Like most CEOs, Musk’s job isn’t really to do things. His job is to weedle tax incentives, private investment, and low interest loans out of his network of rich friends.
He’s been incredibly successful at it. And that’s what makes Tesla valuable as a brand. The US government will pay you a cool $7500 to buy a brand new $80k cybertruck. Meanwhile, Chinese EVs are taxed at 100% of their sticker price.
Musk is abso-fucking-lutely NOT responsible for the tax incentives, private investment or low interest loans that Tesla got
He has wormed his way into a number of national economic advisory boards under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. His close relationship with Peter Thiel and Catherine Duddy Wood has afforded him a number of opportunities to access investor cash at below-market rates. And he’s spent a fortune on lobbyists at both the state and federal level to influence public tax incentives, grants, loans, and bailouts.
he’s only been good as an eccentric personality
The reason he’s in the public eye is thanks to his extensive investment in PR and advertising. He’s one of the original Silicon Valley moneyballers, having determined that a small kickback to the tech media can reap enormous windfalls of retail investment cash and publicly approved state spending.
The father of a Baraboo High School graduate blocked his daughter from shaking the hand of the Black superintendent as she graduated, video of the incident shows....
The youth vote isn’t a specific set of people. Its a continuous cohort of new voters entering the pool. And the parties are deeply wedded to the youth vote, in so far as they need to get their hooks in early in order to guarantee consistent turnout in later generations. Big investments in social media by partisan groups - from TPUSA to Joe Rogan sponsors - are predicated on winning over young people to right wing ideology. And Republicans consistently have some of the youngest elected party members because they aggressively recruit young people into leadership
What can’t be counted on is the liberal party to engage with younger voting cohorts. You don’t see Democrats engaging with youth activist movements. You don’t see Democrats courting the college vote. You don’t see Democrats attempting to seat ideological 20-year-olds in city councils or state legislatures and build up the back bench. You don’t see the national party investing in professional party workers under the age of 30. Liberalism is the party of stoggie old dinosaurs telling their grandkids to shut up and vote for them, then getting mad when they only win 60-70% of the youth vote and still lose.
When liberal democrats burn out in their 30s and 40s, because they’ve been lied to and betrayed over and over again, all we get from the liberal party is “The other guys are worse, though!” As though that shit was ever a winning strategy.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying “voting doesn’t work so I’m not going to do anything”
Studying the history of the electoral system and the patterns of disenfranchisement isn’t equivalent to “doing nothing”. And in the end, you have to be rational rather than idealistic. When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you’re not going to vote him out of office.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest.
So do American college kids.
French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets.
French politicians have been squeezing the pension system since at least 2006, and the street protests have come and gone without discouraging new efforts to dismantle the system.
Bully to them for trying, but without material control over industry, they’re all sound and fury.
Its funny, because Tucker Carlson did that interview with Putin a few months back. And Putin was absolutely excruciating in his “Here’s all the reasons why we had a geopolitical interest in taking eastern Ukraine”. Even for the FOX News heads this wasn’t a fucking secret.
Tuberville won’t even swallow the Russian state media line. He’s going full-on denialist. In another few years, I wonder if he’ll even acknowledge the war happened.
The warning from the U.S. and its four closest intellignce partners follows several arrests of U.S. service members for allegedly trying to pass info to China....
There’s this theory floating around that Chinese people are inherently inferior to their western peers, and the only thing they can do to keep up is to cheat.
I’m not sure how hiring experienced professionals to train new recruits constitutes “cheating”. I never heard it phrased that way during Operation Paperclip or later on during the Cold War espionage campaigns. But apparently it is now cheating to pay professional flight trainers money to train people in a different country. So 🤷
It sounds like Hamad has been instrumental in back channeling communications with the Israeli government. Also looks like he wasn’t in Gaza during the Al Aqsa Flood. Is he ignoring his neighbors’ suffering by reestablishing dialogue with his Israeli colleague and trying to end the hostilities? Or was he supposed to fling himself onto the bayonets at the Israel-Lebanon border after Gaza was sealed off by the Israelis?
