#USA #Immigration #policies #Liberated from FB
#OliverKornetzke

Apologies for the length, but not for the substance. In a country where immigrants are routinely dehumanized by those who misunderstand or ignore the truth, this couldn’t be said briefly. I chose clarity and completeness over convenience—because some things deserve the space to be said right:

You hear it all the time across America—in every corner of this country, though it echoes most clearly in predominantly white, rural, and small-town places: “Why don’t they just come here legally?” It’s said like a mic drop, as if immigration were as simple as waiting in line at the DMV and filling out a few forms. But it’s not—and it never has been. The truth is, for most people around the world—especially the poor, the displaced, and those from the Global South—there is no line. There is no straightforward path. For the vast majority, there is no legal way to immigrate to the United States at all.

The people who parrot that question usually don’t know a single thing about U.S. immigration policy. They haven’t read about quotas or waitlists, and they have no idea what it actually takes to get a visa, green card, or citizenship. They don’t realize that the system is not just broken—it’s designed to exclude. It’s a maze of bureaucracy, arbitrary limits, and near-impossible requirements, particularly for those without wealth, education, or existing family connections in the U.S. Many fall back on slogans like “Follow the rules,” “Wait your turn,” or “Come the right way,” as if those options exist for everyone. They don’t. And they never did—not for today’s migrants, and not even for the European ancestors they’re so proud of.

Many of the same people who preach this way about legal immigration often proudly celebrate their own family’s immigrant roots. They talk about their German, Irish, English, Dutch, or Scandinavian ancestors who “did it the right way.” What they fail to understand—or deliberately ignore—is that those ancestors came to America during a time when there was essentially no immigration system. There were no visa requirements, no green cards, no numerical quotas. People showed up, often with little more than the clothes on their backs, and were waved in because the country wanted white settlers to displace Native populations and populate the land with white, Christian communities.

Some facts: The first federal immigration law—the Page Act—wasn’t passed until 1875, and it wasn’t about regulation as much as exclusion: specifically banning Chinese women. The Chinese Exclusion Act followed in 1882, targeting an entire ethnic group. The modern “legal immigration” system—with quotas, country caps, and green cards—didn’t begin to take shape until the Immigration Act of 1924. That law baked white supremacy into immigration policy by explicitly favoring northern and western Europeans and virtually banning everyone else, particularly Asians and Africans. And passports? The U.S. didn’t even require them consistently until World War I, and universal enforcement didn’t become standard until the 1920s. Before that, coming to America was as easy as hopping on a ship and landing at Ellis Island.

What about those green cards, you ask? The concept wasn’t formalized until the 1940s, after which the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 finally abolished the explicitly racist quota system—but it didn’t make the system fair or accessible. It just created new hoops and barriers wrapped in bureaucratic tape and double standards.

Back to those beloved ancestors. They didn’t “follow the rules” because there weren’t any. What they followed was the scent of opportunity on land that didn’t belong to them. That land was stolen—from Native tribes through military force, genocide, and broken treaty after broken treaty. Then, with cold bureaucratic precision, the U.S. government handed out vast tracts of that stolen land to white settlers through policies like the Homestead Act of 1862. Over 270 million acres were handed out this way—almost 10% of the entire U.S.—to white citizens and immigrants deemed “desirable.” These were not people escaping quotas or earning their place through some meritocratic visa process—they were beneficiaries of a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism. Meanwhile, the Indigenous peoples who had stewarded that land for millennia were pushed onto tiny, often barren and economically useless reservations, stripped of their ancestral homes and ways of life. Their children were ripped from their families and shipped off to government and church-run boarding schools, where they were beaten for speaking their native languages and forced to assimilate into white, Anglo-American norms—language, dress, religion—under the twisted banner of “civilizing” them.

And let’s be crystal clear while we’re at it: this country was not built solely by white settlers. It was built—quite literally—on the backs of Black slaves, kidnapped from Africa and forced into generations of brutal, dehumanizing labor. Enslaved Africans built the Southern plantation economy that fueled American capitalism, laid the bricks of our cities, dredged canals, harvested cotton, picked tobacco, and raised the wealth of white America while being denied humanity and freedom. And while white settlers were being handed land, Black Americans were being bought, sold, whipped, raped, lynched, and later redlined, incarcerated, and economically ghettoized into second-class citizenship.

And it wasn’t just Black labor. Asian immigrants—many of whom were also kidnapped, trafficked, or coerced—played an enormous role in building this country, especially in the West. Chinese laborers built the transcontinental railroad under conditions so brutal that many died doing it. They laid the steel skeleton that tied the country together—and when the job was done, they were met with riots, exclusion acts, and segregation. Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Indian, and other Asian migrants also helped build American agriculture, shipping, and manufacturing—only to be excluded, vilified, and later incarcerated in camps for daring to exist during wartime.

These communities didn’t just contribute—they made America possible. They have every bit as much claim to this country as any descendant of Ellis Island settlers. In fact, they have more right to say who belongs here than the MAGA cultists who think citizenship should be based on melanin levels and Protestant decorum. They earned it through centuries of blood, labor, resilience, and resistance—and they’re still being told to shut up, assimilate, and “go back” by the same people who wouldn’t know a work visa from a library card.
And now? The descendants of those white settlers want to pull up the ladder behind them. They want to slam the door shut and pretend that their families bootstrapped their way into a better life purely through virtue and hard work, when in reality they were handed land soaked in Native blood and protected by a military hell-bent on erasing anyone who got in the way. They arrived with nothing and were given everything. Today’s immigrants arrive with nothing and are given cages, court dates, and contempt. Why? Simple. They’re brown and they’re poor.

What was once an open or loosely controlled frontier has morphed into a militarized apparatus—a prelude to full-on genocide exported abroad by deputizing thugs and enabling them to act like Gestapo fascist secret police, disappearing people off the streets in broad daylight, targeting those who don’t look white. This brutal display of state repression and violence is the inevitable conclusion of a society that has continued to feed on the myths and lazy, intellectually and morally bankrupt lies of those at the top, who profit off a distracted and divided working-class America.

These same folks will wave their flags and clutch their Bibles, never realizing the soul-crushing irony that Jesus himself—by today’s standards—would have been detained, denied entry, and deported. Born to a poor family, fleeing violence, and without proper documentation, he would have been seen as a threat, locked up, and put on a plane. These Americans forget that morality and legality are not the same thing—and never have been.
Today’s migrants are often fleeing not just poverty, but the direct consequences of U.S. foreign policy. For decades, the U.S. installed dictators, funded coups, trained death squads, and armed right-wing paramilitaries—so long as those regimes served American business interests. We supported brutal governments that suppressed unions and massacred civilians because it helped our corporations extract more profit. The violence, poverty, and instability that people now flee didn’t just happen. America helped create it. And now that those same people are showing up on our doorstep, Americans act shocked. We criminalize their desperation and turn them into villains.

