These people are even weirder than we knew. Last night, the Wall Street Journal published a story featuring Musk’s top fixer, a devout Mormon named Jared Birchall. Birchall is listed as an officer or board member of many Musk companies and was reportedly instrumental in working out the Twitter deal and managing the PAC that bought the U.S. presidency.
But it sounds like his real job is managing Musk’s harem of baby-mamas. Birchall is facilitating Musk’s vision of developing a “legion” of offspring so that they might inherit the earth. It sounds like they might be more numerous than previously supposed since Musk apparently reaches out to minor MAGA influencers on his janky social media platform to offer sperm, and Birchall arranges to purchase their silence.
Here’s a gift link; excerpt below.
In Musk’s dark view of the world, civilization is under threat because of a declining population. He is driven to correct the historic moment by helping seed the earth with more human beings of high intelligence, according to people familiar with the matter.
His businesses are set up to serve the idea: The main objective of SpaceX is to build a rocket ship capable of getting to Mars, and his other companies, including electric-car maker Tesla, help finance the plan.
Musk refers to his offspring as a “legion,” a reference to the ancient military units that could contain thousands of soldiers and were key to extending the reach of the Roman Empire.
During St. Clair’s pregnancy, Musk suggested that they bring in other women to have even more of their children faster. “To reach legion-level before the apocalypse,” he said to St. Clair in a text message viewed by The Wall Street Journal, “we will need to use surrogates.”
He has recruited potential mothers on his social-media platform X, according to some of the people.
Musk has used his wealth to buy the silence of some women who have his kids, according to St. Clair as well as other people, text messages and documents reviewed by the Journal.
Christ, what a weirdo. As a society, we’ve hatched monsters under the bright light of inadequately restrained capitalism. We need to take away most of their fucking money, for humanity’s sake, for democracy’s sake and maybe even for the sake of the monsters themselves.
***
There were developments yesterday evening in the case of the U.S. resident who was abducted in Maryland and illegally transported to a gulag in El Salvador. From WaPo:
A federal judge on Tuesday said she will require the Trump administration to produce records and sworn answers about the U.S. government’s attempts, or lack thereof, to return a Maryland resident who was apprehended by immigration authorities and illegally sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, where she left open the possibility of a contempt ruling against the Trump administration, marks another escalation in the legal showdown with the White House. The case has widespread implications, with Justice Department lawyers arguing that the judge lacks the authority to force them to coordinate with the Salvadoran government to bring Kilmar Abrego García back to the United States.
“It’s going to be two weeks of intense discovery,” Xinis told Justice Department attorneys at the hearing.
The smirking contempt for the rule of law that the dictators of the U.S. and El Salvador displayed in the Oval Office on Monday suggest that Trump will go to the mat on this case. He trotted out the press secretary last night to repeat lies about Abrego Garcia being a terrorist, blah blah blah, so it’s difficult to imagine a climbdown. SCOTUS here it comes, I guess.
Speaking of the freshly defiled Oval Office:
Noticed a bunch of these ornate gold medallions slapped all over the Oval Office. We found em on Alibaba. “High-density Home Decoration Polyurethane Appliques Ornament PU Foam Veneer Accessories” from seller Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Material Limited.
sherwood.news/power/shop-t…
— Jon Keegan (@jonkeegan.com) April 15, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Jesus. Someone in that Bluesky thread noted that the post-bedazzled Oval resembles a knock-off of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (the Russia one). Trump ought to read up on the fate of its former occupants. And Musk might want to take a look at the fate of fathers who try to build an army of offspring in Greek mythology.
Open thread.
On The Road – Elma – New York, New York on the Ultimate Around the World Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
NotMax
Ah, the Jazz Age. A time of bobbed hair and … boobkerchiefs?
:)
Professor Bigfoot
He thinks he’s so much smarter than he really is; so in that sense he’s bog standard.
But he and they believe they are genetically superior and therefore have the absolute right to rule.
A bunch of slaver-worshipping monarchists with delusions of intellect.
Jackie
Muskrat’s intelligence is ? Questionable at best.
Aziz, light!
Mars Needs Women!
(© Azalea Pictures, 1968)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Professor Bigfoot:
Tumbrels come to mind when reading that sentence. But then tumbrels are always at the forefront of my mind when thinking of them.
Jeffro
actually, no…let’s have it be a surprise to him…
Matt McIrvin
If Musk’s Very Online Eugenicist ideas were actually correct, I’d be more worried about him sowing his DNA everywhere. As it is, I guess the bigger problem for them is that they have the kind of parents who want Elon Musk’s sperm.
Ramalama
Democrats need to start mouthing off about THESE COMPLETE and CREEPY WEIRDOS. Using those words. Just fucking do it already.
My wife when she gets angered calls people COMPLETE (noun) and I have taken a shine to it. COMPLETE ASSHOLES. As in… no notes.
gene108
Since a federal judge lacks the police force and prisons to throw DOJ attorneys in jail until they comply with the judges orders, I do not see what’s so bad about any DOJ attorney being held in contempt of court?
I’m not sure how a monetary fine would work. Wouldn’t the DOJ pay this to the federal judiciary?
Contempt of federal court has lost value as a threat, without an honest DOJ to enforce the judge’s orders. On the other hand, if the DOJ was honest, they would not be held in contempt.
SiubhanDuinne
Test
Professor Bigfoot
@Ramalama: I’ve gone down the Britpath of “absolute.”
And of course, add in a couple of Scottish insult terms… “you absolute bloody cockwomble!”
gene108
@SiubhanDuinne:
Passed. Top marks.
prostratedragon
@Jeffro: Someone there said he puts he “assy” into “classy.”
Aziz, light!
Also Mars Needs Moms (Disney, 2011), “one of the biggest box-office bombs of all times,” says Wikipedia.
New Deal democrat
There hasn’t been a COVID thread in a couple of weeks, so let me just note that the good news has continued.
As of last Friday’s update, in the last 52 weeks there have only been 37,000 deaths. This is another record low. In the last full week of reporting, there were fewer than 500 deaths.
in a couple of weeks, there will be 5 full years of COVID death statistics, and it will probably be reported that the death toll for the fifth year was 36,500 or so.
