General Politics Thread

[Legend]

..but no conspiracy theories.   the left doesn't really do those.

Well I'm glad its not in your circles, but no. The left does conspiracy theories too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KamalaHarris/comments/1gnswq9/comment/lwd7pdl/

This woman just made the most convincing case for Biden to investigate the election. She exposes Starlink. pic.twitter.com/m9hWoDDN5z

— Aes???????? (@AesPolitics1) November 10, 2024

[/size]

Far from the worst examples, just the ones I found first.

conspiracy or just general frustration.  

elon invested 136 million into electing trump if i remember the number correctly.  i use invested on purpose because although i don't have any particular number in front of me elon's net worth has already inflated by waaaay more than that just in tesla's stock run.   ...and the stock is running because of the quid-pro-quo that tesla is expected to get in exchange for electing trump.

imo this is corruption in plain view.   it makes me mad a hell.

No clue what quid-pro-quo you're expecting. Trump isn't a huge fan of electric cars and green energy so I'd expect government incentives towards Tesla to decrease, not increase. Tesla stock is never rational and Musk can't sell short term bumps anyway.

SpaceX is the one that is likely to benefit from Musk influencing Trump. They really need regulations updated so rockets are licensed like airplanes and can be launched at high frequency. If Elon "invested" in the election for financial gain, it's for this reason.

[the-pi-guy]

No clue what quid-pro-quo you're expecting. Trump isn't a huge fan of electric cars and green energy so I'd expect government incentives towards Tesla to decrease, not increase. Tesla stock is never rational and Musk can't sell short term bumps anyway.

SpaceX is the one that is likely to benefit from Musk influencing Trump. They really need regulations updated so rockets are licensed like airplanes and can be launched at high frequency. If Elon "invested" in the election for financial gain, it's for this reason.

"I'm for electric cars. I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly." And in October, nodding to SpaceX, he said, "We will land an American astronaut on Mars. Thank you, Elon."

In August, Musk floated the idea of creating a "government efficiency commission" that would act as an auditor to the entire federal government. He first brought it up during a live streamed conversation with Trump on X. Musk said the commission could ensure taxpayers' money "is spent in a good way."

Just three weeks later, Trump announced he'd create the commission and place Musk in charge.

Under Trump, X could be seen as a platform backed by the president of the United States — making it even more of an influence machine.

NPR

[Legend]

NPR

Yes I know all of that, not sure what you're going for though. His electric car comment is the only thing that goes against my post.

So you think Trump will be good for electric cars?

[the-pi-guy]

Yes I know all of that, not sure what you're going for though. His electric car comment is the only thing that goes against my post.

So you think Trump will be good for electric cars?

No, but I'm extremely concerned that Trump will be good for Elon in ways that aren't good for anyone else.

[kitler53]

Far from the worst examples, just the ones I found first.
No clue what quid-pro-quo you're expecting. Trump isn't a huge fan of electric cars and green energy so I'd expect government incentives towards Tesla to decrease, not increase. Tesla stock is never rational and Musk can't sell short term bumps anyway.

SpaceX is the one that is likely to benefit from Musk influencing Trump. They really need regulations updated so rockets are licensed like airplanes and can be launched at high frequency. If Elon "invested" in the election for financial gain, it's for this reason.

okay so one thing at a time.

Trump isn't a huge fan of electric cars and green energy so I'd expect government incentives towards Tesla to decrease

on know that on paper this sounds like a bad thing for tesla.   the market thinks this is a great thing for tesla.   the subsidies are something that helps a new company get off the ground which means increasing the amount of competitors that try to enter the space.   by ending subsidies it will "hurt everyone" but in every case ever it hurts the small players 10x more than the market leader.   as tesla is the market leader musk actually wants to end these subsidies because it will absolutely kill rivian for instance solidifying musk's market dominance.   

Tesla stock is never rational and Musk can't sell short term bumps anyway.

it's more complicated for musk but obviously he can sell short if he wants to.   he sold a ton of stock at the peak in 2023 only to accumulate more at the trough in 2024.   but again he's not looking for short term gains.  he's looking kill competitors and solidify market dominance.

SpaceX is the one that is likely to benefit from Musk influencing Trump. They really need regulations updated so rockets are licensed like airplanes and can be launched at high frequency. If Elon "invested" in the election for financial gain, it's for this reason.

look at you not reading any financial publications and absolutely nailing it with respect to one of Musk's reasons to elect trump.   

xAI is another one i keep reading about.   obviously you of all people think AI is the next big thing.   strong influence over the people that could (or could not) create regulations over the use of AI could be a huge advantage for musk.

Far from the worst examples, just the ones I found first.

it's not a huge amount of view and the ratio of view to likes/retweets is pretty low.   you can find anything you want on the platform if you go digging but much like your question about starlink it's not something the left repeats and repeats and repeats and then creates political platform planks to deal with the imaginary threats they made up.   it's probably because the heart of the blue collolition is "college educated" but most lefties see a tweet like that and their first thought is to check the source and see what trusted outlets are saying.   not going to say not a lick of "fake news" doesn't happen but the volume of fake news recirculated is significantly lower.

the only "major" fake news thing i'm aware of being fairly popular by blue voters is the "vaccines cause autism" one.

