Share prices of electric car manufacturer Tesla slid yet again during trading on Monday, and owner Elon Musk took to his X platform to complain about the mistreatment he believes he's received.
"My companies make great products that people love and I’ve never physically hurt anyone," Musk wrote. "So why the hate and violence against me?"
The Tesla CEO then answered his own rhetorical question.
Tesla
car dealerships have become the sites of protests and boycotts all
across the country ever since Musk's Department of Government Efficiency
began taking an ax to the federal workforce and laying off workers at
important agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration.
As
a result of this, the value of Tesla shares has fallen by more than 40
percent since the start of the year, which has erased more than $100
billion of Musk's net worth.
During
trading on Monday, Tesla shares sank by more than 5 percent as protests
against Tesla dealerships continued to grow over the last week.
Does he really think Bozo Donnie is going to help him sell Teslas?
William, a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran, has come
to Ukraine to join the Ukrainian military in its fight against Russian
aggression just days after his contract with the U.S. military ended in
March.
The artilleryman’s original plan was to come here in summer, but as the new U.S. President Donald Trump made a dramatic U-turn in Ukraine policy, the need to travel to the war-torn country felt more urgent.
“It's frustrating to sit around doing nothing when you know you can
do something right,” William told the Kyiv Independent a day before
leaving for Ukraine.
William says he has felt drawn to Ukraine ever since the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution
in Kyiv. As a high school student in Tennessee, he was moved by the
Ukrainian uprising against a pro-Russian, anti-Western regime.
He is among the many Americans who have decided to join the Ukrainian army during the full-scale invasion, especially after the heated exchange between Trump, his Vice President JD Vance and President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Oval Office
on Feb. 28. In the following week, the U.S. abruptly suspended its
military aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine – before resuming it
this week. However, the U.S.’ increasing alignment with Russia continues
to cast doubt on the future of its support for Ukraine.
One of the most elite Ukrainian units accepting foreign volunteers
received “a massive spike” of applications, according to an
international serviceman involved in recruiting. The source, who spoke
anonymously due to his unit’s regulations, said that a few thousand
applications came in after the Oval Office meeting, with “a significant
amount of guys expressing outrage and shock over what has been happening
with the shift in American policy.”
Another recruit, Ron, who was previously deployed in Afghanistan
with the U.S. Army, said he contacted the Ukrainian military as soon as
Trump took office and the U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing
bans were set forth. Feeling “embarrassed by my country,” the American
exit in supporting Ukraine “sealed it for me” to come fight in Ukraine,
the 35-year-old Colorado native explained.
“I'm a patriot. I love my country. But the people who are in charge
of it right now are destroying it, just destroying what it should stand
for,” Ron told the Kyiv Independent a month before his departure for
Ukraine.
“It's an absolute shame to me. I just can't sit by and watch it
happen anymore, especially when the people of Ukraine are so freaking
brave, and they're doing such great work with the limited equipment we
have given them.”
While Ron said he was “shocked” that Trump was reelected as the
president, he, like some other American recruits, also cautiously hoped
that “maybe he would actually do the right thing on Ukraine.”
“But that first month of him in the office just completely shattered any illusion of that for me,” Ron said.
“He’s just selfish and only wants quick fixes,” Ron added, referring
to the U.S. trying to pressure Ukraine into a rushed peace deal to end
the war at any cost. Trump has pledged to end the war quickly,
resuming the long-frozen diplomacy with Russia and priding himself on
having a “very close relationship” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s America-first policy has also left European nations on alert. Media reports have suggested
that he is considering a dramatic shift in the U.S.’s involvement in
NATO, refusing to defend another member state as part of Article 5 if it
doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold.
Worried that the U.S. could eventually completely abandon Europe, Ron
said he decided that he needs to do his part to avoid what he believes
could be “a general war in Europe with Russia” in the near future.
A former U.S. Army Cavalry Scout, who goes by his callsign
Juggernaut, also said he “felt sick to the stomach” after seeing the
U.S. decreasing its support for Ukraine despite Russia’s horrific war
crimes against civilians across the country.
He finished his seven-year contract with the U.S. Army a week after
Trump’s inauguration. He came over to Ukraine in February and is
currently awaiting training with a Ukrainian unit.
Although he voted for Trump in 2024, the 28-year-old Hawaii resident
said he felt “really disappointed” in his leadership even though he
understands the America-first policy.
