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Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign
by Eric Berger - 11/1/2017
The articles began appearing in late August, mostly in conservative publications such as Town Hall, Breitbart, and the Daily Caller and have since continued to trickle out through October. All of the dozen or so Web commentaries, variously styled as op-eds or contributions, have made the same essential point—that Elon Musk is benefiting from crony capitalism and must be stopped.
This is not a particularly new line of attack against Musk, especially among some conservatives who decry the public money his companies have received to build solar power facilities, electric cars, and low-cost rockets. Yet most of these articles have been quite specific in their attacks, pinpointing a single section in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act as particularly troublesome to the Republic.
The articles, several of which are written by former US Rep. Ron Paul or his associates, have the same general theme: Musk has given lavishly to politicians, especially Arizona Senator John McCain (R). In return, McCain added Section 1615 to this year's defense authorization bill, which includes language to restrict the military from investing in new launch systems. With this language, the articles assert, Musk seeks a monopoly on the US national security launch market. In addition to saying this allows Musk to fleece taxpayers, some of the more overdone authors assert that it could kill Americans.
As the Senate deliberates the FY 2018 [National Defense Authorization Act], it should listen to the real experts on space-related matters, not pseudo experts with vested financial interests, like Musk donor recipient John McCain," wrote Jerry Rogers, in The Federalist, in a typical op-ed. "Musk’s business model of using the government to corner the market in the electric car industry isn’t optimal, but at least it doesn’t threaten American lives."
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You have to trace "information" from those alt-right sources to its ultimate sources to understand what it really is. 9/10 of that crap derives from RT, Sputnik, VT, or the whole host of Russian internet trolls. It is inflammatory disinformation, intended to paralyze us by dividing us. And it has been working for some years now.
Musk can contribute to any damned politician he likes. In our money-corrupted system, the expectation is that such donation recipients reciprocate by doing whatever favors they can do. There is absolutely nothing new about that. It is an uncorrected problem left over from the very founding of the Republic.
When you add to that the political stagnation of hyperpartisanship inflamed by Russian disinformation, then you see real damage done to this country. That is what has been happening. Short term, we have to stop this Russian disinformation attack. Long-term, if we eliminate the corruption of big money in our government, then such disinformation attacks can no longer hurt us.
Spacex had to use Musk's money to break the ULA monopoly on military satellite launches. It took several years and some court battles to accomplish this. He is not yet even approaching anything close to the claimed "forming a monopoly" status. Nor is there any threat of Tesla becoming a monopoly product in the car market.
That's just Russian bullshit intended to divide us. Plain and simple. But over-partisan politicians latch onto such falsehoods as sound bites for political advantage.
Maybe we should make that behavior treason. Or at least run such political hacks out of office on a rail, tarred and feathered.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW and the like evidently think there are Russians hiding behind every corner. But this sounds more like fingers in pies to me. Not really an Alt-right thing as such, more like big money behind crooked politicians.
Whenever somebody innovates in this world and produces something new, there are winners and losers. The losers in this case are the defence companies that made legacy launch vehicles and operated them at enormous profit, both Russian and US. Musk destroyed their business model. Did you really expect them to let those multi-billion dollar investments go without a fight?
It would be a mistake to write off the New Right as some kind of product of Russian antagonism. In some respects, Russia is an ideological ally in the same way that the Soviet Union was an ideological ally of the political left during the cold war. It isn't so much that Putin provides direct support to these people, more that he provides an example of a successful nationalist state. People on the right are apt to forget that Russia is a criminal fraternity, where the rule of law depends on where you are in the pecking order. But it exists outside of the Western Zionist cabal and rejects most of its values, so there are plenty of disillusioned white nationalists that respect Putin for that. They see what they want to see and like most people they make simplistic judgements and do not see the big picture.
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Western Zionist cabal?
Israel seems to be a fairly successful ethno-nationalist state...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I haven't seen the terminology "Zionist cabal" in a long time, because I don't visit far-right and alt-right echo chambers, except when tracing the source of egregious crap. That's where I last saw that terminology, and it traced to a Russian propaganda source.
No, I don't see Russians behind every bush and tree, but I have seen a lot more of them ever since Putin's last disputed election.
