- Newly-released video obtained by the Jan. 6 Committee of former Trump adviser Roger Stone going absolutely coked-out ripshit on the phone with someone(???) about Jared and Ivanka.

Elon Musk may seem like your typical annoying billionaire, giving unsolicited, deeply out-of-touch advice to the masses and making painfully bad jokes on Twitter, but he’s not. He’s a billionaire with hoards of fans who think he’s a master of the universe. Which raises the obvious question: How worried should we be about this guy? 
 

• The idea that extremely wealthy people must be intelligent and competent is widespread enough that Donald Trump tricked so many people into believing he could be president of the United States. But few people have bought into that bullshit more than Elon, who has begun offering “solutions” to some of the world’s most complex, hot-button geopolitical conflicts. Earlier this month he “created” a “peace plan,” suggesting that Ukraine should fork over Crimea to Russia, and the Ukrainian territories which Russia illegally annexed should remain in the Kremlin’s hands if it is the “will of the people.” Musk tweeted this plan to his 100 million followers. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov called it a “very positive” development.
   

• Perhaps feeling emboldened by his first foreign-policy pronouncement, Musk took a swing at another, siding again with a dictatorial Goliath. He won praise from top Chinese officials after suggesting that self-ruled Taiwan agree to become a special administrative zone of China. Elon is not a typical celebrity spouting off about world issues. He’s the richest person on earth, who has defense contracts with the Pentagon, and his financial interests cannot be decoupled from his newfound geopolitical opinions, when, for example, one-quarter of Tesla’s revenue comes from China. 
   

• In a development that sent American and Ukrainian officials scrambling, Musk asked the Pentagon to take over paying for his Starlink satellite-communications service in Ukraine. He complained that he could not shoulder the cost, even though much of it is subsidized by the United States government and other nations, and Ukrainian soldiers are footing their own bills with credit cards. The satellite service has kept Ukraine and its military online during the war, and disabling it will cripple the Ukrainian military’s main mode of communication, which would plainly benefit Russia. Geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer reported this week that Musk told him he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin before he tweeted out his *ingenious* plan for peace in which Russia is given basically everything it wants. Musk weakly denied speaking with Putin about the war, (only days earlier he had stated he was in touch with “quite a few” parties in the conflict) but the entire chain of events left lawmakers and foreign-policy experts questioning the nature of Musk’s communications with Putin.

These new attempts at influencing foreign policy via Tweet have raised fresh concerns about how Musk will wield Twitter’s outsized influence over politicians and global leaders who rely on it if he takes control of the company. 
 

• According to a court filing released yesterday, Elon is being investigated by federal authorities over his conduct during the $44 billion takeover process. Twitter sued Musk in July to force him to close the deal and said that Musk claimed “investigative privilege” when refusing to hand over the documents sought by the social-media giant. The court filing asked Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick to order Musk’s attorneys to provide the documents, saying, “This game of ‘hide the ball’ must end.”
   

• The Securities Exchange Commission has questioned Musk’s comments about the Twitter acquisition, including whether the nine percent stake he had built in the company before announcing his bid had been disclosed in a timely manner, and why it indicated that he intended only to be a passive shareholder. He later refiled the disclosure to indicate he was an active investor, but the money was already in his pockets, and it left many to believe he had orchestrated a glorified pump-and-dump scheme. Judge McCormick has given Musk until October 28 to close the acquisition of the deal. If it is not completed by then, a trial will follow in November. 

If the acquisition does go through, Elon Musk’s Twitter is sure to be a more sympathetic place to those who play fast and loose with hate speech, and the autocrats whose praise he seems to be courting, and the reinstatement of a certain former U.S. president’s account is all but an inevitability.

Exciting news! Pod Save America is dropping a bonus episode this weekend, featuring an interview with former President Barack Obama. You can be one of the first to hear this episode by tuning into Crooked’s takeover of Sirius XM progress tonight! You don't want to miss this!

 Listen on Channel 127 or subscribe now and get up to 4 months free of SiriusXM. See offer details at siriusxm.com/crooked.

