Tag: Elon Musk

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There is something a little lame about Musk saying Trump has a connection to the infamous Jeffrey Epstein. It would matter if Musk discovered this connection and turned on Trump because of it. That isn’t the story here. It was more of another stone to throw at Trump as Musk was walking out the door. The truth is if he really cared about this sexual abuse accusation he never would have taken the DOGE job in the first place.

But he did with full knowledge of Trump’s connection to Epstein. The abused girls didn’t matter when he was working well with Trump. The only reason they matter now is Musk thinks he can hurt Trump with this information. How brave.

What a morally bankrupt man. There are no other words for it. Well, maybe — what an asshole.

The good news here is that he is taking on Trump. There is nothing quite as much fun as two assholes going after each other in a blood fight. You don’t have to root for a winner and hopefully they both come out of this rumble irreparably damaged. Fingers crossed.

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Elon Musk clarified something that has been bothering me for some time. I was always wonder how Hitler could kill so many people. I mean he was just one man. It seemed highly unlikely, at least to me, that Hitler could dispatch six million Jews all by himself. But, then, Elon Musk comes along to explain that actually Hitler didn’t kill anyone, it was civil servants that did the actual killing.

WTF. Really, like this somehow absolves him. I do have to give him some credit for looping in the true evil here — civil servants. Not Hitler, but civil servants. Hitler is a misunderstood genius much like Elon Musk while civil servants, if left to their own devices, are likely to commit genocide.

This is why when people try to explain that Musk is a genius, I flinch. A smart man would see the problem here. People keep calling me a Nazi. Every time I start talking about Nazis I get unflattering headlines. Maybe I should stop making any comments about Nazis and, in this way, I will stop getting so much bad press.

That he fails to understand this problem and continues to step in it belies his genius status.

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I baffled at what the end game is for the billionaires club now dismantling the federal government. The present system has served them well. They have wealth, power, and beautiful women. Talk about hitting the jackpot. What more can they want? More importantly, what possible good can come from the chaos they are creating in our system.

They have this mistaken notion that they can control the chaos. But chaos, by its very nature, is uncontrollable. A disorderly dismantling of government is just fun and games right now but the further gutting of a system that has worked remarkably well these past 230 years or so for what? To be replaced by what? Everyone will be free to do whatever they want to do. That is mighty vague.

But what does this mean about public schools which, by the way, the founding fathers supported without reservation. What about Social Security which provides retirement income and people paid for in their payroll taxes. What about the National Parks? What about the FAA? None of which are perfect and all of which have a necessary function. What do the stripped down versions of these look like after Trump and Musk get through with it.

The arrogance of these men is dumbfounding. They sit on billions of dollars all earned in a system that was highly favorable to billionaires making money. Yet this isn’t enough somehow. Call me old fashioned, even call me conservative, but I prefer orderly change which protects the institutions we have while also opening these institutions to gradual change. It is less traumatic and boring but there is a lot less chance that the goose that laid the golden egg will be murdered in the process.

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I have been laid off twice in my career.

There is a way to do it that benefits the company eliminating the jobs while also minimizing the upset to the people losing their jobs. Donald Trump, a business genius no less, is doing it in the most careless and obnoxious way possible.

First, he and his DOGE stooges are laying off people and then discovering that they need these employees still. Musk, in his storied career, has repeatedly made this mistake. Most companies take a little time, particularly when there is no emergency, in learning what people do, assigning the tasks to retained employees so there is no gap in service and trying to put the laid off employees in the best position for a new position. Planning for the company’s sake, compassion for the people losing their jobs. Trump is doing neither. It is a shoddy mistake that gives retained employees and customers the impression that you don’t know what you are doing.

Planning requires a little more effort than looking at a spreadsheet and eliminating jobs. Doing this so quickly and without consideration to the repercussions is a costly mistake especially for businessmen of Trump and Musk’s supposed caliber. The abruptness could lead to rehires, gaps in services, and law suits. What money you saved from the layoffs will be eaten away in the chaos created by the layoffs. It isn’t they way to run a business successfully but then I doubt seriously if this is Trump or Musk’s intention. Destroying the Federal Government is much more like it.

