am I a bad person for seeing a substantial difference between the two?  musk is greedy and reportedly a big asshole in person, but he tries to do cool things with technology that I fantasize I would be doing if I were as rich as him.  thiel is also greedy and probably an asshole in person, but on top of that he is a foil hat psycho propagandist.

also, I want to call him peter tool, but that sounds too much like peter o'toole which is randomly distracting and makes the burn not work.

They want to live forever in space

There's only a few hundred of them right? I mean how many Falcon-9 launches could it take to (maybe) get them into orbit?

am I a bad person for seeing a substantial difference between the two?  musk is greedy and reportedly a big asshole in person, but he tries to do cool things with technology that I fantasize I would be doing if I were as rich as him.  thiel is also greedy and probably an asshole in person, but on top of that he is a foil hat psycho propagandist.

dunno if this will change your mind but might offer a bit of a corrective: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/a-repellent-musk

am I a bad person for seeing a substantial difference between the two?  musk is greedy and reportedly a big asshole in person, but he tries to do cool things with technology that I fantasize I would be doing if I were as rich as him.  thiel is also greedy and probably an asshole in person, but on top of that he is a foil hat psycho propagandist.

dunno if this will change your mind but might offer a bit of a corrective: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/a-repellent-musk

got part way through, before I resorted to skimming.  annoyed by the writer's high ratio of color to fact.

if the ideas are that musk worship is dumb, he's not a saint, and he is much more interested in just making money - including from the public - than he pretends to be, I believe all of the above.  that doesn't put him in peter thiel territory.  it doesn't necessarily even mean his interest in using technology to solve major societal problems is insincere.

with musk, I am fairly sure he cares about more than money.  I suspect it's not altruism, but liking challenges and needing to show how smart he is.

what makes it insincere is that he's not actually doing anything more innovative than competing for government contracts on already-understood products and technology. the whole "futurist sage" thing is a brand, and you're a mark if you've bought into it.

Again, the "innovation" here is that both Musk and Theil (and other similar businessmen) are not actually selling any particular innovative technology. What they're selling is the idea that certain types of technological infrastructure can only be produced if we stop caring about human welfare and instead concentrate a huge amount of wealth to spend on this infrastructure.

They also differ from historical tech innovators in that they do not believe that non-profit public labs are the place to do major innovation. If anything, they believe there is no major innovation left to do, and instead think we just need to get enough money together in one place. This is profoundly anti-science, which is why these people believe in weird kooky shit like rejuvenating blood transfusions from young people and that we're all living in a simulation and the super rich need to escape the simulation by not giving a shit about the rest of us NPCs.

what makes it insincere is that he's not actually doing anything more innovative than competing for government contracts on already-understood products and technology. the whole "futurist sage" thing is a brand, and you're a mark if you've bought into it.

at least I didn't slip and fall on my ass

HEY GUYS, GUNNER FELL ON HIS ASS LIKE AN IDIOT!

 

Thiel: I will live forever by draining teenage bloodbags
Musk: I will save humanity with a tunnel from my house to the airport

I guess there's a difference.

If this were Final Fantasy, Musk would be the Cid character and Thiel would be those annoying bats that cast Drain on you even when they have full health.

i guess "there's no difference" isn't really what i was going for, so much as "don't buy the hype."

https://twitter.com/kurtbardella/status/951543927466799104

Would be interesting if this interpretation is shared by a more credible source than Bardella. The link only says Bannon hired this lawyer to help prepare for the hearing with the House intelligence committee (as opposed to Mueller's investigation), but even so I suppose there might be conflicts of interests.

guessing the degree of conflicts of interest depend on how often they were present in the same situations, how related are any charges they are potentially exposed to, etc.   ...  and even then, I'm guessing it's flimsy for other reasons to argue that them all getting the same attorney means they're all cutting deals.

I mean, before today, mcgahn and priebus already shared that attorney.  was that evidence that they're cutting deals?  and if it wasn't evidence before, why would bannon joining suddenly make the difference?

and, from another angle, I suspect even if they're cutting deals, sharing the same attorney could still raise conflicts of interest.  did they drop a demand for client 1 as part of a strategy that helps client 2?  etc.

Ok, another shot at reading the tea leaves...
https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/951510434200334336

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/953309877077729280

In case anyone needed more proof that the NRA is trash:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy.

FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.

However, the NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Trump - triple what the group devoted to backing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Most of that was money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors.

