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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Given the news recently about NASA turning to SpaceX to help bring the two stranded astronauts back to Earth, and pointedly rejecting Boeing's pleas that their Starliner capsule was fit for the task, I'd say they'd probably be more favorable to Musk if he were detained on foreign soil. They clearly don't like the guy, but it would require pigheaded dogmatism to overlook his benefit to the US government and leave him to languish in a foreign prison.

Then again, pigheaded dogmatism would not shock me from these people.

NASA is definitely likely to be his biggest ally for sure, but who listens our cares about what NASA has to say? They are politically irrelevant except as a pork delivery system, which SpaceX a actually threatens. DOD might actually be the most influential voice urging his indispensibility, though their influence over State is likely weak and not enough to overcome the political hatred of Musk combined with the lobbying of the traditional defense contractors. The voting public are largely convinced that Musk is a grifter and a loud mouth, and that the companies he heads would be much better off without him.