There are two big problems remaining. The first is the long term consequences of long COVID. The second is that the RFK Jr HHS will probably order a halt to COVID booster shots, which will create waning immunity among millions of people.
NotMax
@Aziz, light!
Oh yeah. Disney took a bath on that one.
p.a.
Doesn’t Rupie own the WSJ? Yet, except for the editorial board (of course), it seems to be much more likely to call out the Trusk admin than the FTFNYT for example.
Between it, the NY Post, & Fox, kind of schizophrenic. Wonder how on-the-ball Rupie is at his age how hands-on is he?
Spanky
@New Deal democrat: In perspective, the CDC reports around 25,000 influenza deaths during the 2024-2025 season.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The man steeples his hands when he talks! Only a genius can do that!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They tried that already, and were told to hush by own side.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@p.a.: Rupie is rich and Trump’s antics haven’t been good for the rich.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
They Call Me Noni
On top of all his other irredeemable qualities Trump’s taste in decor is just tacky. Faux gold for a fake president.
Betty Cracker
From NBC News:
Good lord.
glory b
@p.a.: As someone mentioned on Bluesky, the WSJ DOESN’T LIE TO RICH PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR MONEY.
Sally
I read somewhere that children tend to take on the personality of the father and the intelligence of the mother. Now, this is genetics, so all a crap shoot. I read it in relation to an article on old rich guys marrying sweet young things believing they would generate beautiful children, like their mothers, and clever, like their fathers, but instead begetting assholes like their fathers and vacuous like their mothers. The trump progeny could be examples of that, come to think of it. Since my sons are all fabulously clever, I think it must be true!
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
And even if he was the world’s smartest person, and even if raw intelligence is transmitted through genes (two big ‘IFs’ already!), their intelligence won’t be useful if they’re not raised in a manner that will give them the knowledge and skills to fully utilize that intelligence.
So even if he’s right about those two big ‘ifs’ (I’ll take the other side of that bet!), seeding the world with children by random mothers isn’t going to have an outcome that would be useful even by his weird standards. These kids aren’t going to help him get to Mars. (More’s the pity.)
Gravenstone
Knowing what Musk actually looks like, prior to his sundry cosmetic procedures, I doubt those women or their offspring are going to be winning the genetics lottery any time soon.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Letting tax cuts scheduled to expire, expire isn’t a big lift to raise taxes on the wealthy.
sentient ai from the future
I mean christ, Steven Jay Gould wrote “the mismeasure of man” in what the 80s?
Soprano2
@They Call Me Noni: I know, it looks terrible and tacky to me. My husband said he learned through his printing career that con artists all like gold – they want it on all the stuff they have printed, because it makes people think they have money.
JML
Had lunch with a former colleague yesterday whose wife had passed away after a long battle with cancer. Told him I wanted to give him a chance to rant and rave about the state of politics, which I think he needed. (we’re in red territory) But I also just wanted to see how he was doing and check in on him; he’d retired early but the last time I’d seen him after his wife had died he really looked old and a bit frail. Happy to say he looked much better, stronger, and doing ok. He’s been doing some protesting and has been tracking which groups have been turning people out: Indivisible has been the best so far.
Also submitted my notice at work and started telling colleagues I was leaving. Feels pretty strange!
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
I should get a booster while they’re available. I think my last Covid shot was in October.
Soprano2
@glory b: True, when it comes to money all of those publications and channels tell the truth, because the people who read and watch them would know if they didn’t.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I think it’s funny that he believes genetics works like that. My mother was 5’6, my father was almost 6′, and I’m 5’2 because both of my grandmothers were around 5′ tall. LOL I did get that “youthful look” thing that runs in the woman on my mother’s side, including not having gray hair.
prostratedragon
@They Call Me Noni: An impeachable offense on its own.
zhena gogolia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Does someone have documentation of this? I’ve seen this repeated over and over, and every once in a while someone asks for documentation, but I’ve never seen any.
Soprano2
@Sally: My mother certainly had more of her dad’s personality than her mother’s.
Scout211
More odds and ends:
California is the first state to sue Trump on tariffs.
Republicans in Congress are considering raising taxes on the wealthy. (My guess is this will never happen).
And a bit of humor this morning from SNL’s Ronny Chieng
ETA: Betty C was first with the Republicans raising taxes story.
Chief Oshkosh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I keep hearing this, but has it been corroborated, sourced, documented, etc.? Not disagreeing, just wondering if this is another political myth.
catclub
@sentient ai from the future: None of those people have read it.
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: I keep seeing angry comments that Walz was “muzzled” by “the consultant class” but I’ve seen NO hard evidence that this happened, so I too look forward to that.
Geo Wilcox
@New Deal democrat: HHS shut down waste water testing in San Diego. You know, the canary in the coal mine thing? Now we fly blind because no one does that as well as the SEACRH program did.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I doubt there’s any actual documentation, but during the campaign they did stop talking about it. Considering that the campaign’s own polling showed that they were never ahead, in a way I can’t blame them for trying different approaches. The problem was they didn’t have enough time to figure out what actually worked. I agree that they should start pointing out how strange and unusual some of these people are.
Professor Bigfoot
@prostratedragon: Yeah, if that crap ain’t a high crime I’m a rich white man. XD
Soprano2
@Geo Wilcox: That’s so dumb, because it can be used for a bunch of other things not just Covid. I’d read about it being used to measure the level of illegal drug use in a population years and years ago.
ETA – looks like MO is still doing it, and our plants are still submitting data. It’s way down here.
Professor Bigfoot
A very apropos cartoon.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the alleged hushing of Walz, here’s an excerpt from a Politico story published last month:
This is attributed to an unnamed “former Harris campaign staffer,” so grain of salt and all of that. But I’ve also seen interviews with Walz in which he’s asked similar questions, and while he never throws anyone but himself under the bus, he doesn’t deny it either.
