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June 05, 2025 07:04 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 35 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“It’s frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence.”

–George Orwell

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35 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

    2. I read Asimov and liked the Foundation trilogy when I was younger. I read it again a few years back, and was less than impressed. It works for a certain kind of engineering-math trust-in-science mentality, but I think socio-economic determinism is too far from reality to "suspend disbelief". The books did make me think I should have been an economist.

      Far better sci-fi is to be found with female authors who tend to have more realistic personal, anthropological and social dynamics. Notably, Ursula LeGuin (who's parents were in fact anthropologists), writes about very believable people with very believable ways of relating to each other.

      I'm a sucker for the "heroines on a journey" genre. Without getting into any of the dystopian-feminist, romance, vampire or fantasy genres, here are some really great Female sciency-SF:

      Rosemary Kirstein: "Steerswoman" (Protagonist is a scientist-explorer; Topic is Paradigm shift)
      Kate Elliot: "Unconquerable Sun" (Space operal Alexander the great plus reality show and dynastic change)
      Arkady Martine: "A Memory Called Empire" (Poetry as political warfare)
      CS Friedman: "This Alien Shore" (Heroine cast to the universe pursued by earth corporations and hackers)
      Martha Wells: "Murderbot" (No need to say more)
      CJ Cherryh: "Alliance/Union series" (A frequent theme of Cherryh is asking what is alien, or what would an alien think of humans)
      Sharon Lee/Steve Miller" "Liaden series" (Fledgling is probably the best arc, especially if you like the  heroine self-discovery theme.)

      (Apologies to the many great authors I've left out.)

      1. I agree that the "science" in Foundation is very unlikely. But the concept I think is really interesting. There are credible arguments that society goes through ~ 100 year cycles. And it's the nature of a government to get rigid/sclerotic over time and it takes a radical change to undo that.

      2. Colorado writer who ought to be on the list: 

        Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born December 31, 1945), commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than any other writer[4]—most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010).[5] She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009[6][7] and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.[8]

  4. Why do bad things happen to good people? 😂🤣

    President Trump, publicly addressing Elon Musk’s latest attacks on his signature tax bill for the first time, said he was disappointed in his former White House adviser and suggested he was suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”

    Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help get Trump re-elected, shot back in real time on social media that the president was ungrateful and wouldn’t be sitting in the Oval Office without his support.

    1. wouldn’t be sitting in the Oval Office without his support.
       

      As that by itself wouldn’t be more than sufficient reason to universally despise Elon Musk?  Still he keeps on coming up with ever more . . . 

      1. Yep … I keep wondering how someone could see Donald Trump and then say "I think this is the person who ought to be put into a position with huge powers."  Let alone like him well enough to throw money ($150-$250 million) in to advance that idea. 

      1. He might want to shoot Andrew Yang a quick call to see how easy it is to set up a "successful" new party, not just muse or xeet about it. Maybe Yang just didn't have enough money though. 

  5. Hee-hee-hee, this is all getting very funny. This came from a Bloomberg social media post, but I wasn't going to subscribe so the story was paywalled. Sure, it's probably bluster and covering something up, but I got a giggle anyway: 

    BREAKING: Trump threatens to cancel Musk's government contracts as "the easiest way to save money" as their relationship crumbles

    1. Guessing the clash has almost enough hostile energy to create a dinosaur/asteroid-type mass extinction or a Big Bang-type creation of an evil new universe. But I'm not a scientist. 

    2. "Becky is like, totally a bitch. She got super pissed when we told her she wasn't our friend anymore and couldn't come to our sleepover. She for sure KNEW she was gonna be uninvited 'cuz she tried to hook up with Jenny's ex ! I just like, can't believe that no one kicked her out of the group before now.

      What a biatch!"

