Here in the USA! USA!!! our culture has long idealized and revered the greediest psychopaths among us. A guy like Jeff Bezos, insatiably greedy, politically supple, unprincipled, is hailed as a genius and self-made billionaire (a billion is one thousand million dollars) for his innovation of successfully monetizing American consumerism and laziness. Jeff Zuckerberg got tired of being scolded by Democrats for allowing MAGA lies to go unchallenged for years on his fantastically successful “social media” platforms and decided to throw in with the rest of his self-interested ilk. He, like Bezos, takes no side politically, outside of maximized profits. Both of these American icons sat with Elon Musk, right behind Trump, as Orange Retribution was sworn in as dictator on day one. It’s hard to pick a worst among these psychotically greedy, destructive shit birds, but white South African raised billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel deserve special scrutiny.
Thiel (worth a paltry $11,200,000,000,) amazingly also an “out” homosexual (I guess having enough billions is truly “fuck you, I’ll fuck YOU” money in MAGAland), groomed soul-dead opportunist JD Vance, putting $15,000,000 into his Senate campaign fund (in a race Vance won by 7 points) after employing him for a few years and making him independently wealthy. Vance stands for nothing but himself (watch his origin story, Hillbilly Elegy, on Netflix for a nice Hollywood snapshot) and will do whatever Thiel and his cronies tell him to do, because they share the same interests. Thiel insisted on Vance as the VP and overcame Trump’s reluctance to have JD as number two (Vance certainly smells like number two…) When it comes time for the billionaires to induce a fatal heart attack in MAGA’s hero, Mr. Trump, President JD will not miss a beat stepping up to do what he needs to do for his backers and himself.
Musk, with his unnatural, barely human laugh, told someone on a podcast that he was going to “fucking prison” if Trump was not elected president. His companies faced many legal sanctions for Musk’s flamboyant “fuck you” management style and his flouting of numerous federal laws, including every labor law on the books. Musk’s little joke had the ring of truth, he might well have eventually wound up in prison (if we had a justice system that operated, as Merrick Garland said, without fear or favoritism). The threat of prison for Musk’s criminal activities was nothing that a little $270,000,000 quid pro quo wager couldn’t fix, a little deal with the transactional fascist felon he threw his full support behind. Now, as head of a fictional government department, “DOGE”, he has the entire federal treasury database, and the personal financial information of hundreds of millions of us, under his greedy fingers. Heather Cox Richardson with a few pertinent points:
Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six “engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.” [Ages 19 to 24, see photo below — ed.] They are connected either to Musk or to his long-time associate Peter Thiel, who backed J.D. Vance’s Senate run eighteen months before he became Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran, and they have little to no experience in government. . .
. . . Today, Musk reposted a social media post from MAGA religious extremist General Mike Flynn, who resigned from his position as Trump’s national security advisor in 2017 after pleading guilty to secret conversations with a Russian agent—for which Trump pardoned him—and who publicly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. In today’s post, Flynn complained about “the ‘Lutheran’ faith” and, referring to federal grants provided to Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations, said, “this use of ‘religion’ as a money laundering operation must end.” Musk added: “The [DOGE] team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”
In fact, this is money appropriated by Congress, and its payment is required by law. Republican lawmakers have pushed government subsidies and grants toward religious organizations for years, and Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, where it operates senior living facilities.
Got to be careful with the wrong kind of Christians, eh, general? Lutheran family services, Godless cucks, no doubt. Why not let insane “Christians” like retired General Mike “Lock Her Up!” Flynn decide who is carrying out the Son of God’s wishes here on earth?
We are in the ultimate battle of a war with people who have been organizing, planning and spending billions for decades to promote their “project” — dismantling American democracy and appropriating everything in the ensuing hellscape. Their project is to return the country to the glory days of the Gilded Age, when Robber Barons were unrestrained by the petty “pain” of the 99% and before women and minorities could vote. Make America Great Again, you know?
Here’s scholar Timothy Snyder with excellent ideas for how to fight back to preserve, and strengthen, our besieged democracy, which is in the midst of a hostile takeover by unelected billionaire sociopaths.
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