In a truly bizarre political trend, Republican politicians and conservative influencers have been  claiming that school districts “are putting litter boxes in schools for people who identify as cats.” That quotation comes courtesy of fringe wacko Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), but it’s become a ubiquitous talking point in the right-wing culture war against public education. At least 20(!!!) conservative candidates and elected officials have claimed that K-12 schools are placing litter boxes on their school grounds to accommodate students who “identify as cats” or furries. Every school district named by these politicians has emphatically denied these claims, because they are fabricated, obviously. King of the Idiots Joe Rogan repeated this lie, saying his friend’s wife worked at a school where this happened  (sure, yeah), which is especially dangerous considering he has over 11 million listeners per episode. It’s ideal disinformation for conservatives as it combines two of their favorite wedge issues: educational accommodations and anti-trans bigotry. And the fact that it seems to be objectively a hoax has, frighteningly, not given any of them any pause. And another thing: how dare you try to politicize cats! They didn’t do anything wrong!

A 15-year-old boy began shooting in the streets of a residential Raleigh, NC, neighborhood last night, leaving five dead and two injured. Police apprehended the boy and he is now in custody, but his motive is still unclear.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who has championed making it harder for many Floridians to vote, is making it easier in three counties hit hard by Hurricane Ian, that just so happen to be GOP-voter strongholds. 

Two environmental activists glued themselves to the wall at the National Gallery in London and threw a can of tomato soup on Van Gogh’s 1888 “Sunflowers” painting today. The painting was unharmed and the two protesters were later arrested. We love environmentalism but hate wasted soup, so we must condemn their actions. 

Kroger acquired Albertsons today in a $25 billion deal today, bringing the number 1 and number 2 standalone grocers in the United States under one corporate roof pending (please!!!) antitrust challenges. Federal Trade Commission, u up???

Oregon hasn’t had a Republican governor since the 1980’s, but this year’s gubernatorial race is unexpectedly close, as a longtime former Democratic lawmaker is running unaffiliated, and will likely siphon votes away from the Democratic nominee Tina Kotek. 

A new poll suggests that as Democrats go into midterm elections, their lead with Hispanic voters is slimmer than it was four years ago. 

Incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is debating his GOP challenger Herschel Walker tonight in a televised event as this hits your inbox. It’s already going exactly as you’d expect, with Walker being chastised by the moderator for furnishing a fake police badge, once again falsely implying that he was a police officer, which, it cannot be stressed enough, he absolutely never has been.

A group of 13 Senate Democrats and two Dem-aligned independents signed a letter to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission sounding the alarm about insufficient election workers, citing threats and harassment as hurdles to recruiting crucial staff ahead of midterms. 

Already-embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss has fired her Treasury chief and reversed course on a major part of her tax-cutting economic plan (that immediately crashed the pound), leaving her credibility in shambles after just six weeks on the job. Conservative girlboss alert!!

Russian President Vladimir Putin said today he expects his mobilization of military reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end his massively-unpopular, chaos-inducing directive meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory. He also told reporters today that he does not regret inciting the war and “did not set out to destroy Ukraine.” Sure buddy, whatever you say. But this gentle walk-back of mobilization orders demonstrates how poorly the Kremlin is handling the war, which even some of Putin’s staunch supporters now admit. The mobilization directive led tens of thousands of military-age Russian men to flee the country out of fear of being conscripted, and thousands more to protest in the streets across Russia. But the mobilization can only be canceled by Putin’s decree, and many are skeptical that he won’t turn his words into deeds. Somehow no one is buying his “Relax, you guys, I’m a chill dictator!” assurances in the midst of Ukraine’s continued battlefield victories, and growing unrest at home in Russia.

President Biden will sign an executive order today pushing federal officials to drive down prescription-drug costs, as healthcare costs and inflation remain top voter concerns. 

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has said he will fight the nearly $1 billion defamation verdict against him from parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, but experts say neither bankruptcy nor court appeals are likely to save his fortune or that of his disgusting media empire. 

In a televised debate between incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and his Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, the audience laughed at Johnson when he said “The FBI set me up,” and then booed him when he said in his closing statement that Barnes was “against America.” Take a bow, Wisconsin audience!