  7. From Brad DeLong’s daily newsletter:

    What are the odds of Elon Musk’s personal bankruptcy over the next decade, anyway? In my view, they have just gone up a lot. Musk thought power came with a price tag. But he was wrong, and now is—I think—desperately trying to see how much veto-point power his money & his ideology can buy. For Musk failed to recognize, as many failed to recognize, that Trump charges upfront—but then does not deliver unless you give him an extra reason to do so. So we are now seeing what happens when a chaos-monkey grifter capitalist misreads a chaos-monkey grifter president. Musk thought he had a deal—he backs Trump all the way, and in return Trump would provide him with EV subsidies, tariff carve-outs, and control of the NASA budget. Musk was wrong. And so we get to watch what happens next…

  8. First Trump disowns Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, now he's at war with Elon Musk.  At this rate the Tech Bro billionaires are going to order JD Vance to round up the cabinet and Amendment 25 the crazy old coot (which of course JD Vance will be more than happy to do)

    1. "which of course JD Vance will be more than happy to do"

      I wouldn't bet on that. Remember what was the one and only criteria for selecting a VEEP this time around:  absolute loyalty. No more Mike Pences!

      Even if JD Vance should – for a brief moment – forget how he got to where he is, he will still be on the horns of dilemma. Trump will set MAGA World loose on JD Vance if he sides with Elon, and Elon will bankroll whomever Vance faces in the 2028 GOP primaries.

       

      1. Oh, come on!  America’s most craven toadie, who in a prior life called Trump “America’s Hitler”.  Of course he would flip on moment’s notice to dump Trump 🙂

        While Trump is busy lining his pockets, the Tech Bro Billions far exceed even King Trump’s pile of gold. MAGA world would understand that Trump has lost his marbles and mourn his retirement for 10 minutes, and lionize his past “achievements” while accepting the new President Vance as a loyal successor.

          1. I wouldn't underestimate the GOP message machine.  Cults can survive a change of leadership, especially if he is retired in disgrace, which seems at least a possibility.

  9. For your Schadenfreude Pleasure: "The Maga Civil War is Here". Rachel Bitecofer.

    I’ll let the other outlets cover the circus elements of this ongoing break up so be sure to go get your schadenfreude on.

    Here, we’re going to focus on the implications of the end of Elon and Trump’s partnership because it is a majorly good development for those of us interested in keeping America from collapsing into fascist autocracy.

    I have mentioned before even having Elon exit state left was great news for us, but a messy divorce?
    Well, that could change everything.

    By turning against the Big Ugly Bill Elon has put Republicans in a clusterfuck of a bind and I want to be sure you get to enjoy it as much as I do.

    Here’s why: It is starting look like there is a real chance the Republican majority, despite control of the House, Senate, and the presidency may never be able to pass a spending bill.

    Here’s why:

    Team Trump understands that this is the only piece of legislation Trump has that only has to get 50 votes in the senate.

    Hence, his preference for “one big beautiful bill.”

    The only way he can deliver on multiple fronts is in one combined bill. For example the GOP’s 1,000 Well, We’re All Gonna Die bill has a ton of extra shit in it aside from the billionaire tax cuts which are the heart of their spending bill.

    What team Elon is asking for (multiple skinny bills) would leave Republicans unable to pass most of their policy goals because there is no way any of this gets past the Senate filibuster.

    But Elon, Rand Paul, and Ron Johnson can’t be reasoned with. This time that’s a good thing for democracy.

    So we have a situation where half of MAGA is fighting to pass a Big Beautiful omnibus bill and half is fighting against it.

    1. This isn't really a MAGA civil war.

      MAGA per se will stay loyal to Trump. This is more like a fracture in the GOP coalition between the MAGA folk (think MTG and her army of white trash morons) and the traditional GOP economic conservatives (think Grover Norquist and that crowd).

    2. Welcome to the Thunderdome Josh Marshall at TPM.

      It’s not entirely clear to me that Musk has many cards to play, as I noted earlier. He’s stuck out on the rightward fringe of the US political spectrum when the transgressive, racist-nationalist, give all the money to the billionaires lane is entirely occupied by Donald Trump.