Meanwhile, many Americans continue to blame immigrants for problems they didn’t cause. Undocumented workers didn’t outsource manufacturing, bust unions, or cause the opioid crisis. They didn’t automate away entire industries or sell family farms to agribusiness giants. That was the work of the capitalist class—the same billionaires and corporations who profit off division, who underpay workers, and who benefit from scapegoating brown people whenever working class consciousness starts to materialize. It’s easier to blame the undocumented worker cleaning hotel rooms than to question a system that has been bleeding communities dry for decades.

People want someone to blame. And for generations, politicians and media outlets have handed them a convenient target: the immigrant. That scapegoating has deep roots in American history. But it’s a lie. A distraction. And one that continues to poison our politics and our humanity, and prevent us from addressing the real causes of inequality and decline.

The ruling elite have a vested interest in maintaining an undocumented, exploitable class of people. This segment of society can be wielded both as a political cudgel and as a weapon against organized labor and social movements. Employers use the constant threat of deportation to keep wages low and silence demands for better working conditions, knowing that fear of losing their livelihood prevents many undocumented workers from asserting their rights. Politicians and interest groups exploit anti-immigrant sentiment to divide the working class, making it harder for people to unite around common economic goals. This strategy ensures that those at the top maintain power by keeping the rest distracted and fragmented.

So the next time someone says, “Why don’t they just come legally?”—don’t nod along. Don’t let it slide. It’s not a real question. It’s a shield for ignorance or cruelty—often both. Because if you’re born in the wrong country, with the wrong skin color, and no U.S. family or corporate sponsor, there is no legal path. Not now. Not ever. And pretending otherwise only deepens the injustice.

The immigration system isn’t about justice. It never was. It’s about control, exclusion, and maintaining power—deciding who gets to belong and who gets left out. And if we’re going to have an honest conversation, we need to stop pretending that legality is the same as morality, that past immigrants followed a path that never existed then, or that the people trying to come here today are anything less than human beings responding to conditions we helped create.

P.S.

Of course, there’s a lot I didn’t cover—like immigration during and after slavery, or how even those trying to “do it the right way” are set up to fail. This post isn’t exhaustive, just necessary. I’m not done writing, and I’ll be back to dig into all of that—and more—in future posts.

#ConnieWillis on #trump #Elon, #Tesla and the whole #uspol mess. #liberated from FB