[kitler53]

Demonstrators wave Nazi flags outside local theater performance of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' in Michigan

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/us/michigan-nazi-flags-anne-frank-theater/index.html

A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of "The Diary of Anne Frank" in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.

Several masked men showed up waving Nazi flags and reportedly shouted antisemitic and racist slurs outside the American Legion Post 141 in Howell on Saturday during the play, according to CNN affiliate WXYZ.

"People were shocked. They were appalled," Army veteran Bobby Brite told WXYZ. "Everything you would expect."

Brite said many of the 75 people who watched the play were afraid to leave the building and had to be escorted to their cars.

"Nobody in America should feel like that," he said

[Legend]

Look at you not reading any financial publications and absolutely nailing it with respect to one of Musk's reasons to elect trump.  

Thanks for being jerky? Almost everything you've said is wrong yet I still stay polite  

[kitler53]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/results-house.html

so i've been watching the house very closely for what feels like an eternity now.

republicans should win but it looks to be a stalemate with respect to the ratio from last session.   republican with +4 seats.  gives me a bit of hope that voters hated biden not democrats to see them outperform downballot compared to the presidential ballot.  

[the-pi-guy]

SpaceX is the one that is likely to benefit from Musk influencing Trump. They really need regulations updated so rockets are licensed like airplanes and can be launched at high frequency. If Elon "invested" in the election for financial gain, it's for this reason.

I'm a little concerned that it feels like you are viewing Trump as a typical Republican president and Elon Musk to be a typical billionaire who has done awesome things.

Here's a look at Musk's contact with Putin and why it matters

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of major government contractor SpaceX and a key ally of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the last two years, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Both individuals have skirted, if not outright broken the law numerous times. And the Supreme Court has effectively decided that the president is basically immune.

BREAKING: Trump names Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) pic.twitter.com/ikN1er9A18

— BNO News (@BNONews) November 13, 2024

I hope that I'm wrong and that it's a mostly normal presidency. But I think there's a lot more room and likeliness for corruption than it feels like you're accounting for.

[kitler53]

John Thune elected as Senate Republican leader to succeed McConnell

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/thune-cornyn-scott-make-case-republican-senate-leader/story?id=115778306

My first take-way is good on the senate for picking their own candidate and not picking Trump's pick of Rick Scott.

"Well, what we are going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so they can implement his agenda. How that happens remains to be seen. Obviously, we want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do and these nominees reported out to the floor. But I've said this and I mean it, we expect a level of cooperation from the Democrat to work with us to get these folks installed."

Second take-way is Thune seems like we won't allow Trump to bipass the constitution and do recess appointments.   i'm happy about that.


My last take is the bit about "a level of cooperation" is BS.   the senate held up biden's nominations by refusing to even hold hearings until the day before the inauguration.  dems shouldn't hold up cabinet positions but i'm soo tired of the double standards from the right.    "we can't appoint a supreme justice during an election year".   "nvm,.. it's okay to do it if its a republican".   

[Legend]

I'm a little concerned that it feels like you are viewing Trump as a typical Republican president and Elon Musk to be a typical billionaire who has done awesome things.

Here's a look at Musk's contact with Putin and why it matters

Both individuals have skirted, if not outright broken the law numerous times. And the Supreme Court has effectively decided that the president is basically immune.

BREAKING: Trump names Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) pic.twitter.com/ikN1er9A18

— BNO News (@BNONews) November 13, 2024

I hope that I'm wrong and that it's a mostly normal presidency. But I think there's a lot more room and likeliness for corruption than it feels like you're accounting for.

I don't have anything positive to say about Trump, but I don't agree with your assessment of Musk. Most Reuters/AP/NYT articles you read about him are laughed at in space circles because they get so much wrong and are sensationalist at best. Only certain authors like Joey Roulette are true journalists that actually do their research.

For example your article states Putin asked Musk to not setup starlink in Taiwan. It wants readers to assume Musk agreed so it leaves out that Taiwan's government is the one stopping Starlink from being setup there: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/business/taiwan-starlink-satellite.html

It's not the article you linked, but your article is based off a NYT article and I remember reading that one when it first came out. It has plenty of similar problems but this section was just hilarious as a space fan:

A bottle of vodka
Musk has long had a fascination with Russia and its space and rocket programs. Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk said the businessman traveled to Moscow in 2002 to negotiate the purchase of rockets for his fledgling space program, but passed out during a vodka-heavy lunch. The sale ultimately failed, though his Russian hosts gave Musk a bottle of vodka with his likeness superimposed on a drawing of Mars.

Musk was literally spat on during this meeting (confirmed by multiple people, not just Musk) and the whole story is infamous since SpaceX was actually started out of anger/frustration on the plane ride home. Musk and Russia have had a feud for years with Russia losing billions of dollars due to SpaceX. The former head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, was almost always angry at him. (Dmitry lost his lollipop in their war with Ukraine, just some random fun trivia for yall)

Both individuals have skirted, if not outright broken the law numerous times. And the Supreme Court has effectively decided that the president is basically immune.

