Less than a month into Trump’s second term and theyre launching an Uber for mercenaries. Going great https://t.co/Ho1MFGTEkD
— Fentanyl Tsar (@canderaid) February 18, 2025
Michael Wolff (remember him?) has a new book to sell, which the Guardian just reviewed under the headline “Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner refused to sign memo saying Trump was not antisemitic, book says”. Also included:
… Describing a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in October, where Trump survived an assassination attempt in July, Wolff writes: “And Elon is here, waiting when [Trump’s team] arrive[s], which is cause for a moment of consternation … Elon! Next only to Trump, there is Elon.”
Saying aides viewed Musk as “a new, overwhelming, and discordant presence in the campaign”, generating “an ever-rising tide of bewildering, if not opaque, requests, orders, and recommendations”, Wolff said aides thought Musk had “elevated the Trump campaign in his own mind to a personal mission and religious cause”, while “the Trump circle” was “already anticipating the earth shaking when he and Trump invariably f[e]ll out.
“When they arrive, Elon – wandering about by himself, with only a thin layer of assistants or security – is hungry. This causes a kerfuffle and results in uncertainty over how to attend to him. Someone produces a bag of pretzel sticks.
[What, no juice box?!?]
“The suggestion is made that JD is here and would love to speak to him. Musk, sitting down and eating his pretzel sticks, politely declines: ‘I’ve really no interest in speaking to a vice-president.’
“Later, called onstage, with no one having any idea what he might say, Musk bounds up and, suddenly – in Mick Jagger style, prancing and jumping – becomes the headline, his T-shirt rising far above his midriff.
“What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” says a bewildered Trump. “And why doesn’t his shirt fit?”…
Based on who’d probably use this app and the general “thoroughness” of service-app safety/background checks, I say we let this one play itself out
— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo.com) February 18, 2025 at 2:44 PM
I foresee this will be a great way to separate paranoid rich people from their money without actually increasing their safety as they drive around some of the safest downtown neighborhoods within the two safest cities in America
— Joey Politano?????? (@josephpolitano.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 10:52 PM
They aren’t only worried about urban crime though, they are worried about Luigis.
— JenL (formerly jeandjl everywhere else) (@jenonymous.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Seems like they're providing Luigis with employment opportunities tbh
— hyperplanes.bsky.social (@hyperplanes.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 11:28 PM
this is just Juicero: uber worked there’s a market for a $15-50 cab ride from people who wouldn’t otherwise ride that a slick enough user interface can unlock. I just fucked around with it and the cheapest you can get (1 bodyguard, 1 car, minimum time) is $1k. Bodyguard services already exist.
— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) February 18, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Speaking of rich people with too much power and not enough brains…
NEW: Trump, frustrated by delays on new AF1s, has empowered Musk to consider drastic options to make Boeing move faster, including relaxing security standards for some working on the planes or buying a new jet to retrofit @EricLiptonNYT @jonathanvswan @EricSchmittNYT…
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 19, 2025
If this were a TV show, we'd all know what to expect in the season finale. https://t.co/R95NKCSPJI
— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) February 19, 2025
War for Ukraine Day 1,094: Debts & Responsibilities
J. Arthur Crank
If Trusk wants to push Boeing to go faster and faster when making a new Air Force 1 plane, who am I to stand in the way?
Chris Johnson
Do you get to sign up… AS a Luigi?
J. Arthur Crank
I don’t know if I should be impressed or frightened by the authors/developers of the armed agents app.
YY_Sima Qian
Hiring armed mercenaries on an App, trusting the platform to have done due diligence on the mercs? There as high a percentage of idiots among the rich as in every social class, isn’t there?
What if the mercs turn on the employer by robbing the latter? Is the platform going to take any responsibility?
The U.S. is fast turning into a farcical version of a dystopian SciFi novel, & we are not yet 5 weeks in to the Trump 47 term!
YY_Sima Qian
The AF1 story reminds me of when then PRC President Jiang Zemin wanted his own AF1, & the PRC government purchased a Boeing 757 for this purpose. The plane was being furbished & furnished at one of the biggest outfits doing interior decor for luxury business jets. There was a Chinese team onsite to supervise the work & make sure there were no shenanigans.
Clearly, members of that team were incompetent or corrupt, or both, because after the plane flew to the PRC, the Ministry of State Security swept it for bugs & found well over 20 of them. They were burrowed so deep that the PRC government had to give up using it as a presidential plane. It was stripped down, refurnished as an airliner, & used as such.
To this day, PRC leaders (including Xi Jinping) do not have purpose built presidential planes. They fly on temporarily designated Air China (the PRC’s flag carrier) airliners for overseas trips, lightly modified for the purpose shortly before travel.
NotMax
The anti-Joe Friday. “Just the non-facts, ma’m.”
FactChecking RFK Jr.’s First Interview as HHS Secretary.
danielx
Among the many difficulties in hiring mercenaries: making sure they stay bought. Another: the likelihood that any sizeable group of mercenaries will include one or more sociopaths.