So, is there proof? No. But I think there’s at least an ember or two under all the smoke.
artem1s
@Matt McIrvin:
they have the kind of parents who want Elon Musk’s
spermmoney. FTFYTorrey
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Ah, but he steeples them the wrong way, that is, fingers forward. For proper, intelligence-denoting steepling (accept no substitutes!), see Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett, both of whom have mastered the Sherlock Holmes steeple, fingers pointing upward.
Also, he taps his fingers when they’re steepled, so the whole effect is canceled in any case.
(Note: the fingers-forward tapping steeple is generally a mark of the sleazy butler who is Up To No Good.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
Hope things go well with Sen Van Hollen in El Salvador today. My guess is he’ll be kept away from anyone he wants to see.
Soprano2
I don’t know why the press can’t report the obvious – all of this resistance to bringing this guy back is to send a message that he can send anyone he wants to a gulag in another country and they will never be able to get out. This seems so obvious to me. FFOTUS’ definition of “bad people” is not the same as ours, he wants to send all of the people he thinks are bad to a place like that.
M31
lol if Trump’s lackies actually bought those things on alibaba, what do you think the chances are they are bugged? 100%?
remember “The Thing”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
invented by good old Leon Theremin, who also invented the musical instrument of the same name
dc
I really do wish the worse things on these people.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
That’s less than the 40,990 motor vehicle-related fatalities in 2023, which is the most recent year we have the complete data for.
That’s always been my benchmark, because it’s a level of deaths we’re willing to put up with because convenience. (Well, also because of the right’s deep-seated opposition to mass transit. Why do they hate Americans?)
Suzanne
There is an assertion circulating around Xhitter that Elmo reached out to a woman via DM, and asked her to have his babies. And when she declined, he cut off her monetized xheets.
No wonder he wears the kid as a hat.
New Deal democrat
@Scout211:
This is the “major questions doctrine,” that has been used against the EPA and Biden’s attempt to waive student loans – even though the statute gave the President authority to “waive or modify” the terms of student loans.
if the Supreme Court had intellectual integrity, this would be a no-brainer. Or alternatively, as I read the other day, only Democrats get the “major questions doctrine”; GOPers get the “unified executive theory.”
Scout211
Trump is now going after Letitia James for mortgage fraud.
Favorable loan terms? Falsified bank documents and property records? Now where have I heard that before?
prostratedragon
Maybe SNL or somebody could do something like “Land Shark,” but instead it’s Leon carrying a yard-long syringe.
They Call Me Noni
@Soprano2: Way, way back in the day I worked at NCR and we printed the register rolls for Trump’s failed casinos. My job was administrative and part of my responsibility was to order the raw materials for the custom orders of printed rolls, labels and tags. As I recall there were several different rolls and they all had lots of gold and flashy colors in special inks. Very expensive and, in the end, the invoices were probably never paid.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t think we could ever get to zero Covid deaths. We’ve never been able to get to zero flu deaths.
SiubhanDuinne
Dammit, another test.
ETA: So, after all kinds of internet fuckery yesterday, it now appears that I can initiate comments but cannot reply to another commenter.
ETA2: At least, I can’t use the Reply button to reply.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: The WSJ story covers the same or a similar story. The crypto-influencer in that case earned $20K in two weeks when Musk started liking and replying to her posts, and her earnings plummeted when he got mad and quit following her.
The WSJ was able to report that because their main source, St. Clair, knew about it. But you gotta think there might be dozens more they don’t know about if he’s just reaching out to Twitter randos with right-wing views and a uterus. It’s one of the weirdest and creepiest things ever.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
“
CandyKetagram.”//
satby
they want Elon’s money. The sperm is just the vehicle.
Librettist
Those ones mounted ass backwards on the mantle are totally not a fire hazard.
They Call Me Noni
@prostratedragon: Which the Repugnicans would never vote for because they wouldn’t dream of telling the king that his gold is fake. It is the best gold!
NotMax
@satby
Obligatory?
:)
Van Buren
@Librettist: mounted ass backward on the mantle sounds like a Rule 34 challenge.
artem1s
@Sally:
Various studies have shown that there is a correlation between a child’s performance in school/life and the reading level of the primary care taker. A lot of the studies were done, of course, almost exclusively with white families where the mom was the primary caretaker. So of course the media misreported them in various ways. Those studies were quoted when Head Start was funded. The purpose being getting the primary care taker involved in teaching their kids to read also elevated the reading level of the primary caretaker. They were also used as a justification for Dan Quayle’s fixation on keeping women wed locked and pregnant. He was obsessed over a fictional female character, who had a full time job, deciding to become a single mother and hand over care taking to a nanny instead of doing the tapping the father in a shotgun marriage.
frosty
Droit de seigneur. Same thing every two-bit warlord does, too. First dibs on the new bride so the whole clan is descended from him. A little hard to do in a country with 330 million people, but give Musk some credit for trying.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Okay, that’s the most documentation I’ve seen.
I doubt it would have made any difference.
satby
@NotMax: funny! Forgot all about that song, and that I actually went to Jim Peterik’s wedding (my mom knew his mom).
frosty
@Soprano2: I wondered why I turned bald when my dad had a full head of hair and then I learned it was passed on through the mother’s side. My mom didn’t have brothers but my grandma did. Yep, cue balls both. Along with my only male cousin on that side.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
All I am going by is the sequence of events and I would like to see more about why the “Wierdo” attacked was stopped when it was being effective.
Speaking from personal experience of being involved in taking down a narcissist in power this is common thing people do “How an you be so mean them?” and demand you stop pointing out the narcissist’s failings. And since the narcissist’s failing were the justification for the removal of the narcissist we would have to stop, until everyone started screaming at us “why aren’t stopping this awful person?” and the cycle would repeat until one day things happed too fast for the “stop being mean” got going.
