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Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

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511–520 of 799 posts

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#511

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

So far this is all talk, in effect non of the contracts got created because of that and so far non have been canceled because of that. This is all just media whoring around.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That figure does not include outside supporters spending campaigns. It's disingenuous to not include dark money spending. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/final-price-t... It's closer to 1.8 billion for Harris supporters versus 1.4 billion for Trump supporters in 2024. That also does not include various media outlets bought in the past decades, including One America News/Fox/Sinclair sandbagging for Tru…

FOX is indeed all in for Trump. But on the other side of the ledger, there is the media that was all in for Biden - NPR, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, NYT, etc., during the same time period.

The counterpoint is that there is no rational or sane defense of Trump. The rest of the media criticized Biden plenty, arguably way too much in their attempts to be seen as neutral. Meanwhile there is almost nothing good about Trump. So if they write like 90% stories that seem to be against Trump it means they're biased towards Trump.

Almost regardless of political positions it's hard to argue Trump is fit or qualified to be president. He is openly corrupt, persuing an economic policy the vast majority of Conservative economists think is idiotic, and has called our veterans losers. Has never held any other government post has no knowledge of government policies and worse doesn't care to learn. Even though his ignorance is causing a lot of damage including to his voters he doesn't seem to care to learn about how any policy stuff works.

To counter that you need media like Fox or worse OAN/News Max to put out propaganda because it's impossible for even the most partisan person to defend him if they're an honest and thoughtful person

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of stuff would not fly in Australia. Not to say that there is no corruption, but that it isn’t absolutely blatant and ignored.

Your government recently mandated technical capabilities for breaking encryption. Australians let that fly. There is nothing special about Australians, just as there is also nothing special about the British people who also did nothing when the UK mandated technical capabilities to break encryption. One could even make the argument that the people of these two countries are even more pliant than Americans when they e…

There was nothing blatantly corrupt or illegal going on there, it went through the normal process and was unfortunately supported by both major parties. I’m not saying objectionable laws never get implemented. I’m saying the Prime Minister is not a dictator with limitless power.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#514

Elon Musk has recently talked about forming a third party in the US. Does anyone have an idea of what such a party would look like? I imagine it would be significantly different than the Republican Party.

If I had to guess, socially liberal sans wokism or welfarism with an initial focus on fiscal conservatism to pull the US out of the debt hole.

Where, Musk grants himself all govt funding and zero taxes on corps and superrich.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#515

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

It's just wild that ~40% of the country wouldn't just wait and see what actually happens.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#516
post #79
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's also wild that someone who was a major contributor to the election campaign and a major advisor to the president now declares "well, the president is a pedophile" and nobody bats an eye either. I mean, Musk supporters now have to believe Musk knowingly supported a pedophile but only turned against him after he had a falling out for unrelated reasons? In the eyes of his supporters, what does this say abou…

He supposedly learned it after the fact. Also, he didn't say that, although he surely implied that. However, he only said that Trump is in the "files", which has actually been public information for a long time. It's known that Trump had some relations with Epstein, but there's no evidence he went to the island or did something wrong. It's quite obvious that Elon knows that Trump is not on the actual "list", i.e. the…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZJorAVgHy7Y

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#517
post #187
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?

The notion that this kind of politicization started in the 90s is fanciful revisionism. It wasn’t really a thing in the US until about 2017. The word it’s known by is Trumpism.

I recommend people read this to see why this comment is wrong: When the Cloke Broke by John Ganz https://a.co/d/hL4vo7d

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#518
post #120

Not quite relevant, but I've noticed that there's this trend on HN where if there's a non-tech-related happening that's significant and it's obviously something that people want to discuss, people will try and find a tech-related angle in order to discuss the wider issue.

I noticed one obsession in hn community: dating/relationships

New lua library - 2 comments. Something about dating or relationships - 70 comments.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#519

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

Everything about the current US government is wild. Yes, cancelling government contracts because of this stupid fight is corruption, but so is everything else. There's not much that either Trump or Musk do that's not corrupt.

I'd like to see both of them lose their power, because they only abuse it.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#520
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trumpism is just another league I believe. You may say it's Berlusconism on steroids, but the global impact makes this a thing by itself.

It really isn't; Trump just has a bigger stage. Trumpism is a misnomer by itself; Trump has no ideology, no grand scheme that I can discern.

> Trump has no ideology

I wouldn't say it's a misnomer, the lack of ideology is the signature appeal. It's exactly what affords Trump unlimited flexibility among his supporters since there are no expectations of consistency.

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