“We only have so long on this earth, and worrying about ourselves
isn’t going to bring us any gratification at the end of our lives,”
Juggernaut told the Kyiv Independent from eastern Ukraine.
He said that his fear of coming here and “dying for no reason” faded
when he arrived in Ukraine and saw first-hand what the country and its
people were going through.
“I kind of stopped thinking like that because I'm a spiritual person,
and it made me sick to my stomach, the idea of Russians taking over
this country and these people here suffering even more than they already
have,” Juggernaut said.
A 40-year-old father and lawyer from Texas, who introduced himself as
Esquire, is another recruit waiting in Kyiv to join the Ukrainian
military. While he has no prior army experience, he said he made the
decision to enlist because he did not want to live for the rest of his
days knowing he was “a coward.”
Esquire wonders if his two kids and his wife, who begged him not to
go, would ever forgive him for making what everyone back home believed
would be “a meaningful sacrifice,” but he stressed that he could not
just watch the world turn upside down.
“I feel betrayed, sickened, and like my country is no longer what I
thought it was,” Esquire told the Kyiv Independent at a cafe in Kyiv.
“I mourn my country like I mourn a dead friend.”
Trump is turning true Americans to Ukraine to express their patriotism and love of freedom.
If Musk is so great, why won't he come out of the closet and testify to congress?
(Gazette
Blog editor's note: This is the latest in a Gazette Blog series
featuring Democrats who are finally displaying the courage to call out
co-presidents Musk and Trump for their blatantly unconstitutional
efforts to screw retirees and the working class.)
U.S.
Rep. John Larson, who has spent much of his time in Congress pushing to
strengthen Social Security, is sounding an alarm about what he sees as
attempts from President Donald Trump's administration to dismantle the
program.
In an interview Wednesday, shortly after
delivering a fiery speech during a committee meeting that went
semi-viral on social media, Larson accused Trump-ally Elon Musk of
trying to undermine Social Security with the hopes of eventually
privatizing it.
"He
looks at that in terms of numbers and not the people that it impacts,"
said Larson, who represents Connecticut's 1st congressional district and
serves as the top Democrat on the U.S. House's Social Security
subcommittee. "It's the No. 1 anti-poverty program for the elderly, and
it's the No. 1 anti-poverty program for children."
In
recent weeks, Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has
moved to cut thousands of jobs in the Social Security Administration and
eliminate field offices nationwide.
On Wednesday the Washington Post reported that the Social Security Administration, under pressure from DOGE, was
considering cutting phone services through which millions of Americans
access their benefits.
Meanwhile, Musk has repeatedly
claimed without evidence that officials had found hundreds of million
dollars of fraud in the Social Security system and described the program
as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" — statements Democrats fear
are a pretense for sharp cuts to the program.
Trump has echoed Musk's unfounded statements about fraud, while also promising to "protect "the program.
Bette
Marafino, president of the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans,
said Wednesday she is "horrified" by the Trump administration's rhetoric
around Social Security, including baseless claims about long-dead
people collecting benefits.
Marafino,
86, recalled her grandmother telling of visits to decrepit poorhouses,
where poor Americans, many of them elderly, used to live in the days
before Social Security and other safety net programs.
Larson and other House Democrats have sought to compel the Trump administration to turn over documents related to what they call
a "hostile takeover of social security." At a meeting Thursday of the
House Ways and Means Committee, Larson delivered a loud, passionate
speech slamming Musk for declining to appear in front of the committee.
"I'm
sure he's a genius and is a very credible person because of the wealth
he's accumulated, but that does not put him above the law or the
responsibility to come before this committee and this congress," Larson
bellowed. "If he's so great, if these plans and all the fraud and abuse
he's found are so eminent, why isn't he here explaining it?"
Larson then answered his own question: "Because he's out to privatize Social Security," he said.
A
clip from Larson's speech posted Wednesday from the congressman's
official X account had more than 100,000 views and 2,000 re-posts as of 5
p.m., and similar clips on X and other platforms had large amounts of
engagement as well.
"A top Democratic congressman goes off
during a DOGE hearing and calls out Elon for trying to cut Social
Security," one political commentator posted on Bluesky, with a clip of Larson's remarks. "More of this please."
That post also had more than 2,000 re-posts as of Wednesday evening, along with dozens of replies praising Larson.
