For what it's worth, the dash in a Tesla looks like they decided to glue in an iPad as an afterthought...


Compare Mercedes...

Tesla est déclassé!

Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy — one that has already had far-reaching consequences.

I am by nature apolitical. So, I observe current events in government as-if a back & forth football game, in which I have no allegiance to either side.

Yet, it recently occurred to me that Trump is trying to return the federal US administration to its Spartan form under William McKinley. Until the Great Depression, and four terms of Franklin Roosevelt, the federal government was mostly limited to representing the federated states to the outside world, including military operations. So it had little to do with the average citizen, and no budget for social programs. That was left to churches and the individual states. Billionaire oligarchs & magnates seem to view themselves as basically self-sufficient independent entities (including tax evasion), so they can be expected to support a McKinley-type administration politically, if not financially.

Since FDR used back-channel federal powers to provide financial aid to individual citizens, and to prop-up failing banks, we have become addicted to a social-support system at the top. But spending federal money on common people instead of military was never intended by the Constitutional conventions, attended mostly by the 2% aristocracy. It was an emergency adaptation that became a feature of liberal government.

Those emergency powers were popular with the masses of common people, so unconstitutional programs like Social Security are almost impossible to terminate long after the emergency has been survived. And they were financially feasible only as long as the US was the top colonial super-power in the world. But now that the US is a debtor nation, the social services are being paid for with borrowed money.

Therefore, although I benefit from social security, I am appalled at Trumpsk heavy-handed axing. Yet, I must admit that something must be done to keep the nation solvent. And perhaps only an elected dictator, and an un-elected henchman, could be expected to mandate such an overhaul of federal finances. FDR's dictatorial policies were allowed only because even the oligarchs could see the hand-writing on the wall, foretelling the total failure of empire unless some "hero" could be found to do what was necessary. Do you see any other route to federal solvency? :smile:



William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. ___Wikipedia

Therefore, although I benefit from social security, I am appalled at Trumpsk heavy-handed axing. Yet, I must admit that something must be done to keep the nation solvent. — Gnomon

But it also needs to be made clear that Trump has no intention of balancing the budget. Yes, Trump-Musk will take the chainsaw to many government programs and agencies, but his tax cuts are so deep that they will more than offset any savings. The inexorable trend under the plutocracy will be dismantling welfare programs AND reducing taxes. It's plain who will benefit from that.

Meanwhile:

A federal judge on Tuesday found that Elon Musk and the White House's Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution when they unilaterally acted to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of a group of more than two dozen unnamed current and former USAID employees and contractors who had challenged the efforts to shutter USAID, which were mounted by DOGE and Musk, a senior White House adviser who President Trump has said is the leader of the task force.

Chuang granted in part their request for a preliminary injunction and said in a 68-page decision that DOGE and Musk likely violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause and separation of powers.

He ordered Musk and task force employees to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems to all current USAID employees and personal services contractors. The judge also prevented DOGE and Musk from taking any action relating to the shutdown of USAID, including placing employees on administrative leave, firing USAID workers, closing its buildings, bureaus or offices, and deleting the contents of its websites or collections. — Judge finds Elon Musk and DOGE's shutdown of USAID likely unconstitutional

A related judgement says that many DOGE firings were illegal:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the mass firing of federal employees was an “unlawful” directive by the Office of Personnel Management.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered several agencies to “immediately” reinstate all fired probationary employees. Those agencies included the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as the Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Agriculture. That would also restore numbers at the Internal Revenue Service, which falls under the helm of the Treasury Department and has been hit hard by job cuts in recent weeks.

In a hearing leading up to the decision, Alsup torched the Trump administration’s decision not to submit OPM director Chad Ezell for questioning as a “sham,” and accused the White House’s effort to cast the firings as performance failures as “a gimmick.”

“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

The Trump administration has fired at least 30,000 employees with the help of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has made a point to target probationary employees still within the first year of their roles. Some of those employees have been called to return, but most are still not working, reported Axios. — Trump Suffers Huge Loss as Judge Overturns “Unlawful” Mass Firings

Trump's attitude is, any judge who challenges his executive decrees are troublemakers and radical left lunatics. The judicial challenges to the deportation of Venezualen gang members under a little-used piece of wartime legislation looks like being the litmus test case where it Trump might choose to ignore judicial rulings.

