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🇺🇸 Musk Thinks This GOP Candidate is 'Very Promising'

🇺🇸 Musk Thinks This GOP Candidate is 'Very Promising'

Plus, a question mark in space?

August 21, 2023

Good morning, and happy Monday. From a California high school comes a touching story of family, dedication, and engineering as a group of students finished restoring a 1969 Jeep that was very special to a nearby family.

Plus, people are freaking out over a question mark seen in space captures by the James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists can explain…

Also, whether you’re looking to grow your portfolio or take a trip down memory lane, there’s a dopamine hit waiting for you on Rally…

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Hillary Approaches, Russia’s Moon Launch, F-16s for Ukraine

US: Tropical Storm Hilary makes landfall in northern Mexico as it heads for US (CNN)

US: Senate Republican says Trump should drop out of presidential race (The Hill)

World: Russia’s first lunar mission in decades crashes into the moon (CNN)

World: Denmark and Netherlands pledge to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as Zelenskyy visits (AP)

World: Canada to deploy armed forces in British Columbia to tackle fast-spreading fires (Reuters)

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Okay, fine. A freaking triceratops skull?

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2024

Musk Thinks This GOP Candidate is 'Very Promising'

CC BY-SA 3.0 Gage Skidmore

In the crowded field for the Republican presidential nomination, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has emerged as a breakout figure. In fact, Tesla CEO Elon Musk lauded the GOP presidential hopeful, describing him as a “promising candidate.” A political novice with no prior experience holding public office, Ramaswamy has risen to third place in some polls, coming in behind Former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Reporting from the Left: Vivek Ramaswamy’s rise to semi-prominence, explained (Vox)

Reporting from the Right: First-time GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says he's not getting 'overly prepared' for first primary debate (FOX News)

From The Flag: Despite his meteoric rise, or perhaps because of it, Ramswamy is being met with criticism from in and outside of the Republican Party. Most recently, he made controversial remarks about allowing China to invade Taiwan, which has many from both sides calling foul. Here’s how both sides are responding to those comments and his rise in the GOP primary.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Vivek’s Not So Great

Ramaswamy’s proposal to allow China to invade Taiwan once the US has its own supply of semiconductors is dangerous foreign policy.
He’s called race-based college admissions “a cancer,” but a Soros family fellowship for children of immigrants helped him accrue wealth as a grad student.
Ramaswamy’s recent comments on China and Taiwan are deeply concerning and shows he would be woefully unprepared to handle these sensitive foreign affairs should he be in the Oval Office.

Vivek Ramaswamy Has an Idiotic New Plan To Let China Invade Taiwan Tori Otten, The New Republic: “Ramaswamy said he intends to make his stance clear by dramatically upping the firepower around Taiwan during his first term. This includes moving destroyers and guided missile submarines to the Taiwan Strait, attempting to form a military alliance with India, and even ‘putting a gun in every Taiwanese household.’ It did not seem to occur to him that China would likely interpret these moves as acts of aggression and respond in kind. Nor does he seem to realize that it’s highly unlikely China would listen to his proposed arrangement. Hewitt pressed Ramaswamy multiple times on his apparent willingness to go to war with China (but just during his first term). … Ramaswamy responded by simply repeating that Xi ‘should not mess’ with Taiwan until the U.S. has achieved semiconductor independence. He then admitted that if India does not agree to a military alliance, the U.S. would badly lose a conflict with China.”

‘Anti-Woke’ GOP Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Can Thank Affirmative Action for His Success Kali Holloway, Daily Beast: Ramaswamy cheered the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-conscious admissions at Harvard, his undergraduate alma mater, despite the school noting that no students are admitted on the basis of race alone. But as he made his way through two Ivy League universities, Ramawamy himself benefitted from a generous fellowship intended to provide opportunity and equity to groups who have historically often faced systemic barriers to success. Moreover, that fellowship came by way of the Soros family. (Yes, that would be the family of George Soros—the right wing’s all-purpose boogeyman.) … Few names stir up a fit of pique among the anti-woke like “Soros.” This might be why Ramaswamy doesn’t want his name appearing anywhere near “Soros.” … So embarrassing to the candidate is this significant chapter of his origin story that, according to reporting by Mediate in May, Ramaswamy paid to have information about the fellowship “scrubbed” from his Wikipedia page.