      …

      The irony of Musk’s libertarian anti-government song and dance has always been that his fortune and his empire are profoundly dependent on the US government. Now that matters more than just a tweak from Dems saying he couldn’t have done it without US government spending. An additional wrinkle to that part of the story is that the US government is actually not in any position to cut off SpaceX. The US government is now deeply, deeply dependent on SpaceX as its go to near earth orbit launch service. There’s no alternative in the short and probably medium term. That’s precisely why the situation with SpaceX has always been such a dangerous one. There’s no alternative. The options the US government has are some kind of expropriation or nationalization. Where that goes I don’t know. But I’m on very strong ground when I say that the US government does not have a current option for delivering things to orbit at the volume and regularity SpaceX provides.

      My overall sense is that Trump just has more cards than Musk does, even with his vast wealth and the communications platform of Twitter (X). And a big part of that is Musk’s dependence on the US government as a central customer, certainly for SpaceX. Tesla isn’t selling to the US government mostly but it’s heavily reliant on regulations giving preferment to electric vehicles. To the extent Musk has already destroyed his brand for its target market (affluent liberals) in the US he’s also highly dependent on US trade policy.

  10. [M]aybe Musk is just a ketamine-addled chaos monkey himself, acting out in unfocused and unfought rage right now.  Brad DeLong's Newsletter

    But.

    For Elon Musk, it almost certainly seemed to him as though there was no downside. Keep your culture-war friend close, and your potential existential business-threat enemy closer. And so:

    1. Trump agreed with Musk’s right-wing culture war priorities,

    2. But Trump the candidate with his applause lines was a potential existential threat to Musk’s key businesses—Tesla and SpaceX.

    3. Without those businesses, Musk was a bankrupt ex-Silicon Valley has-been

    4. Trump was transactional. 

    5. Hence: propose a transaction: 

      1. I, Musk, will become your largest donor, 

      2. your greatest cheerleader, 

      3. the guy who takes the heat for cutting discretionary spending.

    6. And in return: 

      1. you, Trump, give SpaceX all the NASA money,

      2. you keep the subsidies flowing that keep consumers buying Tesla EVs,

      3. and you give me carve-outs to tariffs, so that Tesla can be profitable and expanding as a globalized value-chain production-network operation.

    Musk, however, did not recognize one thing.

    He, however, was not alone. Musk’s problem now is something that a great many people who have thought that they had Trump’s number have failed to recognize. 

    What is it? It is this:

    Trump is only transactional when he has to plunk his cash down on the barrelhead first.

    When Trump doesn’t have to do that, he is not transactional at all.

    As Elon Musk has now found out.

    So what is Musk trying to do now?

    I think that what Musk is doing now is trying to save both SpaceX and Tesla from bankruptcy. He is trying to do so by demonstrating to Trump that he, Elon Musk, has power. He is trying to demonstrate to Donald Trump that he, Elon Musk, can harm Trump. He is trying to demonstrate to Donald Trump that he, Elon Musk, has the power to assemble and maintain a Purity-Republican fiscal-conservative Senate voting bloc large enough to send Trump's tax cut bill down in flames.

  11. Could be a Win-Win!

    Republicans Turn on Donald Trump as Steve Bannon Calls for Musk's Deportation

    • Musk further tweeted that Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession this year.

       

    • Donald Trump refused to take questions at his police roundtable today.

    • Steve Bannon called for Donald Trump to deport Elon Musk and to conduct investigations into Musk’s companies.

    • Republicans on Truth Social are turning on Trump in the comments of his posts because he has attacked Elon Musk.

  12. Turns out that, not only does Jared Polis like spitting on union organizers, renters, and car-share riders, he also enjoys a little bootlicking from time to time:

    https://www.denverpost.com/2025/06/05/colorado-lawsuit-jared-polis-immigration-enforcement-cooperation-whistleblower/

    Colorado Gov. Jared Polis directed state employees to turn over information on sponsors of undocumented children to federal immigration authorities, despite protests that the order violated state laws limiting cooperation, according to a new lawsuit filed by a senior official.

     

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