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Crew-9 Returns to Earth

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Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#671

Post by exe34 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #667
exe34 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's really great that people like you take online discussions so seriously - here's the citation: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025.02.... I hope you read it carefully and we can have some intelligent conversation about the contents.

Does in no way show that Elon is being paid for DOGE.

he gets paid for the contracts he already has and for new ones (billions in corporate welfare). some government agencies tried to investigate his companies and contracts (which would cause a loss of handouts from the government), so he bought his way into the government and fired everybody who was investigating his companies.

does that help?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#672

Post by AngryData »

carabiner wrote: post #457
madeofpalk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Elon really had that much to do with this.

In general, we selectively credit the engineers when a musk company has a success, then blame musk when there's a failure. So when Teslas have quality issues, we don't blame the manufacturing engineers and technicians; instead, we blame Musk who hand assembled every Tesla out there, right?

We know Tesla has the engineers needed to produce quality designs, but it is management that decided to cheap out on both production and quality control, and doesn't make parts easily available for repairs, which is part of the decision and policies Musk is in charge of.

With SpaceX it could go on both sides just because the engineering for spacecraft designs and rockets is not really a solved problem unlike 95% of automobile design, but management could still be the biggest problem with SpaceX. Of course that is going to be hard to see or quantify without being part of SpaceX management.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#673

Post by [deleted] »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #663
foldr wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA isn’t practically part of the administration because its leadership doesn’t (generally) change with each incoming President.

Wholly untrue. The have been 14 NASA Administrators over the course of 13 presidential terms. Each is appointed by the president.

[deleted]

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#674

Post by johndhi »

sanderjd wrote: post #285
johndhi wrote: post #275

One thing I'm confused by is that we need to do "reporting" to figure out what the truth is here. Can't we just ask the astronauts, or NASA, or something? Why is there no official statement on the matter? There's actually a video of Butch, from the station, saying Musk's description was "entirely factual" - although he then sort of backtracked that. Seems like no one wants to outright explain what happened.

Yeah, "no one wants to outright explain what happened" is called "chilling effects" and is one of the explicit goals of an authoritarian regime like the one we have in the US now. Nobody wants to get fired and get death threats just for speaking plainly, so most people don't. Every once in awhile someone will decide it's worth the cost, but most people most of the time will decide it isn't.

Part of the irony here is that Elon Musk himself seems to be "speaking plainly" and receiving death threats for doing so. But I assume you'd prefer he didn't speak plainly...?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#675

Post by flanked-evergl »

exe34 wrote: post #671
flanked-evergl wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does in no way show that Elon is being paid for DOGE.

he gets paid for the contracts he already has and for new ones (billions in corporate welfare). some government agencies tried to investigate his companies and contracts (which would cause a loss of handouts from the government), so he bought his way into the government and fired everybody who was investigating his companies. does that help?

So then he is not getting paid for DOGE. Glad we cleared that up between us.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#676

Post by wcfields »

johndhi wrote: post #674
sanderjd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "no one wants to outright explain what happened" is called "chilling effects" and is one of the explicit goals of an authoritarian regime like the one we have in the US now. Nobody wants to get fired and get death threats just for speaking plainly, so most people don't. Every once in awhile someone will decide it's worth the cost, but most people most of the time will decide it isn't.

Part of the irony here is that Elon Musk himself seems to be "speaking plainly" and receiving death threats for doing so. But I assume you'd prefer he didn't speak plainly...?

I mean, if someone is saying plainly "I'm going to ruin your life and critically endanger your health." then one should expect some pushback.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#677

Post by johndhi »

wcfields wrote: post #676
johndhi wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the irony here is that Elon Musk himself seems to be "speaking plainly" and receiving death threats for doing so. But I assume you'd prefer he didn't speak plainly...?

I mean, if someone is saying plainly "I'm going to ruin your life and critically endanger your health." then one should expect some pushback.

"Pushback" being death threats, yes?