Two people with close connections to the powerful gun lobby said its total election spending actually approached or exceeded $70 million. The reporting gap could be explained by the fact that independent groups are not required to reveal how much they spend on Internet ads or field operations, including get-out-the-vote efforts.

Torshin, a leading figure in Putin's party, has been implicated in money laundering by judicial authorities in Spain, as Bloomberg News first revealed in 2016. Spanish investigators alleged in an almost 500-page internal report that Torshin, who was then a senator, capitalized on his government role to assist mobsters laundering funds through Spanish properties and banks, Bloomberg reported

A summary obtained by McClatchy of the still-secret report links Torshin to Russian money laundering and describes him as a godfather in a major Russian criminal organization called Taganskaya.

Investigators for three congressional committees probing Russia's 2016 operations also have shown interest in Torshin, a lifetime NRA member who has attended several of its annual conventions. At the group's meeting in Kentucky in May 2016, Torshin spoke to Donald Trump Jr. during a gala event at the group's national gathering in Kentucky in May 2016, when his father won an earlier-than-usual NRA presidential endorsement.

[...]

Torshin was a senior member of the Russian Senate and in recent years helped set up a Moscow gun rights group called Right to Bear Arms. He not only spoke with Trump Jr. at the NRA convention, but he also tried unsuccessfully to broker a meeting between Putin and the presidential candidate in 2016, according to the Times. He further sought to meet privately with the candidate himself near the 2016 NRA convention.

Torshin's ties with the NRA have flourished in recent years. In late 2015, he hosted two dinners for a high-level NRA delegation during its week-long visit to Moscow that included meetings with influential Russian government and business figures.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters in November to two senior Trump foreign policy aides, J.D. Gordon and Sam Clovis, seeking copies of any communications they had with or related to Torshin; the NRA; veteran conservative operative Paul Erickson; Maria Butina, a Torshin protege who ran the Russian pro-gun group he helped launch, and others linked to Torshin.

Erickson has raised funds for the NRA and is a friend of Butina's. Shortly before the NRA's May 2016 convention, he emailed Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn about the possibility of setting up a meeting between Putin and Trump during the campaign, according to the Times.

Erickson's email to Dearborn bore the subject line "Kremlin Connection." In it, Erickson solicited advice from Dearborn and his boss, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a top foreign policy adviser to Trump's campaign, about the best way to connect Putin and Trump.

Both Dearborn and Butina, who has been enrolled as a graduate student at American University since mid 2016, have been asked to appear before the Judiciary Committee, but so far Erickson has not, sources familiar with the matter said.

Bridges LLC, a company that Erickson and Butina established in February 2016 in Erickson's home state of South Dakota, also is expected to draw scrutiny. Public records don't reveal any financial transactions involving Bridges. In a phone interview last year, Erickson said the firm was established in case Butina needed any monetary assistance for her graduate studies -- an unusual way to use an LLC.

Erickson said he met Butina and Torshin when he and David Keene, a former NRA president, attended a meeting of Right to Bear Arms a few years ago in Moscow. Erickson described the links between Right to Bear Arms and the NRA as a "moral support operation both ways."

this country resembles argentina more and more each day

The judge overseeing Paul Manafort's criminal prosecution today dismissed the notion that house arrest is detrimental to the defendant's health-and then suggested that he get some exercise.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judge-scoffs-at-manaforts-doctor-letter-suggesting-house-arrest-endangers-his-health/

In case anyone needed more proof that the NRA is trash:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy.

FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.

However, the NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Trump - triple what the group devoted to backing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Most of that was money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors.

Two people with close connections to the powerful gun lobby said its total election spending actually approached or exceeded $70 million. The reporting gap could be explained by the fact that independent groups are not required to reveal how much they spend on Internet ads or field operations, including get-out-the-vote efforts.

Torshin, a leading figure in Putin's party, has been implicated in money laundering by judicial authorities in Spain, as Bloomberg News first revealed in 2016. Spanish investigators alleged in an almost 500-page internal report that Torshin, who was then a senator, capitalized on his government role to assist mobsters laundering funds through Spanish properties and banks, Bloomberg reported

A summary obtained by McClatchy of the still-secret report links Torshin to Russian money laundering and describes him as a godfather in a major Russian criminal organization called Taganskaya.

Investigators for three congressional committees probing Russia's 2016 operations also have shown interest in Torshin, a lifetime NRA member who has attended several of its annual conventions. At the group's meeting in Kentucky in May 2016, Torshin spoke to Donald Trump Jr. during a gala event at the group's national gathering in Kentucky in May 2016, when his father won an earlier-than-usual NRA presidential endorsement.

