Elon Musk calls Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time"
Musk made it clear that he's going after Social Security in a new interview with Joe Rogan, calling it a "Ponzi scheme" and complaining that Americans are...LIVING TOO LONG. For his part, Rogan did not push back one iota on the absurd and incredibly false smears of one of our nation's most important benefits programs. "If there ever were a more perfect encapsulation of MAGA it's this: a dumbass explaining something he doesn't understand to a bigger dumbass too dumb to challenge him who after a classic dumbass beat simply answers 'AAAAOOH'" wrote furious correspondent Francesca Fiorentini on Twitter. Elon made it clear that he is incapable of comprehending how Social Security works, complaining over and over about how it doesn't bring in enough revenue — because it's not supposed to, it's not a profit-generating venture, it's a program created to ensure the American public can retire and live with some semblance of dignity — which Elon clearly feels is a luxury that only the ultrawealthy deserve to enjoy.
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VIDEO OF THE DAY: British leader delivers public rebuke to Trump
Keir Starmer sent a very unsubtle message to Trump and JD Vance when he hosted Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in London, pledging the UK's full support for Ukraine as long as necessary. “And as you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom. We stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take," said Starmer. It's a stark contrast to Trump's appalling behavior in the Oval Office.
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Michael J. Fox leads the charge against Parkinson's disease
Michael J. Fox Foundation: With nearly 90,000 new diagnoses in the United States each year, Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing and second-most-common neurodegenerative disease in America. Tackling this silent menace is going to require a united effort from the public and from our representatives in Congress, so Michael J. Fox is mobilizing a national movement to help policymakers understand what matters to people with Parkinson’s and share our stories to expand our understanding of this vicious disease.Will you make a donation to help fuel the fight to end this disease for good?
Trumpism isn’t working
Jason Linkins, The New Republic: "While it’s early days, Trump’s second term has been going about the way you’d expect the presidency of an anti-trans, pro-oligarch, corrupt mass deporter to go: not well! Migrants are effectively being thrown into internment camps, a gang of child cybercriminals are heisting our personal data, and what’s left of the civil service is bogged down wondering whether or not they have to send busy-work emails to gang leader Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Trump has largely checked out, prompting Musk, on multiple occasions, to step in as the president’s emotional-support fascist during public appearances. If you’re fond of certain social media memes—sowing/reaping, how it started/how it’s going, fuck around/find out—this is a real boom time. But here’s the bottom line: Trumpism isn’t working. This mostly portends pain for the country and the planet, but there’s a silver lining to be found in a president who has screwed up so royally this soon into his post-inauguration honeymoon period: His opponents have an unexpected advantage. Right now, Trump’s biggest weakness is the very thing he believed was going to confer unprecedented strength on his return to power: his attempts to purge the federal government of its loyal workforce and replace it with subservient confederates. What Trump and his cronies misunderstand is that the civil service is essentially an extension of the people’s will. While this institution is too often castigated as a faceless bureaucracy, there’s an important material connection between those who serve the public and the public that’s being served. And when you rattle the cages in Washington, those vibrations spread outward. Now, everywhere you look, Americans are getting anxious. People are suddenly less convinced that they can travel by air safely. Consumer confidence is nose-diving. The percentage of Americans who feel the economy is on the wrong track has risen 10 points in less than a month. Republicans are facing torrents of angry voters at their own town halls, where representatives from deep-red districts are getting earfuls of anti-Musk invective and chants of 'Tax the billionaires!' With public sentiment riding against Trump’s designs and no end in sight to the chaos he and Musk foment, there’s never been a better time for the party that believes in government to defend that government, connecting the ruination of the civil service to the ruination that will be visited on ordinary people. Democrats might be locked out of power, but they don’t need a parliamentary majority to land damaging blows against a flailing president and party. Strike while the iron is hot."
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The Trump administration said these programs saved lives. They canceled them anyway
Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy, ProPublica: "After the Trump administration moved to freeze nearly $60 billion in foreign aid in January, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly assured Americans that lifesaving operations would continue. 'We don’t want to see anybody die,' he told reporters in early February. Four weeks later, on Wednesday, Rubio and [top aide Peter] Marocco completely ended nearly 10,000 aid programs in one fell swoop — including those they had granted waivers just days earlier — saying the programs did not align with Trump’s agenda. The move consigns untold numbers of the world’s poorest children, refugees and other vulnerable people to death, according to several senior federal officials. Local authorities have already begun estimating a death toll in the hundreds of thousands. Rubio and Marocco appear to have taken their dramatic steps without the careful review they’ve described to the courts, according to internal documents and interviews with more than a dozen officials from the State Department and USAID, which raises fresh questions about the legality of President Donald Trump’s evisceration of the American foreign aid system. In early February, the nonprofit Alight received waivers for its programs supporting refugees in war-torn Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan. On Wednesday, they were all terminated. Alight runs six centers for extremely malnourished children in Sudan, where the organization treats babies and infants so sick that they will die within hours without ongoing care. The centers cost about $120,000 a month to operate. Alight is trying to fundraise to keep them open, knowing that the day they close their doors, children will die."
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To defeat the far-right, we must adopt an anti-fascist economic policy
Isabella M. Weber, The Nation: "This week we saw the electoral consequences of a failed economic paradigm: The parties comprising the market fundamentalist conservatives and right-wingers achieved a landslide victory in Germany. The CDU/CSU, led by the former head of Blackrock Germany, Friedrich Merz, won 28.5 percent of the vote and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the far-right party of former Goldman Sachs banker, Alice Weidel, won 20.8 percent. What had started as Germany’s “progress coalition” of social democrats, greens, and liberals failed. The reasons behind this result? A loss of confidence in the government, a bitter migration debate, the loss of real wages in recent years, and an ongoing economic crisis. In particular, frustration with economic conditions strengthened the far-right AfD. Because when the economic pie starts shrinking, the struggles over how to divide it escalate. As in the US election, the latest surveys of AfD voters also confirm the central role of inflation: Around three-quarters are worried that they will no longer be able to pay their bills due to high prices, that they will not be able to maintain their standard of living, and that they will have money worries in old age. Since Fordism—when production was increasingly broken into a series of simple, repetitive operations—capitalist societies in the Global North have been based on a fundamental social contract. People work hard and are paid enough to afford the necessities of life. When people continue to work hard, but the prices of essential goods skyrocket, workers feel betrayed. Their frustration is exacerbated when stock markets reach record highs and corporate profits skyrocket. What is needed is anti-fascist economic policy—an economic policy that offers a solution to socioeconomic decline and can ease people’s fears about the future. We need a concrete, democratic alternative to the status quo. As first steps, this means a policy that stabilizes essential prices—from food to energy to rent—and a policy that increases wages. Not only in the short term, but also for the future. Examples from Spain and Mexico show us that not only is this essential but also feasible. This election result should serve as a warning, not just to Germany but to democratic societies around the world. We need to abandon market fundamentalism and muster the courage to design an economy that serves the needs of the general population—not as a side effect but as the primary goal. Democracy cannot be preserved by only discussing how to save it. It can only be secured by policies that guarantee a good life for all."
Litany of infamy
Bad takes
Good takes
Vox populi, vox super pissed off
Food for thought
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