathed Sackler. They loathed Shkreli. They loathed Dimon. They made a hero of Luigi Mangione who killed a healthcare CEO/billionaire(?).
Maybe don’t run on “campaign finance reform.” Run on “The skipping dipshit Elon Musk killed cancer research. Who does that? — Billionaires with no skin in the game. Billionaires who don’t have to live with the consequences. Get billionaires out of our politics!”
Bring on cancer survivors. Bring on loved ones of cancer victims. Make it real. Make it gruesome. THAT is “meeting the voters where they’re at.
ETA: Should’ve started with: I agree with you that campaign finance reform as a message doesn’t move the voting needle.
JML
@Steve in the ATL: sure, sometimes the union’s priorities at a more macro level don’t impact every part of the local but doesn’t mean they might not still make sense to bargain for. (you telling me there’s no women in the local at all who could get pregnant and need a lactation room? and Juneteenth might not be an important holiday for the white folk…but if it gets them a day off in June they don’t have to use vacation time for, are they really going to be mad about it?)
But yes, you have to be practical about what policy choices you highlight and don’t. getting money out of politics isn’t easy, it doesn’t move votes, but it doesn’t mean you can’t try and advance legislation that keeps billionaires for being able to buy elections. There are ways to make it harder on them, if nothing else. But it probably shouldn’t be one of the platforms you hang your hat on and that you spend precious time and media talking to voters about.
but this is where democrats struggle: the purity dems get mad at you if you don’t talk about every issue they care about and will use it as an excuse not to vote for you if you’re not spending time on it. Because they prefer staying pure and perfect to winning.
lowtechcyclist
@Chief Oshkosh:
I think that graphic in the OP is effective, coupled with a simple: “Elon’s giving a million times more money to politicians than you can. Who do you think your Congresspersons are listening to, you or him?”
jonas
@Baud: I’m old enough to remember when Bill Clinton’s 11th-hour pardon of fugitive tax dodger Marc Rich, whose ex-wife happened to be a major Dem donor, caused a five-alarm meltdown for weeks across the MSM. These days, it’s just a day ending in -y, apparently.
Where does Bill go to get his apology?
Ken B
@TONYG: His fan boys will presumably accept a one in five chance of getting blown up and burned.
Then there’s the chance of dying of suffocation, of explosive decompression, of radiation, of dying of something that could have been treated on Earth, and of getting smeared across the Martian surface.
Also starvation or dying of thirst. Or any of many possible horrors that the skipping dipshit hasn’t addressed.
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: In the space-fan community there’s a faction that has been saying for decades that NASA is *too* safety-obsessed and we should be more willing to have fatal accidents. They make comparisons to early aviation, when people got killed a lot, and they think that human sacrifice is the secret sauce.
The thing is, space is generally done with huge amounts of public funds. Makes blowing people up more of a problem.
Geminid
From Syia news site Levant24:
Other sites showed Barrack hoisting the flag as Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani looked on.
The two men present an interest contrast. Barrack is a vigorous looking 78 year-old of Lebanese descent who has been a power player in the Middle East and in Republican politics since the 1970s.
Al-Shaibani is 40 years younger. When al-Shaibani was a child his family moved from far northeastern Hasaykah Governate to Damascus, where he earned a B.A. in English Language and Literature.
Al-Shaibani was working on a doctorate in International Relations in Istanbul last Fall when the Assad regime was toppled. His professor sparked much amusement when he posted about how he had been wondering why al-Shaibani was missing class. His fellow students didn’t know either.
Then the professor saw that al-Shaibani had been named the new Syrian Foreign Minister, and the mystery of the missing grad student was solved.
rikyrah
@sab:
Pretending to be an American.