Social Security, the Smithsonian, and Saturday Night Live's Cold Open
March 30, 2025
By Connie Willis
There were over 300 Tesla Takedown rallies all over the world yesterday:
-- People have been posting pictures from San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Ohio, Watertown, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, Washington, Miami, Florida, San Jose, California, and Austin and Southlake, Texas. And from London, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Ireland.
--They had hoped for protests at all 277 Tesla dealerships in the country, and they came close to achieving that goal. (For some it’s not practical. The Tesla dealership in Greeley is tucked away on a back road which nobody ever travels, and any protest couldn’t be seen from the highway, but there were protests in Denver, Colorado Springs, Littleton, Broomfield, Boulder, Westminster, and the Eagle County Airport.)
--Mokurai: "All the protest organizations around the country are getting the idea of protesting EVERYWHERE, notably on every college and university campus, not just in the biggest cities. Indivisible, 50501, Tesla Takedowns, you name it."
Some people have asked, what’s the point of protesting? It doesn’t accomplish anything. But I disagree. I think protesting--including town halls and rallies and rallies--accomplish a lot:
--They make news. People complain that the mainstream media doesn’t cover them, but they do if the rallies and protests are big enough, and besides, there are lots of other forms of media, from Facebook to Bluesky and Twitter and TikTok. People are sharing their protest pictures like crazy and posting videos of the town halls.
--They send a message to our representatives in Congress. This goes especially for town halls, which the GOP is scared to death of. The national party sent out a memo telling them to stop having them because they just produced bad video clips and soundbites the Dems could use. (Which proves they’re getting news coverage.)
--They send a message to Wall Street and the stock market, who actually both pay attention to what’s going on. Tesla sales are tanking and Target sales are way down.
--They send a message to the rest of the world, who are definitely watching us and wondering whether we’re all going along with this or are just as upset as they are about what’s happening.
--They put you in touch with other groups and activities. At the rallies and protests, there are places for people to sign up for Indivisible and ActBlue and their local Democratic Party so you can get even more involved.
--They raise your own morale. People who’ve participated in the protests and rallies talk about being energized and happy to meet other people and realize they’re not alone, that lots of other people are as upset as they are.
--They play an important part in fighting the Trump regime. Resistance movements require two things--tinder and a spark. You’re providing the tinder.
In SignalGate News:
--Saturday Night Live’s cold open was about--you guessed it--the Signal chat. It was dead-on. My favorite moment was when they listed Pete Hegseth’s emojis. He texted a fist, a flag, and a flame. They read it as "Fist, Flag, Tesla." But you MUST see the whole thing:
youtube.com/watch?v=hLtI9mvgSr…
--Ben Dreyfuss: "It’s very serious, obviously, but I do think it’s very funny imagining how they all felt when they saw the ‘Jeffrey Goldberg has left the chat’ notification."
--There’s been another security leak. Two Trump administration spreadsheets with highly sensitive information on programs funded by the State Department and USAID were sent to Congress and leaked online, endangering workers working under repressive regimes. The groups had pressed the Trump administration to keep sensitive information in the spreadsheets private and were assured that it would.
--An International non-profit executive said, "In all our years of securing grants, we have never seen the safety of government partners treated with such reckless abandon. People will lose their liberty, and possibly even more, because of this."
--Trump announced he’s not firing anybody over the Signal chat. He said: "I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is. All I can tell you is it’s just a witch hunt, and it’s the only thing the press wants to talk about because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it’s been the greatest 100-day Presidency in the history of our country."
--Mike Waltz told Trump he never met Jeffrey Goldberg. Now a photo has surfaced showing them standing right next to each other at a public function.
--I told you yesterday that Pete Hegseth kept bringing his wife to work. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the reason is to keep others from asking him about his alleged sexual misconduct.
--Trump’s people have all gone into hiding. Not a single one of them was on the Sunday shows. (They know just how deadly this is for them.)
TrumpsTaxes: "My hope is that when career prosecutors at Defense, NSA, CIA, State, and other agencies absorb the sheer hypocrisy of their bosses getting away with sharing classified information, with zero punishment, they will anonymously leak every sordid story, rumor, and detail about their bosses to the press."
--First Dog on the Moon cartoon: "What fun things did we learn from the super secret chat? 1. These might be some of the most powerful people in the world, but they are a long way from being the smartest. 2. There are no longer any consequences for anything ever. 3. European freeloading is PATHETIC. 4. Emojis are good again? 5. Be right back, just playing Candy Crush."
In deportation news:
--A University of Minnesota student was detained. Nothing else is known, not even the student’s name, which ICE agents refuse to reveal.
--ICE agents went to an elementary school in Washington, D.C. to grab a contract employee, but they left without making an arrest after school officials required ID and a warrant. (Translation: What they’re doing is totally illegal and they know it.)
--Bill Kristol: "MAGA Congresswoman in America: ‘You violated the law, you don’t get due process.’ Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland: ‘Sentence first, verdict afterward.’"
--Judge Patricia Millett: "Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here."
--Immigration lawyer: "The administration is looking for numbers. Without actually reviewing if it was legal, if it was right, if it was morally correct to do what they’ve done. They don’t care about that."
--Adam Serwer: "Trump and his advisers simply hope the public is foolish or shortsighted enough to believe that if they are not criminals or deviants or terrorists or foreigners or traitors, then they have no reason to worry. Eventually no one will have any rights that the state need respect, because the public will have sacrificed them in the name of punishing people it was told did not deserve them."
Trump’s now going after the Smithsonian and the National Zoo:
--He signed an executive order yesterday saying that he was taking them over to root out "improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology."
--He particularly targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Women’s History Museum, and the American Art Museum. He said the National Museum of African American History and Culture "espouses a corrosive ideology."
--The Smithsonian was created by an Act of Congress. It has funding from private endowments, but it gets 2/3 of its budget from the federal government.
--The employees now face the same terrible dilemma other agencies have faced, whether to stay and try to protect as much as you can or quit. "If they stay in their jobs, they’re in effect working for an authoritarian takeover of what they do." But if they go, they’ll be risking leaving it in the hands of people who’ve had no compunction about deleting websites. Will they also try to destroy paintings, pottery, historical artifacts and documents?
--The Zoo thing apparently involves the Chinese pandas--and evolution.
--The executive order also demands that all Confederate statues and monuments be put back up and a statue of an anti-slavery Supreme Court justice.
--Lauren Wolfe: "This is unabashed fascism."
--Jeff Stein: "Trump goes full-on Soviet with intent to scrub the Smithsonian, museums, etc., of ‘improper ideology.’"
--David Blight of the Organization of American Historians: "It’s a declaration of war. It’s arrogant and appalling for them to claim they have the power and the right to say what history actually is and how it should be exhibited, written, and taught. "
In Social Security news:
--Trump has told Musk and DOGE he wants the Social Security cuts speeded up.
--People all over the country are reporting long waits, waves of calls, and website crashes. In many cases Social Security administrators are telling people who call that the wait time is over 2 hours long and then hanging up on them.
--Social Security says they’ve delayed plans to cut phone services by 2 weeks and ditched a proposal that would have forced the disabled and elderly to visit a physical office to deal with problems with their benefits or apply for benefits.
--Musk and DOGE’s plan at Social Security has been leaked. It is to completely redo the Social Security Administration’s code in a matter of months. Experts say the payments are currently made using 40-year-old COBOL code, which has had 40 years of additions and corrections, and that safely converting COBOL and rewriting code takes years, including months of analysis, years of coding, and rigorous testing for functionality and performance. The attempt to do this in mere months is likely to break the entire thing.
--Social Security employees say they will be doing their beta testing on vulnerable seniors.
--Musk is now claiming that "As a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money."
--Paul Krugman, talking about the elimination of Social Security: "On this as on other issues, above all rule of law and the survival of democracy, the ‘alarmists’ whose warnings were dismissed by the supposedly savvy have been completely vindicated."
In cowardly, sniveling capitulation news:
--The White House Correspondents Association (the group that hosts the Correspondents Dinner, you know, the one where Obama OBLITERATED Trump and so did Stephen Colbert) has fired the comedian they hired for this year, Amber Ruffin, because Trump officials complained about her.
--A federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired at the behest of the White House, after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed Trump officials to drop all charges against him.
--Johns Hopkins told their faculty not to intervene in ICE detainments on campus.
In non-cowardly, Standing Up to the Bastards news:
--At the opening performance of the season for the Buffalo Philharmonic, a woman from M and T Bank (who sponsors the concerts) came out before the performance started and spoke about the orchestra’s support for IDEA--Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access. She got a two-minute standing ovation.
In other news:
--As of this point, ALL USAID employees have been fired. The last ones got an e-mail Friday night.
--Trump has now sicced the FCC against Disney for "promoting diversity."
--Musk just sold Twitter to Twitter AI in a $33 billion stock deal. He owns both companies. (No idea what he’s up to.)
--Florida passed a child labor law so that little kids can take the place of the immigrants who’ve been deported in the fields and the orange orchards. (What does that remind me of? Oh, wait, I know. Oliver Twist, anyone?)
In good news:
--A new treatment involving amyloid removal delays the progress of Alzheimer’s Disease.
--The Yankees hit 9 home runs in their first game!
--I had a crown put on after a root canal last week and was expecting the usual awful procedure, where they put that goop in your mouth that makes you gag so they can make an impression, then you get a temporary crown that you have to be really careful of for two weeks before you get the crown. Not any more! They took a picture of the tooth with a 3-D laser, 3-d printed out the new crown, and had it on within an hour. So, see, 3-D printers ARE good for something besides making ghost guns!
In historical news: Today is Charles Lightoller’s birthday. He’s one of my heroes. He was the lieutenant on the Titanic who saved more lives than anybody else, insisting on loading the boats to capacity before they were launched. He stayed on board trying to get one of the collapsible boats untied until a wave swept him and the collapsible into the water. (At the American hearing, an idiot Senator asked him snidely, "When did you live the boat, Lieutenant Lightoller?" and he replied, "I didn’t leave the boat, the boat left me.") The collapsible was upside down, and he clambered aboard, then helped dozens of others to climb up and stood there, keeping the boat balanced, till the Carpathia got there. He was the last person to board the Carpathia, insisting on waiting till everyone else had been picked up. Then, nearly 30 years later and retired, he took a boat over to Dunkirk and brought back 127 stranded soldiers. I have always said that if I’m in a maritime disaster, my survival plan is to keep as close to Lightoller as possible.
It’s also Vincent Van Gogh’s birthday. I love Van Gogh, partly because he was so humble. He took an art class on color because, he explained, "I have never been very good at color." Oh, my God! In honor of his birthday, you need to go look at "Starry Night" and Almond Blossoms" and ":Irises" and "Sunflowers." And you definitely need to watch the Dr. Who episode where the Doctor takes Van Gogh to the Musee de Beaux Arts in Paris to see his legacy. It will bring you to tears:
youtube.com/watch?v=ubTJI_UphP…
Best line of the day, from MattZ: "Are we allowed to listen to Cassandra yet?"

