As I mentioned in a post yesterday, I think Musk and other obscenely wealthy right-wing tech sociopaths like Thiel, Andreesen, et al., are more of a threat to American democracy than Trump. The orange fart cloud is merely the dirigible they used to float to the pinnacle of American power. As described in Mistermix’s earlier post, Musk is essentially leading the junta now.
It’s all so alarming and depressing. I’ll admit sometimes I’m tempted to tune it out and focus on my immediate circle for sanity’s sake. I’m not confident we’ll get a chance to rid ourselves of these unelected rulers at the ballot box. It depends on how quickly they can entrench the right-wing kleptocracy they’re busily standing up now and how soon they’ll be able to use the levers of power to suppress opposition.
I interpreted the inept rollout of the government funding “freeze” as a positive sign that the junta is out of its depth. But there are plenty of bad signs too, like the silence or loud approval of every Republican lawmaker, even as their own power as legislators is being stripped away.
If — and it’s a big IF — we get an opportunity to begin to change course via a free and fair election in 2026, beating back the junta will require voting against Republicans, obviously. But as we’ve seen, at least some elected Democrats are susceptible to Musk’s bullshit con too.
It’s possible that the junta’s blatant power grabs will reel those Democrats back in. If it doesn’t, they should face primary opponents who understand the threat the junta poses to democracy itself.
But in the meantime, one thing we can do as individuals is use our influence to puncture the Musk myth for people we know in real life. I think it’s important to do that because most people don’t see Musk and his fellow travelers for what they are, and chances are they won’t until the junta turns off a money spigot that they personally depend on.
Maybe they buy the hype about reining in government spending. Maybe they believe the bullshit about Musk being a once-in-a-generation genius inventor who engineers products that change the world.
Case in point: earlier this week, I had lunch with a relative who isn’t in the Trump cult but probably voted for him. (We butted heads on politics for decades but generally avoid talking about it now because it always ends in hard feelings, and we value our relationship.)
But the topic of Musk came up when we spotted a wankpanzer/swastikar on the road. We agreed it was absolutely hideous, but my relative made a “you’ve got to hand it to him” comment indicating she buys the Musk mystique.
So, I tried to puncture that bubble, gently at first. I said I think Musk is a “tech genius” in the same sense that Madonna is a “musical genius,” i.e., he can spot and get ahead of trends, and he’s great at self promotion. (No insult intended to Madonna, but Mozart she ain’t.)
She asked what I meant, so I elaborated, giving a thumbnail sketch of how Musk leveraged his inherited wealth to buy an interest in promising technologies and parlayed those investments into ever greater wealth, lavishly subsidized by the U.S. government.
I said that although he takes pains to portray himself as a real-life Tony Stark, Musk wasn’t personally involved in designing electric cars or creating the cool booster rockets. He’s just a guy who was born wealthy and has a real talent for getting in front of tech trends to get richer.
My relative receives Social Security and Medicare benefits, so I inquired if she was worried at all that a man with hundreds of billions of dollars — a person who has no notion of what it’s like to have to work hard at a grinding job and struggle to pay bills — might be making decisions about the size of her monthly check and particulars of her healthcare coverage.
She thinks he’s genuinely interested in rooting out waste and fraud. I told her I think he’s motivated by the horrific prospect that his tax rate might climb to double digits someday. I said I think he would screw veterans and Social Security recipients in a second if it would put more money in his pockets, even though he could spend a million dollars a day for thousands of years and still never go broke.
I don’t think I convinced her; I’m a liberal and therefore suspect. But maybe I planted a seed.
Open thread.
Suzanne
Musk and Thiel are bad. Vance and the “postliberal Catholics” are also bad. There is danger on multiple fronts.
Melancholy Jaques
Not to single out this person, but a question for all such people is, what facts do you base that conclusion on? People will say, “It’s my opinion” when there are no such facts. But believing that Musk or any of that asshole’s cohort is interested in rooting out waste and fraud isn’t an opinion, it’s an inference. The question is, based on what facts?
trollhattan
We hosted our daughter’s lovely and posh English classmate for a week a couple years back, while Bojo was actively fucking up covid response in the UK and hyping Brexit. Tried a few times to engage her in UK politics, because I really wanted some perspective beyond what I got from BBC.
Best I could get was “I suppose they’re doing the best they can, given circumstances.”
IDK if she was simply deflecting an uncomfortable topic, is a stealth Tory, or simply did not pay any mind to politics, but it was kind of frustrating.