You have nailed it
Matt McIrvin
(And, yes, these people are deeply strange. It reminds me of the early days of the pandemic when a bunch of guys on Twitter became preoccupied with the idea of deliberately infecting volunteers with COVID because they thought this would give them lasting immunity and make them an immune workforce. For some reason, when the vaccine became available that was far less interesting than the “deliberately infect people” plan.)
rikyrah
@Gloria DryGarden:
I think that it was obvious to those looking
rikyrah
@Central Planning:
Why would you even bring up such a nightmare image?
Professor Bigfoot
Because Dems have Black people.
In the minds of those particular WHITE people, the face of crime is a Black face; and it’s certainly not wearing a suit and tie.
Steve in the ATL
@JML: totally agree with our paragraph but the point I was inarticulately trying to make was that when you have limited time and resources–whether union contract negotiations or election campaigns for the good guys–you have to focus that limited time and resources on what’s going to matter to the people voting. Once we are in power, we can get to the rest of the stuff. If we can’t get to that point then none of it matters except as a feel good exercise.
Professor Bigfoot
As long as the Democrats are perceived as the party of Black people, women, and LGBTQIA+, white men* will continue to reject them.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*obligatory “Not All” 🙄
Ruckus
@sab:
He is just pretending to be (American) human.
FIXIT for you….
I know people from other countries that never adjust their accent and have lived here for a long time. But then they also aren’t pompous arrogant jackasses.
rikyrah
@prostratedragon:
That is hilarious.
They want it in writing
Shalimar
@TONYG: An 80% chance at success sounds suspiciously like he spent a lot of time playing Buzz Aldrin’s Race Into Space in the ’90s and cheated whenever he didn’t get the result he wanted. That game was brutal, and there were multiple variables which meant the actual outcomes were far worse than the success chance you were told in advance. If I recall correctly, even at the best success rate, 95%, your chance of actually failing one of the stages was more like 1 in 5.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve in the ATL:
The rest of us already do.
Paul in KY
@rekoob: How about Peter Sellars in Dr. Strangelove?
Paul in KY
@AM in NC: I would tie Musk to the GQP every fucking day.
TONYG
@TONYG: Speaking of weird … I guess “asteroid rape fantasies” are pretty normal among Republicans now. … https://bsky.app/profile/mjsdc.bsky.social/post/3lqaikaucvs23
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: I don’t think we really emphasized it. Emphasis like FDR used in his campaigns (as an example). Pres Truman as well.
Paul in KY
@TONYG: He probably uses that horse contraption that figured in a Rick & Morty show.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
This is a democracy, at least I hope it will still be one next November. And since we’re talking about political parties and therefore voting, this is a context where that ‘not all’ matters.
Of course you shouldn’t trust a random white guy, nor any organization largely composed of white men. But this isn’t about that, unless we’re talking about that organization known as the GOP.
Where we seem to be is that we need >40% of the white vote to win national elections, and even with the gender gap that likely means >35% of white men. So definitely ‘not all’ because that’s a hell of a long way from ‘all.’
Paul in KY
@Baud: We have to be able to accept their (real rich people) money and then slag them (the rich) unmercifully. I think some of our candidates have had a hard time doing that.
Paul in KY
@Denali5: ‘You pay taxes. They should pay taxes. Vote Dem and they sure as hell will.’
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Must say “Jane’ was a pretty big hit too. And a much, much, much better song.
schrodingers_cat
They are now going to revoke visas of Chinese international students.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
Dafuq?!
TONYG
@Shalimar: Yes, that sounds about right. Elon would have been the right age to have “grown up” with video games. (I’m about 15 years older than Elon, and I never saw the appeal of those games. “Those Gen X kids!”.). In any event, in the real world (where you can’t just reset the game) a one in five chance of dying are terrible odds — much worse (for example) than the odds of a ww2 B17 crew member dying during a bombing mission. Of course, people other than Elon Musk would be doing the dying, so their death would not matter to him. Being a psychopath has its advantages.
Paul in KY
@Chief Oshkosh: Good point! Tie the GQP to these loathsome billionaires. List all the horrible things they do/did and just say the GQP (whomever their nominee is) is all for that.