#ConnieWillis on #trump #JDVance and the whole #uspol mess. #liberated from FB

Cheeseheads and Tariffs and Third Terms, Oh, My!

March 31, 2025
By Connie Willis

I was talking to a friend this weekend and predicted that SignalGate would continue to be the main subject of political talk till Wednesday, when Trump’s tariffs will be imposed, and the stock market and it would drop to second as the effects of Trump’s tariffs would become the main topic. It seems I was off by two days:
--The stock market swung wildly today over worries about the tariffs. Foreign markets were all down, and the American market ended the worst quarter in two and a half years.
--Goldman Sachs raised their forecast for inflation and lowered it for US economic growth. They are predicting that the tariffs will result in higher prices and lower incomes. They raised the possibility of a recession from 20% to 35%.
--J.P. Morgan called it "the fastest momentum reversal in forty years."
--The CBO forecasts DOGE and AI will be massive failures; sees US debt exploding as production collapses. Reuters: "The CBO sees US deficits rising over 30 years, economic growth slowing."
--New York Times: "US faces significant risks from debt, analyst says, as Trump pursues tax agenda."
--Everyone is upset about this. One Republican mayor said, "It’s impossible to prepare." This is partly because Trump keeps announcing tariffs with no warning. With the automobile tariffs, nobody at the White House, in Congress, or in the auto industry knew it was coming. Politico is reporting that White House officials are "apoplectic" about the tariffs.
--On Fox, Larry Kudlow was saying, "Markets crash, bad inflation report, tariff confusion." Meanwhile, Sandra Smith tried to downplay the drop in the stock market. Smith: "Since Inauguration Day it’s only down 5.5%." Economic expert: "That’s a lot." Smith: "5.5% is a lot?" Expert: "Yes."
--The conservative English paper, the Telegraph: "Trump is levying the biggest tax rise in global history."
--According to the Wall Street Journal, this weekend Trump warned US automakers not to raise prices in response to tariffs. (Even though their expenses are going to go up.) Then yesterday he said, "I could care less if auto makers raise prices." (Really inspires confidence, doesn’t it?)
--Trump says he wants the tariffs to completely replace the income tax. To do that, they would have to be 100% or more. The Telegraph said, "It will crush the American economy."
--When Trump was asked if the tariffs would be permanent, Trump declared, "Absolutely, they’re permanent, sure. The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more. And all we’re doing is being fair, and frankly, I’m being very generous." (Every word in that statement is a lie, including "and" and "the.")
--Trump was also asked if he was worried about stagflation, and he said, "I haven’t heard that term in years. I don’t know anything about it...this country is going to boom. We’re going to have boomtown. We’re going to boom."
--Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the tariffs are "to force other nations to show Trump respect."
--GOP Senator James Lankford: "It’s like a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel. There’s a bit of a mess at the beginning. It’s going to be noisy for a little while."
--Peter Navarro: "Trust in Trump."
--US allies South Korea and Japan have united with China to fight the tariffs.
--Trump is doing deals with Vietnam for new hotels and golf courses in exchange for waiving tariffs. (Can you say CORRUPTION?)
In SignalGate news:
--We keep finding out new stuff. According to the Wall Street Journal, two officials say Mike Waltz "has created and hosted multiple other national security conversations on Signal with cabinet members." (And no doubt told Signal to erase the record of the chats.)
--Top GOP leaders are reportedly angry at JD Vance because during the chat he tried to block an order of the President’s and showed concerns about Trump’s decision. (Blind obedience, JD, blind obedience.)
--Jeffrey Goldberg said he thinks JD Vance’s comments showed that he believes Trump doesn’t even know what he’s doing.
--The Signal chat occurred when Hegseth and Waltz were meeting at the Palm Steakhouse, a ritzy restaurant in D.C.
--Jeffrey Goldberg, in response to Waltz’s "sucked in" explanation: "This isn’t the Matrix. Phone numbers don’t just get sucked into the phones. I don’t know what he’s talking about there. My phone number was in his phone because my phone number was in his phone. He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me. That’s simply not true."
--Karoline Leavitt told the press corps that the Signal chat is now "case closed." She said that they had conducted an investigation, determined what had happened, and fixed the problem so it would not happen again, but gave absolutely no details--or proof.
--There’s a theory that Jeffrey Goldberg’s name being on the Signal chat was an inside job and that it happened as the result of resistance activity inside the Pentagon, and they’re basing it partly on the leak a week before of Musk’s meeting to view war plans against China. They said the meeting was revealed at the moment when it would do the worst damage--when Musk was already there and so were the reporters and they couldn’t just quietly call it off. Ditto having the worst (in their eyes) journalist on the Signal chat. They say Hegseth is absolutely hated at the Pentagon and career military (or civilians) are trying to get rid of him.
Trump is talking again about running for a third term:
--Trump said there are "methods" that will allow him to run for a third term. A lot of people want me to do it...I’m not joking."
--Lincoln Project: "He’s not joking about the thrid term."
--Also Trump: "I have had more people ask me to have a third term which in a way is a fourth term because the other election was totally rigged."
--Ryan Wiggins: "Trump is trying to change the conversation from tariffs, the economy, and the Hegseth scandal. Any conversation about him running for a 3rd term is still 2 years away. He is trying to distract and get the media off of the headlines currently
--Steve Schmidt, standing outside Elvis Presley’s birthplace in Tupelo: "There’s only one King in America and this is his castle."
In deportation news:
--Trump lied to El Salvador. He told them he was sending them only men and then sent women.
--The ACLU filed the sworn affidavit from a Venezuelan woman on the migrant flight to El Salvador who says she heard ICE officials on the plane talking about the court order to turn the plane around. (This proves the DOJ lied in court when they claimed they had no knowledge of the order.)
--One of the men deported to El Salvador was Neri Albarado, a baker. His tattoo was an autism awareness tattoo. (Like the yellow ribbon ones only in rainbow colors.)
--Another of the men sent to that hellhole of an El Salvador prison was Andry, a gay makeup artist. The only reason the government is giving (according to official records) for deporting him is that he had a tattoo of a crown with the word "Mom" below.
--The tattoos are apparently the only evidence ICE has against any of these guys that they’re in a gang. People online are pointing out by that standard, Pete Hegseth should be immediately sent to El Salvador. He has white-supremacist and Crusader tattoos all over his body. (Interesting side note--the only mention of tattoos in the Bible is the one that says anyone who has tattoos should be put to death.)
--The prison is a nightmare. Prisoners spend 23 and a half hours a day in cells with 70 other people. They eat, bathe, and go to the bathroom in front of everyone else. They sleep on bunks 4 levels high with no sheets, no mattresses, and no pillows.
