Rocky Mountain Voice

On Wednesday night, Elon Musk made it clear that the reason he was leaving his role leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project was due to a rule limiting special government employees to 130 days of service rather than any rumored feud with President Donald Trump. This week, Musk publicly criticized the tax and spending package championed by Trump, saying, “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

WHY MUSK IS SO IMPORTANT. Elon Musk‘s giant Starship spacecraft went out of control, tumbled, and broke apart several minutes into a test flight Tuesday night. It was the latest in a series of unsuccessful-but-still-instructive tests of Musk’s hugely ambitious rocket program, which is designed to go to Mars. And it is also, at least for now, the heart of the American space program. “Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket,” the Washington Post reported, “and its test flights are crucial to the future of America’s space ambitions.” That, and not a troubled venture into government, is what makes Musk so important. Musk is crucial to America’s space ambitions because, for a long time, after one of the greatest achievements in human history, the Apollo exploration of the moon, America seemed not to have any space ambitions at all. Musk changed that.

Ranchers are calling multiple wolf attacks on cattle over Memorial Day weekend in Pitkin County “devastating” and evidence Colorado Parks and Wildlife is failing to keep its promise to alert ranchers when wolves are in range of their livestock.   The attacks occurred over three days on the Crystal River Ranch, in the Crystal River Valley, and on the Lost Marbles and McCabe ranches, in the Roaring Fork Valley.

A black media personality was convicted last week of faking a hate crime against Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade to gin up votes for him, with the ringleader Derrick Bernard testifying that Mobolade was in on the hoax, and the FBI testifying that the mayor misled agents about his contact with Bernard. Mobolade, who is Nigerian, won the election as a left-leaning independent in the traditional Republican stronghold in 2023 after the n-word was scrawled on one of his campaign signs and a cross set ablaze in front of it. Video of the scene was sent to the media, resulting in a swell of sympathy.

First, let’s say what should be said: cancer is brutal. No matter the person or politics, a diagnosis of aggressive, metastatic prostate cancer is devastating. President Biden is a husband, a father, and a human being.  No one should go through this lightly, and anyone with a shred of decency should extend basic compassion to him and his family as they face this battle. But that human sympathy must not excuse institutional deception.