Earlier
this week, Democratic senators, including Connecticut's Richard
Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, wrote to the Social Security
Administration's acting commissioner with concerns about cuts to the
agency's workforce.
"As one of the nation’s most popular and
effective programs, Social Security provides a foundation of income on
which workers can build for their retirement, as well as valuable
insurance protection against unexpected hardship," the senators wrote.
"By slashing staff and eliminating field offices, fewer Americans will
be able to seek assistance during pivotal life events and risk causing
further hardship to those in dire circumstances."
This is the clown who is willing to destroy America to benefit his billionaire buddies.
By Morgan Stephens Daily Kos Staff Stocks for the electric vehicle company Tesla just wrapped its worst month since 2022, and it’s all because of its certifiably insane CEO, Elon Musk.
In February, Tesla shares plummeted 28%, signaling their worst
month since a 37% drop in December 2022. The stock fell by an additional
3% on Monday alone.
And after Trump announced he would enact his disastrous tariff policy, it could bottleneck Tesla’s manufacturing, fracturing it even more.
“We note that potential tariffs on Mexico and Canada pose
significant risk to our [North American] production estimates and could
create a supply shock similar to COVID,” Bank of America analyst John
Murphy said to CNBC on Tuesday. He also highlighted that “sentiment on the brand [is] potentially souring.”
This comes after the six weeks of Musk meddling in the federal
government via his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which
is gutting federal agencies, firing thousands of federal employees, and generally wreaking havoc on Americans.
In addition to Musk poisoning his brand’s supposed coolness, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the company’s sales in China have slowed by a staggering 49% in February compared with the previous year at that time.
“I don’t even want to drive it,” one Tesla owner told the Associated Press. “He’s destroying the brand with his politics.”
Tesla bumper sticker reads, “We bought this car before we knew,” in Yucca Valley, California.
Tesla sales are dropping all across Europe. As Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas reported in January, the decline in Tesla sales has largely tracked with Musk’s entrance into politics last year.
Americans are angry over Musk’s hand in the government and have taken to protesting nationwide at Tesla dealerships or allegedly setting Tesla charging stations on fire. And those who were thinking about purchasing Teslas have gone on a “buyers strike,” while many of those who have already bought them are communicating their buyer's remorse with bumper stickers, such as one reading, “We bought this car before we knew.”
Meanwhile, Musk is seemingly enriching himself through the government. Earlier this month, he reportedly hid the State Department’s plan to pay out $400 million to Tesla for armored vehicles—a contract the administration says it’s abandoning after it came to light.
Americans are pissed at Musk’s corruption, and they are telling him in the only way he understands: money.
All the king's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Tesla Motors together again. But wait, is he also El Presidente now?
President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk are not even trying to hide their blatant corruption anymore.
The New York Times reported
on Tuesday that Musk’s team recently told Trump's advisers that he
wants to inject $100 million into super PACs controlled by Trump's
political team. Such a large donation would give the president a massive
amount of resources to play with in the 2026 midterm elections.
From The New York Times report:
Associates of both Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have talked in
recent days about Mr. Musk’s planned donation to a Trump-controlled
entity. Mr. Musk has signaled he wants to make the donations not to his
own super PAC, which is called America PAC and has spent heavily on Mr.
Trump in the past, but to an outside entity affiliated with the
president.
The groups that are leading Mr. Trump’s outside activities
include Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC, and Securing
American Greatness, a political nonprofit. It is not clear if the money
would go to those groups or to a new entity the Trump team could create.
The Times’ report arrived on the same day as Trump held an infomercial for Musk's flailing Tesla car company in the White House driveway, in which Trump used a sheet of talking points
to praise its vehicles and say he would go after people who protest in
front of Tesla dealerships by labeling them domestic terrorists.
That event alone was corrupt enough.
President Donald
Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters near a Tesla vehicle on
the South Lawn of the White House on March 11, 2025.
But the fact that while Trump was doing Musk a solid by hawking
his cars, Musk was considering giving Trump a massive amount of money
to engage in the midterm elections is a level of corruption that’s hard
to fathom.
"Outright corruption," Democratic Rep. Nadia Velazquez of New York wrote about the news in a post on X.
“Even though it's out in the open, corruption is corruption,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said in a video post on X.
But don’t expect the Department of Justice to investigate the donation if it hits the pockets of Trump’s operation.
NBC News reported
on Tuesday that the DOJ is “gutting the Justice Department's unit that
oversees prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption.”