Jackie
@Soprano2:
Fixed for more truthiness.
prostratedragon
For Mancini’s day, definitely not “Moon River”. Headphone materiak.
frosty
@zhena gogolia:
Thank you, I agree. I’ve never seen documentation that any Democrats told Walz to stop calling them weird. It’s one of those things that gets repeated a lot and I’d really like to have some proof.
narya
@Betty Cracker: Also too: he’s going out on his own to do town halls and such (and he was on Chris Hayes last night), so if that DID happen, he’s saying fuck it, I’m pushing back because this is some bullshit and no one is going to stop him.
narya
Which is always my cue to note that I have a friend who not only has one of said instrument but also took some lessons from Theremin’s granddaughter.
call_me_ishmael
Musk’s giving off a strong late-stage Howard Hughes vibe. Right down to the Mormon handlers. I suspect we will be hearing about his OCD soon, to complete the picture.
Also “Smithers, we’ll take the Spruce moose!”
gene108
@Soprano2:
There’s no definitive proof. It seems obvious that’s the intent, but no one has explicitly said it. Betty C. posted a link to a Politico article up thread about whether Waltz was told to cutout his calling Republicans “weird”. As she said, “So, is there proof? No. But I think there’s at least an ember or two under all the smoke.”
I think we’re in a similar situation here.
One thing I feel goes underreported in all this is why should these abuses of power end with Trump, if he gets away with it. What’s stopping any future president, Democrat* or Republican, from pushing the limits on abuses of power like this unless they’re stopped.
I feel like there’s an assumption that these abuses of power, no matter how bad will end by January 20, 2029, if they are not stopped now.
*If Trump does get away with this shit, I want the next Democratic president to be as much of a threat to people we don’t like.
For example, your big law firm got rid of its DEI policy to appease Trump, well we support diversity. Since you do not, you are on our shit list.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: My mother and I both about 5-4, father 5-7 or -8, brother 6-6. Apart from the heights, we’re clearly a nuclear family. There are uncles, cousins, etc. on both sides over 6 feet.
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: Good to see you!
Sorry about the reply posting troubles. Maybe try a different browser? Sometimes updates seem to break things for a while.
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@They Call Me Noni:
I like to think of it as Fool’s Gold – fit for the fool he is ;-D
Doug R
@NotMax:
IIRC, Mars Needs Moms wasn’t that bad.
I think with a few tweaks it might have been pretty good.
satby
@zhena gogolia: I think it made us feel good but glanced off or insulted the MAGA side, but ultimately wouldn’t have made a difference. Our side continues to try to word craft a perfect “message” that will cause the scales to fall from someone else’s eyes; while the other side ruthlessly suppresses votes and undermines election tabulations with lies and lawsuits.
narya
Also: got my first SocSec payment today as I was told I would . . . feels weird. But I’ll accept it.
H.E.Wolf
More like: wears it like a pelt.
It’s a trophy, after all. (Sadly for the child.)
Ramalama
@Professor Bigfoot: Hahaha yes. That works too.
I don’t know whether or not Complete is a Canadian thing. My wife is a francophone, originally from France, but her sayings in English are often creative takes. When she wants to say ‘increments of three’ it comes out ‘excrements of three.’
I have a list of them somewhere, but are missing in action at the moment.
jonas
He can order a halt to actively *recommending* them. I presume insurance companies will still be supporting them, though.
Ramalama
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, so fight back. Those consultants are COMPLETE FAILURES.
In excrements of three.
sab
@Soprano2: Lawrence O’Donnell did a whole show on ot last week. He admitted he had been slow to realize the implications.
I am not optimistic about fixing this. The Supreme Court would have to admit that what we did with Guantonamo was wrong, and they are not going to do that.
glory b
@satby: Again, Dems must be flawless while Republicans get to be lawless.
It’s Democrats’ fault because if only they would use the proper magic words the scales would immediately fall from MAGA eyes, they would no longer be racist, sexist, etc and they would be faithful Democratic voters.
Professor Bigfoot
I’ve reached a point where I simply don’t accept any “anonymous” quotes.
If you can’t tell us their names, then I’m assuming they don’t actually exist.
WE ALREADY KNOW they will doctor the living shit out of a real quote; why should we believe they’re being honest when they give us anonymous ones?
NotMax
@Ramalama
“In France every Frenchman knows his language from “A” to “Zed”
The French don’t care what they do, actually
As long as they pronounce it properly”
– Henry Higgins
;)
Betty
@Ramalama: I prefer complete and utter. It does fit our times. As in complete and utter madness.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Thanks, that’s a source for the statement so I can believe that it happened. I’ll turn my Skepticism Searchlight in another direction now!
Betty
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Tim is doing it again.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ramalama: Oooh, I hope you find them— those kinds of things have always fascinated me, especially across multilingual folks.
The ways language “sloshes about” in those brains can yield brilliant (and occasionally hilarious) results.
satby
Anyone see the clips from Chuck Grassley’s town hall? In a R+27 area, and he got his ass handed to him.
brendancalling
“We need to take away most of their fucking money…”
ALL of their money, fixed that for you.
Scout211
I hope Krugman is right. He usually is.
Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War
So much more at the link.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
More for the “We should have Seen Musk Coming file”, but I have this theory Musk fanbois think he is so awesome is simply because Mr Spock on Star Trek steepled his fingers, Musk steeples his fingers, so Musk must be a real life Mr. Spock.
Professor Bigfoot
@glory b: Meanwhile we know exactly what MAGA are actually about.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@M31: Are suggestion the Chines don’t know how to use Signal?
Betty Cracker
@gene108:
I fully understand the sentiment, but that’s not the way back to sane governance, IMO. If we manage to pull out of the authoritarian nosedive, we need to hold the bad actors accountable, not commit more bad acts.
Professor Bigfoot
@Scout211: Thanks to valued commenter YY_Sima_Qian, we already knew that.
I love how fucking smart the Jackaltariat is… even though it’s kinda like “my need to be informed is being undermined by my need to remain sane.”
suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
It is so unbelievably gross.
I mean, even if he wasn’t basically torturing Grimes with this custody battle, it’s just a terrible thing to do. Look at how he treats Vivian. He’s an abuser.
Professor Bigfoot
Amen.
It’s perfectly understandable to want revenge, but that ain’t us.