Suzanne
As for puncturing the Musk bubble…. agree. I think the cars will be the proximate cause of that. Cars are so integral to self-image and status, especially trucks for men. It will only take being turned down or openly laughed at once or twice for a lot of the bloom to fall off that rose.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: When I’m tempted to hope that they come to blows, I remember that Vance is Thiel’s errand boy. Sigh.
oldster
Good work getting your points across, Betty. And if you were able to do it without losing your temper, then you get a double-win bonus score.
Baud
That’s the nut of it. That’s why libs need a better strategy than educating people about the facts.
WTFGhost
I was worried about *Trump* being in power when I had to try for an ERISA based disability plan’s payouts, but, with this? I’m pretty much giving up on that (“it will be decided by a federal judge”), and social security disability (“we have to kick freeloaders off the system”)
I *knew* it was bad luck not to die while insured. (I’m sorry – is that too morbid? Insurance companies only rarely argue with death certificates – they don’t even insist on seeing the body.)
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: I’m so scared of these freaks that I actually might think that TFG is less bad.
Stella
@Melancholy Jaques: Generally they only get headlines, which are inevitably just stenography of what Trump or Musk has claimed. And since that’s their baseline knowledge, what they were told, the truth seems too disconnected to be true. After all, that would mean they’d been lied to!
Starfish (she/her)
I think private jets are freeloaders on the air traffic control system and should pay their own way. I think all corporations that have an office in Dublin to engage in tax shenanigans should be taxed double. I think all billionaires should be paying extremely heavy environmental impact taxes.
John S.
I tried to pop the Musk bubble with my brother, but to no avail. He refused to see the Nazi salute as such and was fairly “ho hum” about his overtures to the AfD.
Orthodox Jews can be tough nuts to crack once they believe in something.
John S.
@Starfish (she/her):
Much in the same way that Tesla and Rivian drivers are free loaders on WA state roads. They pay no gas taxes, which is what is primarily used for maintaining our roadways.
Chris
Back in Trump’s first term, I said he was going to be America’s Yeltsin more than America’s Putin. He’s a bit behind the ball, but this is pretty much him living up to that. The oligarchs are here, and they’re eager to strip-mine the government.
different-church-lady
Madonna can actually sing. I bet if you handed a multi-meter to Musk he wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Kelly
My example of Republicans in their information bubble was the unemployment rate last year. I live in Trump 70%+ rural Oregon. When waiting in line in stores the conversation would regularly wander to the line was long because nobody wants to work anymore so the stores can’t hire help. I’d reply the unemployment rate was the lowest in 50 years so isn’t it great people are finding better jobs. People didn’t believe unemployment was low. Even they did accept unemployment was low they didn’t see why low unemployment made hiring tough for low paying or physically unpleasant jobs. Nope People don’t want to work anymore.
Miss Bianca
@John S.: He’s an Orthodox Jew and does Nazi what’s coming with Musk et al.?
There’s no better word to describe my reaction to this than “Oy”, as it turns out.
different-church-lady
@John S.: You don’t debate people about whether Musk is a Nazi. You just call him a Nazi.
Phylllis
@Melancholy Jaques: We had a legislator here in South Carolina many years ago who was convinced there were massive numbers of residents committing fraud to gain Medicaid benefits. Audit after audit showed there were barely 1% of recipients who obtained benefits fraudulently, and they were usually caught and booted off the program in less than a year. What the facts did show is many providers committing Medicaid billing fraud at a much higher cost to the state. He would not budge on the subject.
Ramalama
I’m all about this Madonna comment. Collage from the gays. Collage even from ABBA. Ok. I read that sex photo book of hers, some friend had it. It felt mechanical. Anyway, she had has real fans of her work.
Elong championed himself the savior of the environment.
grilled cheese with homemade salsa is how I’m going to end this comment.
TONYG
I’m not the first person to say this: WHERE THE HELL IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AT THIS TIME OF CRISIS??? Introduce bills in the House and Senate demanding that Musk and his thugs be immediately arrested by federal Marshalls for doing this. The bills will not pass, but MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE so that the public understands what’s going on here. (Unless, of course, the Democrats are just as corrupt as the Republicans.)
New Deal democrat
In the long term historical view, the crisis in the American Republic is that it was designed so that Congress would be the most powerful branch, followed by the Presidency and lastly the Supreme Court.