Back at that time, Clinton called public attention to how illegitimate he was, which is why he favored Trump over Clinton in 2016, and had his propagandists flood us with disinformation attempting to influence the 2016 election.
Motivation? Revenge, pure and simple. And the disinformation-as-disruption is a pattern already seen in Europe. It ain't like nobody ever saw this before, because we have.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW, will you please cut it with the conspiracy theory stuff. Maybe if you didn't see anything outside your echo chamber as being "far right", you'd have a better understanding of things.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I know an awful lot of people on the far left, alt-left who absolutely HATE Musk and SpaceX, saying that he's accomplished everything using only government money, which we know is egregious bullshit. He funded SpaceX with virtually ALL of his available capital, approximately $100 Million at the time. He deserves a lot of respect for his risk-taking, and should be allowed to profit from his investment.
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Well, some seem to think I am in my own echo chamber. I really try hard not to live in one. I look at variety of traceable sources.
I don't know much about any far left or alt-left, beyond the communist party USA types I saw in the 1960's and 1970's, and which were the targets of the House Unamerican Activities Committee in the 1950's. Which excesses gave right wingers a deservedly bad name. Don't get me wrong: that version of statist dictatorship ideology (something I intensely hate!) has been discredited since the fall of the Berlin Wall, if not really much earlier.
As for the far right and alt-right, I now see people marching under Nazi flags in the streets, doing Nazi salutes. To me that is utterly incredible, given the effort and sacrifice of one generation earlier than me to wipe that shit from the face of the Earth. It is nothing but another version of statist dictatorship ideology. And I already think I said I hate such shit!
As for propaganda coming from Russia, that kind of crap I have seen at one level or another all my life. It's quite real. Disbelieve at your own peril. That's not to say a whole lot of other entities don't also lie egregiously, because they do. Which is why I consult multiple sources for my news, sources with credible reputations, by the way.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Credible sources? Where do you find those, these days?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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What traceable, photographic not good enough to prove the point that this is what is happening.... as GW has posted.
Alt-right Twitter blogger Jenna Abrams unmasked as creation of Russian 'troll factory'
“Our goal wasn't to turn Americans toward Russia. Our goal was to set Americans against their own government,” he said.
“To provoke unrest, provoke dissatisfaction, lower (Barack) Obama's rating.”
Meanwhile, the US Justice Department says it has gathered enough evidence to charge six members of the Russian government in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers before last year's presidential election.
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To answer Terraformer's question, I look at NBC to see unabashedly leftist/Democrat stuff, at CBS and PBS to see more-or-less middle-of-the-road stuff, and I cannot help being exposed to Fox (because around here that's what every TV is tuned to) with their right-wing slant (more on the opinion than the reporting, but they do mix the two too much).
As for the actual outlets of my sources, those are on TV and on the internet and I look both places. Plus, I still read the newspaper. Physically. On paper. Our small hometown papers around here still do a pretty good job. Their ultimate sources are usually AP or UPI, still pretty good. A lot of foreign services like BBC, NHK, DW, and some others get into the mix, especially via PBS.
Haven't paid much attention to ABC since Disney bought them, but they at least used to be more-or-less middle-of-the-road. More emphasis now on entertainment "news" instead of the real thing, near as I can tell.
PBS has fewer items but greater depth to their stories. I can see the opinions of the reporters (something inherent but minimizable), but they do a decent job of trying to report the whole truth of the story. They're not far left, nor are they far right in outlook. Not distinguishing the difference between "fair" and "favorable" (in spite of the fact that both start with the same two letters) is why the GOP has been trying to defund them since Bush 43's administration.
There was a pretty good 15 minute interview on Friday's PBS "Newshour" with a North Korean diplomat who defected. What he had to say was definitely more nuanced and complicated about how to deal successfully with Kim Jong Un, without getting millions killed. Trump's bluster after the threat to Guam actually worked, which is where the 1st ICBM to overfly Japan came from. The limited strike plan being bandied about the White House probably won't (it'll start the general war, and pretty much automatically, without orders from Kim). That was the message.
Most (pretty near 100%) of the internet stuff that friends forward to me comes from any of a number of right wing things like Breitbart or Rense or hot-air windbags like Rush Limbaugh, which are more blog/opinion sites than anything else. Rather rabid ones, at that.
