this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Bullshit like this is why I'm not as worried as I was about another Trump Presidency. The man is a senile clusterfuck. Even worse now. Yet they all have to kow-to to him.

I had thought the fascists would be more organized, and they are! But they still have to bend the knee to Trump, who is a clusterfuck. I can't see them doing too much worse than Trump stacking the SCOTUS.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 days ago (2 children)

They realize Trump isn't president yet right? Well, to be honest, he should be in prison, but we apparently don't know how to put anybody in prison that isn't poor, black, a woman, or god forbid, all of the above.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

He might as well be. Americans keep voting for Republicans in the House and Senate. Trump has the RNC by the balls and will have any Republican who goes against his wishes replaced with the next primary and none of those still in office have the balls to risk their gravy train by going against him.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I still feel like Dark Brandon should totally invite them over for a “transition dinner” and do a few “official acts” and then explain how trump is a Russian Stooge and a Traitor.

Then resign, let Kamala pardon him and retire off into the sunset.

But he won’t cuz he still thinks it’s then70’s and there’s still decency in politics.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

SCOTUS handed Biden a loaded gun, Sotomayor told him where to point it, and all he's going to do is just meekly hand it off to Trump, a man who will not hesitate to use it on all his own ~~political~~ rivals.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 63 points 3 days ago (5 children)

So Musk was literally like “no, don’t give Democrats (the party I pretended to support for years) any wins, you need to not negotiate” and then congress just rolled with that.

And now they are just gonna do that while they control congress for at least 2 years because Musk has no idea how government is different from him running a business

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago

Lets just be candid here. Musk doesn't know how to run a business either.

the only businesses he's been successful at, he's been managed like a toddler.

the majority of his old companies have either imploded and been sold off or he's been ousted from.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I agree. If the republican party controls the white house and both chambers of Congress, they don't need to negotiate with democrats to pass a budget. So there's absolutely no reason to have a government shutdown. Unless you like stiffing government employees, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

Unless you like stiffing government employees, I guess

This guy knows how to get Elon off

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

He'll just have everyone in Congress email him the last five bills they wrote and if they aren't long enough he'll fund a challenger.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yup, pretty much a full blow oligarchy now thanks to Idiot America.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago

"I love the poorly educated!"
DJT Feb 2016

shoutout to republicants who have been trying to kill public education for a generation.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's the point.

Musk already got his NASA contract money for SpaceX, Tesla and so forth. He wants to keep the money despite his rocket programs literally blowing up in everyone's faces

The easiest way to do that is to shutdown the government employees who run NASA, SEC, NHTSA and so forth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

He wants to keep the money despite his rocket programs literally blowing up in everyone’s faces

What are you yapping about?

  • SpaceX is the most prolific space company in recent history, performing a launch every 3 days on average.
  • Falcon 9 is the most reliable launch system in in world.
  • Besides the 60 year old Soyuz, Dragon is the only human certified spacecraft capable of delivering crews to and from the ISS.
  • Starship is the largest rocket prototype -and manmade object- to leave the atmosphere.

And they did all this in the last 10 years.

Shitting on SpaceX just because Elon's name is attached to it, -trendy as it may be right now- is dismissing the work of the engineers who made all this possible.

And no, I'm not sucking Elon's dick.

In fact, the only reason SpaceX works well is because, allegedly, there's a wall of people shielding the company from Elon's batshit insanity. If it wasn't for them, he would have ran it to the ground already.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

All of that was paid for my tax dollars, and costs far more than what NASA would have paid to do it.

Do you think SpaceX operates an R&D division of astrophysicists to figure out how space travel even works?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All of that was paid for my tax dollar

Except it wasn't.

From wikipedia: "SpaceX developed Falcon 9 with private capital as well, but did have pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights once specific capabilities were demonstrated."

NASA payed them to transport cargo to the ISS. Both Falcon1 and Falcon9 were privately funded.

and costs far more than what NASA would have paid to do it.

You mean the NASA that's known for budget overruns? That estimated the shuttle program would cost $54M per flight that turned out to cost $409 million? (inflation adjusted)
The NASA that couldn't come up with a new launch system for 14 years after the shuttle program was cancelled?