The unalloyed glee that the DOGE boys are taking with their job is unforgivable. Laying people off is a sad task and it should be approached as a regrettable but necessary task. These guys are having way too much fun. People are losing their jobs. The DOGE boys may not like them, they may think their jobs are unnecessary, and they may think it is the right thing to do but they should respect the people they are putting out of a job. It is the very least they can do. Instead they are acting like a bunch of mean girls in high school who get to say who is in and who is out.

Trump and Musk are bullies. They enjoy laughing at others but are unable to take any ribbing at their own expense. They demand respect without giving any. The extraordinary number of people who have turned on them speaks volumes about their character. Nobody much likes Trump and Musk once they are free from their orbit. Let’s hope we all learn how to stand up to bullies in the ensuing few years.

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I know that Donald Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the poor but I think it is important to question him, nonetheless, on his intentions here. Getting rid of social welfare programs is all fun and games to him, but it will have a serious impact on poor people thus on everyone else in the community.

Contrary to popular opinion, social welfare programs work. The biggest drops in poverty have occurred during the expansion of federal social welfare programs during the 1930’s and the 1960’s. Conservatives like to think that just cutting these programs will somehow force poor people to go out and get jobs. This has never worked. Never.

And we know that because there were an awful lot of poor people around before social welfare programs existed. Indeed they made up a much higher percentage of the population than they do now. Churches and charities were unable to make up the difference. That was why there were so many poor people back in the good old days.

Even Jesus realized this. Matthew 26:11 “The poor you will always have with you.” So how does Trump, Musk and company intend to help them. Taking them off the dole is hardly helpful. People need housing in order to take showers so they can make a good impression with looking for a job. They need transportation in order to arrive at the job on time. They may need psychiatric counseling so that they are coherent enough to hold a job. They may need drug rehab or alcohol rehab. They may need job training so that they can work the available jobs. The poor need an awful lot of help to make companies see them as potential employees. Where is this help going to come from?

I do have a modest proposal here and it is from the Bible — a source that Republicans particularly like to refer to. Matthew 19:20 If you want to be perfect (a perfect Christian that is), sell what you own. Give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Come on Donald and Elon, you know what to do.

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So Elon Musk fired some people who are actually necessary. This is hardly surprising. He has done this before at Tesla and at Twitter. That he keeps doing it, however, is becoming a bit of concern. I mean once is a mistake, twice maybe forgivable, but three times, well this is showing a real character problem. He fails to learn from his mistakes and this is the genius who is responsible for overhauling the Federal Government.

Furthermore, he should take into consideration that just because he is looking at a bunch of numbers on spreadsheet doesn’t mean he understands anything about the business this agency does. He might consider doing a little more investigation than a cursory glance at a spreadsheet.

Also, and most importantly, he and his team might take a less gleeful approach to the elimination of jobs. He might even consult corporations who have laid off staff in the past as they do a remarkably civil approach to this unpleasant task. They usually don’t scream you are a waste of space and we are eliminating job. Now you may think it. Fine but saying it is unnecessary particularly when you are sitting in the catbird seat.

In the meantime, the cabinet officers who are responsible for these departments might take a little time with any recommendations Musk offers. He shoots first and asks questions later. Not a terribly intelligent approach.

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Marko Elez, one of Elon Musk’s young DOGE stooges, resigned for making clearly racist comments. A day or so later, Musk rehires the poor thing as he shouldn’t have to suffer for his racism. What? Am I hearing this correctly?

This would have been perfect situation for Trump to prove his concern for racism. Elez is a low level employee who would be easily replaced by another young more discrete racist. Trump wins for not putting up with racist assholes. Musk gets to carry on cutting jobs and government agencies.

And for what? They didn’t want to ruin the life of a young man. What? How is Elez life ruined? He would have surely gone on to some other job where he could lay off people. Corporations are chockablock full of these dudes.

Now Trump is stuck rehiring a racist asshole. Everything Elez does will have a taint. As it should. Trump is more interested in showing he is in charge and he doesn’t care what other people think. He is so obsessed with showing his macho-you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do side that he misses these opportunities of showing some grace to his critics.

