Elon Musk’s financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it’s manufacturing in China or the Starlink network being used in Ukraine, Musk’s decisions can run counter to stated US policy.
This is why billionaires shouldn’t exist they are treasonous
They should exist, but we are not utilizing them correctly. Once someone has reached a billion dollar networth then they are thrown a big party and then sacrificed to a valcono. I believe this would curb emissions and fix climate change.
There was a native American tribe that every ten years had individuals return all personal wealth back to the tribe and the threw a big party, then start it all over again
Maybe we just seize all their assets, nationalize them and make them start over with nothing. Call it new game +.
They just need to make a point system. The incredibly wealthy don’t care about money itself, those are already just points to them. So once you get to say 100 M, you get a trophy saying you won capitalism. After that amount 99% is taxed, you get a penny on the dollar. But all of that taxed money gets you Capitalism points. Capitalism points have no real value and can only be exchanged/traded/gambled with other winners of capitalism. Those with most points will be published each month in the top 100. And the top 10 each year get the prestigous title if honorary economic leader. They can get a medal and a pat on the back by the president.
You can also donate extra money for more capitalism points at a 10:1 exchange rate to get people to play the game even harder and further drive down wealth.
(I believe there are slightly less than 10,000 people in the US who would currently get their capitalism trophy. There are >140,000 people worth more than $50M, is 100 to high?)
Oh and the 100M amount is pegged to minimum wage. Any increase to the capitalism cap has to be matched to the same percent increase to minimum wage.
But volcano!
I agree, I like the volcano idea.
That was awesome. Thank you for making my day!
Wealth Piñata monetary policy
Polluting a volcano with a bag of shit isn’t really green. I say we just bury them so they can at least be used as fertilizer.
You know what volcano is, right?
Just too much power for one person. Even if they’re not in charge of a global internet provider, your average billionaire can singlehandedly affect the lives of millions of people (employees, customers, bystanders) with no democratic oversight at all. It’s just not something that should exist.
You: Want to abolish billionaires because they do not support the war enough.
Me: Want to abolish billionaires because they exploit and oppress the working class.
We are not the same.
I want to abolish them because of both - checkmate
Apt username
I chose it so you could jerk yourself off about it and feel good at least once in your life :)
Patsoc detected.
Please enlighten me what a Patsoc is - I am really curious.
“Patriotic socialist”, someone who claims to be a champion of the working class, but is actually more of nationalist. They only care about the working class of a certain nationality or racial group, and are generally bigoted in their view towards marginalized groups. Real socialists are internationalist. You wanting to get rid of Musk, because he’s not sufficiently gung-ho about a war fought between capitalists on the back of workers, implies you consider the national interest more important than the lives of workers. This is anti-worker class collaborator shit, which is what patsocs are really.
What the fuck are you even talking about? Russia is throwing thousands of „working class“ lives away, since it wants to expand its territory in aggressive moves since decades. They are forcing Ukraine to defend itself and yes, those are also working class people.
So you, as a good socialist, are probably on the barricades because of this unprovoked attack on the Ukrainian working class. How are you fighting to defend them from getting killed? Please don’t answer something in the likes of „Ukraine should give up“ because then everyone would only see that you are actually advocating the Murder of the Ukrainian people.
Lol what the fuck is this? “You’re an enemy of the working class because you don’t support Elon Musk!”
This is some brain worm shit my dude.
Well you’ve jumped to conclusions there, I’m not talking about the war but Billionaires in general and their respective countries in general.
Billionaires have too much power, live outside the existing system of government and laws, gained their money and power through exploitation and in general are undemocratic.
So I agree with your second statement, but not the first
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Meanwhile, until he was supporting USA and Ukraine, he was the good white hero for your ilk.
Yeah, because of that. This isn’t the gotcha you think it is, you aren’t uncovering a double standard. People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.
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What does this race bait have to do with Elon Musk?
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Russia invaded Ukraine. You know… like the Nazis did in WW2.
Russia is playing the part of the Nazis.
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Here in the rest of the world we fear the brewing nazi diseases, and how Russia is already a country that is fully infected, whatever they bullshit on paper about nazis.
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141 of 193 countries is not 10-15% of the worlds population
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/united-nations-russia-ukraine-vote
well 141 of 193 countries think that Russia is the aggressor and shall stop its war immediately:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/united-nations-russia-ukraine-vote
I am too lazy to check how much of the world’s population that accounts for - but it is hardly the 10-15 percent you have brought up
ps: there were only 5 votes against this resolution - Russia being one of… North Korea as well
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No I didn’t, I didn’t ignore anyone. I am answering your statement. We are talking in the context of whom was considering him a “good white hero”. As per your statement:
he was the good white hero for your ilk.
I’m not going to specify the whole context of the conversation when it’s clear whom I’m talking about. You established the group of people that worshipped him in your original comment, I explained why.
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You seem to not understand how context in a conversation works. Look, The original comment said the following in a post about how Elon is acting agaisnt US interest:
This is why billionaires shouldn’t exist they are treasonous
So they are probably american. Then you answered them with:
he was the good white hero for your ilk.
Then I said the following, to you, after your comment:
People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.
In this context, “People” can mean everybody, yes, but can also mean the subset of people we are talking about already, which I obviously was mentioning. I don’t really get why you are being so confrontational because I didn’t include the opinion of everybody in the world when trying to explain why americans or the west now think that Elon is a traitor.
Let me give you an example in good faith. When there’s a meeting between neighbours, they vote on X, and the president of the community states “The people have talked”, are they also ignoring the other 8 billion people that exist in the world? No, because it’s obvious that “pople” in that context refers to the subset of people only referring to the neighbours.
I really can’t explain to you more how context works, if you are that hellbent in chastisizing me for explaining to you why “those people” think like that in general, we have nothing more to talk about.
My ilk?
You’re jumping to conclusions.
Billionaires are treasonous because they live outside the laws of their country, hold power over the government there and gain their money through exploitation
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Yes since forever, they’ve always been a problem for the same reasons I mentioned above, same story with oligarchs.
I don’t care about Musk, I feel the same way about Bezos, Gates and whomever else
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We live in a society
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Why are you talking to yourself?
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Quit spewing the narrative that only few people know that Russia is the Aggressor - most of the world thinks so: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/united-nations-russia-ukraine-vote
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You mean all those countries that volunteraly joined NATO because they were too afraid of Russian invasions?
Here is a map of which countries Russia has invaded: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fz6ae62j6ph821.png
You think a Russian shill/Tankie is gonna give a shit about facts?
His only job here is to try to confuse the narrative by spewing lots of noise.
China seems to do a pretty good job of keeping their billionaires in check. Maybe we should take notes?
What the hell? Look, man, I hate the guy but he’s remarkably consistent: he works for his interests. Even when he does dumbshit things like buy Twitter, the thinks he’s operating in his interests.
He’s not complicated. He’s a self absorbed piece of shit. That’s really all you ever need to know about the fucker.
“Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it,” Altman added.
From an interview with Sam Altman. It’s grandoise narcissism, plain and simple.
He is the main character.
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Which he is also pretty consistent about. Yet somehow these children’s cartoon evil/greedy businessmen are just handed power and trusted by such a shocking amount of people. It is kind of impressive in a “we’re fucked” kind of way.
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It really is the case. There is no accountability for the 1% in the world. Yet they are consuming more than the poorest 50% according to latest report.
He posted the other day about being proud American etc. and yet he’s actively giving comfort to hostile adversaries like Russia and screwing US allies. I think if I were the US federal government I wouldn’t touch SpaceX or Starlink with a shitty stick given the mercurial, manchild in charge of them with his own agenda.
A proud American who takes money from the US military to provide Starlink service to the military in Ukraine and then deliberately defeats US military interests there when it comes to the pinch. There’s a word for that - a couple actually. Traitor. Treasonous.
Did Musk take direct US military funding prior to those incidents in Ukraine?
People seem to want state control in a capitalist economy. That’s just not really how capitalism works.
Yes, he did. He was paid by the US government for it.
Can you link the proof? I am pretty certain he did indeed take US money, but I am unsure about the timeline between the money grant and the Ukrainian attack on the Russian fleet.
Here is one of them: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/279224/20220816/starlink-militarization-spacex-awarded-air-force-million-dollar-contract.htm
That was back in 2022, well before the Ukrainian attack on the Russian fleet that was countered by Elmos policies.
There’s an interesting thought.
While there’s no doubt the US government could withstand any difficulty inflicted on it by Musk’s corporate empire, would the foot shot to their own efforts be worth it to sever ties with Musk?
How is it a shot to the foot? Just install a new CEO or privatize SpaceX. Ford is going to eat Teslas lunch in a few years (maybe GM too if they stop being idiotic about car play) so I am not all too worried about Teslas value to the consumer.
Slightly OT but I think Ford’s chance to beat Tesla has flown out the window. Ford is partially withdrawing from Europe - it might linger on selling commercial vans & tractors but as a consumer brand they’re nearly gone. GM has pulled out of Europe (and China). GM sold it’s European Opel operation to Stellantis. There is talk of GM trying to enter Europe with EVs but we’ll see.
Anyway the point is they both kind of blew it and are retreating to their domestic market, probably hoping they can cling on there, weather the storm and come back later. I think Tesla has taken over as the dominant auto maker and it’s unlikely to change unless Elon does something spectacularly dumb or drops dead.
Tesla doesn’t even have the production capacity to satisfy domestic markets. By 2025 Tesla plans to up their capacity to 2 Million cars a year, meanwhile Ford alone should be puming out around that amount of vehicles, and they are more affordable. And that doesn’t even bring in GM or any other car company.
Unless they change their plans and grow production dramatically, Teslas doesn’t have the capacity. They are only 10% of the global market and most of their competitors have just gotten started. And China is rapidly starting to export cars to the EU, to the point where they are considering raising tariffs even higher.
By 2030, China is projected to be a third of the global market. So if we are talking internationally I think Tesla needs to worry about companies like BYD, NIO, GAC, etc. I mean BYD is set to beat Tesla in production and sales very soon already.
This is gilding the lily. Ford and GM know they are screwed and are adopting a defensive posture in the hopes of recovery. Maybe they perceive retreat as a way to moneyball their resources - wait for the EU carnage to subside and step back in. But thinking that this is coming from a position of strength though is a nonsense. Ford and GM are are fucked in Europe, and China and they’re getting out. I haven’t seen any sign the same applies to Tesla.
I guess my point is more about Tesla and less about GM and Ford, come 2025 and beyond. Tesla doesn’t have the production capacity, nor do they seem to have the plans to ramp up capacity in the near future to have any chance to have a huge share of the global EV market. Chinese companies are ramping up faster, VW also has a huge planned production that I am sure will help satisfy European demand.
Unless Tesla makes plans to ramp up way faster than they have currently stated, their best bet would be to make better cars and just compete in the high end premium market. But that would take Musk to admit that his cars aren’t up to par to premium cars to make the necessary changes to quality to compete. I don’t see that happening.
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It’ll be interesting to see how much the US invests in his companies post Twitter shit show.
He’s juggling fire. His money can only do so much to protect him if he makes enough mistakes fucking with these dangerous governments.
I disagree. Every other billionaire out there also has a shared interest in governments leaving the super-rich alone and not punishing them. That is a powerful lobby.
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One of the reasons billionaires managed to gather so much power and influence in our current system is because they are more coordinated and way better at class warfare than us workers.
I’d say that and the obvious mind-boggling amounts of hoarded wealth are the two main ones. And never forget those billions are, for the most part, stolen from workers through wage theft, which circles back to billionaires waging class war on us.
In a sense it is unavoidable. Few individuals, each wielding vast amounts of power, will always have an easier time coordinating their efforts than many, many individuals each wielding a tiny bit of power since coordination has a quadratic complexity (each person has to coordinate with every other person in their respective group).
Imagine not being able to understand the concept of shared class interest.
Very dumb to position oneself against the geopolitical interests of the United States while living there.
Remember folks, the rich only care about one thing and one thing only, getting richer. A bunch of these shit heads got together and started actively planning on overthrowing the US government because the election of FDR was going to affect their interests.
Prescott Bush (the father of George and grandfather of W) was their liaison with the Nazis.
Smedley Darlington Butler, there is a great Behind the Bastards about him
Kind of the same thing thats happening right now, only instead of plotting they are spreading conspiracy theories and rage bating people into supporting them.
I’d argue Musk cared more about being able to bloviate on Twitter than he did about getting richer from that transaction.
Of course there’s the very real possibility that he was foolish enough to believe he could make money on the deal.
The irony of this is FDR wasn’t exactly lacking in wealth or at least access to it at any point in his life.
Then he’ll have to be sanctioned. Which would be a shame.
Sanctioned or…
Dramatic pause
“Sanctioned”?
I just wish he’d be sectioned.
Musk is South African. We should expect his loyalties to reflect his home country more than the US.
What good does this really do south africa though? Id more expect his loyalty to be to himself and his own profit than any country regardless of where he’s native.
South Africa is the S in BRICS.
Okay.
Elon Musk is a US interest. The US is a bunch of business interests in a trench coat, and they don’t always agree on everything. Some want to do business with China, some want the Chinese competition destroyed, and some want to create tension so they can sell more weapons.
The idea that Musk is “counter” to US interests is wrong, he just represents a faction of the ruling class that’s not on board with the (trade) war on China. Since it’s not in the interest of the working class to have a US-China (trade) war, neither in the US nor anywhere really, he is inadvertently aligned with the interests of the majority of humanity on this one.
I see, so it’s not in the working class interest to have a trade war with, checks notes… A genocidal authoritarian government whose stated aim is to subjugate a smaller Democratic neighbor. That same China who is allied with a war mongering mafia state and has aggressively targeted whole industries with intellectual theft, product dumping, and unfair trade practices which has hollowed out whole domestic industries and has been one of the leading causes of low wage growth.
It is now a terrible thing for workers, that the US is in a low intensity trade war which is decoupling it’s economy from said genocidal power and rebuilding the industrial plant in North America. Reshoring millions of jobs and keeping the unemployment rate at historic lows despite increased interest rates.
It was a lot to unpack, I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly.
You’re just thinking of the worker aristocracy in the West, not the global working class, clearly. China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. And it’s neat how you blame China for something done by your own ruling class. Furthermore, this trade war (not to mention a war war) will be terrible for workers everywhere. Do you think the billionaires are going to bail you out? No, they’re going to squeeze workers even more to finance this conflict, and they’ll tell you suffering is your patriotic duty.
And imagine thinking China is the genocidal one out of those two. The US has had a hand in so many genocides and has directly and indirectly killed millions in the last decades. If you compare this to what China has done recently they look like angels.
Less Evil, is still evil.
Besides, it is not like people can’t multitask, this isn’t a zero sum game.
I can hate the fact that Americans don’t have paid family leave, or sick leave, but we send billions to Israel because we are scared of other religions.
I can also hate China’s policies on Uyghurs basically enslaving them and putting them in concentration camps.
A genocidal authoritarian government whose stated aim is to subjugate a smaller Democratic neighbor.
It’s absolutely terrible what the genocidal US regime is doing to Cuba, but the rest of your comment doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Actually I personally think it is wrong what the US is doing to Cuba… you throwing the argument into an non related discussion about Ukraine is whataboutism on the other hand.
oh no, not the dreaded WhAtAbOuTisM
You’re mad at Musk for this???
Musk has done so many terrible things. Treats his workers like shit, destroys the environment, platforms racists (he’s a racist pos himself), false advertising, siphons government subsidies, scams investors (including pension funds, I don’t particularly care about scamming venture capitalist and the like), lobbies against public transport and god knows what I forgot right now.
But oh no! He only supports the war effort up to a point, and he doesn’t want to have a cold war with China. For once he’s kinda reasonable, and for that the libs are calling him a traitor.
We are calling him a traitor for having Starlink turned off in Ukraine to protect Russia from a counter attack.
Last I heard, he simply didn’t turn it on when Ukraine asked him to, before the DoD had explicitly contracted him to support Ukraine’s military. The narrative of him throwing a switch mid-attack and laughing maniacally as Ukrainian drones drifted helplessly to shore has been spreading like wildfire but that seems to be based on a quote from one guy who has since walked it back.
Is there some Fediverse equivalent to /r/enoughmuskspam? My feed is starting to get flooded with these five-minute-hates of Elon Musk and it’s wearying.
Nope, Starlink was already in use. Musk used his position as CEO of Starlink to cut off service to Ukraine. But only long enough to interrupt a counter attack on the Russian fleet. Once the opportunity had passed he had it turned back on.
His intentions are obvious.
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What is it with this complete lack of nuance surrounding things? Elon Musk is not my hero. He’s a terrible human being, by everything I’ve read about him as a person. But just being a terrible human being doesn’t mean that every negative rumor or clickbait headline that shows up about him must automatically be true.
Bill Cosby is a terrible human being, for example. Hey, I heard he eats kittens! Let’s circulate that news, it must be true because Bill Cosby is awful.
That’s because you identify with the US empire, which is not, and never was, on your team. And neither was Musk.
Musk isn’t even against the US empire, he just didn’t want to escalate. The White House regularly does (not) do a thing because they don’t want to escalate. They’re all traitors to the US too, are they?
Treason is not wanting total war, got it.
If Musk really wants to prevent escalation then he should help the US and it’s allies stop Russia from invading other countries as they have been doing for decades.
Russia is starting total war. Musk is helping them continue by preventing efforts to stop Russia.
help the US and it’s allies stop Russia from invading other countries as they have been doing for decades
Wait, you think the country that has by far done the most invasions should be supported to stop *checks notes* an invasion? This is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. And apparently by any means necessary too.
I wonder what would have happened if the US’s whole Mediterranean fleet were destroyed thanks to Russian help during one of their “humanitarian interventions”. I wonder if you were also moralizing about the need to start WW3 in those situations?
Yes, Russia should stop invading and get the fuck back to their own country. Whatever you want to whine about someone else doing is irrelevant. Russia invaded and can gtfo or die.
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Just because the US is doing illegal invasions of sovereign nations, doesn’t mean Russia is allowed to.
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The country he lives in, and the military that paid to have the service of his business to be used … by the military.
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Civilian space assets cannot be used for warfare or they become legitimate targets in a war. When the US commits to defending and replenishing starlink satellites lost in conflict I’ll blame Musk for not enabling his network to be used for warfare.
The Ukraine military was already using starlink. Starlink agreed to provide their service to the Ukraine military as a US military contractor with the US paying the bill.
So they can do that because they have already done that.
The US has committed to defending and replenishing Starlink because they’ve been doing that by protecting the antennas and replacing them as they get attacked.
Again. Starlink already agreed to be used in Ukraine and at the time that Musk interrupted service to the Ukrainian military it had been in use for a long time.
Musk only interrupted service long enough to prevent the counter attack on Russia. Then agreed to turn it back on after the opportunity for a counter attack had passed.
Seems pretty obvious that Musk stepped in to help Russia as a traitor to the US.
If Congress declared war or maybe an Authorization for Use of Force (like Iraq/Afghanistan) it would be fair to consider him a traitor. Until then not really.
In that case, he should also disable starlink for Russia.
I think it is source.
We’re mad that one person could have this much power, especially because they’re a narcissistic man child who thinks he knows better than everyone else and is quickly becoming radicalized to the far right.
Truly, the pinnacle of modern journalism: YouTube.
…sometimes, absolutely!
Youtube is a video hosting platform, just saying a piece of news is hosted on youtube says exactly nothing about it’s credibility.
Youtube did not create this video, if you want to say anything useful about its validity you’ll have to be a bit more specific about the actual video itself or it’s creators.
But I guess cheap pot shots make for easier upvotes.
A YouTube clip interviewing a New Yorker journalist from a news station’s official channel. 🤨
The article in question: ❓
I know dude what the fuck… I saw the “headline” and looked at the source. what in the real fuck
Yes, MSNBC’s YouTube channel posting clips from their TV programs is definitely not a valid news source 🙄
It’s wild how quickly some of y’all love to (smugly) dismiss things at a glance.
Then maybe link the article itself? It’s not that hard, guys.
An “article” of a TV interview. Ok, champ.
You have a lovely day.
If the guy wrote an article, just link to an article 🤷♀️
Like you can’t even argue that this is at least a perspective from a foreign state. It’s literally the thoughts of one guy.
“One guy” is a strange way to describe Ronan Farrow, who just did a huge New Yorker article on Elon Musk.
Ah yes, because the New Yorker is a completely unbiased source of information instead of (as the name might suggest) a newspaper targeted at the New York elite.
🙄🙄🙄
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If Rachel Maddow says it, then it must be true.
If you’re skeptical, here’s the article the interview was about.
I know redditors and lemmies are eager to fight to the last Ukrainian, but atleast half the country wants to stop unlimited Ukrainian funding. So Musk prohibiting Ukrainians to use his tech for offensive warfare against another country, is him saving the world from nuclear war.
In his own words, “The United States Congress has not declared war on Russia”. And that is 100% true.
I know many of you guys had your bunkers ready for the nuclear fallout. But understand that many others want to live normally.
Here is Walter Isaacson (on whose book this story is based) himself saying,
To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.
https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361
Yeah - Isaacson walked back on the initial story. we will probably never find out which version is true … but you can be sure that the last published version of any story is not necessarily the truth.
And that you are insinuating that the Ukrainian people are being used „to the last Ukrainian“ is in itself a sickening twist of the truth. This is Russian Propaganda language.
Is this Russian Propaganda language too?
Mitt Romney - We (Americans) are losing no lives in Ukraine…
Richard Blumenthal - We’ve helped restore faith and confidence in American leadership — moral and military. All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost…
WaPo: Paywall
FT: PaywallRomney Tweet „The single most important thing we can do to strengthen America relative to China is to see Russia defeated in Ukraine. A weakened Russia deters the CCP’s territorial ambition, and halts Putin’s vision of reestablishing the old Soviet Union. Supporting Ukraine is in our interest.“
Romney CNN: „“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.“
Blumenthal: Zelenskiy doesn’t want or need „our“ (probably the US is meant) troops.
Where exactly is this „gotcha“ moment that you are trying to push?
Can someone double check the content of the quote? I’d need documents to believe this because that’s a big claim.
What claim?
If no claim was made what was the substance of the quote?
Ad hominem.
She does an excellent job of backing up what she says. Unlike you.
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You do know his public image has been slipping for years unrelated to this right? He tied himself so closely to the tesla brand and pushed so hard that liberals either thought positively of him or neutrally until he started spewing right wing BS at which point he was alienating his own target demographic who saw owning a tesla as bad.
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Shocking. Truly shocking.