NotMax
@danielx
See: Prince, Erik.
SpaceUnit
Think there could be some considerable liability issues with this new commercial venture.
NotMax
Caligula? More akin to Elagabalus (a.k.a. Heliogabalus).
Martin
That app is #3 only because people are curious and in order to see how weird it is, you need to download it.
TPM reporting that agency heads are telling employees to ignore Musks ‘tell us what you did last week or you’re fired’ email. Going well.
NotMax
@Martin
Spork in the road.
//
Craig
Can’t we Just get to the Dessert course with these assholes?
prostratedragon
Like Caligula, but as farce:
Ye gods, I hope not!
Sir John Hurt on the above scene.
@NotMax: Read about him recently looking for a suitable analogy, and you might be right.
Ealbert
@NotMax:
I read the interview at your link. It talked about RFK Jr saying that it would be healthier for McDonalds to cook their BigMacs with beef tallow rather than seed oils. Unless things have really changed in this world, no one cooks their hamburgers in any kind of oil, there is all the fat you would ever hold in the hamburger meat. (I believe they used to fry their fries in beef tallow.)
Librarian
@Martin: This could be significant. Trump’s agency heads might be starting to turn against Musk.
YY_Sima Qian
Pretty much.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Eine kieine emperor musik.
;)
eclare
DOGE gets Rick-rolled
https://bsky.app/profile/jaysinwa.bsky.social/post/3litacfutv224
MagdaInBlack
@eclare: Might as well, it’s all a joke now anyway
MagdaInBlack
Gorgeous cold night for sitting out on the balcony, as I just was. Quiet, no planes from O’hare, faint traffic sounds. This is why I am nocturnal. Oh, and I can actually see some stars!
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
I hope you have a little heater out there!
different-church-lady
I don’t understand why nobody tells Musk to just fuck off.
MagdaInBlack
@eclare: Wrapped up in a blanket =-)
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: $$$$$$$$$$
JoyceH
@different-church-lady: Probably because he travels everywhere with a Praetorian Guard force that’s now authorized to carry firearms in government buildings. They are telling him to fuck off at various Tesla dealerships across the country, but in person? Unwise.
Shalimar
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t have the psychology to hurt anyone, but I do despise rich people. If I were a few decades younger and really did want to trade my life for that of a billionaire and wasn’t picky about which one, a mercenary app sounds like it would solve all my planning problems with how to get close enough to do it.
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
As always, only a woman has the balls to tell the truth
https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/billionaire-bosses-senator-tina-smith-weekly-report-us-federal-workers-elon-musk-reacts-what-did-you-do-donald-trump-11740289030281.html
MagdaInBlack
@eclare: Gods bless her.
You know, that’s pretty much what I was thinking last night: classic middle-management dick move.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: “War is real-estate deals by other means” Donald Trump
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Musk doesn’t get what the Vice Presidency is and thinks he is just like a corporate VP, so another clueless rich fuck. No wonder Trump likes him.
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
Yep. Hey, worker bee, it’s your day off, but here is some more work due in two days.
Shalimar
That is very informative if true. Vance is Thiel’s guy, Trump is 78 years old, and Thiel has been a friend/rival to Musk for more than 2 decades. It would be logical to at least make sure Vance is amenable to being bought just in case Trump dies. It would be smart to try to entice Vance out of Thiel’s orbit by flattering him and trying to give him more than Thiel has. Musk apparently hasn’t even made the smallest of efforts.
elliottg
I really don’t see how this ends without violence.
Shalimar
@Shalimar: It does explain how Thiel was able to kick Musk out of Paypal though. Thiel is smart and devious, always playing a long game. Musk is the kind of posturing idiot who thinks it’s funny to name everything he owns “X” so he can laugh at grannies doing porn searches to find his products.
eclare
@Shalimar:
Either X or some hi-larious knock off on 4/20.
He has the sense of humor of what, an eight yo?
MagdaInBlack
@Shalimar: Ultimately they’re all on the same white-nationalist technocratic theocratic lunatic bandwagon.
Musk will probably flame out, but he serves the cause now.
Other MJS
Nice app. Now Musk can defund the police.
BlueGuitarist
@eclare:
@Shalimar:
Musk x looks increasingly like a swastika
Pretzel logic.
Baud
Via reddit
eclare
@BlueGuitarist:
I’m shocked, shocked at that coincidence. It will be interesting to see how much it morphs.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: That was good medicine, thank you.
Gloria DryGarden
Season finale timing, TBA.
David_C
@eclare: Musk’s email has feds everywhere thoroughly pissed off, as if they weren’t before.
There are a lot of government functions that are business confidential or procurement sensitive, and employees cannot divulge this information to the public. We would have to assume that any information divulged to Musk’s troop would not be kept confidential. Not to mention orders from someone outside the US government that don’t go through proper channels or legal review.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/agencies-seek-guidance-latest-musk-opm-email-urging/story?id=119090767
p.s. Any official feeds from HHS can be ignored. I’ve unfollowed. Too depressing.
eclare
@David_C:
I’ve never worked for the government, just public and private companies, and there is plenty of stuff they would not want to make public. Information about IT systems, customers, sales discounts, etc.