From NBC’s report:
The unit, the Public Integrity Section, has overseen some of
the country’s most high-profile and sensitive prosecutions. Now,
though, only a small fraction of its employees will remain, and the unit
will no longer directly handle investigations or prosecutions, two
sources said.
Prosecutors in the unit, which had housed dozens of employees,
are being told to take details to other positions within the department.
Its current cases will be reassigned to U.S. attorneys’ offices around
the country.
David Laufman, a former head of the DOJ’s counterintelligence,
told NBC News that the move raises, “serious questions about whether
future investigations and prosecutions will be motivated by improper
partisan considerations.”
That turned out to be a prescient comment from Laufman since a
Republican lawmaker on Tuesday used her power to demand the FBI and
Department of Justice go after people who are protesting at Tesla
dealerships.
"Attacks on Tesla must be investigated as domestic terrorism!" Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote
in a post on X. "Today, my @DOGECommittee colleagues and I sent a
letter to @AGPamBondi and @FBIDirectorKash asking for an investigation
into the wave of organized attacks targeting @elonmusk, @Tesla, and the
@DOGE effort. Who is behind it? Who is funding it? Is there a link with
Democrat-leaning NGOs? We look forward to exposing these terrorists and
bringing them to justice!"
To lay it all out: The richest man in the world, whose empire is built on billions of taxpayer subsidies, spent at least $260 million
to get Trump elected, and is now using Trump to advertise his car
company from the White House in exchange for potentially even more money to benefit Trump’s political ambitions.
There are no words for how sick and perverse this all is.
And
remember boys and girls: If you protest Elon's antics at a Tesla
dealership, Uncle Elon will cut your head off with this trusty chainsaw
he has never operated in his life.
P.S. It is not illegal to boycott Tesla if you are so inclined.
The Dynamic Duo plus Tesla speak to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House
.
Outraged voters are tanking Elon's "overpriced, unsafe, and increasingly unpopular electric cars"
By Emily Singer
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
at 4:45:15p MDT
REPUBLISHED BY:
Blue Country Gazette Blog
Rim Country Gazette Blog
Donald Trump tried to help his co-President Elon Musk stem the bleeding at his flailing car company on Tuesday by holding an infomercial in front of the White House and claiming he was buying one of Musk's overpriced, unsafe, and increasingly unpopular electric cars.
"It's a great product, as good as it gets," Trump said, holding a literal list of talking points about the cars
as Musk and one of Musk's many children stood alongside him. "This man
has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he's been
treated very unfairly by a very small group of people."
Trump, who said he's not going to use the car he buys because
he hasn't "driven a car in a long time," got into the vehicles and
proved that he's an out-of-touch 78-year-old geezer when he declared, "Everything's computer!"
“Law enforcement is out there watching everybody. We don’t want this to happen,” Trump said.
Trump’s boosting of his buddy’s struggling car company started
in the early hours of Tuesday with another infomercial on his Truth
Social platform in which he encouraged Republicans to buy Teslas to help Musk out.
"To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon
Musk is 'putting it on the line' in order to help our Nation, and he is
doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do,
are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the
World’s great automakers, and Elon’s 'baby,' in order to attack and do
harm to Elon, and everything he stands for," Trump wrote
at 12:14 AM ET.
"They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential
Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a
brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for
Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for
putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA
GREAT AGAIN???"
Musk's approval rating is in the toilet, with 53% of voters viewing him unfavorably, according to a Civiqs tracking poll. And his approval has a lot farther to fall.
In that same interview, Musk complained about the difficulties
his business empire is facing since he joined the Trump administration.
"How are you running your other businesses?" Trump stooge Larry Kudlow asked Musk.
"With great difficulty," replied a seemingly teary Musk. "I'm
just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and
fraud, and so far we're making good progress," he whined.
In an effort to comfort his friend, Trump said he is writing an
$80,000 check for a red Model S sedan, which he will leave at the White
House for staff members to drive. And this isn’t the president’s first
Tesla purchase.
Trump said he also purchased a Tesla Cybertruck, which starts at $80,000 but can go much higher, for his granddaughter Kai about a year ago. According to a list of talking points Trump held about the cars on display, the Cybertruck displayed at the White House cost a whopping $114,000.
