Elon Musk provides new details on his ‘mind blowing’ mission to Mars

Ever since Elon Musk founded a start-up space company 14 years ago, the goal has always been the same: Establishing a colony on Mars. Now he’s finally beginning to reveal how he plans to get there.

Starting as soon as 2018, Musk’s SpaceX plans to fly an unmanned spacecraft to Mars. The unmanned flights would continue about every two years, timed for when Earth and Mars are closest in orbit, and, if everything goes according to plan, build toward the first human mission to Mars with the goal of landing in 2025, Musk has said.

But in an interview with The Post this week, Musk laid out additional details for the first time, equating the spirit of the missions with the settlement of the New World by the colonists who crossed the Atlantic Ocean centuries ago. And he acknowledged the immense difficulties of getting to a planet that is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth.

The months-long journey is sure to be “hard, risky, dangerous, difficult,” Musk said, but he was confident people would sign up to go because “just as with the establishment of the English colonies, there are people who love that. They want to be the pioneers.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/10/elon-musk-provides-new-details-on-his-mind-blowing-mission-to-mars/

Not for me. It's a one-way ticket.

The party of Lincoln is dying

Why such vehemence among Republican leaders in their condemnations of Donald Trump for questioning the objectivity of a federal judge based on his “Mexican heritage”?

This is, in House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s words, “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” But it is not materially more bigoted than the central premise of Trump’s campaign: that foreigners and outsiders are exploiting, infiltrating and adulterating the real America. How is attacking the impartiality of a judge worse than characterizing undocumented Mexicans as invading predators intent on raping American women? Or pledging to keep all Muslim migrants out of the country? Or citing the internment of U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II as positive precedent?

Is Trump himself a racist? Who the bloody hell cares? There is no difference in public influence between a politician who is a racist and one who appeals to racist sentiments with racist arguments. The harm to the country — measured in division and fear — is the same, whatever the inner workings of Trump’s heart.

No, Trump’s attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel was not different in kind. But for Republican leaders, this much was new: Since Trump now owns them, they now own his prejudice. Sure, Trump has gone nativist before, but this time it followed their overall stamp of approval, given in the cause of Republican unity. Trump must have known his attack on Curiel would humiliate the GOP leaders who have endorsed him, and he did it anyway. Trump is taking away the option of wishful thinking. Republicans have clung to the hope that Trump might find unsuspected resources of leadership; lacking that, to the hope that he might be co-opted; and lacking that, to the hope of laying low and avoiding the Trump taint. All delusions. Having tied themselves to Trump’s anchor, the protests of GOP leaders are merely the last string of bubbles escaping from their lungs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-party-of-lincoln-is-dying/2016/06/09/e669380a-2e6b-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html

Trump’s ‘Pocahontas’ attack leaves fellow Republicans squirming (again)

It was a bad time for Sen. Cory Gardner to be caught in an elevator with a reporter. Donald Trump had just referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as “Pocahontas” — again — and the Republican freshman from Colorado was struggling to figure out how to respond.

“I think people need to be treated with respect, and that’s what we’ve demanded from everyone,” he offered.

But was it racist?

Gardner clammed up. He politely referred further questions to his press secretary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-pocahontas-attack-leaves-fellow-republicans-squirming-again/2016/06/10/01805d22-2f1f-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html

Trump grilled on calling Clintons 'great'

As Donald Trump prepares a major speech next week attacking Hillary and Bill Clinton, a videotaped deposition from a class-action lawsuit against him in San Diego could put him in an awkward spot.

The testimony shows Trump trying to explain away past statements such as “I know Hillary, and I think she would make a great president or vice president” and “Bill Clinton was a great president.”

The depositions were taken this past December and January as part of the Trump University case in federal court, in which ex-students allege they paid thousands of dollars for increasingly expensive seminars offering real estate investment advice that wasn’t worth it.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs dragged up statements Trump had made years earlier — such as the 2008 blog posts about the Clintons — trying to undermine his credibility. Under oath, Trump tried to explain how his views have changed.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jun/08/trump-depo/

And the hits keep comin'!

Southern California rocked by earthquake

Source: USA Today

LOS ANGELES -- An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.1 rocked Southern California, rousing residents out of bed at about 4 a.m. PT.