--When immigration czar Tom Homan was asked about the prison conditions, he proudly said, "We got a lot of tools in the toolbox. The El Salvador prison is one, we got Gitmo, we got other countries. I wake up every day like a kid in a candy shop getting ready to go to work." (I dare you to find a worse statement by ANY of the Nazis.)
--But even worse was the hosts on Fox discussing how undocumented immigrants should be stripped of due process: Lawrence Jones: So you have a constitutional right that is actually, they are afforded to illegals in this country? We should revisit that." Brian Kilmeade: "It’s not practical to think that we can do due process on 8 million people." Rachel Campos-Duffy: "That’s right." They also said of due process, "They don’t deserve it." (Note: the right to due process is not just enshrined in the Constitution. It is enshrined in the Magna Carta. They’re talking about getting rid of rights that people have had since 1215!)
--In good news, a federal judge ruled that a Columbia student who took part in protests against Israel’s treatment of Gaza cannot be detained as she fights orders for deportation. Yay!
--Stephen Miller, justifying the horrible treatment of immigrants: "We were invaded and occupied. Entire neighborhoods were conquered. Entire towns were subjugated. Our treasury was in the plundered (sic.) Our democracy was torn apart piece by piece."
--Mrs. Betty Bowers, who is usually hilarious--but not today: "I learned this week that you can put our troops’ lives in danger, compromise our national security, and violate the Espionage Act and the government will do nothing. But if you write an editorial for your school newspaper that Trump doesn’t like, you will be abducted on the street and disappeared."
--Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
In Grand Vizier news:
--Musk is campaigning in Wisconsin and chose to wear the cheesehead hat people wear at football games at one campaign event. He said in his campaign speech, "I feel like it is one of those things that may not seem like it will affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will. It will decide the future of American and Western civilization." (Not sure the cheesehead hat was the right thing to wear while saying that.)
--In another appearance in Wisconsin, Musk appeared standing in front of a gigantic American flag, just like that scene in the movie PATTON. (Delusions of grandeur much?)
--The first of his million-dollar checks that he said were going to anybody who signed a paper promising to vote (which is illegal) went to, oddly enough, the head of the College Republicans. (That kind of thing happened during the presidential election, too. When are the MAGAs going to wake up and realize this is a scam and he has no intention of giving them anything?
--They are completely defunding NPR, PBS, and Sesame Street.
--They have shut down the measurement lab that’s critical for manufacturing advanced chips and medical devices. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow: "I cannot believe that the government would be stupid enough to slash this kind of work."
--They cancelled tens of billions in HHS grants on infectious diseases, vaccines, and mental health issues. The offices got the stop-work notices Monday night. THEY CUT THE ENTIRE HHS STAFF IN LUBBOCK, TEXAS, GROUND ZERO FOR THE MEASLES EPIDEMIC.
--DOGE teenaged senior adviser "Big Balls" Coristine provided support to a cybercrime gang which trafficked in stolen data and cyberstalked an FBI agent.
--There was an article today saying that Elon drawing fire and working as a "heat shield" for Trump is no longer working and that Trump’s approval ratings are starting to suffer from what Musk and DOGE are doing.
--Vicki M: "We are getting to the point in this debacle where Trump and those around him are losing control of the narrative, which means they have no clue on how this will all play out. That is why they are jamming this scheme down our throats, because they think they are running out of time."
In Greenland news:
--The most telling thing JD Vance said in his reasons for why we have to have Greenland was "We cannot just ignore the President’s desires." markdtooley: "Citizens of a republic don’t concern themselves with the ‘desires’ of the current elected chief...he should be more concerned with ours."
--Eric Swalwell: "What the hell is JD Vance doing in Greenland? They don’t want him there. We don’t need him there. Why didn’t he go to Greensboro or Green Bay to see how much Trump’s tariff tax talk is costing people?"
--Jesse Watters on Fox, about taking Greenland: "We don’t need friends. If we have to burn a few bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, we’re big boys. We dropped A-bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally." (So now we’re dropping A-bombs on Greenland????)
--from the Borowitz Report: "The government of Greenland revealed on Monday that it had arrested JD Vance last week after he attempted to abscond with all the island’s rare earth minerals hidden inside his parka. As he walked up the stairs to Air Force 2, metric tons of lithium, niobium, hafnium, and zircon came tumbling from his bulky outer garment...Elon Musk said that instead of replacing Vance, he would eliminate his position."
--Anthony Scaramucci says that JD Vance is being systematically sidelined because everything he does fails.
In RFK, Jr. news:
--RFK, Jr. pushed out the top vaccine scientist, Peter Marks. He was told to resign or be fired.
--RFK, Jr. has completely dismantled the department working to eliminate opioid addiction, including prevention, treatment, and recovery services, and the distribution of Nalaxone to keep people from OD’ing.
--He is laying off all workers from the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/Aids Policy.
--There are now 483 cases of measles. The CDC buried a report stressing the importance of vaccinations.
--RFK, Jr. told the press that he has sent huge shipments of Vitamin A to Texas to help with the measles outbreak, but doctors in Texas said that they had refused shipment of the vitamins because they didn’t want them.
--The Wall Street Journal: "Our worst fears about Mr. Kennedy are coming true."
In other news:
--Mike Lee has submitted a proposal to the US Senate to get rid of the Fed.
--In Israel, two of Netanyahu’s aides were arrested as part of an investigation into Netanyahu’s involvement with Qatar. According to the Washington Post, there are increasing allegations that Netanyahu’s inner circle was involved in the transfer of money from Qatar, a key backer of Hamas.
--Trump and Lindsey Graham allegedly won another golf tournament at one of Trump’s golf courses. (They were partners.) 9-time Wimbledon winner Martina Navratilova: "Playing golf again? Donnie doesn’t play tennis because 1) he is not very good, and 2) it’s much harder to cheat in tennis than in golf."
In good news:
--2 million people demonstrated against Orban in Turkey.
--Protests are planned for all over the country--and Canada and Europe--for Saturday, April 5.
--Alex Jones is getting a divorce. (Not only will that take more of his money away from him, but embittered spouses often reveal all kinds of stuff.)
--Marine LePen was convicted of embezzling and therefore cannot run for office ever again in France. Yay!
Best rally chant of the day: "We don’t want your Nazi cars. Let’s send Elon Musk to Mars."
Best advice of the day, from Hillary Clinton on Kristi Noem: "Don’t vote for anyone you wouldn’t trust with your dog."
Best line of the day, from m. correll: "Too hard, too fast, too extreme, too illegal...this regime will not last much longer and neither will Trump. He’s fading fast and JD Vance is pissing off some of the GOP."