I do tax work. If I ever had to come up with five bullet points, each would read “tax work.”
This is just another instance where Elon’s head is so far up his own ass he has no idea what he’s doing.
eclare
Yosemite signaling distress
https://bsky.app/profile/luckytran.com/post/3lit5nacfnk2d
JoyceH
@David_C: Over on Twitter and Bluesky, folks are having a good time reporting on their five bullet points.
David_C
@JoyceH: And r/fed news on Reddit and various Signal groups. The following is tempting:
* And on the seventh week I rested.
Actually, did a lot of work preserving essential documents in case of an abrupt departure, that kind of thing. Had a conference with a contractor whose intro listed various drug label extension approvals and I had to tell them at the break that I knew about that because I had managed projects that led to 3 of the 4 approvals.
K-Mo
@MagdaInBlack: I had a boss like this once. Awful experience, but now I’m battle-hardened. One of my guideposts now that I’m a middle manager myself is to double-check that I haven’t fallen into a pattern she would have.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: except we can’t actually deliver a pizza in 30 minutes or less and our burbclaves have enormous SUVs instead of mommyvans and we’re no longer the best at producing software… Prepare for the Snow Crash.
AM in NC
@elliottg: I don’t really either, and that scares the hell out of me. I don’t think these deeply damaged assholes have any idea of what they are birthing here. The idea that they won’t be caught up in it is so blindingly ignorant it is breathtaking.
A lot of Luigis are out there already just waiting for the MOTUs to axe another job or kill another kid through “denial of payment”.
Their sociopathy is killing us. And after enough of it, it will start killing them.
None of that ends well for anyone.
eclare
@K-Mo:
I had a horrible boss once. Every day as I drove home I would repeat to myself “you are not stupid” because every day was so frustrating that’s how I felt. After two months I finally feigned a medical issue and quit.
I worked for Arthur Andersen, a public accounting firm, for seven years. Not exactly known for considerate bosses. This boss was wildly worse than any there.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: Touché!
K-Mo
@eclare: That sounds awful. I also let this creature into my head. Never again.
When I look at this latest Musk stunt, I see desperation. I see someone whose attempts to intimidate have fallen short of expectations, who has already used his best tricks and is grasping for a way to one-up himself. Someone who is staring at failure and unable to accept it.
He will continue to overplay his hand, and it will lead to his downfall. But he’ll do a lot of damage along the way. This is also what happened to my former boss.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Wondering how many Americans* here will demand that she “go away, loser?”
Betty
@NotMax: Woo! Just read his Wiki entry. Sounds like he would fit right into the Trump misadministration.
Betty
@different-church-lady: My thought exactly. Who is Elon Musk anyway?
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: I became a Stephenson fan from the first paragraph of that book; and I am so bummed he turns out to be a schmuck. <sigh>
But one thing: the big guys with jackets that say “MAFIA” on the back… we’re kinda there, aren’t we, with Cold Hard Kash running FBI.
Just rename ‘em.
Another Scott
@David_C:
I expect that a lot of replies would be like that if individuals replied. But I actually expect that upper management will send one reply for the organization instead. And Melon’s minions will try some different variation a few days later (gotta stay in the news and keep everyone off balance, you see).
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
David_C
@Another Scott: We’re told to hold tight. I can make vague statements if I have to, but I have real stuff to do.
Miss Bianca
@David_C:
Miss Bianca
@AM in NC:
Oh, I don’t know. A bunch of sociopathic Luigi-clones take out a bunch of sociopathic clueless dipshit MOTUs? That sounds like an “end well” to me.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot:
You have also just described the modern PRC.
Now, while the space for civil society & pluralism has definitely narrowed a lot during the Xi years to date, & the surveillance stated massively expanded, the PRC is not the dystopian vision of SciFi novels, just yet.
Of course, that dystopia could come to pass, & for targeted groups such as activists (regardless of the cause), dissidents, separatists, militants, & devoutly religious, it is indeed here.
MobiusKlein
@Miss Bianca: send it to the phishing tool in Outlook
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Yup. Rooting for Luigis.
Glidwrith
@Shalimar:
@eclare:
@MagdaInBlack: Found out that capital X in ASCII code (bit code for letters and numbers) is 88. That’s Nazi code for Hitler. Fucker’s been hiding in plain sight for a very long time.
Ruckus
@danielx:
the likelihood that any sizeable group of mercenaries will include one or more sociopaths.
That’s not a likelihood it is almost guaranteed. And it would be likely far more.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
He has more than enough money to have a security detail, which likely is not 4 guys trying to keep him out of trouble but 8 guys working overtime trying to keep him from being a complete jackass.
And he needs more than 8…….
Ruckus
@eclare:
His concept of everything is money and that he has the most.
His concept of government is that someone with his money should be in charge. The king is always the richest (at least in the king’s mind)
And yes, I also believe that is where he has parked his entire head…..