Do you think SpaceX operates an R&D division of astrophysicists to figure out how space travel even works?

Do you think astrophysicists is the science of spaceflight? Well, it shows you have no idea what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

but did have pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights once specific capabilities were demonstrated.”

You understand that's a form of extended credit, right?

Which had the R&D cost built in.

You mean the NASA that’s known for budget overruns?

Yes, because with NASA, safety is first. Not so much with SpaceX, where they can grab a PS4 controller, and call it the "Flight control subsystem".

Do you think astrophysicists is the science of spaceflight? Well, it shows you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Yes, the physics of how objects move in space, relational to other objects, is basically the cornerstone of space flight. Let me guess? You think to travel somewhere, you just point in the direction, and turn on "thrust to 100%" huh? And you believe that 60 seconds is 60 seconds to a remote observer regardless of location in a gravity well, and velocity?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

SpaceX in its short lifetime has had more catastrophic failures more often than the entire history of NASA. Had anything similar happened at NASA, they would have been closed down or had their budget slashed.

Also the incident with the rushed shodily-built Launchpad that disintegrated damaging properties all around is still being litigated against SpaceX.

We would have been better off funding NASA with a fraction of spacex's funding. And would have been safer as well. SpaceX has done nothing that NASA couldn't have done had we funded it.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

SpaceX in its short lifetime has had more catastrophic failures more often than the entire history of NASA.

To build "cheap" prototypes and learn from their failure is their whole business model. And it's working. Their rockets don't fail on missions, they fail while testing.

SpaceX has done nothing that NASA couldn’t have done had we funded it.

I disagree. NASA is a government agency and by nature it's held down by bureaucracy and moves at a snail's place. There's no incentive for them to keep to a budget and timeline.

What NASA is really good at are robotics and observational science. I think they should be funded to put tech in space and on other celestial objects, and the dirty work of getting stuff off the ground should be delegated to private companies.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

To build "cheap" prototypes and learn from their failure is their whole business model. And it's working. Their rockets don't fail on missions, they fail while testing.

In what way couldn't NASA do the same if they were funded similarly. When it comes to large systems like this. National mail, healthcare, space access. Capitalism absolutely cannot be as efficient. Otherwise they would have replaced these systems outright and not sought to sabotage them. As they have globally.

I disagree. NASA is a government agency and by nature it's held down by bureaucracy and moves at a snail's place. There's no incentive for them to keep to a budget and timeline.

There's no nature about it. The US rocketed to a space powerhouse under bureaucracy and NASA. All that changed was the concentration of wealth and the realization how much more there is to be made by private control of space access. The wealthy paid representatives to kill it. Not bureaucracy. Bureaucracy can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. It's been the only thing keeping us from capitalistic fascism for decades. We're going to learn that the hard way.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 days ago (3 children)

“My phone was ringing off the hook,” said Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky. “The people who elected us are listening to Elon Musk.” ... Musk, who is heading Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, warned that “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this >outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”

It’s not an idle threat coming from Musk, the world’s richest man, who helped bankroll Trump’s victory and can easily use his America PAC to make or >break political careers.

“Is this going to be the norm? Is this going to be how we operate?” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., putting the blame on Johnson.

I can't help but laughing in fright with this level of schadenfreude and yes Josh "Prances like girl form his own rioters" Hawley, this is how you guys are going to operate because you're shit humans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., putting the blame on Johnson.

So, the guy who gave everything short of sieg heil to the terrorists on J6, then was on-camera high-tailing it out of harm's way when the terrorists got into the building - that guy is whining about the Republican Party being full of Republicans?

These people, I swear.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

“How could we have possible known?!?”

I swear to god these fucking people are such gargantuan wastes of resources. I hate them with every fibre of my being.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

WTF did they think was going to happen? 🤦

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm sure the authoritarian mindset always supports authoritarians because they imagine that THEY will be part of the inner circle.

And they even might be. For a while. Until all the purity tests and purges begin. I'm sure dingalings like Hawley learned sweet fuck-all from historical lessons.