#Liberated from FB
#ConnieWillis daily
#Trump #Putin #Musk and too many to list here...

Putin Rolls Trump in Ceasefire Talks
March 19, 2025
By Connie Willis
The big news today was Trump and Putin’s call, which was supposed to result in a ceasefire and a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump:
--Trump called Putin and Putin kept him waiting for over an hour. He was holding a meeting with oligarchs and when his advisor said, "Won’t you be late talking to Trump?" he (and the oligarchs) just laughed.
--After the phone call, the US and Russia said different things about the ceasefire. The US said they’d agreed to an infrastructure ceasefire and a maritime ceasefire (both of which would be enormous advantages to Russia. That’s where they’re hurting most.) Russia said the key condition was the complete end of military aid by the US to Ukraine.
--Garry Kasparov: "Russia’s weakest point is Ukraine attacking it s oil and gas factories, so of course Putin wants Trump’s help stopping it. Nothing on Russia murdering Ukrainian civilians. The Black Sea is another area Ukraine was kicking Russia’s ass, so one more item on Putin’s wish list. And restoring US relations with a war criminal dictator who offers the US nothing."
--Trump focused on the fact that there would be "enormous economic deals" between the US and Russia and hockey games between Russia and the US.
--Ron Filipkowski: "So we get hockey games and "enormous economic deals" with Russia for selling out Ukraine. Art of the Deal."
--Karoline Leavitt said there’s a power plant on the border between Russia and Ukraine up for discussion. (No, there’s not.)
--Trump said the quiet part out loud and admitted that the argument with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office was part of a strategy to pressure Ukraine into a peace deal.
--Trump announced the US would take over the ownership of Ukraine’s power plants.
--One hour after the ceasefire Russia bombed a power station in Ukraine. They also bombed Kyiv.
--There’s also a rumor that Putin is the one who told Trump to shut down the Voice of America, which he did.
--Not a word was said about those thousands of Ukrainians who’d been surrounded by the Russians and were about to be massacred. (Because they never existed.)
--Michael MacKay: "Putin so completely humiliated his puppet during the phone call that Trump didn’t come out to face reporters afterward. The White House issued a statement," and Russia immediately bombed Ukraine’s infrastructure to show it had no intention of obeying the ceasefire."
--The conservative’s National Review’s Jim Geraghty: "America’s negotiations with a former KGB officer are being handled by a President who is extremely naive and gullible...Putin played Trump like a fiddle, offering him platitudes and the mirage of a small concession, which Trump rushed to announce to the world as a great diplomatic breakthrough. Now Trump looks like a sucker, a man easily fooled by promises."
--Rick Wilson: "Oh, look, the world’s greatest negotiator, Mr. Art of the Deal, got rolled like a cheap rug. Again."
--Last night Rachel Maddow talked about how unpopular Trump’s position vis a vis Putin is (only 2% of Americans sympathize with Russia) and said, "For all the unpopular and failing things about this young Presidency, there’s one thing about this Presidency that is just unprecedented in how radically out of step it is with the American people. There’s such a difference between what Trump wants and what the American people want...that I actually think it is not sustainable in small-d democratic terms."
--Zelenskyy rejected the ceasefire.
In Trump defying/trying to weasel out of obeying the judge’s orders in the deportation case news:
--Trump’s lawyers are trying to argue they were flying over international waters, so they weren’t under America’s and the judge’s jurisdiction. However, if they were flying over the Gulf of America (which Trump claims he owns all of) they were in American territory. So he has now changed his argument to "We would have run out of gas if we’d turned back."
--Bill Kristol: "It did not have to dispatch the planes in the middle of a hearing. In custody, the men posed no threat. The administration’s claim of urgency is a fabrication...what we are witnessing is a setup. The goal is to brush off a court order and get away with it."
--Trump is also trying to get fentanyl declared a WMD so he can declare war against it and deport anybody he wants to.
--Aaron Rupar: "We’re patently NOT under invasion by a hybrid criminal state. But Trump needs it to be "true" as a precondition to invoke Revolutionary War-era emergency power to justify summary deportations."
--Michael Luttig on Trump’s demand that the judge be impeached: "I know personally that the federal judiciary is shaken by these recent attacks by the President of the United States, but I also know that they are unshaken in their resolve to honor their oath to the Constitution. It’s the President who has wanted this war ever since his first time in office. Well, he’s going to get what he wanted."
--Musk chimed in against the judge: "This is a judicial coup. We either have a President or we have rule by 677 bavel-wielding dictators. We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people."
--Note: It’s 67, actually, to make the 2/3 needed for impeachment. Gordita Brett: "Nice math, space engineer genius."
--Many of the Venezuelan immigrants deported have not commited any crimes, not even trivial ones, even though Trump claimed they were all criminals. Trump’s lawyers are arguing that that’s because they have only been in the country a short time and that the very fact that they haven’t proves that they are a danger to the country. (No, I am not making this up.)
--ICE field director Robert Cerna: "While it is true that many of the gang members removed under the Alien Enemies Act do not have criminal records in the US, that is because they have only been in the US for a short time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate that they pose a limited threat...the lack of specific information about each individual action highlights the risk they pose."
--Translation: They are claiming that the lack of evidence is not only not a barrier to prison but a justification for it.
--Felix: "Tomorrow, if this practice is successful, it would be anyone the dictator decides to "disappear": Muslims, Quakers, Unitarians, Hindus, protest organizers, gays, union leaders, activists, journalists, opposition candidates, inconvenient judges or prosecutors or jury members, anyone that the dictator has a personal grudge against, people with assets coveted by powerful fascists, Democrats, "disloyal" Republicans."
In town hall news:
--GOP Rep Mike Flood held a town hall in Nebraska where attendees shouted "Tax the rich!" Flood asked, "So your proposal to solve the debt is to tax the rich?" and the Nebraska crowd cheered wildly. When he said, "I support Elon Musk and DOGE," huge boos erupted from the crowd. And it’s all on video--and all over the internet.
--GOP Kevin Kelly held a tele-town hall. 25,000 people called in. He hung up on many and locked others out.
--GOP Rep Michael Baumgartener held a town hall in eastern Washington. The first question was, what would he do to enforce the law if Trump ignores court orders? IN EASTERN WASHINGTON!
--GOP Rep Andy Biggs is holding a town hall, but only registered Republicans are allowed. They’re checking party registration at the door, and no independents or Dems will be allowed in. (The way things are going, that might not help.)
--GOP Rep Nancy Mace will not be holding any town halls due to "threatening constituents."
--Indivisible held a town hall in Maine to call out Susan Collins. She hasn’t held one in 25 years.
In other news:
--Minnesota State GOP Senate Republican Justin Eichorn introduced a bill last week which would make "Trump Derangement Syndrome" a mental illness which could result in being institutionalized.
--This week he was arrested for soliciting sex with a minor. (It was actually an undercover police officer.)
--Republicans are, interestingly, demanding his immediate resignation. Question: will the bill go anywhere now?
In good news:
--The two astronauts who’d been on the space station for months splashed down safely. (Thank God!) A pod of dolphins welcomed them home.
--The Voice of America and other radio stations are still up and running. Their leaders said they think Trump and Musk’s orders to shut down were illegal and they’re continuing to operate while they take legal action.
--The Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs canceled a dinner with a "white supremacist group." Steve Bannon was supposed to be the speaker.
--When Trump took over the Kennedy Center, he cancelled a performance by the Marine Band because they were playing with a group of multi-ethnic kids. (The bastard!) Military band leaders couldn’t go ahead and play with the kids because they were under orders, so retired military musicians from all the branches of the service stepped up and arranged a concert. 60 Minutes flew all the kids to Washington, DC, and they filmed the whole performance.
Two corrections:
--The other day I said that Admiral Hirohito had said after Pearl Harbor, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant." That was wrong. Hirohito was the emperor. It was Admiral Yamamoto who said it. He had been educated in the States and understood Americans far better than most Japanese.
--I also said that the movie THE QUIET MAN had been filmed in Ong, a name that didn’t strike me as Irish--and isn’t because it was filmed in Cong. We were still there, even though I got the name wrong, and it looked just like it does in the movie.
To update you on the postcard effort:
--People on Daily Kos were reporting that local post offices sold out of pre-stamped postcards and post card stamps.
--I’ve gotten responses from a bunch of you after the ones I listed on Sunday. M sent 10 and 8 of her friends sent 10 each, another friend sent three, another 136, and another sent a bunch of pink slip postcards firing Trump. Thanks, everybody!
Best headline of the day, from the New Republic: "There is No Method to Trump’s Madness. He’s Simply Insane."
Best rumor of the day: Teslas are self-immolating in protest of Musk.
Best comment of the day, from Cynthia Roseberry: "We, as criminal defense lawyers, are forced to deal with some of the lowest people on earth, people who have no sense of right and wrong, people who will lie in court to get what they want, people who do not care who gets hurt in the process. It is our job--our sworn duty--as criminal defense lawyers, to protect our clients from these people."

