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You are here: Home / Open Threads / 38 Years Old, Never Kissed a Girl

38 Years Old, Never Kissed a Girl

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38 Years Old, Never Kissed a Girl
From Reader D

Here’s some King Musk news.  First, you love to see Republicans lying and running away from this fucker at town halls, while at the same time sucking up on X:

At an open house in Fairbanks on Monday, Alaskan Congressman Nick Begich (R) told constituents that there was nothing he could do to stop agency budget cuts being implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk.

During the meeting, Begich was confronted by constituents laid off from federal jobs, a major source of employment for the state. “I was fired,” one said. “Now I have no choice but to leave that community and probably leave Alaska, and so I just don’t understand how these budget cuts are helpful to any Alaskans or their communities. And I’m just wondering what you plan to do about this.”

Begich said he was “not in a position to approve or deny the cuts.”

The piece, which is posted on Judd Leglum’s new project, MuskWatch, includes screenshots from X showing Begich re-tweeting Musk’s lies about Social Security and generally licking Elon’s taint.  Begich, of course, beat Mary Peltola by a couple of points in the last election, so he’s definitely vulnerable, especially in a state which is one of the biggest recipients of federal funds.

ProPublica has a database of DOGE employees – some of them are not twenty-something (or even teenage) boys.  But the DOGErs who are wreaking havoc are all young.  Josh Marshall has a theory, [gift link] and I think he’s right:

As I was sitting here yesterday evening it came to me. Musk keeps using these guys because they’re willing to do things these other more experienced people are not. I want to be crystal clear: This isn’t something I’m reporting. I believe it’s just the most logical reading of the available evidence.

As this writer for Lawfare points out, the latest court filings ask for a list of DOGE employees, because we don’t really know who they are (it’s all piecemeal stuff from different journalists).

Wired, which has been doing great work, is out with a piece pointing out that DOGE’s incompetence is a feature, not a bug — all Silicon Valley startups move fast and break things.  But they don’t take the next step in that piece and point out that a lot of successful startups also incorporate lawbreaking into their business model.  Uber broke laws about ridesharing in many cities and got away with it.  AirBnB turned your house into a hotel no matter what the zoning regulations were in your town.  And, of course, Elon’s startups are always in trouble with the law. DOGE is breaking the law because that’s how Silicon Valley works.

Vandalism and protests aimed at Tesla owners and Tesla continue. This Tesla dealership in Salem, OR had windows shot out recently. And there’s this, via Comrade Scott:
38 Years Old, Never Kissed a Girl 1
I don’t condone violence or vandalism, but driving down the value of Tesla stock is one way to really harm Elon Musk’s net worth.  Peaceful protest, boycotting Tesla, and selling your Tesla if you can are ways to send a message.   (Obviously, selling is a huge financial hit since their resale value is dropping like a rock, so I don’t expect people to do that.)

Edit: Forgot this piece by Marisa Kabas on Musk and DOGErs nazi ties.

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    Actually, the white-walled Cybertruck is the most appealing version of the vehicle I’ve seen.

    Not that I’d buy one.

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    Begich said he was “not in a position to approve or deny the cuts.”

    “I mean, it’s not like I’m a member of a legislative body that created your agency or funds it on an annual basis, right?  It’s not like there’s any way that I could join with my fellow legislators and, like, demand action or anything.”

    What he REALLY means is, “I have no spine or courage whatsoever, and trumpov is my king, so (shrugs)…what do you expect me to do?”

    make these fuckers SQUIRM, America!  Call, confront, demand that they DO THEIR JOBS!

  3. 3.

    rk

    I saw a black cybertruck the other day. It’s something I’d expect a middle school boy to design. They really live in a fantasy world. It looks ridiculous! I’d say this even if I liked Musk.

  4. 4.

    dc

    @Jeffro: ​
      I hope some of the angry constituents (many of whom likely voted for him and the Asshole) pointed that out, that he’s in the Article I branch, they make the laws, found agencies and other government bodies, fund the government, and have the power and obligation to perform oversight. Not in those words, but, saying: you dumb fuck, you do have the power, it originates with Congress, you fucking idiot!
    Something along those lines.

  5. 5.

    VFX Lurker

    Musk keeps using these guys because they’re willing to do things these other more experienced people are not.

    This rings true for me. Most inexperienced people have no imagination about what can go wrong. They can’t conceive of future criminal charges or the consequences of breaking legacy systems or both.

  7. 7.

    sentient ai from the future

    @VFX Lurker: also, they have no idea what the legal consequences might be, because they are still wet behind the ears.