We must work for justice, and that means upholding the Constitution and holding bad actors accountable— even when they’re rich white men.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: And somehow fixing the Constitution so it works and isn’t dependent on “norms”. While avoiding a new Constitutional Convention from which dog knows what would happen.
glory b
In the “Black people told you so” category, please note that, in the protests at Marjorie Taylor Greene’s town hall, the only ones wrestled into submission and tased were black.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytimes.com/post/3lmwfwyv7os2t
catclub
I just visited an arboretum that had a ‘Garden of Inspiration’. I wondered where the Garden of Expiration was.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty: That’s good of Walz, the entire problem with Trump is he petty and small minded.
glory b
@frosty: Noooo! A new constitutional convention is exactly what Republicans want. They control so many states that they would almost automatically control the outcome.
YY_Sima Qian
More examples of self-harm from the forced Sino-US economic decoupling (gift link to Bloomberg article):
The supply chain for humanoid robots overlap substantially w/ those for EVs, consumer electronics, drones & surveillance tools, all of which are dominated by the PRC. A cold turkey separation is suicidal.
RA
Musk’s breeding program reminds me of the fertility and artificial insemination doctors who were using their own sperm to help women get pregnant. Sooner or later there will be inadvertent inbreeding. I hope that each of his kids will get a laminated card or maybe a tattoo that they can present to prospective spouses to make sure they don’t end up having children with a sibling.
They Call Me Noni
@frosty: Put Laurence Tribe and Jamie Raskin in a room and I bet they could hammer out several amendments.
Betty Cracker
@frosty: Real accountability for a change might go a long way toward enforcing uncodified “norms” without constitutional changes. The Nixon pardon, the lack of real accountability for figures responsible for massive scandals in the Reagan, GWB and Trump 1.0 admins just emboldened them.
If we get another chance, we can’t let them scurry back to their hidey holes and bide their time. These people are breaking laws, engaging in open corruption and acting contrary to professional standards. They need to be prosecuted, relieved of ill-gotten gains and expelled from professional organizations.
WaterGirl
Seems like Elmo must think he’s some sort of god. There aren’t enough words to convey just how appalling and disgusting that is.
gvg
@Sally: Since “dad” is rarely around, I suspect he will have little impact on the kids personality. And I am very doubtful of that theory about personality inheritance. Judging from families I have known with multiple kids of the same parents, it’s all a mixture, plus unique new personalities. Children are not just little copies of their parents, not even just parts of their ancestors, although they usually have some bits that kind of rhyme.
I’ll add that early pregnancy and childhood starvation lower adulthood intelligence which is why things like WICK exist for the good of the nation.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Yeah, it’s a tall order… but there it is. Nothin’ for it but to get to work.
schrodingers_cat
Capitalism or more accurately Musk’s wealth may facilitate his whims but the real animating factor behind the eugenics scheme are debunked ideas of race and racial superiority. Why is it so hard to accept this.
Belafon
@Doug R: It was basically an inverted “I’m gonna run away because I don’t need my mom” story. It was ok.
YY_Sima Qian
@Scout211: Slightly curious to see this [correct] take from Krugman, since he has been on the Michael Pettis & Brad Setser bandwagon of the US being victimized by the perfidious surplus countries that artificially suppressed domestic wages & thus consumption, & “forced” the US to take on large twin deficits (in traded goods & in fiscal spending), as the “supplier of demand” of the last resort, to use their favorite neologism. He has been among those who have advocated for leveraging coercive economic tools to force the surplus countries (primarily the PRC) to appreciate their currencies & boost their domestic consumption, as well as erecting trade barriers to promote domestic re-industrialization.
He found little to criticize about the economic nationalist turn under Biden. Sure, he would not have advised for taking on the entire world at the same time. Yet, his arguments would apply to any effort to isolate the PRC economically & contain the PRC technologically, which was essentially the strategy behind Biden’s economic statecraft vis-a-vis the PRC. The dynamics remain the same, as critics of Biden’s foreign policy & trade policies had pointed out.
allium
@call_me_ishmael:
“…hop in!”
“But sir…the economy…”
<click> “I said, hop in.”
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Betty Cracker: So long as they’ve got patrons in positions of power who’ll help them evade, they’ll keep at it. I don’t think there’s anything that’ll dissuade the oligarchs short of a guarantee that if they try anything like this again, they are going to die in prison, either slowly or quickly.
YY_Sima Qian
@M31: WH spokeswoman Levitte is getting roasted on Chinese social media (& presumably RedNote & TikTok) for wearing an outfit that retails for US$30 on Taobao, though presumably higher on Amazon.
Doug R
@satby:
@artem1s:
It’s “seed” money.
UncleEbeneezer
@satby: Not just a message so perfect that it makes Republicans and Independents’ hearts suddenly grow three sizes, but one that also somehow makes everyone in our coalition happy (including those who reflexively reject every Dem messaging approach, no matter how it’s done).
I think the whole notion that this perfect messaging/framing is even possible is naive but attractive because it lays the blame on Dems instead of voters or bad-faith actors within our coalition.
Belafon
@Professor Bigfoot: That kind of described all of the places I frequent: here, Little Green Footballs, DailyKos, and bsky. Not only the need to be informed, but also to make sure that the information is correct.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Americans* really don’t like to acknowledge the power of whiteness.
schrodingers_cat
@Scout211: He is right. Rest of the world is not in his cult.
@UncleEbeneezer: It is easier to slag Dem office holders than hold your racist relatives who vote R responsible for the current state of affairs.
satby
@UncleEbeneezer: and deflects from the real damage the bad faith party does. Because ignorant voters, racist voters, misogynistic voters are still somehow the fault of feckless Democrats and bad communication.
But, though no one noticed the Iowa town hall clip I shared, the Republican message isn’t doing well right now either.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: If you don’t acknowledge the problem you will never find a solution.
Soviet Union was pretty darn racist and ethnonationalist. Talk to anyone from the former Soviet bloc.