#AiKiDo #Story #Liberated from FW

Listen.

The train car was a fragile bubble of silence, floating through the chaos of Tokyo.
The afternoon light spilled weakly through the windows, casting long shadows over the passengers.

Among them sat a young man, his posture straight, his hands resting lightly on his knees. In his bag, neatly folded, was his gi—a symbol of the discipline he’d devoted himself to. Aikido. The art of harmony. The art of peace.

He’d trained for years, learning to redirect force, to turn aggression into calm. But today, he would learn that peace wasn’t about technique. It was about something far deeper.
The doors hissed open at the next station, and the bubble burst.

He came in like a storm—a mountain of a man, his face flushed red, his eyes wild and unfocused. The stench of cheap sake rolled off him, thick and suffocating. He swayed on his feet, his boots thudding heavily against the floor, and let out a roar that shattered the fragile quiet. The passengers froze. A woman clutching a baby pressed herself into the corner, her breath shallow, her eyes wide with terror. A salary man in a threadbare suit glanced up, then quickly looked away, his hands trembling in his lap.

The young man’s body tensed. His training kicked in, his mind racing through techniques—wrist locks, throws, pins. He could take this drunk down. He should take him down. The man was a threat, a danger to everyone in the car. His fingers twitched, ready to move. But then, like a whisper in the back of his mind, he heard his teacher’s voice: “Aikido is not about fighting. It’s about reconciliation. It’s about finding peace.”

He hesitated, his heart pounding in his chest.

Before he could act, the elderly man stood up.

He was small, frail, his back slightly stooped. His face was lined with age, but his eyes were sharp, filled with a quiet strength. He stepped into the aisle, moving with a calm that seemed to defy the chaos around him. The drunk turned, his eyes narrowing, his fists clenching. The young man held his breath, ready to intervene, but the old man didn’t flinch.

“Hey,” the old man said, his voice soft but steady. “You look like you’ve had a rough day. Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?”

The drunk blinked, his face twisting in confusion. For a moment, it seemed he might lash out, but instead, he staggered forward and slumped into the seat across from the old man. The tension in the car didn’t ease—if anything, it grew heavier, more suffocating. The young man stayed ready, his body coiled like a spring, but the old man showed no fear. He leaned forward slightly, his hands resting on his knees, and began to speak.
“I used to drink too,” the old man said, his tone gentle, almost tender. “My wife and I, we’d sit under the persimmon tree in our garden and share a bottle of sake. She planted that tree, you know. Her great-grandfather brought the seeds from Kyoto. It’s still there, even though she’s gone now.”

The drunk stared at him, his bloodshot eyes narrowing. “What’s it to you?” he growled, though the edge in his voice had softened.

The old man shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. But it sounds like you’ve lost something too. Am I wrong?”

The drunk’s face crumpled. He looked down at his hands, calloused and scarred from years of hard labor, and let out a shuddering breath. “My wife left me,” he muttered, his voice breaking. “Took the kids. I lost my job. I got nothing.”

The old man nodded, as if he’d heard it all before. “That’s hard,” he said simply. “But you’re still here. That means something.”

The drunk didn’t answer. He just sat there, his shoulders shaking, tears streaming down his face. The old man reached out and placed a hand on his arm, a gesture so small but so full of understanding that it seemed to pierce the very heart of the moment.

The young man watched, his own hands trembling now. He had been ready to fight, to prove himself, but the old man had disarmed the drunk in a way no technique could. There had been no violence, no grand display of skill—just a quiet act of compassion. And in that moment, something inside the young man broke. Tears welled in his eyes, blurring his vision. He had been so focused on the physical aspects of Aikido, on the idea of controlling an opponent, that he’d missed the true essence of the art. It wasn’t about force or dominance. It was about connection. About seeing the humanity in someone, even when they’d lost sight of it themselves.

The train slowed as it approached the next station. The drunk stood up, wiping his face with his sleeve, and stumbled toward the doors. He didn’t say goodbye, but the old man didn’t seem to expect him to. He simply watched him go, his expression calm, almost serene.

As the doors hissed shut and the train lurched forward again, the young man sat back, his chest aching with a strange mix of awe and shame. He had been ready to fight, to assert his strength, but the old man had shown him what true strength looked like. It wasn’t about winning. It was about understanding. About love.

