ThoughtCriminal
ThoughtCriminal's JournalReplacement show for Colbert announced
Wednesday-Friday.
Mondays: "Monday Night Rehabilitation!"
Tuesday; "The Man from I.C.E.!"
"Every Lie We Tell Incurs a Debt to the Truth" - (Chernobyl)
Sooner of later that debt is paid.
It would be more tolerable if only the liars paid the debt. Sadly, it often is not.
Rare asteroid flyby in 2029 , but Trump is killing NASA mission to study it
Another mindless, stupid cut from the Trump's know-nothing White House.
https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/06/trump-budget-kills-nasas-golden-opportunity-to-see-a-killer-asteroid-up-close/
The near miss by the large Apophis asteroid in April 2029 offers NASA a golden—and exceedingly rare—opportunity to observe such an object like this up close. Critically, the interaction between Apophis and Earth's gravitational pull will offer scientists an unprecedented chance to study the interior of an asteroid.
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So it made sense when NASA decided to fire up the mission, newly rechristened OSIRIS-Apex, and re-vector it toward Apophis. It has been happily flying toward such a rendezvous for a few years. The plan was for Apex to catch up to Apophis shortly after its encounter with Earth and study it for about 18 months.
“The most cost-efficient thing you can do in spaceflight is continue with a heathy spacecraft that is already operating in space," Binzel said.
And that was the plan until the Trump administration released its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. In its detailed budget information, the White House provided no real rationale for the cancellation, simply stating, "Operating missions that have completed their prime missions (New Horizons and Juno) and the follow-on mission to OSIRIX-REx, OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer, are eliminated."
It is unclear how much canceling this mission "saved", but based on the operational costs of OSIRIX-REx, it is probably in the neighborhood of a few Trump golf weekends.
I'm not sure that th U.S. can regain the trust of our allies
Even if we sweep in 2026 and 2028. We've all been down this road before:
- After the stability, prosperity, and peace that we had with the Clinton Administration, we let GW Bush bring us a costly and immoral war and later a financial crisis brought about by GOP deregulation.
- So we managed to re-take Congress and put President Obama in the White House.
- After turning the economy around and once again bringing peace and prosperity, the voters again put the GOP in charge of Congressional obstruction and put Kommander Krasnov in the White House, because "Her Emails".
- After 4 years of incompetence , corruption, and economic disaster, we elected Biden, and once again, a Democratic Administration defied predictions and turned things around leaving us with the best economy in the world.
- But again, voters with the memory capacity of a maggot, returned that thing to the White House along with a majority in both houses and a Supreme Court that signaled immunity to a sociopath felon.
So even if we run these criminals and traitors out again, we have PROVEN that by the next election cycle, the voters will screw themselves and everybody else, for the most moronic reasons conceivable.
Rinse, lather, repeat. YOU can count on the billionaires, the GOP, and the media to use the same playbook.
We don't just have to win, we have to win big. And it is not enough to just fix what the GOP has broken, but repair our democracy.
1- End Legalized Bribery. Target "Citizens-United"
2- Support reproductive rights
3- Place some reasonable restrictions of Presidential Pardons
4- Prosecute white-collar criminals. Enforce insider trading laws. Ban stock trades while in office.
5 - Investigate and shine a bright light the on influence that hostile foreign governments have on elected officials.
6- Enforce anti-trust laws and make them stronger - especially addressing the media monopolies
7- Remove barriers to voting. Expand election day to election week so that working people can fit it into their schedule. If a state is going mandate photo-ID, remove any costs associated and make it practical and convenient.
8- The Supreme Court should have the highest ethical standards. Pass and enforce ethical standards for the Supreme Court. Remove Justices that do not uphold the Constitution or fail to recuse themselves from cases with even the appearance conflicts of interest
9- Restore the Fairness Doctrine and protect Net Neutrality. Nurture independent media.
There's a lot more - feel free to add. I'm not really interested in "We'll never have the votes" excuses and replies.
Edit:
I might as well add:
10- Replace the Electoral College with direct popular vote
11- End gerrymandering of House Seats. Add new seats the the House.
12- Make the Senate more representative of a stats's population - maybe a minimum of one and up to four Seantors.
Tariffs and World War - History Lesson
As pretty much every expert on history trade and the economy will tell you the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act made the Great Depression much worse. That in itself made World War-2 more inevitable.
But perhaps overlooked is how it contributed to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QUcdQLEhsc0
Fast forward to 2025 and Trump, who knows absolutely less than nothing about history, or how tariffs work. One of my many fears is that raising tariffs on China Will lower their perceived cost of invading Taiwan. Right now, I believe that China is too dependent on trade to make the cost of attacking Taiwan far too high. But with a substantial drop in trade changes the equation. In addition, if Trump cuts or eliminates aid to Ukraine and drops sanctions on Russia, that too will increase China's perception that the United States would take effective action against them if they invade.
History will more than rhyme, it will bleed.
Easy Prediction: For the next four years, Trump's response to ANY and EVERY crisis
will be the WORST possible response. Every "solution" that the incoming administration will implement will not only fail, it will make the situation worse and will generate additional suffering and chaos.
Further, through incompetence and design, there will be a parade of self-inflicted, avoidable, and deliberately manufactured crises.
Wealth and power for the very, very few, despair and poverty for everyone else. There will not be any exceptions. They will not even accidently create a policy that will make life better for all of us.
In 1940-41, Hollywood made Anti-Nazi Movies
They shined a spotlight on Nazi brutality and racism.
Some are forgotten, but films like "Casablanca" and "The Great Dictator" are among the greatest films of the era.
Where are the movies about the Russian invasion of Ukraine (outside of Europe)? Where are the parodies of MAGA extremism (outside of late-night TV)?
For all the right-wing hysteria about "Hollywood Liberals", it seems like the industry afraid of offending someone. It's not like there aren't some compelling stories to tell.
My Milestone - 1/3 of my life at DU
Without giving away the exact days. I'm 65 and I have now been on D.U. for 1/3 of my lifetime.
I've said it before after we were offline for while - there is no substitute
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Member since: 2002Number of posts: 14,698