I know the opposite exists (meaning the far left stuff), but nobody has ever forwarded any of that crap to me. All I ever got was far-right crap. Apparently they who sent it believe what they forward. So I think that's how we got the President we got, and a fair fraction of both houses of Congress, and the state government here in Texas. They're all old enough (like me) to long pre-date the dumbing-down of public education, so they don't have any excuse for such abysmal ignorance.
I usually don't waste the time, but for some particularly egregious forwarded stuff I have traced it down further to things like Sputnik, Veterans Today, or RT (Russia Today). Those have been known for some years as Russian propaganda / misinformation sources.
The newer massive social media misinformation campaign is coming from paid advertising on things like Twitter and Facebook. This has been headline news in recent days, about how much of this has been going on since about 2015.
Sorry, Terraformer. You asked. So I answered.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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I try to get to most of these.....
ABCNEWS.com, BBC - Homepage, The Huffington Post, Bloomberg.com, NBC News, CBSNews.com, CNN.com, FOXNews.com, HoustonChronicle.com, TheHill, LA Daily News - Home, FLORIDA TODAY, Learn Progress, MSN.com, MSNBC Cover, Politics, Policy, Political News - POLITICO, Washington Times - Politics, Breaking News, US and World News, Proudemocrat, SFGate: San Francisco Bay Area, The New York Times on the Web, TODAYonline, USATODAY.com, Weekly World News, Yahoo! News - Front Page, Washington Post, - Bipartison News, BlueDot Daily, floridatoday.com, Blue District, Bluedot Daily, Breaking news, Breaking Breaking news and More: Eureka Times-Standard
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Good grief, Spacenut. Do you get time to do anything much, other than reading the News on all those sites?
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Wow! That is a bunch! Elderflower, I bet he almost went into withdrawal while the power was out for 3 days. Shakes and DT's, perhaps?
I don't have the time to read that much stuff, and I'm retired, Spacenut! I dunno how you do it.
Between running the farm, building/selling cactus implements, doing rocket and ramjet stuff for a couple of clients, and keeping up with the wife's honey-do list, I don't have any time. In particular, that honey-do list will take longer to do than I have left to live.
At least I'm 90% done writing the ramjet book. There's one appendix left to finish. The rest has been submitted to AIAA for review.
I'm gonna guess here that we have wandered too far afield. The original topic was "right-wing outlets escalate anti-Spacex propaganda". We probably ought to return to that. Assuming that the question of credible sources is settled, we may have pretty well covered it.
My opinion: as long as the Bannon/alt-right wing has some degree of control over the GOP, and the GOP has control of the government, these anti-Spacex propaganda attacks will continue. And they will continue to be rather devoid of factual content.
My other opinion: with Bridenstine as administrator, you will see 3 things out of NASA: (1) partial destruction of NASA's role in climate change research, (2) less cooperation with Spacex and other new space entities with a whole lot more funding of "old space", and (3) giving up on men-to-Mars for our lifetimes in favor of a return to the moon.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Inside Sputnik, the Russian-Funded Media Network
What’s it like to work at a Russian government-funded news outlet in Washington, D.C.? NBC Left Field spent a day at Sputnik News’s Washington DC bureau with Lee Stranahan: a former Senior Investigative Correspondent at Breitbart — who now works at Sputnik’s new radio station, 105.5 FM.
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When will ABC or BBC, or even CBC be allowed to open an FM radio station in Moscow or St Petersburg?
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The United States does not allow Russians to control more than 25% of American radio and TV stations and Russia does not allow more than 20% foreign ownership in their radio and TV stations.
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Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill, which sets the maximum foreign stake in Russian mass media companies at 20 percent.
The law will come into force on January 1, 2016, and media companies must submit reports on their stockholders before February 15, 2016.
The new Russian law is in line with international practice as many countries in the world have already protected their informational space from excessive foreign influence. For example, Australia has set a 30 percent limit of foreign ownership in national mass media and Canada has a law limiting foreign ownership in electronic mass media by 46 percent. The United States allow foreigners to control not more than 25 percent of American TV and radio stations, while Japan has set this limit at 20 percent. France will not allow non-EU citizens and companies to possess more than 20 percent of its mass media. In the UK, the shares of foreign stockholders in mass media corporations cannot exceed those owned by British investors.