And before someone trots the example of Sweden and Denmark, two things. They don’t describe themselves as socialist or denounce capitalism. And their policies for their refugee population is wait for it, pretty darn racist.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: The Winter Palace is ever so much more stately than his Elvisization crap.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Republican need to face consequences to force them to change.
I do not believe voters will make them face consequences for more than two election cycles, at most, therefore no lasting consequences that force change.
The courts clearly are incapable of forcing Republicans to face consequences. The courts, more often than not, have been enabling Republican corruption.
So what’s left, when Republicans have nothing to fear from their corruption? They’ll grow a conscience and moderate on their own?
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: Yeah, there’s another piece of “civic duty” now incumbent on us: to cultivate a certain cynicism towards the information we consume.
I now have significant “trust issues” with media.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108:They need to be in political wilderness for at least a couple of Presidential election cycles for them to really change. (at least 8 years away from real power, 12 would be even better)
Betty Cracker
I see a lot of bad faith comments (here and elsewhere) about Dem messaging and internecine debates. But I saw an example of good faith questioning yesterday on Bluesky from Magdi Jacobs, and I wonder what y’all make of it. Thread:
I think she’s right that there is an asymmetry and that hurts Dems. I also don’t know what to do about it.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: Because the difference between him and my uncle is Musk has the money to act on it.
Paul in KY
@JML: Best of luck to you!
geg6
@prostratedragon:
He was my mother’s lab partner in a chem class in high school. They went to Aliquippa High School in the early 1940s. She said he was very smart and nice.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: True also! Too!
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: Me either, at the moment. But I generally find Magdi Jacobs thoughtful.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I’ve always thought that laughter and derision was the best way to hit TFG. That, and his documented screwing over of small business/elderly/gullible people etc. etc.
Princess
Probate of Musk’s will is going to be a fun time. Howard Hughes, eat your heart out.
Lyrebird
Delusions of intellect is right!! What do you get when you combine a guy who doesn’t understand the “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple” thing with supremacist ideology and boatloads of money? An international disaster!
Paul in KY
@Torrey: I think he’s going for Monty Burns (who he probably sees as his polestar).
satby
Dark humor from Roy Eduroso: Sympathy for the Devil.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: The problem is his ideas about racial supremacy and his money gives him the means to act on it. Your hypothetical or real racist uncle (IDK) may not have Musk’s money but he votes R.
Too many people like that is how we get Orange 2.0. Its not capitalism that’s the main problem here. Musk and the uncle would be just as racist under a communist or socialist regime.
If we paper over that we are not going to get to the root of the problem.
FWIW Biden governed as a Keynesian and I don’t see him getting any credit from the self anointed progressives.
prostratedragon
@geg6: Wow. I know he had a very good personal reputation, and a good bit of smarts as well as musical talent must be involved in how he built his career. One of my favorite score composers.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
They were out of power for 8 years, when Obama was president. They quickly retook the House and eventually retook the Senate.
They need to lose control of the presidency and Congress for 12 years to make them think about changing. 20 years out of power might force some changes, like what happened during FDR and Truman’s terms.
Paul in KY
@M31: The Soviets were so so so much better than Brits and us at spying. Read various novels of the Cambridge Ring that will make you hold your head at the incompetency on display (especially by the Brits).
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: But they retook Congress in 2010.
8 to 12 years of being a minority party without the presidency is what would be necessary to see any major change.
satby
@Paul in KY: they still are, judging by elections worldwide.
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: But capitalism with no distribution policy explains how he and a handful of others can acquire and maintain dominance in the media, as well as using the built-in leverage of our political system to buy an agenda over time. There have to be two critiques, not just one.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
One thing right-wing media has done is to provide their consumers with canned counter arguments to anything liberals say. The counter arguments sound like they should make sense, but are usually built on some sort of logical fallacy.
The arguments can be proven to be bullshit, but it takes time and effort to explain. The explanation will not be as catchy or persuasive as the bumper sticker slogan right-wing argument.
Paul in KY
@call_me_ishmael: I can certainly say that at same age, Mr. Hughes was nowhere near as weird as Apartheid Clyde.
Paul in KY
@Jackie: It’s probably ‘gold tone’
RaflW
I’m deeply resentful that the United States is being just gigantically wrecked by two men who have extreme daddy issues. None of this would really be happening if the GOP wasn’t totally morally bankrupt, so there’s lots of blame to spread. But the myriad ways Trump + Musk are fucked up in the head are really remarkably bad.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: God willing we get another Democratic president, they need to use the tools they’ve been handed by the SC. Aggressively use them for the good of the nation.
Paul in KY
@glory b: I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you…
Kudos to those brave people for going there and telling it like it is. I know they knew that was going to happen.
RaflW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Rupe may also be having some Frankenstein style regrets, and is rich enough to risk it. Whereas the craven Jeff Bezos is purely looking to have his bread buttered by Trumpists.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: That’s true. There are certainly more than enough fine people on Earth. Absolutely no need to try and create your own group of Overmen ™.
prostratedragon
From LawFare, a brief history of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, which many of us geezers might remember.
Elizabelle
@RaflW: Lol. Misread that as Bezos having his head buttered by Trump.
Fucker would let him do it, too.
Paul in KY
@YY_Sima Qian: It is bad (in general) for workers in a given field in a country that has an expensive social safety net and high wages to have to compete directly with a country that has much lower labor costs. Adam Smith acknowledged this 200 years ago.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: My experience as a white person growing up was watching my uncle complain about the things he deserved, while being a lazy, welfare drawing slob with multiple kids (I also never understood how he got so many women), an attitude that was transmitted to a lot of my cousins. My mom, to her credit, even though she was still pretty racist, knew that we had to get out of that setting, so the only times we tended to see them was holidays. So, while my uncle was well into the white superiority stuff, he could at least be contained.
Yes, it takes Republican voters. But what would the Republican party be if the Murdoch’s, the Koch’s, and the Musk’s didn’t have the kind of money they do, the kind where they can buy themselves an entrance into the government. That much money in a few people is seriously damaging. So, yes, a lot of the problem is set up by not dealing with creating people with that much money and allowing that much influence.