Elez is an asshole. There was no reason to hire him back. His life won’t be ruined by leaving Musk’s DOGE budget cutting fiesta. This was no great matter and a missed opportunity for Trump to show he actually cares about a real display of racism. He blew it.

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I can’t help myself. I try to ignore Donald Trump as much as I can but since he is now president it is impossible, so here goes.

Donald Trump wants to prioritize White South Africans as immigrants. Does this have anything to do with native South African Elon Musk? No, it couldn’t. Musk would never use his influence in the Trump Administration to ask for something so egregiously racist.

Immigration give priority to people who are in immediate danger. Trump’s focus is on South Africans of European descent. So this applies to mix raced South Africans as long as one of the two parents were of European descent. What if only one of the grand parents is of European descent? What percentage European descent is he talking about?

Then, why do White South Africans get priority? Are they in any more danger than women who want out of Iran? Or Sudanese rebels? Or just plain poor folk from Central America who want to escape drug lords?

The troubling aspect about Trump’s order is that it is so transparently racist. This order comes while he is trying to shut down the border from non-white immigrants. So Trump isn’t really opposed to immigrants, just non-white immigrants.

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Elon Musk’s request for personal Social Security information is baffling. The Social Security system is a macro problem in which Musk is taking a distinctly micro approach. How is getting personal information from individual social security recipients in any way helpful? If social security is a problem to look into, then the problem isn’t Jane Doe getting a $2,000 social security check each month. What needs looking at is financing the whole system.

Trump, supposedly an advocate for transparency in government, needs to inform the public on why this distribution of personal information is necessary for the task Musk is undertaking. Trump is allowing a businessman with no responsibility to anyone except Trump access to the personal details of an entire country. How is Musk protecting this data? What is preventing Musk from making a copy of this information for future use?

Department Secretaries can be called before Congress to answer questions regarding their department. The problem here is that Musk is without actual government responsibility. He is acting for Trump and Trump alone. It may be all on the up and up but there is no way to know for sure unless the painful process of institutional review is practiced. It isn’t happening and that is concerning.

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One of the mysteries of modern media is how much time is consumed on absolute bull shit. The other day, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute made the headlines and, as far as I can tell, is still creating a bit of a hullabaloo. Some believe he made a Nazi salute; others believe it was just an accidental incline of the man’s arm. Musk denies it. This, as far as I can tell, should be the end of it. But no this tempest is still whipping around the teacup.

The fact is Musk is astute enough to deny it. What are his critics expecting him to say. “You caught me. I am a secret Nazi. I just got so excited that my arm just naturally went into a Nazi salute.” Since he didn’t fall into that trap, the matter should be closed. But it simmers on to what effect. Talking about it any longer is a waste of time and is taking up precious headline space on speculation over a trivial matter.

Distractions seems to be the game Donald Trump is playing. Take, for example, flying the flag at half staff for Trump’s inauguration. This is no big deal to anyone except Donald Trump and maybe Jimmy Carter’s family. If anyone remembers this in a weeks time, it would amaze me. Trump could have been gracious about it because it really is meaningless bull shit. Seeing the flags at half staff would go unnoticed by most and, by those who did, they would wonder who died, thinking that Jimmy Carter died years ago. But Trump knows how to grab headlines and attention. The media promptly fell into line reporting it and we have a controversy.

Now apparently the Trump administration is suspending Black and Women’s history months at the Department of Justice. I disagree with this but, in the scheme of things, this is small potatoes. I am not sure what occurs at the Department of Justice during these months and this is very much the problem. It doesn’t matter to most anyone in the country. But lets, by all means, have a little tiff about the Department of Justice display cases going empty during Black and Women’s History month.

What worries me is that Trump is the master of making controversial statements about meaningless bullshit that consumes the press for days on ends talking about his bullshit and then are immediately forgotten. There needs to be focus on the things that matter as opposed to the things that are nice to have. If I had to choose between Trump’s attack on the 14th Amendment which declares there is no birthright citizenship and the Department of Justice’s Black and Women’s History month. I know what I am going to focus on. Let’s choose our battles wisely because having a conniption fit about everything is pointless and time consuming which is exactly what Trump wants.