Even Fox News reporters were aghast at Trump’s efforts to help Musk’s company, with trusty Trump sycophant Peter Doocy asking how Americans—who are watching their retirement portfolios crater as Trump policies help tank the stock market—will feel seeing Trump shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a new car that he won’t even drive.
“You're buying a new car. There are some folks who will see
this clip at home and they are struggling with their retirement accounts
down at the moment,” Doocy said to Trump.
The president’s reply was predictably dismissive and nonsensical.
“Well I think they're gonna go great,” Trump said. “Our country had to do this.”
You
might dress up like him for Halloween but would you make him even
richer by buying one of his overpriced Teslas? A better investment
might be stock in Ketamine.
"Take your damn billionaire
hands off our government"
Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance
11 March 25
More than 10,000 people turned out for a rally
with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), in Warren as part of his national
“Fighting Oligarchy” tour.
The audience filled the main event space – the gym at Lincoln High
School – and two overflow rooms, and still left hundreds more outside.
Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for governor in
2018 and is exploring a run for U.S. Senate in 2026, said the size of
the crowd is a sign of progressives’ resilience.
“They want us to step back, and today, all of you have said that we
are not stepping back, we are stepping forward,” El-Sayed said. “We are
recognizing that in one another, we have all we need to build that
government for the people and by the people.”
Sanders compared the current political moment to various movements
throughout history, including the American Revolution and the abolition
movement.
“The change that we have experienced over hundreds of years of our
nationhood only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression
and injustice and fight back,” Sanders said.
But he said that the current landscape is unlike anything the country
has experienced before because voters can no longer agree on a shared
set of facts, which he said hampers the country’s ability to debate
important issues.
“We’re up against a phenomenon that we have never seen, and that is
the Big Lie,” Sanders said. “The Big Lie is not just stretching the
truth; the Big Lie is not just fibbing. The Big Lie is creating a
parallel universe, a set of ideas that have no basis in reality.”
Sanders said the tour is focused on areas where Republicans narrowly
won seats in Congress. He called on U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby
Twp.), to hold an in-person town hall with constituents.
“He has the right to make his case, to speak, you have the right to ask him questions,” Sanders said.
Sanders started his speech warning that “we have an administration
that is leading us to oligarchy, an administration that is leading us to
an authoritarian form of society, an administration that is leading us
towards kleptocracy.”
He pointed to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO
Mark Zuckerberg being seated in the front row at Trump’s inauguration
as evidence.
“Instead of a government of the people, by the people and for the
people, we have now become a government of the billionaire class, for
the billionaire class,” Sanders said.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain spoke at the rally wearing a
shirt that read “eat the rich,” which he said he had not worn since the
Big Three automakers went on strike in 2023.
“Billionaires don’t have a right to exist,” Fain told the crowd.
El-Sayed said that the administration of President Donald Trump and
Vice President JD Vance “want to move fast and break things.”
“But what they’re breaking is the government that our hard earned tax
dollars have been funding,” El-Sayed said. “And we’re here to say that
that is our money, that is our government, take your damn billionaire
hands off of it.”
“We’re up against a phenomenon that we have never seen, and that is
the Big Lie,” Sanders said.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and billionaire Elon Musk
traded insults on social media after the Arizona Democrat noted his
recent visit to Ukraine and continued support for that country in its
war with Russia.
Musk, who is an adviser and
top financial backer of President Donald Trump, responded Monday to
Kelly’s posts on Musk’s X platform: “You are a traitor.”
Kelly fired back with an allusion to Trump’s signature political slogan.
“Traitor?
Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet
of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it
to those of us who do.”
The social media backbiting comes after Kelly
visited Ukraine for the third time in two years and adds to widening
tensions between Trump’s administration and U.S. allies, notably Poland,
which Kelly also visited.
Kelly said no one wants the war ended more than its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“But
it has to end in a way that protects their sovereignty and security,”
Kelly, D-Ariz., said in a statement after his return Sunday. “The safety
of Ukraine is tied to the safety of the United States, that’s why I
stand with Ukraine.”
Kelly’s solo visit included a meeting with
Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense and an inspection of defense
industry sites. But as much as anything, it stood as a symbolic reminder
of the significant split in Washington about the effort to end that war
and who provoked it in the first place.
In an
interview with The Arizona Republic, Kelly dismissed his barbs with Musk
and focused instead on what Musk is doing to all Americans.
“He has spent the last two months trying to slash
and burn the federal government in a way that’s not helpful to most
Americans,” Kelly said.
