Think of what Elon Musk has done to this country that has given so freely to him.
Much like Donald Trump, Elon is a man who was born on third base.
The scion of Apartheid-era emerald mines in South Africa (correction: mine itself was located in Zambia), just as Trump was the grandson of a coward who fled Germany to start brothels in the Pacific Northwest.
Donald’s daddy built homes with low interest FHA loans - ostensibly to create affordable housing for returning G.I’s and Navy personnel - but used it as a front to launder money for NYC-area mob families and to act out his own racially discriminatory instincts.
Much like Trump, Musk trolls Democratic politicians, and allows racists, Neo-Nazis and Putin mouthpieces free rein on Twitter.
Both men tend to amplify the worst instincts of the human character because it reminds them of themselves, and works as a balm on their intrinsic character defects.
Elon kissed Trump’s ass recently in a failed attempt to get Donald to resume his tweeting.
After being suspended by previous ownership for using the platform to get his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol in a failed coup d’etat.
Musk began his ‘blue check’ madness the same day his SpaceX rocket blew up.
Covering Boca Chica, Texas, and the delicate wetlands surrounding the launch site in a plume of toxic dust and debris, SpaceX is a vanity project that is underwritten by the federal government - in spite of the dubious nature of Musk’s actions in regard to environmental safety.
SpaceX has been woefully inadequate in providing environmental impact statements to federal agencies and seems to get away with this perpetual delinquency and general malfeasance.
There’s big money to be made at SpaceX for ex-NASA engineers and space exploration is somewhat vital - but is Musk the man to be in charge of it?
Is there a single thing in his character or track record of broken promises, abysmal product-safety and outright incompetence at Twitter that signals this is a healthy partnership for the federal government?
After trolling the ‘progressive elites’ on Friday by taking away their ‘blue checks’ he returned them the following day, adding a false disclaimer that they had paid for the verification by subscribing to ‘Twitter Blue’.
In each case of the large accounts (one million + followers) that has responded to Musk’s actions, this is patently false - and most probably outright fraud and misrepresentation.
Legacy accounts were labeled accordingly before Musks ‘blue check’ stunt and no longer will be.
It’s also quite glaring that he did this all on Earth Day but failed to reinstate the verification marks for leading climate scientists and environmental advocates.
Most notably Greta Thunberg who has almost six million Twitter followers.
I hope the Tesla board convenes next week and takes Musk’s actions and his ‘blue check’ stunts and deceptions seriously.
He deserves a vote of ‘no confidence’ and investors deserve someone more functional than a narcissistic, half-wit at the helm of their company.
Elon may also be opening himself up to a class-action lawsuit, as false representation of a notable person or celebrity for marketing purposes is in possible violation of the Lanham Act.
Musk was messing with LeBron James, Stephen King, Mark Hamill and Bette Midler to name a few.
These are not folks without resources or access to a lawyer: if I was an investor in one of his companies I would be more than a little nervous right now.
Of course, the over-arching objective in buying Twitter with funding from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (not generally the silent partner most do-gooders seek out) has already been accomplished.
Musk wanted to break up the social media platform that was a very effective tool for spreading news and information on the left - in a time of deep political tumult for authoritarian and neofascist movements worldwide.
The most obvious of these goals was to stop the news coming out of Ukraine - concerning the war crimes of Russian troops at the behest of Putin and his illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.
Musk parroted the GOP and FOX News talking points that were decidedly pro-Putin and turned what was once a steady stream of news covering the atrocities being committed by Russia into barely a trickle.
The crimes didn’t stop, just the access to coverage.
Musk also removed labels this week from Russian propaganda accounts like RT News that had been labelled ‘government-funded media’.
Of course, before he did this, he applied that label to American progressive media outlets like NPR and PBS where there had been none before.
Besides the fact that Musk’s label wasn’t true for the U.S. media organizations, it had the added effect of chasing them off of Twitter and reinforcing a talking point used by MAGA & the GOP - to denigrate any media that deals in facts as ‘fake news’.
A term that of course was coined in the Trump era and propagated by his Goebbels-inspired communication team - like Meth Gator ‘alternative facts’ Conway, ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Spicy Spicer and the burly lady who now does the fascist governor thang down in Arkansas.
My point in all this is: we live in dangerous times and the U.S. barely survived a first round of a Trump presidency.
Our democracy will not survive another by him or one his imitators (though thankfully Ron DeSantis seemed to be sufficiently neutered this week in his presidential aspirations).
We have to continue to focus on facts, and progress, and the steady accomplishments that Biden Administration is achieving, and find ways to bolster and boost the communication channels we have left.
Young folks are galvanized and ready to vote - and there’s a fresh influx of engaged and brilliant (and fearless) leadership in the younger generation - as we witnessed recently in Tennessee.
The issues we face may be daunting but progress is made in the moments, not the miles.
Let’s stay present and engaged and do all we can to make a difference -despite the chaos agents and grifters and all their noise.
Love always wins.
One positive, at this rate, smart & informed people will have abandoned Twitter, come November 2024...if it won't have imploded completely by then.
There's fast-growing options to Twitter...
Rocket Man-child put his best effort toward emulating the Orange One. It’s too bad he’s so good at it.