But over time it has developed exactly the reverse manner. The Supreme Court is the most powerful branch, because there are no meaningful checks on the Justices; followed by the Imperial Presidency. Congress is a vestige of what it was supposed to be, because letting somebody else make the hard decisions is the safest way to have a long career. So Congress has frittered away almost all of the powers with which it was vested.
BellaPea
I guess my question to all of this is what can we do, right now, to stop this undemocratic monkey business with Musk? Why isn’t the Senate with their much-vaunted power and status doing anything? Who is allowing this to happen, is it solely that TFG has carte blanche to do anything he pleases, including indulging this Musk moron? I’m appalled that congress is doing absolutely nothing right now.
John S.
@Miss Bianca:
No. A lot of Orthodox Jews are wrapped up in Israel, where they think Trump is going to give them what they want. So they tend to overlook inconvenient facts they feel are not germane to that primary objective.
@different-church-lady:
I do call Musk a Nazi, because he has clearly demonstrated that is what he is. But not everyone agrees with that assessment.
Ramalama
It’s really something that everyone in Canada is waiting for the unveiling of some punishment that Trumps going to unload on us.
I have a couple friends in Mexico who I should ask if that’s what’s going on there as well.
here’s a Madonna song, the only one, I really like.
But the opening of that tune is very much like the one to ABBA’s Should I Laugh or Cry.
Phylllis
When people around me make comments like that, I respond with, ‘who in their right mind wants to work?’ Understanding of course they mean ‘those people who I hate and who are wasting my tax dollars’ don’t want to work anymore.
Betty
@TONYG: I think they should at least try to get an injunction. These people have no legal authority. Trump is just letting them run wild.
Suzanne
@Ramalama: That’s “Ray of Light”.
I like Madonna a lot. I think she’s a great performer and entertainer.
TBone
@Ramalama: SALSA! Clap 3 times and do a little dance!
Almost Retired
FWIW, the Musk myth is well and truly punctured amongst all but the truest of true believers at Space X, if my anecdotal experience is at all indicative.
Since 2005, my plaintiff-side employment law practice has been located about five miles away from Space X’s Los Angeles headquarters. Over the years, I got a lot of calls from potential clients, and took on three or four of them. Most of them were older men who developed a disability that required an accommodation. And out they went……
At first, it was hard to work up the cases because Space X employees were so insular and besotted with Musk that they didn’t want to assist their former co-workers in litigation. Kinda like the entertainment industry, where the “you’ll never eat lunch in this town again” mentality makes those cases hard to litigate.
But wow, did that change in the last couple years. Employees are pissed about the slow-motion move to Texas, the broken equity promises and Musk’s erratic behavior. And this was before mid 2024 and the skipping dipshit incident.
btw, their in-house attorney was a blustering bully based out of New York who made no secret of his contempt for California employment attorneys. I called him “dude” a lot, which got under his skin.
John Revolta
“I never thought the Waste and Fraud leopards would think I was waste and fraud!!”
John S.
@Ramalama:
I remember that song from Ray of Light. That was an excellent album, thanks in large part to William Orbit.
Chris
As for 2026 ot even 2028, the concern is that taking back power stops the bleeding, but actually reversing most of the damage done or punishing any of the people who committed crimes is like pulling teeth.
We eventually took the government back from Reagan, but nobody involved in Iran-contra was punished, and we’ve still never brought tax rates on the rich anywhere close to where they were before him, or repaired any number of the other damages he did to the safety net. We took the government back from Dubya, but 90% of the security state monstrosity he instituted is there for good (we couldn’t even close Guantanamo), and of course we never even tried to prosecute anyone. We took the government back from Trump once, but most of the damage he did to the immigration system is still there, the Supreme Court is still a Catholic Guardian Council, and we failed dismally at holding him accountable for 1/6.
God only knows how much damage will have been done and just become the new normal even if the Democrats do win back the government.
hitchhiker
I guess I’d ask this relative what she would do if Musk decided that her benefits were somehow based on fraud, and arbitrarily cut them in half.
The point isn’t that he’s a fucking grifter — it’s that we have enjoyed systems that function because we have relied on the structures in which people are hired and trained and fired.
Musk is outside those structures. He answers to no one in particular. His rockets explode spectacularly and routinely. He knows nothing about how she earned her benefits, and doesn’t plan to learn.
Harrison Wesley
@John S.: You mean he really believes Elon is just a skipping dipshit, albeit a very rich one?
pieceofpeace
Hmmm, how to approach another’s conservative standards.