[...]

Torshin was a senior member of the Russian Senate and in recent years helped set up a Moscow gun rights group called Right to Bear Arms. He not only spoke with Trump Jr. at the NRA convention, but he also tried unsuccessfully to broker a meeting between Putin and the presidential candidate in 2016, according to the Times. He further sought to meet privately with the candidate himself near the 2016 NRA convention.

Torshin's ties with the NRA have flourished in recent years. In late 2015, he hosted two dinners for a high-level NRA delegation during its week-long visit to Moscow that included meetings with influential Russian government and business figures.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters in November to two senior Trump foreign policy aides, J.D. Gordon and Sam Clovis, seeking copies of any communications they had with or related to Torshin; the NRA; veteran conservative operative Paul Erickson; Maria Butina, a Torshin protege who ran the Russian pro-gun group he helped launch, and others linked to Torshin.

Erickson has raised funds for the NRA and is a friend of Butina's. Shortly before the NRA's May 2016 convention, he emailed Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn about the possibility of setting up a meeting between Putin and Trump during the campaign, according to the Times.

Erickson's email to Dearborn bore the subject line "Kremlin Connection." In it, Erickson solicited advice from Dearborn and his boss, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a top foreign policy adviser to Trump's campaign, about the best way to connect Putin and Trump.

Both Dearborn and Butina, who has been enrolled as a graduate student at American University since mid 2016, have been asked to appear before the Judiciary Committee, but so far Erickson has not, sources familiar with the matter said.

Bridges LLC, a company that Erickson and Butina established in February 2016 in Erickson's home state of South Dakota, also is expected to draw scrutiny. Public records don't reveal any financial transactions involving Bridges. In a phone interview last year, Erickson said the firm was established in case Butina needed any monetary assistance for her graduate studies -- an unusual way to use an LLC.

Erickson said he met Butina and Torshin when he and David Keene, a former NRA president, attended a meeting of Right to Bear Arms a few years ago in Moscow. Erickson described the links between Right to Bear Arms and the NRA as a "moral support operation both ways."

this country resembles argentina more and more each day

Damn Nutbag Republican Army.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/954151280020283392

All the available evidence suggests Trump ordered Lewandowski to withhold testimony in an official proceeding without any formal invocation of privilege--which is a crime.

That crime being obstruction of justice, I guess.
But is that a slam-dunk?
Does it depend on what the official proceeding is?
Or how exactly that "order" was phrased and communicated?

I'm kind of amazed that witnesses can go to these hearings, simply decline to answer any question they feel like not answering, and there are no consequences.

so a bunch of rightwingers online and even some of the dumber/more terrible Congressmen are freaking out about some memo Nunes drafted that PROVES a deep state OBama conspiracy against Trump!!!!!


well guess what the memo really seems to be

https://twitter.com/sarahemclaugh/status/949713584539557888

https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/954364617563803648

I think your source isn't telling the truth. If they've worked with Nunes for long, they can fathom any level of irresponsible stupidity.

On a side note, in 2010 Nunes authored a book published by WND (WorldNetDaily) Books.

Restoring the Republic.

The cover blurb is pretty ironic, in light of ... subsequent events :

Our republic is imperiled. At a time of unprecedented government spending, historic deficits, and gathering foreign threats, America stands at a crossroads. We can either reassert fiscal discipline and reduce the government to the size envisioned by our Founders, or we can continue on the current path of spending ourselves into oblivion ...

(emphases mine)

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/954106105734496257

Start of a thread about the transcript of fusion GPS testimony to the house subcommittee that was released yesterday.

Fairly simple solution to the national debt, simply indict and convict Chase and other banks that participated with the Nazis and nationalize them. There goes a lot of it.

Then to fix Social Security, change the law so loans from the SS fund are not involuntary but require the approval of an independent oversight committee and that any and all interest on those loans is paid back into the SS fund rather than the General Fund or covered by additional government bonds.

well, if Trump gets Wray through, then the consequences will probably be "none"

what's the case against wray?

I'm seeing that a big, bipartisan group of prosecutors endorsed him for this job, including Eric Holder.  and that he was one of the people who threatened to resign, along with comey, over bush's warrantless surveillance.

another fbi director with integrity.  this must be really frustrating to trump

https://www.axios.com/scoop-1516661397-877adb3e-5f8d-44a1-8a2f-d4f0894ca6a7.html