The quake was centered near Borrego Springs in the desert east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Service reported.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/10/southern-california-rocked-earthquake/85684852/

There Is No Trump Campaign

As Donald Trump’s various fantasy goals go, winning New York in November doesn’t even top the list—it lags behind building an enormous, Mexico-paid wall on the border, deporting more than 11 million people, and winning California in the general. Still, the idea of an Empire State win is outlandish.

New York hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential contender since 1984, but then again every state save one went GOP that year. Democrats have a more than 3-million-person lead in voter registration, 5.8 million to 2.7 million. President Obama won more than 63 percent of the vote in 2012, besting his 2008 total. Hillary Clinton leads Trump by around 20 points in polling, although it’s very early.

But not only has Trump set his sights on winning his home state, he’s also hired a pollster to assist him. Not just any pollster: He’s reportedly hired John McLaughlin, infamous for working on Eric Cantor’s primary campaign in 2014, when the then-House majority leader lost to upstart Dave Brat. McLaughlin’s internal polling heading into the race showed Cantor leading by 34 points. National Republicans warned other candidates away from using McLaughlin.

Even better, Trump was introduced to McLaughlin by Dick Morris, the one-time Clinton consigliere-turned-professional crank. (Morris recently became chief political correspondent for the Trump-aligned tabloid National Enquirer, leading The Hill to finally drop his column. New York reports that the Trump campaign is in talks to hire Morris, which would fit with its focus on ’90s Clinton scandals, though the Trump team denies it.) Trump’s New York co-chair is baseball-bat-brandishing Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, who tells CNN, “Upstate will give us a wave in this election, and my instruction from HQ is really simple. It's one word: Win.” If anyone knows about winning statewide elections in New York, it’s Paladino, who lost the 2010 gubernatorial race to Andrew Cuomo by 29.5 points.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/there-is-no-trump-campaign/486380/

Go Donald Go!

Well there it is. Elizabeth Warren endorses Clinton on Rachel's show

Big home for Sanders supporters in the Democratic Party.

Joe's giving Trump a velvet glove smackdown

The black hole within Donald Trump

I’m no advice columnist, and normally I wouldn’t use this space for relationship counseling, but here’s a small bit of wisdom that I’ve offered to a few friends over the years and that might be useful to Republicans in Washington.

When you’re deciding whether to plunge into a marriage, don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’re marrying the person your partner is going to become, once he or she finally grows up or finds that perfect job or stops making meth in the basement. The only person you’re marrying is the one sitting right in front of you, and while some people do improve over time, only a fool would count on it.

On second thought, this advice probably comes too late for the Paul Ryans and Bob Corkers of the world, who were exactly this foolish when they wrapped their arms around Donald Trump and said: “I do.” But you know, they never asked.

You see, Republican leaders saw Trump reaching out for an insider like Paul Manafort – who ran Republican campaigns back when balloon drops were considered high-tech – and started using words like “pivot” and “coachable.” They wanted to believe the boorish Trump was like a political Bob Dylan, able to go from freewheelin’ to born-again without missing a beat.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-hole-within-donald-trump-000000238.html

Bernie Sanders must walk away so Donald Trump won’t win

After House Speaker Paul Ryan’s criticism of it as “the textbook definition of a racist comment,” Donald Trump’s abrupt realization that it’s unfair to declare a federal judge can’t be impartial because of his heritage is welcome. It’s awful for a major-party presidential nominee to say such things. But it’s also ominous in that it suggests Trump probably won’t self-destruct before November — that he may yet heed strategists and adopt a blander persona more acceptable to millions of unhappy voters eager to vote for an outsider. Even one with more baggage than Lindbergh Field.

The possibility of a Trump victory remains shocking. Many of his supporters say he’s facing criticism primarily because he refuses to be “politically correct” about immigration. We find Trump’s rhetoric to be awful, but we are at least as alarmed about the prospect his bluster could lead us into war or break U.S. commitments in a way that causes a global recession. No presidential nominee in modern history has been so unnerving that he prompted a former CIA director to say it may be necessary for the U.S. military to ignore his orders. No nominee has suggested that the U.S. should consider not paying its creditors in full.

These are not minor issues or insignificant gaffes.

This is a peculiar, unfortunate election. As Bloomberg View’s Ramesh Ponnuru wrote, each party will “nominate the only candidate who could possibly lose the election to the other.” These are historically disliked candidates. Clinton can lose.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jun/07/bernie-sanders-do-not-help-trump/

The San Diego Union-Tribune seems to have turned over a new leaf.