First off, I think those who watch Fox don’t, and don’t want, to critically think nor question what they expouse and promote beyond a bare minimum. It’s close to being a religion of sorts that wants only “facts and miracles,” given and received without doubt, curiosity, research, experience, and put that onto their personal mantle of beliefs. I’m not putting down religious beliefs here.
I wonder how much they truly care about others they don’t know who will be horribly treated (already are) and deprived of any hope for freedoms of any kind or whose lives are aborted/highjacked because of their thinking? How twisted one has to get in order to gloss over the grossness of those currently in power.
I applaud you for trying, although we each must find our way in this atmosphere that will enhance our own dignity and remain honest to our self, regardless of whether there is anything more to gain beyond what we can control.
Be aware and stay attentive, which takes determined effort with me, is my current mantra.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The House wasn’t in session last week
Kelly
yep
Starfish (she/her)
@John S.: The lack of gas task on electric vehicles is harming road maintenance in a lot of places.
Miss Bianca
@John S.: I remember reading a book called Boychiks in the Hood a number of years ago, and the thing that struck me most about it at the time was the author recounting that an element of the Hasidic community in New York were anti-Zionist – in the sense that they didn’t believe that the literal land mass of Israel/Palestine was the Promised Land. They said that, if anything, America was!
I was kind of blown away by that argument. Now I’m wondering how long any Jewish person is going to feel that they could make that argument credibly.
John S.
@Harrison Wesley:
He’s somewhere between “skipping dipshit” and “Tony Stark”, but he seems to be leaning more towards skipping dipshit lately.
Gvg
@John S.: that’s is the government’s fault. At some point there will have to be a new system. Right now they get a benefit. Happens a lot with first adopters of really new things. For a long time internet sales didn’t pay state sales tax. That ended. I benefitted awhile but knew it would go away and needed to when there was a lot. Didn’t even complain, don’t recall many others fussing either when it happened.
I am not quite sure what we need to do and right now with a scary government the obvious is kind of a solution I don’t want. Florida has a statewide toll road arrangement where you buy a sticker and set up an account to charge your card, the toll booths scan you when you go by. Lines are pretty non existent now. I hardly ever use a toll road, but when I do I get an email later telling me my balance. Multiple companies joined whoever did this first so they don’t have to duplicate tags etc and it works now everywhere in the state. The problem right now is I don’t want this government knowing everywhere everyone goes, especially if the abortion restrictions. Get worse. And there are other reasons too. Can we invent a toll survey that is also not extractable? Maybe odometer based. Your odometer gets read once a week and you get billed. No exceptions for off road if vehicle is street legal
Chris
@trollhattan:
Unfortunately, the more you talk to the average citizen, the more you realize he or she has no idea what the fuck is going on. Whatever they’re telling you is 90% generic platitudes and shit they heard from someone else.
No reason it’d be different in the U.K.
Starfish (she/her)
Some of these Southern voters are learning they are not white as they thought they were. I think this is not going to go well for Republicans relying on those Hispanic voters who thought they were white.
Ruckus
I’m just one person but I know a lot of others in my boat. I am an OLD fart. I am a Vietnam era vet and use the VA for my healthcare. I pay my rent and food from my SS monthly payment. I worked and paid into SS for 60 yrs to have that income.
Our current unelected leader has billions. MANY BILLIONS. And as Betty stated, could live extremely comfortably on his bank interest payments, car manufacturing profits, spending nothing of his fortune and likely has zero idea how a very large percentage of people living in this county have, in relative terms NOTHING. Nor does he have one iota of give a damn about anyone else on the planet. (I’m leaving out a few choice words based upon 4 letters in this comment. Quite a few…) He is a pompous arrogant rich fuck who thinks the world rotates around the stick up his butt. But it doesn’t. He wants to be king of the world. And he’s going to fuck up everything he touches in his quest to get there. And in the past, a few centuries ago, he would likely easily get there. But this isn’t a few centuries ago, and the world has changed in many ways that do not bless some unworthy human with the ability to be king of the world. And that really, really shouldn’t change.
Miss Bianca
@Almost Retired:
lol, as in, “Dude, see you in court”?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
IDK about that Baud, considering that the House wasn’t session last week, the GOP house was down the whole week in Mar-A-Largo trying to work out a budget, failed, and now one here is apparently even aware of this sounded like the Libs don’t have the facts.
hells littlest angel
But you’ve got to give him credit for the CyberTwuck.
