Trump has promised Musk major role in overseeing government spending in any future Trump administration
Donald Trump’s estranged niece is accusing the former president of having a “new owner” because of his increasingly close relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“Donald Trump has always been for sale,” Mary Trump wrote in a Substack post on Saturday.
“Given this decades-long pattern, it’s not surprising that the world’s richest fascist, South African jumping bean Elon Musk, would also be interested in purchasing a few shares in a man who is willing to sell whatever he can get his hands on —whether it’s steaks or American national security — because he values money more than anything,” she added.
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That alone should disqualify him from office. If you can’t hold a security clearance, you shouldn’t be able to run for any office, let alone POTUS.
Even when the wealth is literally from foreign “investments” (bonus if obvious enemies) and criminal activity (tax avoidance, money laundering, fraud stocks, crypto, etc).
SCROTUS absolutely fucked us with Citizens United. “MoNeY = SpEeCh!?” Congress failed us by not passing campaign finance reform or any relevant laws. Americans failed us by being easily influenced by political ads and generally brain dead.
If they did this, Trump could just rescind clearance from all Dems. Unfortunately, this is up to the voters.
All compromised Dems? Sounds like a good idea. And I assume he would need to do it by proxy since he currently has only citizen powers.
I meant obviously while he was in office for the 2020 election. Just because it’s too late now doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for the future.
Potentially letting a political rival decide who is compromised is obviously not a good idea no matter who is in charge to make that decision.
Why/ how? There is an application process and disqualifying criteria for a security clearance. The suggestion is that if you can’t pass that process you should not be let in on any confidential information.
You think it is simple because Trump is so obviously not a good faith actor, but let’s pretend he gets elected again (possibility). He declared everyone against him (not just Dems) enemies of the state and ineligible to hold office. This reminds me of Russia, oh wait he would like that.
Unfortunately our democracy hinges on whether or not we can convince our fellow citizens that freedom matters and to over vote. Winning by 51% isn’t enough. In order to make effective change, the Dems would need to win and get a supermajority in the house and Senate. And THEN DECIDE to give up power to change our government to a STAR vote or ranked choice style. Some form of representation democracy so that our politians would have to negotiate properly. Citizens United needs to go along with the part of the judicial that was installed because of the fascist movement of the heritage foundation.
I just doubt this will happen. It is possible, but I’m not sure how. The left never has enough resources to play the decades long game. They(conservatives) were manipulating the media in the early 1900 to stop progressive movements. They delayed Teddy Roosevelt getting into office. After he did get in and people saw how effective and popular progressive movements were, they decide to work against it. They still are. They just bought all the media empires now, so it is easier.
The people ultimately in charge of that work serve at the pleasure of the President. He could simply fire people until someone does what he wants. Same thing he did with the Justice department. It also could be as simple as an executive order, but I really don’t know that much about that level of the process.
And a lot of the criteria are determined by regulation IIRC.
Meaning that the president can order the agencies to update the regulations, and say that in addition to communist party membership being disqualifying, Democrat party membership is now also disqualifying. (More likely a more plausible sounding reason would be picked but the result would be the same - exploiting a loophole to prevent your opponents from running against you.)
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. The President has absolute authority over the process. In fact, someone can fail the security check and be refused security clearance and the president can wave his hand and give that person full clearance. How do I know? It’s been done.
The sources say the CIA has not granted Kushner clearance to review SCI material. That would mean Kushner lacks access to key intelligence unless President Donald Trump decides to override the rules, which is the president’s’ prerogative.
Which, by the way, he did. Intelligence agencies said Kushner should not have any level of clearance but Trump gave him clearance to everything.
There’s no way Musk owns Trump … Putin would never sell him.
I hope his ROI on this is worse than his Twitter purchase.
It’s un/believable the man isn’t in prison yet. The head spinning part are the people that that still believe in him.
My very conservative parent and step are disgusted with djt and one has said they’re voting Harris, the other hasn’t expressed a candidate. Their good friend down the street actively encouraged me to not trust the lawyer.
I’m seeing that too. Moderate conservatives who want normal back are voting for Harris.
And remember that thing with McCain? As much as some people liked him, some of them didn’t vote for him because they couldn’t stand Palin. A bit of that happening now, the disgust with Vance is pushing people over to vote Harris. One stated Trump would probably die of unhealthy old age in office and they couldn’t risk “that bearded turd” becoming President.
Trump’s niece doesn’t know anything more than the rest of us. And, even if Trump did “promise” Musk a key government role, we all know how likely he is to keep his promises.
But, what Musk is doing is clever, though evil. He’s ingratiating himself to Trump. If Trump is elected, he won’t consider Musk an enemy which is absolutely key, and might throw Musk a bone. If Harris is elected, she’ll govern using traditional norms and values, which means not vindictively prosecuting people who helped her political opponent, even a guy who went right up to the line of what’s legal in trying to get Trump elected.
Heads Musk wins. Tails he doesn’t lose.
If Harris is elected, she’ll govern using traditional norms and values
You’re right, but it probably also means she’ll keep FTC chair Lina Khan as chair of the FTC. As chair she’s been aggressive, in a good way. Musk and the FTC haven’t gotten along much over the past few years and I expect with more time the FTC with Khan in charge will cause problems for Musk, who continues to violate obvious laws and regulations.
So tails probably isn’t just doesn’t lose, it’s probably a real loss.
You’re right, but it probably also means she’ll keep FTC chair Lina Khan as chair of the FTC
I really hope so, but we’ll see. There has been a lot of pressure from rich democratic donors to dump her.
I admit it is a hope and not a guarantee. However I also learned that unless the President takes an active role and nominates someone (and they are confirmed), then the current member can just continue in their role as an acting member/chair.
So depending on the political climate, Khan may be able to just quietly continue her work.
Ms. Khan has been chair of the FTC since 2021. When did she start aggressively pursuing big business illegal activities, and why are we only hearing about them this year?
- From Dec 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141613281/ftc-microsoft-activision-blizzard
- From July 2023, https://apnews.com/article/republicans-ftc-khan-technology-companies-41610756160e10732f7ded6c587cec0e
- From Jan 2024, https://apnews.com/article/ftc-antitrust-inquiry-openai-chatgpt-microsoft-anthropic-google-amazon-67feef411ef311f0be543f546ef34b3d
As a few quick examples of the work (not necessarily success).
Wikipedia probably has a better outline, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission#Biden_administration
I’m assuming we’re hearing about it more since it’s an election year.
I admit I’m far from an expert on the subject and position. I didn’t follow much until I saw her interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, https://youtu.be/oaDTiWaYfcM
