Maybe I Have This Twisted

 

Last night, I had the stupidity to forget how kiss-up, punch-down hierarchies work because I have never actually lived in a fully corrupted banana republic before. My dumb ass posted: 

And DOGE undermining the social safety net and intimating that Medicare and Social Security need big cuts is actually very bad? 

Because of course that is--but his antipathy to democracy at all is also really bad. 

I think it gets worse from here for Musk.. And I think I like it that way. As he starts to sink and stink, Trump will cut ties, because that's how he rolls. 

Except that was dumb, because if Trump truly believes he is post-"elections matter", well, he no longer has to care about whether people hate Elon. He just has to protect the guy who can easily dump $100M into his PAC (slush fund). 

Joe Six-Pack with the retirement fund and a MAGA hat isn't his main concern. Elon SuperPAC donor is.

Ergo, he turned the front of the White House into a sales lot for Tesla and cut a promo. They are cutting the Board of Education, Veteran's medical access, Social Security functionality as a whole thing, IRS (the revenue-finders!) and so on, but the White House had to help rescue one stock today.

The DOW lost many points. Tesla had a little unreality rally. Also, too, Trump declared folks vandalizing Tesla dealerships were "domestic terrorists."  

Let me get this straight. Pardon the idjits who attacked the Capitol with great violence on 1/6/2021 but the people protesting Tesla are the real villains against the US? 

Not One Republican

 

Yesterday, the Senate Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It's accurate to say Senate Democrats, because not one Republican helped pass it. Not one.  This bill brings significant benefits for health care costs and fighting climate change, and could have been even better, but Republicans spitefully blocked a provision that would have capped insulin costs to $35 a month. 

Why do I say they spitefully did that? Well, they could have just left in in the bill. But just as with their snit fit over the PACT Act, I really suspect they didn't want to be remotely helpful and were mad that this significant legislation would be passed at all. It's not like they seem to especially care about the environment, anyway, and they complain about prescription medicine costs--but doing something about them smacks too much of making government do stuff.

I could be disappointed, but not surprised. Remember, it was at this point in Barack Obama's presidency that Senator Mitch McConnell made clear that obstruction in order to hopefully deny Obama a second term was the actual goal of congressional Republicans. It didn't work for them, but here they are, looking for all the world like they have the same obstructionist strategy. 

The bill is expected to reduce the deficit and moderately curb inflation. To hear Republicans tell it, you would think inflation (a global phenomenon brought on by digging out of the COVID-19 recession and supply chain issues) was a purely local phenomenon and all Joe Biden's fault. You think if they wanted to demonstrate the genius of fiscal conservatism, they would offer suggestions?

Uh, no. They are just going to complain. This is why I am fed up with people who blow smoke about bipartisanship and unity and so on. Instead of being a part of the solution by passing meaningful legislation, they seem happy to gesture in the direction of progress and say "See, I tried to black that. You're welcome."

Not one Republican voted for this bill. As far as I'm concerned, not one Republican should stay in office.