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Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX could have ‘died’ if billionaire’s tax existed in 2008
https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/elon-musk … d-in-2008/
Kamala Harris Called Out On Twitter For Elon Musk Snub
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/kamala-har … musk-snub/
Musk’s mother blasts Biden for being ‘completely unaware’ of son’s space achievements
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl … 53257.html
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What possible motive would these people have for anti-SpaceX propaganda? Of all of the problems that these people could be addressing, why are they fixating on a non-problem?
It is obvious why Biden and Harris don't like Musk. He leans Conservative and has no respect for their BS ideology or the anti-free speech obsession of their big-tech friends.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-10 06:59:38)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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I seem to recall that the use of a "Wealth Tax", is considered unconstitutional. I guess I tend to think of unrealized capital gains as more wealth than income. But we will see. Billionaires are not without powers.
It is idiocy to take money away from these people as they have demonstrated by there financial achievements that they are excellent Stewarts of what they have influence over. They all will eventually die, so, wealth redistribution will happen. If the money goes then to people who are also good Stewarts, of wealth, then just fine. If not then the money will further redistribute to people who provide goods and services, however frivolous those might be in some cases.
I much prefer to live in a world where people like Elon Musk exhibit creativity and so produce inventions of wealth, that is much superior to a world where what I get is words and used toilet paper from politicians, and other word smiths.
Done.
Last edited by Void (2022-04-10 10:48:46)
I am starting to ask seriously "Why do I do this?"
Online
https://taxfoundation.org/rich-pay-thei … -of-taxes/
There is no objective standard for what defines “fair share”; it is a purely subjective concept.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/inequality-and … ax-dodging
Inequality and poverty: the hidden costs of tax dodging
https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commenta … -pay-taxes
In 1 Chart, How Much the Rich Pay in Taxes
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/income-tax … s-buffett/
Richest 25 Americans have a "true tax rate" of almost nothing: Report
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SpaceNut,
How do these communist con artists continue to dazzle you class-warfare types with their shyster BS?
The ProPublica report focuses on what it calls the "true tax rate," which it defines as how much in taxes were paid by the wealthiest Americans annually versus the estimated growth in their wealth during that time. For instance, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos paid $1.4 billion in personal federal taxes between 2006 to 2018 on $6.5 billion he reported in income, while his wealth increased by $127 billion during that same period. By ProPublica's calculation, that reflects a true tax rate of 1.1%.
But some tax experts noted that the analysis compares what they say are apples to oranges: income versus wealth. The IRS collects taxes on earned income and income received through stock sales, dividends and other income provided by investments — it doesn't levy taxes on unrealized gains or the paper value of a person's assets.
Yes, that's exactly right. This "analysis", better known as lying with fast-and-loose definitions of words that have legally-defined meanings, is apples and oranges. There is no such thing as "unrealized gains". You either gain something or you don't. that's like calling a team that keeps losing games "unrealized wins".
Jeff Bezos owns pieces of paper (not ones with a dead President's face printed on it) that says he can redeem his coupons ("stock" or "stock options") at the store (the Wall Street casino for buying and selling shares of stock) for "X" amount of value, as determined by what the market (buyers who would actually purchase his shares of Amazon stock) are actually willing to pay for them at the specific time he wants to redeem them for cash value, or other stocks, or other commodities. Jeff has zero control over that evaluation. He does not get to decide what his shares are worth, merely what he is willing to sell them for.
Jeff Bezos has a "stock account", as opposed to a "bank account", with $127 billion dollars in it, ON PAPER, and not the kind of paper that any actual stores accept as a form of payment, nor one that our own government accepts as payment, nor one that any other government accepts as payment. Walk into your local Krogers or Publix or Best Buy or Sams or Wal-Mart, lay down your shares of Amazon or Apple or Exxon when you go to check out, and see what their cashier does with it.
I can start a company, other people can assert that my company is worth $127 billion dollars, and voila! I have as much money as Jeff Bezos... Except that someone else then has to be willing to buy into that notion and actually pay me $127 billion dollars if I want to sell all the shares of stock in my company.