There are a lot of things that Musk does that I do not like or support, but his $420 tweet is the only thing I can think of that broke the law. What are you referring to?

There are so many examples on the SpaceX/Starlink side are just made up for politics. For example shutting off Starlink for the Ukrainian offensive was mandated by US law. Enabling it would have been illegal. That's why SpaceX now has Starshield so the US government can use it for non civilian things however they want.

I hope that I'm wrong and that it's a mostly normal presidency. But I think there's a lot more room and likeliness for corruption than it feels like you're accounting for.

Ramaswamy has come across as an idiot every time I've seen him so I'm not too sure about DOGE. The Government Accountability Office however is somewhat similar and is a great asset. I only know about them from the space side but GAO reports show so many problems inside places like NASA. For example their launch tower is now expected to cost $2.7 billion despite starting work as a $383 million project. Nothing has changed, it's just a simple steel tower with plumbing. NASA's Management of the Mobile Launcher 2 Project - NASA OIG

Hopefully DOGE essentially just repeats GAO findings and gives them more weight. Also it just sounds like a think tank with no actual power since it's "outside" the government.

If Ramaswamy comes out of this a billionaire or whatever then yeah, super corrupt. Really hope that doesn't happen but also just doesn't seem that likely. Hard to judge on Musk's side since SpaceX and all his other ventures are already doing so well and a good government would want to support them anyway. Plus Musk has historically been supportive of his competition. It would be a real change of character for him to push for things that help him individually instead of helping an industry as a whole. That might sound like a laughable characterization of him since, you know, everything else, but it's really how he and his companies have acted so far.

[kitler53]

President-Elect Wants Matt Gaetz for Attorney General

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/11/13/us/trump-news

ugh.  i just don't even have the words.   ...which is likely exactly why trump picked him.   


edit: wait, isn't that trump's 3rd pick from the house?!?  does he not realize he could lose control of the house if he keep picking nominees from there??

[the-pi-guy]

There are a lot of things that Musk does that I do not like or support, but his $420 tweet is the only thing I can think of that broke the law. What are you referring to?

The focus was on skirting the law.
Elon Musk's $1 million election giveaway tests limits of election law

That might sound like a laughable characterization of him since, you know, everything else, but it's really how he and his companies have acted so far.

My big concern is that I don't particularly believe that Musk is the same person that he was when he started SpaceX.

His rhetoric has gotten much more radicalized over the past few years.

[Legend]

The focus was on skirting the law.
Elon Musk's $1 million election giveaway tests limits of election law

Drives to push people to vote are incredibly common and regularly skirt the law, free concerts if you take a selfie before you vote for example, and up till Musk I can only remember them being pushed as a great and noble thing. My perspective is that while I really wish Musk didn't support Trump, there's nothing wrong with the giveaway itself. Maybe its scale and pro republican slant though will push society to rethink these voter drives and that would be a good thing. Just automatically register everyone at 18.

My big concern is that I don't particularly believe that Musk is the same person that he was when he started SpaceX.

His rhetoric has gotten much more radicalized over the past few years.

He switched from a Democrat to a Republican so yeah on social issues, but on everything else he doesn't seem to have changed.

From June this year.

Verse from 3 years ago.

Verse from 5 years ago.

[kitler53]

Drives to push people to vote are incredibly common and regularly skirt the law, free concerts if you take a selfie before you vote for example, and up till Musk I can only remember them being pushed as a great and noble thing. My perspective is that while I really wish Musk didn't support Trump, there's nothing wrong with the giveaway itself. Maybe its scale and pro republican slant though will push society to rethink these voter drives and that would be a good thing. Just automatically register everyone at 18.

i gave elon's million dollar give away a huge side-eye when it was first announced but that prompted me to read up on the topic quite a bit.   from pretty much every source i read there was an expectation that it would not violate any election laws.   the distinction mostly came from the $$ was about signing a petition and not demanding a vote.   even if the execution is slightly different the argument was this wasn't really much different than a thousand some drives to collect contact information of likely voters.


to be honest this is the one that has me more angry:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/04/election-musk-pac-michigan-ads-israel-gaza

A political action committee (Pac) linked to Elon Musk is accused of targeting Jewish and Arab American voters in swing states with dramatically different messages about Kamala Harris's position on Gaza, a strategy by Trump allies aimed at peeling off Democratic support for the vice-president.

Those aimed at Arab American populations claim Harris will "ALWAYS stand with Israel" and "stand up against Hamas and radical terrorists in Gaza". Another notes that she has a Jewish husband, and describes the pair as "America's pro-Israel power couple".

Meanwhile, texts and mailers sent to heavily Jewish areas claim "two faced Kamala stands with Palestine", picturing her in front of a Palestinian flag. A Pennsylvania ad asked: "Why did Kamala Harris support denying Israel the weapons needed to defeat the Hamas terrorists who massacred thousands? And why did Harris show sympathy for college protesters who are rabidly antisemitic?"

is this illegal?  likely not. 

is microtargeting conflicting political messages something that is terrible for democracy?  yes, very much yes.