One more opinion piece from the Left: Let’s Keep Vivek Ramaswamy Away From the Nuclear Codes New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

May Not Be The Young, Anti-Woke Figure the GOP Needs

As a political newcomer, Ramaswamy should be more careful about what he says. For example, he’s giving credence to conspiracies about 9/11.
Ramswamy’s background as an investor makes him more open to failure, but that won’t cut it in politics, especially with foreign policy.
The GOP presidential hopeful has somewhat of a dubious past during which he has contributed to Democrats and didn’t vote Republican until 2020.

Vivek Ramaswamy Dives Into Swamp Land The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal: “...as he garners more attention, an obvious line of attack on the 37-year-old entrepreneur is that he’s too young and inexperienced. All the more reason for him to avoid wading into the political fever swamps, alienating voters who might otherwise give him a serious look. A case in point was his response this week to a question about whether the 9/11 attack was an ‘inside job or exactly how the government tells us?’ Mr. Ramaswamy should have run away from that one, if not right out the interview door. Instead he answered: ‘I don’t believe the government has told us the truth. Again, I’m driven by evidence and data. What I’ve seen in the last several years is we have to be skeptical of what the government does tell us. I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary, but do I believe everything the government told us about it? Absolutely not. Do I believe the 9/11 commission? Absolutely not.’”

You can’t hack foreign policy Seth Mandel, Washington Examiner: “Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s foreign policy fumble over China and Taiwan was roundly criticized as a single bad idea, but in fact, it shows why Ramaswamy will never be ready for prime time. The whole fuss was also an important lesson: Often, it’s an advantage to see the world of politics through the eyes of an actual politician rather than those of a fresh-faced outsider. … Successful investors such as he are going to have major failures alongside life-altering breakthroughs. That’s how his industry works. But it’s not how politics works. The leader of the free world cannot base diplomacy and alliance-building on moonshots. And that’s what Ramaswamy’s semiconductor idea is. If America gambles the world order on a Silicon Valley-style roll of the dice, the president doesn’t get to sell it off for parts, find a new angel investor, and start all over again. That Ramaswamy approaches foreign affairs the way he does pharmaceutical investment means he should stick with the latter.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Vivek Ramaswamy’s Rise in 2024 Field Brings Scrutiny Beyond Anti-Woke Record John McCormick, The Wall Street Journal

FLAG THIS

Doing Better Than Expected…But There’s a “But"

Overall, polling averages put Ramaswamy in third place. In RealClearPolitics’ average, he is at 6.1 percent, behind only Trump (54.2 percent) and DeSantis (15.1 percent), but ahead of Mike Pence (5.2 percent), Nikki Haley (3.4 percent), Tim Scott (2.8 percent) and Chris Christie (2.6 percent). FiveThirtyEight’s polling average shows Ramaswamy even higher, at 7.5 percent.

However, there’s an interesting caveat in these figures. Ramaswamy’s strength comes almost entirely from polls conducted over the internet, where he averages 7.8 percent. In polls conducted mostly or partially over the telephone, in which people are contacted randomly, not only does Ramaswamy lag his average score — he’s way back in seventh place, at just 2.6 percent (Politico).

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Vivek Ramswamy?

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

Hawai’i Enters the Union, Loneliest Roads, Big Bang Hot

On This Day in 1959: The modern United States receives its crowning star when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.

Literary Hub: Not Just a German Word—A Brief History of Schadenfreude

CityLab: America’s Loneliest Roads, Mapped

Today I learned the highest temperature ever reached is 4 trillion Celsius degrees. Scientists used a giant atom smasher to reach it for a few milliseconds. It was so hot that even protons and neutrons melted. They believe a similar temperature was reached during the milliseconds that followed the Big Bang.

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