Belafon
@Belafon: But I think I’m contributing to the problem. We all generally agree on the basics that what Musk is bringing is going to destroy what progress we had been making, and I hate that it’s happening.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: 8 years won’t do shit. Try 20.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: At least 8, that’s the lower limit. Rs have been out of power for 2 years at most since the passage of the Civil Rights Legislation was something I recently read.
Paul in KY
@satby: Looks that way, for sure.
Belafon
@YY_Sima Qian: Well, there is the whole issue that China keeps control of it’s currency rather than letting its exchange rate be dictated by the strength of its economy relative to others.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I would sure take 8, but in reality it has to be more (12 at the least).
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: Agreed.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
As I said before, the rest of the world isn’t part of his phucking cult. Which is why the Bond market is in trouble. No, the United States is not a dependable place to invest in right now.
karen gail
Now every time see Oval office I remember being told by an “elderly” person (I was child at the time so no clue how old she really was) that you can always tell the ‘newly wealthy’ they believe an overabundance of gold and gilt is representative of how the wealthy live. The old money people have manners ingrained, since they see those things from time they are born; and learn that “real” wealthy is never to be on display.
karen gail
I wonder if our nation even has X number of years to repair the damage and come out strong; also not sure what track the world is on for global warming where it becomes dangerous to even live in some areas. I know a couple of years back scientists were looking at 2030 as point where things get dangerous but one thing I read last year was that some scientists believe we have already passed the point of no return and we missed the tipping point when our actions could have made a difference.
Ruckus
@They Call Me Noni:
It’s faux gold for a faux human being….
Of course humans do come in all shapes and sizes, along with widely varying degrees of pompous arrogance. Those individuals we are discussing here are at the head of the class when it comes to pompous arrogance. Bravado and arrogance are such a light hearted segment of humanity, they make some followers and many more almost physically sick.
YY_Sima Qian
@Belafon: The PRC keeps a managed float against the basket of currencies of its main trading partners. The Yuan is not solely indexed against the USD. Furthermore, if the exchange rate was the dominant factor in determining manufacturing competitiveness, the US would have seen industrial renaissance during periods of USD weakness, as macroeconomists such as Krugman & Setser have suggested, but we haven’t. Setser has argued that the primary reason TSMC dominates advanced node semiconductors fabrication is because the New Taiwan Dollar is artificially weak, & why Germany & Japan dominate autos is because both countries suppress wages (as if labor is a significant component of the cost of car making these days)..
There are far more important factors at play, starting w/ hyper-financialization of the US (& UK) economy that incentivizes profit margin maximization & rent seeking (because they are the most
“financially efficient”), followed by inadequate human capital (not cheap labor, but engineering/operations/management).
IMHO, theirs are an ivory tower view of macroeconomics divorced from ground level realities.
Ruckus
@Sally:
OK you get bonus points for this comment.
Unfortunately for all of us you also get bonus points for the simple truth. Some humans are as good as roadside trash. Although that roadside trash may actually be more useful.
tam1MI
Notice the studious ignoring of Biden’s speech from last night (at sundown!) that gives the lie to the notion that he is some sort of drooling dementia-ridden husk.
schrodingers_cat
@tam1MI: They have the MAGA like tendency to never admit that they are wrong.
Scout211
I actually don’t think it’s as big of a concern for Democrats who are not very online as it is for all the very online Dems. I don’t think that normie Democrats are even aware of all of these criticisms from Democrats to other Democrats. That is, if my family and friends who are normie Dems are any indication.
And while I do get Magdi Jacobs opinion, my concern is that her essay is actually doing the same thing that she is cautioning others Dems not to do. She’s criticizing the criticizers and that has the potential to further divisiveness.
I don’t know the answers either. But I hope we can welcome all Democrats into the biggest tent we have ever had.
rikyrah
Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) posted at 0:08 PM on Tue, Apr 15, 2025:
We are slowly slipping into becoming Nazi Germany.
Fox News is now asking the question of
“what laws do officials [in the Trump administration] think they need to change to deport people who were born in the U.S. with long rap-sheets to cheap prison cells in Central America.” https://t.co/SLcNMiOdjh
(https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1912191236611666398?t=zUCb5xzgtq2_fO1LXekIfA&s=03)
M31
@narya: that is awesome!
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for putting in this quote BC!
I normally agree with Mangy Jay 100%, but this doesn’t fit with my life at all:
Frankly, (1) not only do I not believe there are Trump supporters who would listen to me, based on my own life and on what happened people like Dr. Blasey Ford, (2) “own the libs” isn’t nothing and it isn’t new. There are people tweeting “finally!” with a picture of an angry Sen. Warren, and there are other people who laugh and are happy about that picture. Like how there are apparently people motivated to vote against MVP Harris because… she laughs. So there’s a real risk of middle aged white lady me “inspiring” even worse attacks against people who are more vulnerable, and sfaict no chance of my persuading the MAGA types to question their views.
ETA: (3) for those of us who remember Poppy Bush, he was not a dunderhead – even ultra-white Mr. Bush had to play dumb, “the vision thing”, conform to some stereotype of not saying the white supremacy out loud but keeping up Reagan’s racism, etc.
I don’t know what to do either, but I am proud of Sen. Van Hollen for getting on a plane to advocate for his kidnapped constiuent. ETA again: I do have a few conservative relatives, who voted against Trump.
gvg
@Betty Cracker: Including accountability for the supreme court. They are some of the reason this wasn’t stopped cold before Trump even. Guantanomo was not legit in my opinion. Neither was preventing gun control, preventing bribery, not protecting voter rights, not protecting womens rights and a bunch of other things.
I think some of them are taking bribes and should be held accountable for that.
When Alito put procedure over justice and said it didn’t matter if an innocent man was executed, he should have been impeached and removed from the bench. I thought he had lost the plot, the point of the laws, and was unfit to judge anything ever again.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Yes, that’s a good analysis.
zhena gogolia
@satby: That’s great!
Liminal Owl
@NotMax: Just going back to origins!
