Musk's Illegal Control of the US Government

[RatkoVarda]

I find it really hard to believe that the guy who said multiple times he wanted to f*** his own daughter, barged into the Miss Teen USA dressing room, ogled a 10 year old and said he would be dating her in 10 years, raped E Jean Carrol, and groped dozens of women, would be involved in child sex trafficking, even though he bought the sex trafficker's airplane that he rode on 7 times.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

 

Biden couldn't do it, he was dead!

[GalagaGuy]

Hilarious timing.

 

[Tigermojo]

No worries. Trump's security is top notch. Elon Musk has been removed from the Signal chat.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, GalagaGuy said:

Hilarious timing.

 

I'd have some serious 2nd thoughts about being on an outgoing crew.

[Tigerbomb13]

[guy incognito]

30 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

I find it really hard to believe that the guy who said multiple times he wanted to f*** his own daughter, barged into the Miss Teen USA dressing room, ogled a 10 year old and said he would be dating her in 10 years, raped E Jean Carrol, and groped dozens of women, would be involved in child sex trafficking, even though he bought the sex trafficker's airplane that he rode on 7 times.

When you’re a star they let you do it, I’ve been given to understand.

Well, “star”.

[CMRivdogs]

49 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Serious question. Assuming this feud is real and not Apprentice style reality theatre, what are the implications. Musk has had access to the keys of the government, supposedly knows where the bodies are buried, all sorts of security access and information. His "minions" are still there on their computers "working on DOGE projects. 
 

We've go the workings of a DEFCON 1 government crises led by a guy who has absolutely no clue how a government is supposed to operate. Most of the flunkeys he's put in charge of major departments are just as bad. And the next guy (Vance) in line beliefs are probably even worse, 

How the heck to we get out of this mess in one piece

In other words 

 

 

[ewsieg]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Do you suppose one of Elon's eager beavers managed to DL the whole thing to Elon in one of their forays into gov systems?

My best guess is we already know 99% of the Epstein stuff and there really isn't anything further being hidden that would hurt Trump or anyone else.  

1) If Biden had dirt on Trump, how could he not release it?

2) Look at Trumpers in power that would be responsible for Epstein files.  Patel, Bongino, Bondi, etc have come out and said there is nothing there.  These are folks that truly believed their was something being hidden, but once they get the files they try to 'dump' everything that was released already like it was a big deal and hoped that would satisfy the people they brainwashed.  

3) Elon is a drug addicted hot head, he would have tweeted the evidence today if he had it.

All that said, it is kind of fun to say 'Epstein did not kill himself'.  I wouldn't be shocked if I was wrong though.

[mtutiger]

On 5/30/2025 at 7:39 AM, mtutiger said:

I question how much Musk is stepping back, but to the extent that he's being forced out and that he's being pushed in front of the bus in the press, nobody should forget who brought him on to the do the damage that he did.

I'm going to go ahead and quote Harry Truman's desk: "The buck stops here!"

Which means the ultimate responsibility for allowing an unelected mentally deranged drug addict to run roughshod over government lies with Donald Trump. Musk deserves rage, of course, but let's not lose sight of this fact either.

Bumping this...

Ultimately, all of this should fall on Donald Trump for letting him into government. Full stop

[gehringer_2]

55 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

If Biden had dirt on Trump, how could he not release it?

the argument was always that there was enough in there that was radioactive to both sides that neither side would release it because they had too many people on their own side to protect. I have no idea and don't really care, all of them involved in that kind of thing can GTH together as far as I am concerned.

In any case I would certainly not dismiss the probability of Biden sitting on it for those reasons no matter how much he loathed Trump. But that's nothing more than a hypothetical scenario. I have no opinion on the probability either way.

The odd thing is, for all the his macho, locker room talk and the clear attraction he has to libertines like Epstein,  I still wonder how much of that is performative/aspirational and how much he is actually both too cowardly and too prudish to have ever been a real player. You have to admit, he does marry his girlfriends. Bill Clinton OTOH.....

Edited yesterday at 03:17 AM by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, ewsieg said:

Elon is out there claiming the Epstein files haven't been fully released due to Trump's involvement now.  I have stuff to do tonight, but I just want to get some popcorn and watch this.

Trump basically told us he was in the Epstein files by the way he pussyfooted around the questions when asked about releasing them.

 

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

I find it really hard to believe that the guy who said multiple times he wanted to f*** his own daughter, barged into the Miss Teen USA dressing room, ogled a 10 year old and said he would be dating her in 10 years, raped E Jean Carrol, and groped dozens of women, would be involved in child sex trafficking, even though he bought the sex trafficker's airplane that he rode on 7 times.

lol “dating”.

Also, lol “in 10 years”

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, guy incognito said:

When you’re a star they let you do it, I’ve been given to understand.

Well, “star”.

We can say a lot of negatives about the guy and they would all be true, but we can’t deny he’s a star, and arguably the biggest star of our lifetimes.