    They have no idea of the consequences to themselves or to others.

    And the cuts they are making seem very likely to be, as Krugman said the other day, “Humpty Dumpty” ones.

  9. 9.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    “DOGE is breaking the law because that’s how Silicon Valley works.”

     

    And the Trump DOJ won’t bother prosecuting them, for reasons.

     

    So it’s up to ordinary citizens to gun them down like rabid dogs, I guess. Please proceed.

  15. 15.

    TheOtherHank

    I tend to cut people driving regular Teslas some slack since maybe they got it before it became painfully obvious what Elon is. That being said, someone on my masters swim team started showing up to practice in a Model 3 well after the election. Now I think less of him.

    But anyone driving an Incel Camino/Wankpanzer/etc gets a one-finger wave from me.

  21. 21.

    Leto

    Medical science thought it wasn’t possible to produce male birth control, but we here at Musk Industries are proud to introduce: CYBERTRUCK! Guaranteed to keep women far, far away from your junk. CYBERTRUCK!

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    Per The Guardian, Mitch McConnell has announced he is retiring.

    Neither the BezosPost nor the Vichy Times has story up yet.

  24. 24.

    RaflW

    I haven’t seen if Josh has updated his effort to track the difference between M.O.C.’s weekly newsletters home vs. their D.C. and online pronouncements, but that seems like it could be a good effort in at least the ‘swing’ districts. And Juicers getting weekly updates from Repubs that show some daylight opening?

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    @dc: they’re so pathetic that it’s hard to tell if they are just playing dumb or genuinely don’t know that they could do something

    (after all, if you’re a GOP member of Congress, you probably think your main only job is to get on Fox News as often as possible.  legislate?  what’s that??)

    still…I’m encouraged.  Could be a real wake-up call to GOP members of Congress: “wait…we have constituents other than our big dark-money donors?  MAGAts actually get mad at us when we abdicate our responsibilities this badly??  even when we cleverly try to blame it all on (out-of-power) Democrats???”

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    From The Guardian.  Today is Turtle’s 83rd birthday.  But we get the present.  A few terms too late.

    Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky, has announced that he will not seek re-election next year.
    McConnell announced his decision in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, marking his 83rd birthday.
    “Seven times my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” he said.

    Every day, I’ve been humbled by the trust they placed in me to do their business right here, representing our commonwealth has been the honor of lifetime.

    “I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last,” he said.

  32. 32.

    p.a.

    @rk: The guy on the youtube channel “The Car Care Nut” described the “truck” as looking like a 9 year old’s attempt to draw a car.

  33. 33.

    jimmiraybob

    Ha ha, Mr. Alaskan Congressman Nick Begich (R), Alaska was stolen by America in 1959 and is properly the property of Mother Russia!

    And once all of the gold is removed from Fort Knox, converted to cryptocoin, and safely stored at Elon’s top secret lair, we can begin negotiations.

  34. 34.

    RaflW

    @rk: The (Jewish!) realtor who specializes in the area around our cabin in SE Wisconsin got an El Caminope a few months ago. We already kind of thought of him as a doofus, and he did say in an email to me when I invited him to a candidate party at our cabin that he (dork!) “trended Republican”.

    He was the listing agent for our place (our buyers agent was a lackluster gay guy we won’t use again either). If we sell it, he will absolutely not get our listing. He cyber-nuked our willingness to work with him. If he brought a qualified offer as a buyer’s agent, I guess we’d lump it, but I just think he made such a dumb error – and he parks it right out front of his office on the busy street.

    In 35 years of buying and selling, I’ve had two agents I’ve thought were on the ball. I’m not surprised that Realtors as a group donate to a lot of Republicans. Not the most strategic bunch.

  35. 35.

    p.a.

    Every day, I’ve been humbled by the trust they placed in me to do their business right here, representing our commonwealth has been the honor of lifetime.

    “I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last,” he said.

     

     

    And Kentucky has just rocketed up the HDI rankings since he represented you.

  36. 36.

    Lethe

    @Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog: His dad, Nick Begich Sr, was a popular Democratic House Rep when he died in a plane crash. Nick Jr, Tom and Mark were groomed as teenagers to take up their father’s career. Nick Jr showed his crazy early with his book “Angels Don’t Play that HAARP”, a conspiracy manifesto about how the Northern Lights research facility was actually for a weather control weapon. He wasn’t very popular politically (or locally) after that, and his brothers took over the political end.

    Not surprised that it took a sweep of red idiots to elect him….