Paul in KY
@Ken B: Freezing to death also.
TONYG
@Paul in KY: That would be as logical as anything else that Elon is doing. Meanwhile, I have no psychiatric training aside from Psych 101 in college, but I’m genuinely curious about the motivation of the young, attractive women who choose to be Elon’s baby-mamas. Is it just the money? Do they actually believe that Elon is a Great Man and the bearing his children will make him great? I don’t get it.
Paul in KY
@TONYG: I think it’s the money, but I’m a dude so not the best on their motivations.
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: I grew up in a simpler time — when men would indulge themselves in their Asteroid Rape Fantasies discreetly, rather than discussing them in front of federal judges. Now they’re letting that particular freak flag fly.
Shalimar
@TONYG: The reason Elon’s statement is so reminiscent of Buzz Aldrin’s Race Into Space is because it really misunderstands the odds, and that is the same thing he is doing with his real-life explosions. If each of 4 stages has a 5% chance of catastrophic failure, that does not add up to 20% total. There was also a bug in the game that increased failure rate but it was invisible so you could only figure it out by adding things up long-term. In-game it just felt like your luck was always worse than it was supposed to be.
This is all from memory because it has been probably 25 years since I played it.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
I know you’re being somewhat facetious there, but how dafuq does someone come up with a fantasy like that to begin with?? Let alone feel free to share it with a group of Federal judges.
That latter part at least makes a perverse sense as the misogynistic equivalent of letting one’s racist freak flag fly, which of course they’ve been doing since Cheetolini came down that damned escalator ten years ago and put us on the road to this nightmare.
russell
The question I have about all of this is:
Who the hell besides Elon actually wants to go to Mars?
TONYG
@Chief Oshkosh: That’s already happening to a degree. In a couple of weeks there will be a primary for governor in my home state of New Jersey. There are a boatload of candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and I’m getting bombarded by ads from them. Most of the ads talk about how much candidate X hates Elon Musk (rather than what the candidate can do as governor of New Jersey). It’s a smart strategy because, at least among Democratic voters, EVERYBODY hates Elon Musk.
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: Oh, I’m definitely being sarcastic here. Men are extremely weird creatures, but I’ve never heard of that particular fantasy before. What the fuck? And the idea of sharing it with other people (let alone judges)??? There is a class of people now in the United States — in right-wing politics and among the billionaire class — who are so entitled that they have no fear of consequences about anything. People like Musk and Trump are just the most famous of that cohort.
TONYG
@Shalimar: That’s right. The real point, I think, is that someone like Elon (and many of his fellow multi-billionaires) is so separated from the real world (the world in which actions have consequences) that the makes decisions based on make-believe games. He treats his great wealth like Monopoly money. He makes decisions about human lives based on dumb video games. He’s a man who never grew up, yet he has great power over the lives of other people.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I thought y’all were speaking metaphorically until I clicked through
Matt McIrvin
@russell: Going there FOR SCIENCE would be a grand adventure, if there were reasonable safety and the prospect of a ride home, though I would not be the qualified guy to do it.
But these jamokes do not give a crap about science. Going there to settle for Manifest Destiny is not appealing.
chemiclord
@tobie: “I’ll give you [x] dollars to advance [y] narrative.”
That’s pretty much it.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Going there to settle for Manifest Destiny is extremely appealing to me, as long as Musk and people like him are the ones going there. Their Destiny would quickly become Manifest, and we’d be rid of them.
Aziz, light!
@TONYG: As I have noted many times, anyone Musk sends to Mars on a one-way mission is going to die a horrible death, either en route or not long after they get there. Exploding rockets not required. Someday there may be a short, successful exploratory mission to Mars in which the astronauts get to come home alive and well, but it will be NASA in charge not disassociated fantasist Musk.
Captain C
@TONYG: Maybe that’s her kink.