I don’t give a rats’ ass about Israel’s lies and deception
You’re citing an article from the NYPost, so you clearly don’t mind at least a little bit of their lies and deception. You’ve picked out a guy who appears to be some kind of underground media publisher, amateur medic, and glorified border guard as a party leader and a “monster”.
Is there anything you’re citing more monstrous than his hatred of Israel?
But make no mistake, just like there are hardcore religious evangelicals in the US there are emboldened religious warmongerers in Palestine
To my knowledge, hardcore religious evangelicals in the US aren’t traditionally kettled in an open air prison and subject to targeted assassinations on the whims of New Atheist military commanders. I’m willing to give a guy like David Koresh a bit of leeway in his hatred of the American government, if for no other reason than the FBI surrounded his house and killed a dozen of his friends. I have significantly less sympathy for your Jerry Falwell Jrs and your James Dobsons.
I’ve got a family friend who lost 23 members of her immediate family in the course of a weekend, when the Israeli government began its carpet bombing of Gaza City. If she went into a full blown Mein Kempf rant after that, I could hardly blame her. But to claim she’s somehow a warmonger for hating the people who obliterated half her family tree?
Did we hold Americans to that standard after 9/11?
Its all just part of the act. She’s running the same “They’ve gone Woke!” playbook on the GOP that the GOP aims at everyone else. She’s not any more self aware than any of the other members of her party. She just knows this is a thing you can say to get attention in a field of candidates all competing to be the Most Based Republican.
As soon as she’s in a position to do more than complain, there’s going to be a younger, blonder, tanner MGT complaining that she’s not hard core enough.
If a Congressional House Majority announces “Trump won liberals can go pound sand”, what exactly are the liberals going to do about it? Beg the Supreme Court to beg the House leadership to stop saying Trump won?
At some level, the political system is about people obeying other people. Democracy creates an aura of legitimacy to an individual assuming office, but dictatorship has its own means of asserting control. Should the House Majority have enough governors on board and a SCOTUS majority swears him in and the police/national guard are MAGA pilled already, who exactly stops Trump from waltzing into office, kicking up his shoes on the Resolute desk, and announcing “I’m President now”?
That’s assuming we’re in an uncontested election and House Reps tell the electoral college to piss off. If there’s any room for doubt as to who won the election, we’re right back at Bush v Gore, with a Republican court majority announcing the winner and the House simply rubber stamping the results.
EV sales slowdown is mostly a Tesla problem, according to sales data (arstechnica.com)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk could leave if $56 billion pay package not approved, shareholders warned (www.theverge.com)
Graduate's father arrested for blocking Black superintendent from shaking daughter's hand (www.rawstory.com)
The father of a Baraboo High School graduate blocked his daughter from shaking the hand of the Black superintendent as she graduated, video of the incident shows....
President Joe Biden says he will not pardon his son Hunter Biden if he's convicted on gun-related charges (www.nbcnews.com)
Joe Biden suddenly leads convicted felon Donald Trump in multiple battleground states (www.newsweek.com)
Metal Slug Tactics - New trailer | Coming Fall 2024 (www.youtube.com)
Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say (wapo.st)
A Kremlin-backed media outlet — the Prague-based Voice of Europe — funneled hundreds of thousands of euros to far-right politicians, officials say.
It just doesn't make any sense! (i.postimg.cc)
Tommy Tuberville Tries to Argue Putin Has No Interest in Ukraine (www.thedailybeast.com)
UN Secretary-General Urges Ban on Fossil Fuel Ads as Planet Warms (www.bloomberg.com)
China wants to recruit military pilots from the U.S. and its allies to strengthen Chinese air power, bulletin warns (www.nbcnews.com)
The warning from the U.S. and its four closest intellignce partners follows several arrests of U.S. service members for allegedly trying to pass info to China....
lemmy.ml (feddit.de)
‘Head Up Their Ass!’ Marjorie Taylor Greene Melts Down Over ‘Feckless, Useless Republican Party’ (www.mediaite.com)