  37. 37.

    sixthdoctor

    Would it count as vandalism if someone took the I AM STEALING FROM YOU graphic, made it into Post-it notes, and put one on a Cybertruck? Something that the owner could easily take off but it would get the point across.

    I’m assuming that the glue on the Post-it back wouldn’t damage the Cybertruck but that might not be a safe assumption.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @Leto:

    @p.a.:    Mitch has humbled this nation, has he not?  To our knees, watching King Trump, with a Supreme Court riddled with illegitimacy and corruption.  We fear the Supreme Court more than criminals do.

    There has got to be some blowback coming.   Please.

  39. 39.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Elizabelle: I have two wishes for Mitch McConnell:

    One, that the end of his days is marked by such agony that he cannot tell when his earthly suffering ends and his eternal torment begins.

    Two, that it lasts long enough that he outlives Donald Trump.

  40. 40.

    cmorenc

    Musk’s source of personal financial support is loans with Tesla stock as collateral – a classic billionaire ploy to avoid (or at least indefinitely postpone) having to pay either personal income tax or capital gains tax, and use the stock value appreciation during the postponement of taxable income incidence to make the eventual sale of some stock relatively trivial and painless.  So crashing Tesla stock price will eventually bite elon substantially, even if it doesn’t anywhere nearly soon transform him into poverty as he deserves.

  41. 41.

    scav

    Well, Congressman Nick Begich, as you self-proclaimedly can’t do anything, why hasn’t your deadwood paracitism on the Federal teat been DOGEd?

  44. 44.

    jonas

    @Jeffro: IKR? “Standing before the burning structure, the fire captain replied that he ‘was not in the business of either preventing or fighting fires in the city’…”

  45. 45.

    Trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    Senior Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.

    Somebody worse than him as junior senator.

    As pleased as I am to see McConnell finally, finally leave, what’s coming shall be worse but perhaps less cunning. Rand Paul is a very stupid man.

  48. 48.

    Belafon

    We shouldn’t idolize rich people, but I also don’t think wealth should be measured in terms of stock owned. That’s like Storage Wars basing the value on what the hunters say it will be worth.

    Updated

  49. 49.

    Old Man Shadow

    @cmorenc: Of course now being all up in the government payment system, he might make up any losses from Tesla by requiring everyone to sign up for his unregulated Twitter bank to get any government dollars.

  50. 50.

    cmorenc

    @Elizabelle: McConnells actual long-term game was to transform the federal government into the ultimate chamber-of-commerce / big-business friendly entity that was also more protective/promoting of more conservative social values at SCOTUS level – but with GOP Presidents more like Bush or Romney and conservative, but not radical control of congress.  When Trump and his cult came along, he succumbed to the illusion conventional conservatives and big-commerce could contain and control the monster.  I too will not be sorry if McConnell suffers a very unpleasant final chapter in his life, and leave the afterlife judgment of him up to God, who/whatever he/she turns out to be.

  51. 51.

    TBone

    @jonas: I seem to remember that as being an exact quote regarding a housefire…in a news story not too long ago?  They didn’t send in their “voluntary” contribution to the local fire department!

  53. 53.

    TBone

    @RaflW: I have stories from when I went to night school to get my PA Real Estate Salesperson license while working full time at a commercial-only real estate broker business on The Main Line.  Many, many stories…

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    driving down the value of Tesla stock is one way to really harm Elon Musk’s net worth

    Driving down the “cool factor” of the swastikars is a good way to tank their sales.

  58. 58.

    Emily B.

    Just transferred some retirement savings out of a fund that had almost 5 percent in TSLA and put the money into a fund with no TSLA exposure. This isn’t gonna move markets, and maybe I’ll lose some upside in the short term—but who knows, it may be a better investment long-term. I know for sure my conscience feels better.

  59. 59.

    Scout211

    I’m all for bashing the Republicans. All the bashing, every day. They are the only ones who have the power to stop the horrors and they refuse to do so. Just like they refuse to legislate when they are in power.

    But I may be soon reaching my last nerve when it comes to the Senate Democrats.

    Senate Democrats: Regrets? They have a few.

    I do regret it. Voting for [Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug] Collins was a mistake, and I apologize to the veterans of the country,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on a call with reporters on Wednesday.

     

    Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), meanwhile, told Migrant Insider that he regrets voting to confirm Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has led Trump’s efforts to crack down on migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border. The freshman New Jersey senator was one of seven Democrats who voted in favor of Noem’s confirmation.