Assuming you had every last cent of Jeff Bezos' paper money, that is not actually accepted by any restaurant, car dealership, grocery store, furniture store, electronics store, or any other kind of store except for our Wall Street casino, what in the actual hell would you do with it?
In other words, who would be buying your $127 billion dollars worth of shares in Amazon and paying you cash money for it?
You know, the kind that has "This Note Is Tender for All Debts, Public and Private" printed on it.
Would it be all the poor people who have never started their own business and built a global distribution network?
El Jefe started a business that delivers goods around the world in a day or two, typically at better prices than anyone else offers because his business found ways to do that for less money than his competitors. He started with practically nothing and built that business from the ground-up, obviously with a staggering amount of help from other people who were willing to bring his vision to fruition. The fact of the matter is that none of those people who helped him were willing to risk their fortunes, which is why Jeff Bezos rather than them took the loans out from the banks to create that business in the first place. I'm sure a lot of them want more reward without taking any greater risks than working as employees, but that's not how this game is played. Little to no risk brings little to no reward. You will always be beholden to someone else when you play the game that way.
What have you "class warriors" done that was of similar value to as many different people, as compared to what Jeff Bezos did?
If you can do a better job for less money, then we'll all buy products from your business. Maybe you'll have a stack of paper that says you're worth $127 billion dollars, possibly more.
So... Imagine that your Derpistani class warriors, who create nothing but envy and enmity and misery for everyone in a society, manage to force Jeff Bezos to sell his share of Amazon to the government to pay his "fair share" of taxes on money that he doesn't actually have. What does our government do with them? Try to make Amazon a government agency? I guarantee you that the government will destroy the business. Our government couldn't manage to make money running a whore house, selling prostitutes and booze.
If these are truly the nitwits you put your faith in, then you're doomed.
Absolutely none of this is rhetorical in nature. Those are all real questions you need to answer before one of these lemmings you like so much, marches you straight off a literal cliff. Yes, that's how dumb I think the people are, who keep dripping this poison into your head. They will never help you, they don't care what your plight is, they simply want to use your envy and anger about the fact that you're not Jeff Bezos, in order to enable them to steal something of value from someone who actually created something of value, in order to transfer it to someone who never will create anything of value. They're using you to get what they want for themselves, not for you. Will that sink in before it's too late?
Venezuela was one of the richest countries in South America mere decades ago. The "rich people envy brigade", aka "communists", showed up in force because they weren't interested in improving outcomes through better ideas. They turned it into one of the poorest countries in South America in less than a single generation. There were still rich people living there after they showed up, but all of them were part of the government that they took over. The poor people living there simply had no hope of ever becoming rich after they ruined the country. How many times does this idiocy have to fail for you to accept that it doesn't work? When these policies don't work out for anyone, anywhere, at any point in time, IT'S NOT A FLUKE!
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What I said in post 14 has indeed come to pass.
' nuff said.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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"unrealized gains"
An unrealized gain is a potential profit that exists on paper, resulting from an investment. It is an increase in the value of an asset that has yet to be sold for cash, such as a stock position that has increased in value but still remains open. A gain becomes realized once the position is sold for a profit.
Purposely held for lose or gain...your house is tax on assumed value while you are holding it...
"stock account"
(Bookkeeping) an account on a merchant's ledger, one side of which shows the original capital, or stock, and the additions thereto by accumulation or contribution, the other side showing the amounts withdrawn.
About the same thing as hand Canadian bills for what is a dollar American as you hope its getting covered. Or better yet a coupon for s discount on an item.
The latest craze on these is bit coin.....
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GW,
The only thing that has come to pass is leftists attacking other leftists and blaming "right-wing media" for what leftists are actively doing. There is not one single person on the right yapping about about this "unrealized gains" crapola. That only comes from one place- THE RADICAL LEFT. Elon Musk is under greater threat from the radical left than anyone on the right. Nobody on the right is talking about confiscating money that Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos don't actually have. We both know that kind of mind numbing nonsense only comes from the radical left. Any assertion to the contrary is as fake as a three dollar bill.
The Republicans are supposed to be the party of the millionaires and billionaires, remember?
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