In what ways is Elon ruining lives and critically endangering health?

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#678

Post by philwelch »

winrid wrote: post #626
sanderjd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "no one wants to outright explain what happened" is called "chilling effects" and is one of the explicit goals of an authoritarian regime like the one we have in the US now. Nobody wants to get fired and get death threats just for speaking plainly, so most people don't. Every once in awhile someone will decide it's worth the cost, but most people most of the time will decide it isn't.

Biden signed 162 executive orders. Is Trump somehow different here?

Yes, because it’s actually him signing the executive order and not the autopen.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#679

Post by alxjrvs »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #668
alxjrvs wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about your own lying eyes?

I'm not sure what you mean... could you elaborate?

It was a sideways reference to an old line from a detective movie.

I'm trying to say that the emperor is nude, and you are arguing that the threads might be so small as to not see them - or, rather, that the Media said he was naked, so while the president claims that he is wearing clothes, and that might be evidence he is deluded, his open ass in the wind not evidence of his pro-nudity leanings.

(This ignores the fact that he rose from the republican party, one that has been operating in full defiance of open democracy since bush v. gore. Republcans don't want "the will of the people", otherwise they wouldn't push so hard for voter suppression.)

It's a claim so baffling that it makes me assume you aren't operating in good faith.

Re: Crew-9 Returns to Earth

#680

Post by TimTheTinker »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #592
TimTheTinker wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prove it. No one can "prove" anything without a clear goalpost that doesn't move :) That being said, there is evidence I can present from the past. Here are a couple of cases: - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/chemonics-internatio... - https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/usaid-suspends... Also, not exactly "fraud" in the accounting sense, but there is a slew of NGOs that purport to support foreign…

Someone makes concrete allegations of massive fraud and then uses those allegations as justification for huge funding cuts. Folks ask for evidence of the fraud justifying these cuts. They are instead given evidence of the existence of some different fraud that occurred some point in the past . If you don't see how problematic that is, then why not just avoid the discussion in the first place?

> uses those allegations as justification for huge funding cuts

I am personally not calling for that. What I do want is for the flow of money to this network of DC-based NGOs to get cleaned up.

Have you ever heard of a grant "poem"? That's an inside term for the fancy language that is written when an NGO or university requests funding from a US federal agency. It has to sound quasi-legitimate, even erudite. But the purpose is to secure more money, and for NGOs, the actual funds are almost entirely used to enrich the people in the NGO, and often to fund things that keep the left in power (like local protests, far-left media, "grassroots" left-wing campaign organizations, etc). Grant poems to enrich NGOs constitute fraud -- maybe not in an accounting sense, but it very much is a defrauding of the citizens who pay taxes.

Also, DOGE has so far found 14 "magic money" computers located in various agencies, including the department of the treasury. When a particular API call comes in, these computers will transfer money from nothing, essentially creating new money out of thin air. That is the worst form of fraud.

> If you don't see how problematic that is, then why not just avoid the discussion in the first place?

Because the faithlessness of the federal bureaucracy and its network of NGOs, combined with its sheer magnitude and entrenched power, is a very real problem. I guess I'm not articulate enough to engage productively with folks like yourself who inexplicably seem to think it's really great...

Modern democratic governments ought to implement the will of the people, not subvert it to enrich themselves and stay in power. Do you disagree?

---

In summary, Trump will be gone in 4 years, Elon Musk is rapidly losing his money and influence. The wheel of fortune turns rapidly for elected officials and their administrations. But by default, these lifetime Washington DC residents (and their WEF allies) who exert enormous power over the populace will only be more rich and powerful with each passing election season. They hate the USA and those who love it, precisely because the freedoms and stipulations of the Constitution, and the hardy "free settlers of the frontier" ethos, threaten their power.

(I don't mean every, or even most of the residents of DC. I mean those who are the most personally enriched and who wield the most political power without being elected or appointed by someone who is elected. Most of these people are in the vast NGO network.)

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