Edited yesterday at 12:32 PM by chasfh

[oblong]

It all goes back to that bastard creator of The Apprentice.  Until then Trump was a washed up guy from the 80's and early 90's that people forgot about.  If there wasn't a Hollywood strike that necessitated the creation of more reality TV then he never regains his prominence.  No calling into MSNBC and Fox to bitch about Obama. Nobody would have cared what he thought any more than we did David Hasselhoff.  That gave him fake legitimacy to low information voters and he geniously tapped into something.  I saw a clip with Scaramucci.  Trump told him that as a Wall St. Democrat he had it backwards.  They were conservative on economic issues but liberal on social issues.  The trick is finding middle america where they are more liberal on economic issues (even if they don't call it that) but conservative on social issues.  The key was on those economic issues you have to frame it a different way because those people hate liberals but are not educated enough to realize what their economics do for them.

 

 

 

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, oblong said:

  The key was on those economic issues you have to frame it a different way because those people hate liberals but are not educated enough to realize what their economics do for them.

I think the disconnect is that social welfare like SS, and Medicare, and even Medicaid are fine the eyes of working class people. Where the Dems lose them is with anything that looks too much like a 'give-away.' Things like government funded home down payments, college loan forgiveness etc, don't really cut with them because those people would *prefer* to work for what they get, they just want a shot at their work being able to get them there, and they do know enough to sense that a lot of government spending means they pay more taxes. To me Harris' campaign his too many wrong notes on economics. The Dems need to talk a lot less about giving stuff away and a lot more about how create upward mobility - esp with everyone's hair on fire that AI is going to take everyone's job (it won't). 

[chasfh]

What stuff is the Dems telling us they're giving away, and how do I get me some?

[Motown Bombers]

I hate to have to keep reminding people doing these autopsies of Democrats, but Democrats won down ballot in five states Trump won. Dems have been winning bigly in special elections. They over performed in 2022. There was a blue wave in 2018. It's not easy to go up against a cult figure in Trump. Remove him from the ballot and Dems are fine. 

[mtutiger]

With an election that was decided by 200k voters over three states and the environment heading in (with voters pissed off after inflation in 2022 and 2023), the election swung a lot more on voters wanting to fire the last administration for said economic environment over any specific policy proposals than it did Kamala Harris pushing a policy proposal for first time homebuyers.

Not a value judgment on the policy, but had she had the same policy proposals with an electorate that wasn't polarized against the administration she served in, I think she would have won.

[mtutiger]

5 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I hate to have to keep reminding people doing these autopsies of Democrats, but Democrats won down ballot in five states Trump won. Dems have been winning bigly in special elections. They over performed in 2022. There was a blue wave in 2018. It's not easy to go up against a cult figure in Trump. Remove him from the ballot and Dems are fine. 

There is this as well.... there is a real difference to how the GOP performs with Trump on the ballot versus off the ballot.

[gehringer_2]

18 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I hate to have to keep reminding people doing these autopsies of Democrats, but Democrats won down ballot in five states Trump won. Dems have been winning bigly in special elections. They over performed in 2022. There was a blue wave in 2018. It's not easy to go up against a cult figure in Trump. Remove him from the ballot and Dems are fine. 

No they aren't. When you can't hold the House in the off-year with your guy in office you are not fine. Unless your idea of fine is to be able to squeak into the White House by 1 electoral vote. They aren't fine when it comes to being able to actual govern at all.

Edited yesterday at 01:35 PM by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

58 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Trump basically told us he was in the Epstein files by the way he pussyfooted around the questions when asked about releasing them.

I'm not saying Trump isn't in the Epstein files, I'm just saying the level of involvement he had is probably what has already been reported.  I believe the same for quite a few others tied to him like Clinton and Gates.  More salacious stuff came out on Prince Andrew.  Ultimately I suspect Epstein was what I would guess most pedophiles are like, scared that someone will find out.  Thus he liked to stay around powerful people in the hopes that would help him, but unless he saw a real opportunity,  like he did with Prince Andrew, he didn't let people know his other side.  Maybe he dropped some hints when you look back on it, but that's about it, IMO.

 

[ewsieg]

16 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I hate to have to keep reminding people doing these autopsies of Democrats, but Democrats won down ballot in five states Trump won. Dems have been winning bigly in special elections. They over performed in 2022. There was a blue wave in 2018. It's not easy to go up against a cult figure in Trump. Remove him from the ballot and Dems are fine. 

I still would like to see them improve in some areas, but your point is legitimate.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

No they aren't. When you can't hold the House in the off-year with your guy in office you are not fine.

What? The incumbent party always struggles in mid terms. Republicans got wiped out in 2018 with Trump in office. Dems literally gained a senate seat in 2022. 

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

What? The incumbent party always struggles in mid terms. Republicans got wiped out in 2018 with Trump in office. Dems literally gained a senate seat in 2022. 

And that means to be fine you have win enough in the Presidential year to survive your mid term loss. That is what 'fine' is. Half the Dems problem is denial that they are not building a big enough coalition to win enough to actually do anything. A national approval rate of ~35% is not fine.

Edited yesterday at 01:38 PM by gehringer_2