“But what he’s really
trying to do is get to the point where they can deliver this big, giant
tax cut for billionaires like himself and his buddies and Donald Trump.”
Kelly said the scene in Ukraine remains critical and part of Putin’s plans to restore the former Soviet Union.
Ukrainians are losing their limbs and their lives in a fight for their nation’s survival, he said.
Kelly said he met a man at a hospital for the wounded who had lost a hand, an arm and a leg in the war.
“These
are folks that for a large part are going to go back into the fight
because they know how important it is and they know how violent and
murderous the Russians are,” Kelly said. “For us, the United States to
give up on Ukraine, who is fighting a country who wants to see the
downfall of western civilization, it’s a travesty.”
Kelly added more comments on X Monday about the U.S.’ change in policy after saying he made the trip with his twin brother, Scott, who is, like Mark Kelly, also a former astronaut.
He called continuing attacks “war crimes carried out by Russia.”
“It’s
not ‘America First’ to pull the rug out from under an ally and leave
their people to die,” Kelly said. “This kind of foreign policy will end
with no one in the world trusting America.”
Musk, Kelly resume weeks-long battle of words
That
prompted the response from Musk, who is effectively overseeing Trump’s
advisory Department of Government Efficiency, which is leading the mass
layoffs across the federal government.
Apart from the sniping at Kelly, Musk has fueled widening aggravation with Poland.
On
Sunday, Musk, who is the world’s richest man, posted that his mobile
satellite service Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” and
that “their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”
Poland’s
foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, responded to Musk’s statement by
saying his country — not Musk — is paying for the service via Musk’s
SpaceX company.
“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid
for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50
million per year,” Sikorski wrote, according to the BBC. “The ethics of
threatening the victim of aggression apart, if (Musk’s) SpaceX proves to
be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other
suppliers.”
That prompted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to denounce his Polish counterpart.
Sikorski was “just making things up ... no one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink.”
“And
say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war
long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”
Musk added an insult to the dispute.
“Be
quiet, small man,” he said in reference to the Polish foreign minister.
“You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for
Starlink.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded with a vague post on X, presumably pointed at Musk and the U.S. government.
“True
leadership means respect for partners and allies,” he said. “Even for
the smaller and weaker ones. Never arrogance. Dear friends, think about
it.”
Monday’s mean tweets resume a battle
between Kelly and Musk that started in late February, when Musk and
Trump claimed that former President Joe Biden “abandoned” two U.S.
astronauts in space.
Andreas Mogensen, a Danish astronaut, called Musk’s assertion “a lie.”
Musk responded by saying the astronaut was “fully retarded. SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago.”
Scott Kelly defended Mogensen on social media.
“I
was the Commander of the (International Space Station) when Andy flew
his first space mission. He is one of the most competent, trustworthy,
and honest people I’ve ever met,” Scott Kelly wrote. “This rhetoric is
beyond the pale but, sadly, not surprising. He does not deserve this
kind of disrespect.”
Musk said he did deserve it.
“He
is an idiot who publicly attacked me, despite having no idea what
ACTUALLY happened,” Musk wrote. “(By the way), your brother claims to be
independent, but is just a Dem donor shill.”
Mark Kelly then jabbed at Musk’s lack of personal experience in space.
“Hey (Elon Musk), when you finally get the nerve to climb into a rocket ship, come talk to the three of us,” he wrote.
Tensions in U.S. escalate over Ukraine-Russia War
Trump
and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelenskyy in a Feb. 28 Oval Office
meeting that ended with the Ukrainian president leaving the White House
without finalizing an expected deal tying U.S. aid to access to scarce
minerals in that country.
Since then, Trump has
threatened more sanctions on Russia, paused U.S. aid and at least some
intelligence to Ukraine, praised President Vladimir Putin and avoided
acknowledging Russia expanded its 2014 invasion of that country with a
wider attack in 2022.
During his address to Congress last week, Trump
announced Zelenskyy had reached out to him again seeking peace, and said
Putin has sent “strong signals that they are ready for peace.”
Zelenskyy
has rebuffed a peace agreement that doesn’t include security guarantees
from the West and the Trump administration has drawn Democrats'
condemnation as essentially following terms favored by Putin.
Kelly,
who is a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Select Intelligence
committees, met with the International Red Cross and the U.S. embassy
about conditions in war-torn Ukraine.