JML
@Steve in the ATL: yeah, absolutely. some of that comes down to trust, and unfortunately there are some people that simply don’t trust the party leadership any longer, if they ever it. In some cases there’s very good reasons for distrust. In other cases it’s much more about “what can I get for myself out of this”…
Ken B
@Paul in KY: That too.
Oddly, you have to worry about overheating and dying from that. Vacuum is not good for dissipating heat efficiently, so you need enormous radiators as long as your craft is generating heat.
I think Musk will easily find volunteers to fill his first rocket, probably his first several. But as the people in his rockets die off it’ll get harder and harder to find new volunteers.
And Musk can’t even make a car door that can be easily opened in an emergency. What are the odds his rockets will deliver their passengers safely to Mars? Or that his Mars bases will be built in time, or habitable?
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: a Vote for republicans is a vote for more billionaire power and richer billionaires.
A vote for democrats is a vote for the needs of the people, and a vote for health, safety, research, and people helping each other build together.
not as good as “build back better”, but even if we’re not billionaire free, we’re not about giving billionaires more power, as dems.
am I way off?
Gloria DryGarden
@Craig: American accent?
Baud
@Gloria DryGarden:
I’m not the one that needs convincing.
Gloria DryGarden
@AM in NC: some very clear messages here, that I think will move the needle.
Also I agree w Gemini in the next comment, #30
TONYG
@Aziz, light!: Yes. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that once a space ship exits the earth’s magnetic field, all of the humans on that vessel will be bombarded with lethal radiation. This radiation will kill them — either quickly or over a period of months or years. So anyone volunteering for that mission is volunteering for a suicide mission. It’s not even a quick “heroic” death like that of a kamikaze pilot. Instead it would be a matter of wasting away from cancer or and other ailments. Robots, not humans, should be used to explore space beyond the moon. I’m pretty sure that Elon understands this. He just doesn’t care because it would be the suffering and death of other people.
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: There are ways to deal with it, but they require some combination of luck and vast expense. The Apollo missions were actually outside of the Earth’s magnetosphere and the wrong kind of solar event at the wrong time would have killed the astronauts, but they were lucky. But those missions were relatively short. An interplanetary one would need some kind of heavily shielded shelter they could retreat to as needed– fortunately some warning of the solar stuff is possible. Cosmic rays are more of a cumulative thing; shielding takes mass and mass is hard to carry. Once you get to Mars, you could live in a burrow or the equivalent, but long times in the open could be dangerous.
Gloria DryGarden
@TONYG: if Elon knows this, you have ruined my fantasy that Elon goes on this trip to mars, asap.
never mind if his vessel doors will open.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: no, of course not. I’m just exploring messaging from which to derive useful slogans and short motivating messages.
i think i need to convince Pete to give us a workshop on clear useful powerful speaking, and how to refute the misinformed. I’d sign up for his workshop in a heartbeat.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: I think we’re the ones being pranked. If he gets to keep the plane, but gets the government to retrofit and debug it for 1 bn dollars…
plus, it keeps us looking over there, at the purple turtle in the sky. Instead of looking at all the other messes he’s directing, and business deals he’s nurtured as a billionaire benefactor. Etc
Gloria DryGarden
@BarcaChicago: we need to get better about accepting people’s foreign accents here. Sometimes a person speaks fluent English, but the American accent is the hardest part to learn, if English wasn’t your first language.
it’s funny your story if the fluent Scotsman with the terrible accent. I have the opposite, and get compliments for my native accent, great pronunciation, even though I make mistakes and need a bigger vocabulary.
Ruckus
@sab:
He is just pretending to be
Americanhuman.Fixedit for you.
dnfree
@lowtechcyclist: My grandmother was born in 1894 and died in 1993. She lived long enough to see the great-granddaughter named for her attending college. But I agree that it’s amazing that the development from the first airplane to rockets and satellites could occur within a lifetime.
Paul in KY
@Ken B: If it was a legit one-way trip (as the 1st might have to be) would think someone old or with a terminal illness who wants to get a Nobel Prize might be the volunteer.