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Great line: ‘It’s faux gold for a faux human being….’
Wish I’d thought of it.
Gretchen
@Soprano2: He doesn’t know how anything works. He also wants all his kids born by csection because he thinks vaginal birth makes for smaller brains and csection allows them to be bigger. He doesn’t spend enough time with babies to know about soft spots.
Paul in KY
@Gretchen: That is so stupid! Gosh, just think about if DaVinci’s mom had been able to have him by C-Section. We’d all be driving our fusion powered cars to the moon for a vacay!
That’s the kind of stupid shit that needs to be publicized more and laughed at.
Martin
Pretty sure Musks ‘coming apocalypse’ is related to his belief that AI is going to destroy society and it’s down to a race between those developing ‘safe’ AI and those developing ‘malicious’ AI with the goal of destroying society so they can build a new one on the back side. Both groups are accelerationists for slightly different outcomes.
The AI guys aren’t mere tech profiteers. They have MUCH bigger visions. All of them. That’s why Curtis Yarvin has an audience.
Tehanu
But … isn’t “Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Material Limited” a Chinese company? WTF?
@gvg: I’ve always said, Bush v. Gore was the tipping point; it was a judicial coup d’etat, and the 6 who voted for it should have been tried for treason, convicted, and hanged in public. Everything that SCOTUS has done since stems from that.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Won’t some presstitute please take the time to ask Elon why he wants to go to Mars? Maybe ask him how he intends to populate a planet that has no magnetosphere. Have his legion of babies become mole people and live underground? I have no problem occupying Mars right now as long as it’s us sending Elon to never return.
Anyone in news with a pair (of whatever) could kill his Mars chaff (and it is chaff, a distraction) with one well placed question. Problem is that they don’t want to ask that question, they prefer the show he puts on.
XeckyGilchrist
Yeesh, the Musk stuff sounds an awful lot like the king of the silly Bond movies, Moonraker.
Miss Bianca
@Sally: I would say it was kind of the opposite for me. At least I like to think so.
Miss Bianca
@jonas: I dunno about that. Right now I’m having a terrible time trying to get the MMR, because first the Public Health agency wouldn’t give it to me without a titer -which they wouldn’t do, I had to go to the clinic here to get it done – and now that I’ve had the titer done they’re saying that insurance companies won’t reimburse for it because “we’re not in the middle of an outbreak right now” which, hello, yes we ARE.
It’s maddening, and I suspect with a anti-vaxxer nutjob at the helm of HHS this kind of thing is only going to get worse.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: But the question is whether the grift is driving the apocalyptic vision or the reverse. There’s a distinct pattern that every Big Thinker in the tech industry who says grave things about AI destroying humanity has some kind of AI pitch of their own going.
Musk, meanwhile, has also said that civil war in the US is inevitable (I imagine he’ll make one if it is not otherwise forthcoming). He says a lot of things.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: “long rap-sheets” listing such crimes as wearing Chicago Bulls hats, speaking Spanish or not liking Donald Trump?
Matt McIrvin
@Sally: I figure it’s never that simple.
The actress Maya Hawke always amazed me a little because usually, celebrity kids look more like one or the other of their parents, but she looks EXACTLY like a 50% Ethan Hawke, 50% Uma Thurman hybrid. An equal chip off both blocks. The Mendelian stuff doesn’t usually work out that exactly.
Matt McIrvin
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No magnetosphere, no air, toxic perchlorates in the soil, and most of the time it’s colder than Antarctica. It’s not really that promising a place to colonize, just better than anywhere else other than Earth in the solar system.
The one valid reason to go there, to my mind, is science–the same reason you’d go to Antarctica or to the bottom of the ocean. But one of the big hooks is the search for possible (extinct?) life, and sending people actually presents the additional problem that people are filthy beings, walking sewers of microbial contamination. Not to mention, Elon Musk clearly does not give a flying fuck about science, given his enthusiasm for eliminating it.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: It kind of fascinates me that HUAC was originally founded as a primarily anti-Nazi group but abandoned that goal and swung full-on Commie-baiter at the earliest second that this became possible.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
You are too nice….
Or maybe it is my time in the USN, where swearing was as common as air and pomposity was a trademark of upper management. Not all of it mind you but a rather large percentage.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Very apropos – except what isn’t a surprise to him?
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
Nice.
Ruckus
@JML:
I worked from 14 (not counting paper routes) till well into 73 and find that retirement is just about all it’s cracked up to be. A life of leisure and on occasion boredom. Which in your late 70s seems to be a rather nice way to spend the time.
WTFGhost
Also the name of the most famous collection of demons cast out by Jesus, if you’re going to associate with that mythology.
Martin
@Ruckus: I did 14 to 53. A lot of people said I retired early, but I think I had done about 15 different jobs before I got out of high school. Usually had more than one at a time, and worked through college sometimes full time. Kind of making up the for the childhood I missed out on.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: what if I don’t have relatives that voted for Trump, even the sort of racists hate him? White is a large demographic and has its subgroups. It’s like “Hispanic” not being monolithic and all voting alike. I have no idea how to reach these strangers who happen to have a similar skin tone.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: They need to lose power in the smaller offices at the same time. States, and even counties. If they can’t even control many legislatures or counties/cities, then they will shape up pretty fast IMO. I can’t see that happening unless this economic disaster is much worse than I want to experience…well I don’t want any of it, but you know what I mean. Really bad and people can’t fool themselves about the cause.
I expect Trump to back down before it gets to that point.
Kayla Rudbek
@Sally: and old men fathering children wind up with those children having higher rates of autism, schizophrenia, and genetic disorders (e.g. Queen Victoria was a hemophilia carrier probably because her parents were older when she was conceived and born; older father = more mutations in his sperm).
It would be interesting to look at the autism diagnosis rates pre- and post-Viagra as I would bet money on that being a factor (not a perfect one, my parents were young when I was born, and I swear I am on the spectrum)
Kayla Rudbek
@Betty Cracker: yes, we need to teach them that actions have consequences, because right now that’s not true for rich white men.