“I
visited Ukraine to show my support for the Ukrainian people. As always,
I’m blown away by their resolve as they fight for their country in the
face of Putin’s illegal invasion,” Kelly said.
“I
plan to bring what I’ve learned from Ukrainian leaders, service
members, and the Ukrainian people back to Washington to share the direct
impact our support has on the ground.”
In a
clear split with the Trump administration, Kelly said he “emphasized
that he’s working with colleagues to reinstate support” to Ukraine.
Kelly has visited Ukraine twice during the war
Kelly
has long taken a skeptical view of Putin and supported U.S. aid to
Ukraine, which has included training that nation’s pilots in Arizona on
using F-16 fighter jets.
Kelly said Monday he
is “impressed” at the rapid improvement seen in flying F-16s in Ukraine.
He acknowledged the country initially had problems, especially with
maintenance of the jets.
In a September visit, Kelly talked to Ukrainian officials about their counteroffensive actions in the war.
In April, Kelly and other U.S. senators met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv to encourage continued support for their efforts.
Kelly was among the members of Congress who met with Zelenskyy just before his ill-fated meeting with Trump last month.
“Make
no mistake — and I hope the American people get this — that this makes
us look weak,” Kelly said in an appearance on MSNBC afterward.
Astronaut
and fighter pilot Mark Kelly is congratulated by Sen. Joe Biden upon
his retirement. Kelly is currently serving in the U.S. Senate.
Who would've thought a US president and the world's richest man could join forces in such an act of rank (make that putrid) stupidity. Next thing you know, Trump and Musk will be complaining that mice are competing in girls' sports.
Remember the good old days when Mickey was all boy and Minnie was all girl? Those were the days.
MSNBC’s
Rachel Maddow blasted President Donald Trump and Elon Musk as
“numbskulls” while fact-checking a claim the federal government was
using tax dollars to make mice transgender.
Trump
claimed during his Tuesday speech before both houses of Congress that
government waste had gotten so out of control that money had been spent
to assist mice with gender reassignment procedures.
The president thanked Musk for finding the apparent waste – which he said equaled around $8 million.
Numerous fact checks of the claim found the federal government had spent millions on transgenic mice. Snopes noted:
Transgenic
mice are genetically modified rodents used in biomedical research and
have been lauded as a “revolutionary research resource,” according to
the National Institutes of Health. Put simply, geneticists modify lab
mice to better reflect how human tissue reacts, making them invaluable
in biomedical research.
Mice
that have had DNA from another source put into their DNA. The foreign
DNA is put into the nucleus of a fertilized mouse egg. The new DNA
becomes part of every cell and tissue of the mouse. These mice are used
in the laboratory to study diseases.
Maddow
blasted Trump and his associates on her show Friday by making note that
transgenic and not transgender mice have been used for years to study
human diseases.
One
of the things he said in his speech was that one of the terrible
liberal things that his top campaign donor had discovered was happening
in government was research to make mice transgender. And he said that in
his speech, and all the Republicans gasped and laughed and jeered
because that was so true.
Actually, it’s transgenic mice. And transgenic
mice are used in all kinds of laboratory research because mice are
transgenic when they have been genetically altered.
So you can
study human illnesses and conditions in them even though they’re mice.
It is transgenic mice, you numbskulls! But sure, go ahead and shut down
all the labs studying all the diseases because what are you, five (years old)?
How
I yearn for the good old days when Minnie and Mickey ruled supreme over
the Mouseverse. Now the government is turning them all into trans mice
- and using our tax dollars to do it. At least that's what the two
Bozos running (make that ruining) the country would have us believe. They need to go out behind the White House and blow up some rockets.
Just $25, and best of all, $17 from the sale of each plate will fund spay and neuter services for dogs and cats across Arizona. Click ad to order now at www.azpetplates.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TO ADVERTISE ON OUR BLOG
The above are paid ads. To place yours for just $25/month, call Jim Keyworth at (928) 517-1103 or e-mail peoplesgazette@gmail.com. Banner ads are also available across the bottom and top of the blog.
(The Rim Country Gazette Blog is currently averaging over 5,000 visits per month. Our readership survey shows Gazette readers are better educated and more affluent than the average newspaper reader. Gazette Blog ads reach the people most likely to vote and to use your services and products.)
The Tesla Boys on a road trip to rape and pillage America. 