Don't ask me why someone who can afford a Tesla is driving for LYFT, but nonetheless — BC

Second-hand Teslas are quite affordable and often come with off-sets, making a business purchase quite viable. The rest of that sounds a whinge.

But it also needs to be made clear that Trump has no intention of balancing the budget. Yes, Trump-Musk will take the chainsaw to many government programs and agencies, but his tax cuts are so deep that they will more than offset any savings. The inexorable trend under the plutocracy will be dismantling welfare programs AND reducing taxes. It's plain who will benefit from that. — Wayfarer

You may be right. But national & international economics are over my little pointy head-in-sand. Yet, I don't despair, because for every bull-in-the-china-shop, there may be someone with a red cape to guide the bull away from the fragile stuff. We can hope that there are a few of the 2%, or the fourth estate, who have enough common sense to see where tariffs & tax cuts & deportations are going, and the clout to take Trumpsk by the horns. In my fantasy of history, there have always been "heroes" on both sides of the political aisle, who practice Aristotelian moderation instead of political house-cleaning and populist swamp-draining.

The current worldwide rightward trend --- perhaps even in OZ --- may lead to a disaster like Hitler, but somehow the world will find a way to keep-on keeping-on, zig-zagging from left to right and back. Remember the grandeur-that-was-Rome? The path of history, when seen in retrospect, cycles between extremes, yet on average it seems to be on a moderate track, with few points of total anarchy. Even so, like a tornado that fortunately misses my house, Trumpnado may leave a wake of destruction behind. But, don't look to me to quell the storm. :cool:

The current worldwide rightward trend --- perhaps even in OZ --- may lead to a disaster like Hitler, but somehow the world will find a way to keep-on keeping-on, zig-zagging from left to right and back. Remember the grandeur-that-was-Rome? The path of history, when seen in retrospect, cycles between extremes, yet on average it seems to be on a moderate track, with few points of total anarchy.

The difference is we are now overpopulated and are outstripping resources. We have gone over the hump of the bacterial growth curve. The next time we have civilisation collapse, it will be global and we will leave behind us a polluted planet.

The current worldwide rightward trend --- perhaps even in OZ --- may lead to a disaster like Hitler, but somehow the world will find a way to keep-on keeping-on, zig-zagging from left to right and back. Remember the grandeur-that-was-Rome? The path of history, when seen in retrospect, cycles between extremes, yet on average it seems to be on a moderate track, with few points of total anarchy. Even so, like a tornado that fortunately misses my house, Trumpnado may leave a wake of destruction behind. But, don't look to me to quell the storm. :cool: — Gnomon

People may say that, but they don't understand it. The part that there will be destruction around, even if it's not your house that was shredded into pieces.

What Trump is doing goes way over people's heads and thus they don't understand what is happening as it's happening so fast. The US is cutting it's allies loose, surrendering to it's adversaries and basically going against everything it stood for the past 80 years. And domestically it's dismantling it's institutions and becoming more of tumultuous and wavering Latin American state.

Yet listening to the democrat octogenarian James Carville defending Chuck Schumer (74 years) and talking about a smart withdrawal, I think especially these old Washington circle jerks do not understand what is happening. They think this is American politics as usual. It's not.

More reasons why Musk is so fond of Putin also and why the turnaround of dumping the former allies and going to bed with Russia would be lucrative for Elon.

Russia will ‘undoubtedly’ discuss future Mars flights with Musk, Putin envoy says
Proposed talks would again put Musk, a senior adviser to Trump, in outsized and largely unaccountable role in international politics

Russian officials expect to hold talks with Elon Musk soon about space travel to Mars, Vladimir Putin’s international cooperation envoy said on Tuesday. The envoy’s comments, which Musk has not confirmed, also stated that Russia wanted to expand its cooperation with the US on space projects.

“I think that there will undoubtedly be a discussion with Musk [about Mars flights] in the near future,” Kirill Dmitriev said at a business forum in Moscow, going on to praise Musk’s efforts to push the boundaries of human achievement.

The proposed talks would once again put Musk, the world’s richest man and a senior adviser to Trump, in an outsized and largely unaccountable role in international politics. Musk has joined in on White House calls with international leaders since Donald Trump’s re-election, and prior to his new role in the administration reportedly was in regular contact with Putin.