     

    And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) expressed similar misgivings about voting to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his former Senate colleague who was unanimously confirmed to his post last month. Speaking with CNN last week, Van Hollen cited Rubio helping to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development, the humanitarian relief agency he once supported.

    I’m not saying what I think they should do with their regrets.  But it ain’t good.

  61. 61.

    beckya57

    Josh Marshall is hinting this am that Musk’s people are trying to centralize intelligence capabilities.  He doesn’t say it, but my read is he thinks this is being coordinated with Putin, to increase our vulnerability to Russian interference.

  62. 62.

    Steve LaBonne

    @beckya57: As GWB did exactly what bin Laden wanted, so Trusk are doing exactly what Putin wants. Makes no difference whether they’re doing it purposefully or just out of stupidity.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    @cmorenc:  One thing:  McConnell is, I think, intelligent enough to see the destruction he has wrought.  I suspect he would have preferred to be able to hide it behind a fig leaf, even to himself, but no ….

    I hope he is morose with regret from sunup to sundown, with black, black nights of the soul in between.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @Old School:

    It does look better.

    Not good mind you but better. There is a tesla dealer near here and it’s next door to where I get my car serviced. As a person who made specialty commercial tools for creating everyday products out of metal at rather small tolerances for most of my working life I have to say that an casual inspection of a number of teslas over the years has not endeared the brand to me. The build quality is less than my major US brand economy car that is 8 years old. Now it’s not horrible but for the money, it should be better. And I’ve seen the whatever they call this thing up close and the build quality is even worse than the things that look like cars.

  71. 71.

    Redshift

    @rk:

    I saw a black cybertruck the other day.

    I saw one in camo (a wrap, I assume). In case anyone thought they couldn’t get any uglier than the original look, I can assure you they can. Real teenage boy vibes from that one too; I bet the owner thought it looked badass.

  74. 74.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @TBone: Multiple Tennessee communities and emergency-services-by-subscription. Surprisingly frequent house fires allowed to burn themselves out because the homeowner didn’t join, and the responding FD doesn’t allow during-the-event subscribing.

  77. 77.

    Shalimar

    selling is a huge financial hit since their resale value is dropping like a rock

    I look at it from the other side of that coin.  Tesla resale value is dropping like a rock so far better to sell today than in 2 months.  It is not going to get better for Elon and Tesla.  More people will despise him with every new round of firings.

  80. 80.

    TONYG

    @rk: Yes.  In an alternate universe in which Elon is not a fascist, he would still be a childish, ridiculous human being.

  82. 82.

    LeftCoastYankee

    That ProPublica list indicates there’s an “HR” person for DOGE?

    Who is paying these people?

  83. 83.

    Shalimar

    @TONYG: Over 50,000 Tennesseans fought for the Union during the Civil War.  A majority voted against sending delegates to a secession convention in 1861, but the people with money (and slaves) won out.  In other words, Tennessee is far more extreme now than it was 164 years ago.

  84. 84.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @TONYG: Everything seemed tolerable until those drunken idiots in South Carolina shot up a federal installation. The South could have gone its racist slaveholding way if they hadn’t been triggerhappy.

  85. 85.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @Shalimar:

    Tennessee is far more extreme now than it was 164 years ago.

    true of every Red State with the possible exceptions of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

  86. 86.

    Citizen Alan

    @CliosFanBoy: TBF, I imagine that’s speculation. That $25 toy might well be worth $ thousands just for the novelty/rarity vaule years after Tesla the company has gone out of business and Edolph has gone to the Hell that God has prepared for him. If there were Edsel Hot Wheels made back in the day, I bet they would be worth a lot of money.

  88. 88.

    Albatrossity

    My congresscritter, the latest in a long line that has blurped out such GOP stalwarts as Bob Dole, Jerry Moran, and Roger Marshall, has a vast district that formerly was basically the western half of Kansas. In recent years the fingers of Gerry Mander have groped east, placing both counties housing the state’s major universities (KU and KSU) in the district so that their lib voters would be swamped out by the “people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”

    He has scheduled a bunch of town halls during this recess. None are in the eastern counties, where we are really ready to grill him. But he may actually be catching grief even out west. A transcript of his get-together in Colby KS showed that one person actually asked him if there was anything Trump could do that he would not support. He answered “Oh sure, absolutely” and then proceeded to evade the followup questions on that point.

  89. 89.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Gretchen: yes, my godson is in that age range and he seems to like seeing cyber trucks as well. Of course, he’s also obsessed with garbage trucks so his judgment is also a bit off.

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