WTFGhost
@John S.: Show him Iron Man II. “See Justin Hammer? See? That’s Elon Musk. I’m surprised he didn’t sue them for defamation.”
(Is that true? I don’t know – I just made it up. I think it might work.)
pieceofpeace
@Starfish (she/her): Yes – all of this! Probably much more.
different-church-lady
@Phylllis: “How much would you do this job for?”
John S.
@Miss Bianca:
My brother told me about a huge community of anti-Zionists that live in NY called the Neturei Karta. That may be who you are thinking of. But they are considered pretty fringe, even in Haredi Jewish circles.
John S.
@WTFGhost:
LOL, I’m going to use that in our next chat. Musk is 100% Justin Hammer.
Bill Arnold
Just for reference, Elon Reeve Musk has ( as a co-author) one actual patent (2013), and 3 design patents.
The patent is US-8579635-B2 “Funnel shaped charge inlet”
Here’s a better search, with patents.google.com
I’m not particularly inventive, but have like (roughly) 25 patents (during a career with IBM, all with co-authors).
Mr Musk is not an inventor.
Chris
@New Deal democrat:
The plain fact is that if you want the legislature to be the dominant branch of government, you need a parliamentary system. That’s why when the U.S. is helping to set up a democracy in a foreign country, they invariably recommend that rather than copying our constitution.
Alas.
MikefromArlington
At least now there is a precedent to do just about anything Dems want when they regain control.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s definitely true on policy because tribal identity is so strong. I don’t know if it works the same way for celebrities. Will be interesting if Trump and Musk fall out. That seems inevitable given the galaxy-sized egos, but who knows?
John S.
@Gvg:
Agreed. WA state knows they need to do something to address the problem, but they haven’t yet coalesced around a solution. Hopefully they will tackle some legislation in this session which begins to balance things out, because our roads suck something awful.
Chris
@WTFGhost:
Justin Hammer is what Tony Stark actually looks like in real life. Of course he’s Elon Musk.
John S.
@Chris:
We should all start calling Elon’s many failures “MuskTech” in the same way Tony Stark derisively used HammerTech.
Geminid
@Chris: I saw last night that Norway’s governing coalition is breaking up. The proximate cause was said to be a dispute over electrical grid regulation.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Theil is a bad guy, everybody agrees. But just look at how often we see people quote clowns like Yglesias or Noah Smith or a stable of Atlantic writers, who spend a lot of their time promoting economic policies that Theil helps financially support via lobby groups, “think tanks” or academic departments who have whored themselves out for those sweet, sweet, billionaire dollars. And these positions are pushed by white, self professed progressives cloaking them in banal, liberal-sounding talking points from these same “think tanks” that almost all trace their origins or funding streams back to people like Theil, the Kochs or various other places like Cato, Niskanen, etc.
It’s part of my mantra about how so much of Reagan-era dogma is now baked into both sides of the aisle.
HinTN
@John S.:
Same here, except last time I renewed the tag for my hybrid there was an extra $100 to address just that issue. I didn’t complain but I do think hybrids, which do require gasoline, should pay less than all electric vehicles.
Bill Arnold
@John S.:
Yeah, it is jaw-dropping to observe, or hear first person.
It was mainly circumstances that the USA right wing decided (roughly 2015) to make a long-term project of targeting trans people. That minority is smaller than the Jewish population, and more important, less organized and without dedicated defenders. Also, the GOP enjoys complete support from the Israeli right, and Israel has uncritical total support from USA evangelicals, for eschatological reasons.
But it is exactly the same fascist tactic that the German Nazis used.
Certain varieties of non-white immigrants are next on the list.
As are opponents of The Regime.
Matt
I hope your “friend” gets everything she voted for, and then some. The idea that lots of walking garbage-fires just like her will be hurt by the administration they chose is the most positive thing I’ve thought about all day.
Nelle
@Ruckus: This old girl raised Mennonite pacifist was talking to her Vietnam vet husband this morning about guns and solutions. I can’t believe it myself.
HinTN
@Phylllis: Shades of Skeletor. “Why we can’t possibly go after the business folks committing fraud.”
Phylllis
@different-church-lady: Like the folks complaining about fast food workers making $15 an hour. How about you go do it for an hour and see how much you think they should make.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@HinTN:
The “EV Fee” that states have begun to place on automobiles along the “electricity spectrum” differs state-to-state.
For example, here in CO, no additional fee is placed on a *regular * hybrid. However, if it’s a plugin-electric (PHEV) hybrid, ie., the worst of both worlds, it’s fee is the same as a fulltime EV (BEV).
Our fee is $57.19 “plus inflation” each year. It’s levied when you renew your license plate, not that anybody seems to do that given how lax law enforcement has become about that.
Of course I’m sure if you’re black and driving on expired tags, you might as well but a neon sign on the roof of your car saying “PULL ME OVER!!!!!!”
Phylllis
@HinTN: Ah yes, the in-groups the law protects but does not bind belief.
Marc
Maybe I’m confused here, but Elon Musk actually was in Iron Man 2.
Harrison Wesley
@John S.: I like ‘muskrats’ better, but I know it’s overused.
TBone
@Almost Retired: fabulous insights, thank you.
Marc
I also have my name on several patents, the funny part is the one that actually was more or less my “invention”, I ended up being the last co-author as I refused to cooperate with the companies patent attorney. I believed what I did was completely obvious and derived from others’ work.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: Thanks very much for this post and your brave efforts with relative.
One other thing I have tried with young-middling adults is, think – what could you do if you had started with bazillion dollars from a family jewel mine?
Jay
@Ramalama</a
Everybody but Alberta is prepared and co-ordinated.
Danielle Smith and the Alberta Con’s are still sucking Dolt 47’s mushroom, are not prepared at all for the 10% tariff on Alberta’s oil, 25% on beef, metallurgical coal, grains, etc,
And because they said F/U to the rest of Canada, one of the tariff coping mechanism’s the Provinces worked out, won’t be offered to Alberta. All Canadian Provinces have tariffs on some products from other Provinces as protectionism for their markets.
Any product from the US subject to countervailing tariffs, will become tariff free, (except for Alberta). So Ontario booze, steel, etc will in BC replace US imports. We get our steel, and we use a lot of steel, via Washington State, because the shipping is cheaper.
TONYG
@John S.: Musk is a Nazi, and he is loud and proud about being a Nazi. Not hiding it at all. When Musk displayed that Nazi salute, very publicly, where he knew that he was on video, he was not a thirteen-year-old boy looking for attention. He was a 53-year-old man, who knew what he was doing. He was openly threatening and insulting at least half the people in the United States. He knew that he would get away with it, legally and in every other way.
TONYG
@hells littlest angel: Almost all of those tech bro “geniuses” are glorified salesmen. They invent and design nothing at all.
hitchhiker
Confirmed.
Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov
·
22m
NEW: Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it.
Kelly
@John S.: Oregon now charges cars $316 for 2 years registration. Also Oregon charge fuel efficient cars higher registration. $126 for 0-19 mpg, $136 for 20-39 mpg, $156 for 40 mpg and up. Kinda sucks that oversized gas guzzlers get a discount.
TONYG
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I didn’t know. So call a fucking emergency session then! This is a bipartisan problem but … what the fuck is the deal with those assholes in Congress taking so much time off? (Which they spend doing their real jobs … kissing the asses of their donors.)
TONYG
@pieceofpeace: Fox News (and other right-wing propaganda forums) is financially successful because it tells its viewers what they already believe (with the requisite buxom blondes). That way nobody has to think, which is apparently the ideal situation for most Americans.
Kelly
@Kelly: ELECTRIC cars are $316
frosty
@hitchhiker: He’s gonna fuck with my Medicare and Social Security isn’t he? So much for our brave Democrats in Congress standing up and preventing Trump from making any changes to the “third rail”.
Access to HR and the payment system is the coup. So we sue. So we win. Who’s going to enforce it? DOJ? Hahahahaha.
tam1MI
May the Tonya Harding Caucus that forced out Joe Biden and did this to us rot in hell. May they ROT IN HELL.
I am not excluding the Rethugs from my bad thoughts, but hey, they at least stabbed us from the front.
NotMax
@Kelly
$375 for one year for my non-plug in hybrid.
Captain C
@John S.:
The sad thing is they either don’t know or ignore that the Evangelicals who “support” Israel are only doing so to get all the Jews there so that almost all of them (us, as I’m Jewish enough to be killed for it) are murdered and sent to eternal torture, while the remaining few convert to whatever specific brand of Christianity is held by that particular Evangelical, which is the only way that Jeebus comes back and gives them their toys.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
I find it more or less impossible to learn where funding for road maintenance and construction actually comes from, across all jurisdictions. What I do know is license fees and fuel taxes comprise a sliver of the total, compounded by what is the responsibility of state, county, municipal.
Also suspect commercial trucking causes the lion’s share of road damage.
MagdaInBlack
@frosty: Officially halting payments got them an injunction, so elon is just going in and doing it himself.
tam1MI
See my comment about the Tonya Harding Caucus above. They could defenestarte their own fucking President but they won’t lift a finger to help the people their actions cast into the abyss.
Maybe the Democratic party should die, if all it is going to be is just another guardrail that failed.
Please people, talk me out of this darkness. It’s threatening to take over.
cmorenc
The grocery store is the place where MAGA Middle-class and blue collar workers will be unable to continue being herded by Fox and Trump’s lied about the economy. They may be able to get bamboozled about the price of eggs for awhile, but not when it extends to every other grocery item by 20%
Captain C
@John S.:
I’ve heard them described as the Westboro Baptist Church of Judaism. They’re the ones who went to a Holocaust denier conference or suchlike in Iran.
Bupalos
I’ve moved to planting more exotic seeds. I skip right past the “they want lower taxes” because honestly, I believe the level of wealth we’re talking about has less and less to do with “money.” It’s more like “irresistible power over everyone else’s life, through deliberate immiseration of others, as a religion.” These fuckers hoard wealth like a Viking chieftain, it’s not for use it’s some kind of weird violence kink and belief that they’ll live forever. They’d bury it in a cave if they could find a cave big enough.
They could give a shit about their taxes except as a route to drink your blood.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
Most state DOTs are very transparent about that. I worked for a DOT mode heavily involved in this for decades.
An example:
https://www.modot.org/citizens-guide-transportation-funding-missouri
Some states are better than others mainly because some state DOTs are far better than others. That being said, I can typically find decent info on projects and maintenance funding pretty quickly.
TONYG
@hitchhiker: Elon is a Nazi but, unlike Trump, he is not an idiot. His obvious next step will be to have his thugs “research” the Medicare and Social Security recipients using information available on the internet. Those recipients who are guilty of Thought Crimes will have their benefits “accidentally” permanently cut off. Those who are sufficiently servile will be allowed to get their benefits.
tobie
Musk’s seizure/capture of the entire Treasury.payment system scares the living bejeesus out of me. Who has standing to file for an emergency injuction? I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know but did no lawyer for the Dems anticipate this? We are up shit’s creek. I read on Feb 5 there supposed to be nationwide protests in all state capitals. I can go to Annapolis (MD) but this is all so ad hoc. The absence of leadership right now is astonishing.
Geminid
@tam1MI: The Democratic Party isn’t gonna die. If nothing else, Black Democrats will keep it going until the White Democrats get their nerve back
Ed. But if you are demoralized by national politics, I suggest you look at what Democrats are doing at the state level. That will include this year’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey, but there will plenty more happening in other states.
Betty Cracker
@Matt: She’s not my friend, she’s family and has been good to me all my life. So much so that if a person called her a “walking garbage pile” to my face, I’d sock him right in the goddamn nose! But I get the anger. I really do.
Jay
@MagdaInBlack:
It’s not just payments, it’s every person residing in the US’s medical records, SSN, financial data, etc, the only thing missing is your personal passwords.
sab
@TONYG: We will see. I do beg to differ with you on Elon Musk not being an idiot. Look at what he did to X.
SW
Take every opportunity to throw sand in the gears. Hang it all on Trump’s Billionaires. Take back the House in 26 and the nightmare reverts to a comedy
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: Cyber-coup.
Ramona
Is your relative award that but for liberals, she’d have no social security and no Medicare?
FelonyGovt
@Almost Retired: That’s amazing. Yes, as you know I’m in the same location as you (although I’ve never represented anyone from there) and SpaceX / Muskrat has managed to piss off many current and former employees, neighboring businesses, etc.
VFX Lurker
It took a year or two, but my husband went from admiration of Elmo to scorn.
I kept saying: “I used to think that guy was smart. If he’d only keep his mouth shut, I could still think he was smart. Why won’t he keep his mouth shut and let me think he was smart?” (It helped that I really did used to think Elmo was smart. Space travel and electric cars — these are smart things, so he must be smart, right?)
I drove a wedge between Elmo’s space/car companies and Elmo. I kept giving credit for SpaceX and Tesla to the people Elmo hired, not Elmo himself. I separated the cool factor of space travel and EVs from the stupid person who owned them.
My husband paid closer attention to the stupidity falling out of Elmo’s mouth, and to Elmo’s terrible decisions. He despises Elmo now. He still watches SpaceX flights, because he adores space travel. However, he won’t ever buy a Tesla.
My husband today: “He’s not smart. He’s just rich.”
John S.
@Captain C:
Yeah, that checks out.
John S.
@Kelly:
Oregon gotta Oregon. 😊
Betty Cracker
@VFX Lurker: Bravo!
@Ramona: Yeah, she’s no dummy. Just one of the millions of cynical (a pox on both their houses) and misinformed Americans.
TONYG
@sab: Yes you’re right. I’ll change that assessment to “not as stupid as Trump”, but that’s a very low bar to clear
TONYG
@TONYG: Meanwhile, goddamn NPR is ignoring this coup. Cowards
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TONYG:
Yup. I asked my normie wife about Totebagger Radio’s coverage this morning. Zilch.
I’m wondering if anybody is reporting on this.
Glory b
@BellaPea: When your party is in the minority, there’s nothing to be done without buy in from at least a few Republicans.
In Congress, the Speaker, a Republican, gets to decide what bills are introduced. As I’m sure you figured, the Majority leader, also a Republican, leads the Senate.
As my social studies/ civics teacher taught me in 7th grade, the most important vote in the legislature is the first one, electing the speaker. This is because the speaker sets the agenda for the rest of that session of Congress. Johnson is a Trump toady, no Democratic bills will get introduced for a vote.
Under Biden, Johnson wouldn’t even introduce REPUBLICAN BILLS that Trump didn’t like.
Glory b
@Ramona: Read “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland” by Jonathan Metzl.
MagdaInBlack
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: ftf NYT has something, but since I don’t have a subscription, I don’t know how they are reporting it.
CNN has this:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-federal-government-what-matters/index.html
Dave
@sab: He is capable in the domain of moving fast and breaking things and how you can benefit by acting like a sociopath or just being one in those domains.
The issue for them, there are a huge number for everyone else, is that it assumes they can’t kill th host and that is true until it isn’t.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@MagdaInBlack:
Great piece from CNN. As I’m learning from my normie wife’s new consumption habits, their non-cable reporting is really good.
For example, the headline from a piece on the 30th:
You’d never see that at FTFNYT or Totebagger Radio or CNN’s cable teevee coverage.
Ramalama
@Jay: yeah I could never quite get wtf Alberta was doing. We’ve been watching the latest news in French because we get more details about what “Pepe” Legault has been saying. My French is crap so the Alberta stuff just over my head. Thanks for the explanation.
Ramalama
@TBone: And then you yell out, “tortilla” … Pee Wee Herman style.
Ramalama
@Suzanne:
@John S.:
william orbit…I forgot he produced Ray of Light. He is excellent.
Long ago I managed a small nightclub one or two nights a week and one of Madonnas backup singers / dancers was on tour coming through Boston and performing on my night at the club. Creepy vibe from her fans in the audience. The worst most miserable people in the band including this singer I’ve ever come across. Just shitty every which way. Just everything’s, all of them. Nothing but massive hatred from me to her and her band from now u til the end of time forever amen. I was never a Madonna fan but no really strong feelings until “La Donna” as I called her under my dragon breath. Unfair! But as my sister in law used to say here in Quebec…Qui Cares?
WTFGhost
@Marc: *THAT* was to avoid a defamation suit.
(Also, I said I made it up. It’s just – Elon Musk *is* like Justin Hammer in the movie. Rather than “I want you to *blow* Tony Stark *out of the water*,” he’s all “I want to take a massive dump on Tony’s front lawn.” I see that in Elon Musk *all over*. He doesn’t just want to have people ass kiss him – he wants them to kiss his ass *after* he take a massive dump on his enemy’s lawn. Which is totally gross. Even *before* he expects people to kiss his ass prior to wiping. So, parody, and no hint of defamation.)
Chris T.
@John S.:
Au contraire, mon frere: we EV drivers pay an extra $150 every year to register here in WA. If I were buying gas, that would be enough for me to drive about three times as many miles as I actually do.
Chris T.
@Kelly:
Similar problem here in WA, a hybrid costs an extra $75 each year. This is true even if said hybrid only gets about 27 mpg (we have a hybrid truck, though I drive the EV).