[Kip Currier: Read and share this New Republic article with as many people as possible. We must work to raise awareness of what the Trump/Musk alliance is perpetrating and inflicting.
Matthew 20:16: "So the last shall be first, and the first last."
As this article unpacks, even catching a glimpse of the richest man on Planet Earth perversely fetishizing a chainsaw on stage -- as he elatedly wreaks havoc on the lives of Americans and the world -- is both stomach-churning and heart-breaking. We see before us a WWE-esque caricature of a human; a performative individual who is profoundly lacking an ethical center and values like compassion, reason, and integrity.
Elon the Oligarch can buy whatever access his heart desires. He can attain whatever healthcare he or his family needs. Musk also has unfettered access to lucrative government opportunities for self-enrichment, despite having clear conflicts of interest and supporting the abrogation of government ethics rules. The unchecked damage that Team Musk is unleashing will be far-reaching for millions.
Consider just a few examples:
- The veteran who has served this country and may need, say, a pair of hearing aids or a cancer treatment regimen but may not now be able to get the healthcare they need and deserve.
- The recent college graduate who wants to serve their country in the FBI, FDA, or FAA but who was summarily fired because they were one day shy of finishing their probationary period before DOGE jubilantly sacked them and countless other probationary federal employees sharing their expertise and service.
- The university researcher who has been performing medical research that is leading to new insights and treatments for common and rare diseases but whose funding and research studies may now be halted and eliminated altogether.
Musk wants us to feel guilty for government programs that we support with our tax dollars, while he games the system to advance his aim of being the world's first trillionaire.
When the time comes to vote, remember the politicians who unabashedly are supporting Elon the Tyrannical right now, and the administration giving him a free hand to take a chainsaw to programs that assist persons in need and empower other people to help their fellow humans in need.]
[Excerpt]
"At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Elon Musk appeared on stage in oversized sunglasses, a black gothic MAGA hat, a thick gold chain around his neck—and wielding a chainsaw. Ha ha. Over at Politico’s Playbook, the new team may not have heard of the New Deal, but thank goodness they do have enough sense to know that the richest man in the world and the president he works for (or is it the other way around?) might—make that will—come to rue that cringey image.
The way Musk’s DOGE is going about these cuts is the equivalent, as I heard former Biden administration official Mitch Landrieu say on TV this week, of a man thinking he needs to lose 30 pounds and deciding to saw off his leg. That’s funny, and true. But this is even worse. A man sawing off his leg hurts only himself. What Musk is doing will hurt millions of people in ways that we’re only beginning to see.
Here’s one small example, which you likely haven’t read about but which I take a little personally. If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and went to my hometown university, West Virginia University, or WVU (not UWV, thank you). A week ago, West Virginia Watch, a small nonprofit news organization in the state, moved a story noting that the university expects to lose $12 million annually in funding that supports cancer and vascular research.
Under dynamic Dean Clay Marsh, a native of the state recruited back to West Virginia from Ohio State by WVU President E. Gordon Gee (and the son of hell-raising newspaper editor Don Marsh, who once upon a time made The Charleston Gazette one of the most aggressive regional newspapers in the country), the cancer institute has made tremendous strides. The cuts, a university spokeswoman told West Virginia Watch, could cost the school the faculty it has recruited to do the research and conduct the clinical trials that could lead to the breakthroughs that would save a lot of lives in the state with the third-highest cancer mortality ratein America.
And if it’s $12 million at the smallish West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, imagine what it is at New York University, or UCLA, or Johns Hopkins, or even much larger state research hospitals in Florida or Washington. And it’s happening to every state university medical system in the nation."
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