The old man remained seated, his gaze fixed on the passing cityscape. The young man never learned his name, never saw him again, but the lesson stayed with him, etched into his soul. Aikido wasn’t just about physical technique. It was about finding harmony, even in the midst of chaos. And sometimes, that meant putting your ego aside and showing love and compassion instead.

The train rolled on, the city blurring past the windows. The young man closed his eyes and let the tears fall, feeling the weight of the old man’s wisdom settle over him like a second skin. In that moment, he understood. True strength wasn’t in the hands or the body. It was in the heart. He understood the true meaning of Aikido.

This is inspired by a Real Story from Sensei Terry Dobson.

#Musk #ubermensch #InsiderPerspective#Liberated from FB #PhilipLow #nazisalute

Source: Philip Low on FB

I have known Elon Musk at a deep level for 14 years, well before he was a household name. We used to text frequently. He would come to my birthday party and invite me to his parties. He would tell me everything about his women problems. As sons of highly accomplished men who married venuses, were violent and lost their fortunes, and who were bullied in high school, we had a number of things in common most people cannot relate to. We would hang out together late in Los Angeles. He would visit my San Diego lab. He invested in my company.
Elon is not a Nazi, per se.
He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it.
Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else.
Elon believes he is above everyone else. He used to think he worked on the most important problems. When I met him, he did not presume to be a technical person — he would be the first to say that he lacked the expertise to understand certain data. That happened later. Now, he acts as if he has all the solutions.
All his talk about getting to Mars to “maintain the light of consciousness” or about “free speech absolutism” is actually BS Elon knowingly feeds people to manipulate them. Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power. That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control. That is also why he gave himself $56 Billion which could have gone to the people actually doing the work and innovations he is taking credit for at Tesla (the reason he does not do patents is because he would not be listed as an inventor as putting a fake inventor on a patent would kill it and moreover it would reveal the superstars behind the work). His lust for power is also why he did xAI and Neuralink, to attempt to compete with OpenAI and NeuroVigil, respectively, despite being affiliated with them. Unlike Tesla and Twitter, he was unable to conquer those companies and tried to create rivals. I fired him with cause in December 2021 when he tried to undermine NV.
Elon did two Nazi salutes.
He did them for five main reasons:
1. He was concerned that the “Nazi wing” of the MAGA movement, under the influence of Steve Bannon, would drive him away from Trump, somewhere in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, rather than in the West Wing which is where he wants to be. He was already feeling raw over the fact that Trump did not follow his recommendation for Treasury Secretary and that the Senate also did not pick his first choice;
2. He was upset that he had had to go to Israel and Auschwitz to make up for agreeing with a Nazi sympathizer online and wanted to reclaim his “power” just like when he told advertisers to “go fuck yourself”. This has nothing to do with Asperger’s;
3. There are some Jews he actually hates: Sam Altman is amongst them;
4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;
5. His narcissistic self was hoping the audience would reflect his abject gesture back to him, thereby showing complete control and dominion over it, and increasing his leverage over Trump. That did not happen.
Bottom line: Elon is not a Nazi but he did give two Nazi Salutes, which is completely unacceptable.
——————————————————————————-
N.B. For the few whining about my post “sans connaissance the cause” and either trembling about my having shattered their illusions about their cult leader or thinking I am defending Elon:
I. My point is that he is transactional rather than ideological;
II. That being said, I am not defending him or his actions, just explaining them and confirming that he did, in fact, do two Nazi Salutes if anyone had doubts or believed the doctored footage of Taylor Swift doing the same thing to normalize what Elon did;
III. At some point, it matters to few people if one is a Nazi or if one acts like one. My father was a Holocaust Survivor. 32 out of 35 of his family members were murdered by Nazis. My mother’s grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz;
IV. After Elon tried to manipulate NV’s stock in 2021, I fired him with cause, and he was unable to exercise his stock options. In the aftermath of the Nazi Salutes, I told both him and his wealth manager to fuck off. Any remaining friendship between us ended with the Nazi Salutes. He is blocked on my end and I am pretty sure I am blocked on his;
V. I did not share what he told me in confidence. I just happen to know him extremely well, the person, the aspirations and the Musk Mask;
VI. I know who I am, have no desire to be famous and give exceedingly few media interviews. I prefer to work in obscurity and let the work speak for itself. I am certainly not envious and would definitely not want Elon’s life, including living in a bubble and having to make one outlandish claim after another and manipulate the public, elections and governments to shore up my stock and prevent the bubble from bursting. Unlike Elon, I am an actual scientist and inventor and I am not pretending to be someone I am not, like a fellow who got his BA in Econ at 26 all of a sudden pretending to be an expert in mechanical engineering, chemistry, rocket science, neuroscience and AI and keeping the people actually doing the work hidden and paying people to play online games in his name to appear smart and feed his so-called “Supergenius” Personality Cult — the “Imperator” has no clothes, and he knows it. I am just very disappointed in what happened to someone I had a lot of deep admiration for and the first person to find out about my concerns about his behavior was always him;
VII. He is the one who betrayed a number of his friends, including Sergey, and, given his actions, many other people who believed him and believed in him. I have no sympathy for this behavior, and at some point, after having repeatedly confronted it in private, I believe the ethical thing to do is to speak out, forcefully and unapologetically, whatever the risks may be, so as to not be part of the timid flock remaining silent while evil is being done, including propping up far right governments around the world in part to deregulate his companies and become the first trillionaire and otherwise to “rule the planet” — he knows Mars won’t be terraformed in his lifetime and he really wants his planet. No joke… Ethics matter. People matter. The truth matters.
I took down Descartes (through the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness) and I am definitely not afraid of a so-called inventor whose greatest invention is his image.
I will not be silent. You should not be either. I am a sovereign individual, and so are you. I stood up to bullies, and am stepping out of the dark to do it again.
Stop working for him and being exploited by him. Sell your Tesla and dump your Tesla stock. Nikola Tesla was a great, creative and courageous man who led with ethics and by example and he would not have wanted for his good name to have been used by him and would agree with my principled stance. Sign off of “X” which is boosting far right propaganda, and of your Starlink as well. He is a complete cunt who doesn’t give a shit about you — only about power. Just ask Reid Hoffman. He only wants to control, dominate and use you — don’t let him and cut him and his businesses out of your and your loved ones’ lives entirely. Remember he is a total miserable self-loathing poser, and unless you are too, he will be much more afraid of you than you should ever be of him.
He will probably come after me, and I am completely fine with that. I am a self-made multibillionaire with an armada of lawyers — literally — and most importantly, I know who I am and who I stand for, the people and their freedoms, whatever happens. He can send his dumb Proud Boys and Oath Keepers after me and they will be butchered on sight. Either way, I would rather die with honor than live as a coward.
“Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate