Go Easy On Teslas

It's becoming rather trendy for citizens to vent their fury upon Tesla Motors.

And why not? Tesla sales are the soft underbelly of Elon Musk's financial empire. As global sales of his cars plummet, Elon may slowly have to realize that Twitter may have to actually draw a profit for the first time since he's owned it.

Ouch.

Some big-name public figures, like Jason Bateman, Cheryl Crow, astronaut Mark Kelly, and Cassandra Petersen (a.k.a. "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark") have all given away their Tesla cars, sometimes giving them away to NPR as a donation.

The thing is, what the hell is NPR going to do with them?

In order for such a donation to really benefit public radio, those cars have to be re-sold. Only, who will buy them? People are making all sorts of assumptions about Tesla owners these days, and they're not always grounded in reality. Suppose someone buys a discounted Tesla from NPR, and then gets assumed to be MAGA, and their car gets spray-painted? Or tires slashed?

Not that long ago, only a few years even, it was pretty cool to own a Tesla. Owners could feel good about driving an electric vehicle. And sure, Elon Musk was starting to go off the rails, but it wasn't all that big a deal back then.

And now? Now we can't even own one second-hand?

It seems to me that owning a second-hand Tesla is a great way to own one, if one is to be owned at all. You pay the used car dealer, whether that be NPR, Esperanza Unida, or whatever organization you care to name, and you get a reliable electric vehicle which can get you from Evanston to Milwaukee on a single charge.

And Elon Musk doesn't get a dime.

Also, let's consider this angle: If new Teslas aren't selling, then the best way for Elon to make money off them is for his dealerships to purposely burn the car lots, blame left-wing protesters, and collect on the insurance. For all I know, Musk may be doing this already. Or maybe some of the footage we've all seen recently of Tesla dealerships on fire really were set by misguided activists. But attacking a Tesla dealership with fire is playing right into Elon's hands. Protest in front of the Tesla lot, sure, but leave the Molotov cocktails at home.

Let Elon try to fool the claims investigators on his own.

And if you really want to hurt Elon financially, and you just happen to be a computer programmer, help write some pirate software that allows second-hand Tesla owners to jail-break their cars. That way they can get top-notch performance without paying Elon a subscription, and be able to get repairs somewhere else besides an official Tesla dealership! That's the REAL way to hit Muskie in the financial 'nads!

So if you see a Tesla on the road, even if it's a cybertruck, give that person the benefit of the doubt, would ya? That person is at least leaving the oil companies in the dust, and that deserves to be lauded, whether its driver is left-wing or right-wing.

Said owner shouldn't have to plaster his car with Kamala or NPR bumper stickers just to keep it from getting a swastika painted on it.

Eric

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Give Ukraine Some Nukes!

With the U.S. stupidly suspending military support to Ukraine, Europe is stepping up. They've committed more funds, and are standing with their Eastern-European ally. The trouble is, as many pundits point out, Europe doesn't have the military manufacturing capabilities that the U.S. has. It will develop such, but that process takes many months, if not years. Can it manage to manufacture enough to support Ukraine in time?

As usual, all the pundits are missing one main thing, and it falls on me and my little (yet growing!) blog to point it out. There's one thing Europe can do which will halt Russia's war immediately, and force it to the table for peace talks, if not an outright withdrawal.

They can give Ukraine some nukes!

The U.K. and France are independent nuclear powers. (Other European nations have nukes, but they are owned and operated by the U.S.) If those two nations donated only a few of their nuclear missiles, Russia would have to stop dead in its tracks!

It's fascinating to me that all the pundits are saying how long it will take for European aid to have any effect. They're ALL using pre-1945 military analysis! Why, oh why, are we looking at warfare in a way that's 80 years out of date?!

Oh, Putin will scream and yell that a line has been crossed, that it's an act of war by NATO, that there will be severe consequences... blah, blah, blah. But we've heard this from Putin before. He said it when the U.S. committed financial support. He said it again when the U.S. and Europe committed tanks and planes. He said it again when the U.S. gave Ukraine long-range missiles. And in every case, he's done absolutely nothing.

Because he can't! Russia can barely afford to keep throwing all it can at Ukraine who, like Rocky Balboa, takes blow after blow and refuses to go down.

Meanwhile, Russia is on the verge of economic collapse. The Soviet Union fell when it could no longer afford to pay its troops well. It is not unreasonable to think that a new Boris Yeltzin may emerge to drive a single tank up to the entrance of the Kremlin, and depose Putin, thus giving Ukraine the victory.

So Russia is incapable of doing any wide-ranging retaliation against Europe. Hell, it can't even do any narrow-ranging retaliation. Putin is hanging on by his fingernails, and the time to bring the war to a swift end has come.

There may be treaty issues involved. The reason Ukraine is in this mess in the first place is because WE, the United States, negotiated to keep it from having a nuclear arsenal. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. But we're very nearly in a post-treaty era. Trump has already ditched USMCA in his pointless trade wars with Canada and Mexico. Hell, Trump is threatening to pull the U.S. out of NATO entirely. So any non-nuclear proliferation treaty currently in place for Ukraine has been rendered moot by such antics.

HEY, Europe! Give Ukraine some nukes!

It should probably have been done three years ago.

Eric

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State of the Disunion Address

On September 9, 2009, when then-President Barack Obama was giving the State of the Union address, he outlined his healthcare reforms and said, "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." It was then that a then-little-known congressman named Joe Wilson from South Carolina's 2nd district shouted "You lie!"

Obama calmly replied, "Not true, not true."

History, of course, proved Obama 100% right, and Joe Wison 100% wrong. Obamacare did not insure illegal immigrants, and still doesn't. (Only legal immigrants are covered.)

Joe Wilson later apologized, but afterward doubled down, saying "one apology is sufficient," as the strength of the Right-Wing Disinformation Media Machine grew. In fact, the entire Republican party doubled down. It went out of its way to disrespect and insult President Obama with lies and misinformation.

In fact, that really was the beginning of it all - the beginning of the Right-Wing Media Machine's realization that they could be racist as fuck and get away with it! It was the beginning of the Tea Party movement.

Right there. Two little words. "You lie!" Which, of course, were themselves a lie.

For 16 years I've wanted Democrats to dish out some measure of goddamned vengeance upon the Right-Wing Media Machine, and the Republicans, for fomenting such utter disrespect, and the continued disrespect that followed. I've craved vindication! And over all that time, I've gotten exactly the opposite.

Until last night. After Trump's "State of the Disunion" address (as I think it's fair to label it historically), I finally feel like I have it.

Hey, I'll admit it: I have been very disappointed with the ineptitude of the Democratic Party at times. Well, most of the time, in fact. The way they stumble into one unforced error after another has always frustrated me. The way they have never countered the Right Wing Media Machine has been baffling and infuriating to watch.

Well, finally, for once, they did something I am deliriously proud of!

Democrats stood (or, technically, sat) in solidarity for the truth. Representative Al Green of Texas stood up, waving his cane, when Trump said he had a "mandate." Green shouted over and over again Trump had no mandate, and certainly no mandate to cut Medicaid!  And he was so right! 49.8% is, by definition, NOT a mandate! Nevertheless, for that, he was thrown out of the chamber by the Sergeant-At-Arms at the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. But he held his head high on his way out, and rightly so.

Several other Democrats of high moral character walked out afterward. Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, and Lateefah Simon of California, were among the first to walk out. As they did, some removed their outer jackets to reveal t-shirts which said, "RESIST!" or "NO KINGS LIVE HERE." Other Democrats began to leave, including Mark Pocan of Wisconsin (love that guy!), Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Judy Chu of California, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Jared Huffman of California, and (of course) Bernie Sanders of Vermont. 

Several others simply didn't attend, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Don Beyer of Virginia, Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, Diana DeGette of Colorado, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.

Many other Democrats held up signs saying "FALSE" or "SAVE MEDICAID," or "MUSK STEALS," or "PROTECT VETERANS." One even had a small, erasable whiteboard to tailor her responses to what Trump was lying about.

But my personal favorite was when Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, held a sign saying "This Is Not Normal" right next to Trump as he walked into the chamber. Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas eventually reached across the aisle and ripped the sign away from her, but the statement had been made.

After Jasmine Crockett left, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina thoroughly embarrassed herself on X.com by posting, "I love when the trash takes itself out."

Bitch.

See, THIS is the kind of passion I've been craving from Democrats for decades! THIS is the kind of fight I've wanted them to have ever since I realized I was more liberal than conservative. (Not sure when exactly that was. 1999, I think?) I FINALLY get to see that level of fire and fight directed towards the absolute, empirically verifiable LIES that the Right-Wing Media Machine revels in!

Now that it might well be too late, that is.

Even so, I'm delighting in seeing the Dems finally doing what I want them to do! For a change.

How very refreshing!

#RESIST!

Eric

**

Trump F*cked Putin

Well, Trump and Vance made America into a laughing stock last Friday, as their meeting with Volodomyr Zelenskyy degenerated into an absolute shouting match, with themselves doing all the shouting and Zelenskyy largely remaining calm. To hear the Right-Wing Media Machine tell it, Trump and Vance did excellently when they embarrassed us all this way. The Russian media machine is also overjoyed.

But look beneath the surface and you can see that Trump may have actually fucked Putin over.

Trump insisted to Zelenskyy that he "didn't have the cards." But that simply isn't true. Russia is on the verge of economic collapse. It is dealing with runaway inflation which is approaching 10%. The Rubel is down against the dollar, making it far more expensive to import basic foodstuffs at a time of year when such imports are key to its survival. Russia's central bank has been forced to spike interest rates, making it much harder for businesses to borrow money, and the tactic isn't even working.

In short, Russia is in deep, deep trouble! All Zelenskyy really needs to do is hold out just a little longer, and Ukraine will win the war. With Europe backing him, this will almost certainly happen, with or without the U.S. Putin needed that deal signed, and needed it signed immediately.

Thanks to Trump, that might not happen. Trump fucked Putin!

Now, the peace deal isn't going to happen right away. But there are rumors that Zelenskyy will sign the ceasefire/minerals deal sooner rather than later. This will realistically only achieve a temporary ceasefire rather than a true end to the war, but Zelenskyy will take it. And, if I were in his shoes, I'd have a backroom deal in place beforehand to fast-track Ukraine's admission into NATO immediately afterward, with or without the support of the U.S. (In fact, preferably without.) Such a ceasefire would also give Ukraine and all of Europe the breathing room it needs to re-arm and re-militarize.

If Russia falls, historians will point to this moment, the moment Trump and Vance all but ambushed Zelenskyy, and say how the failure to get a ceasefire through in time allowed the economic instability in Russia climb to untenable levels.

Trump, in his zeal to appease Putin, actually may have ended up undermining him.

We shall see. But right now, a collapse of the Russian government may be exactly what this world needs right now.

Eric

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