I agree wholeheartedly with Simon. While Musk's change in attitude is damaging Trump and undermining the reconciliation bill, Democrats must remember the damage Musk himself has done. Under NO circumstances should Democrats view Musk as an ally.
Not an ally. But you want to encourage former pillars of support for the regime to pull away from it. We don’t need to buy him a beer, but should be pleased that he has come over to the anti-regime side,
Musk's opposition might help derail the bill. But his reasons for opposing it are different than the reasons Democrats oppose it. It's important to remember that Musk doesn't care about cuts to Medicaid, millions of people losing their healthcare and SNAP benefits, the likelihood that many hospitals will close if funding is cut, etc. etc. And he's probably all for tax cuts for billionaires.
I'm encouraged by the bipartisan effort to introduce a severe sanctions bill in Congress. Should we be pushing our representatives to also introduce legislation to provide military aid to Ukraine? Any idea if there's enough bipartisan support for a military aid bill to pass?
Thank you, Simon. I'd love for Musk to start using his money against Republican incumbents. Maybe then we'd get some help defeating Citizens United.
I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen to ask them to fight harder against Trump's budget. I'm writing postcards to North Carolina voters and sharing your proposed script on my social media.
I was recently in Miami and I’m afraid I saw & heard a lot of bad comments about Trans individuals that live there. Sorry to say, that to a lot of people there, they are still fighting a cultural war.
It’s extremely sad. When I was questioned on I felt about it. I told them I wasn’t at all concerned about Trans individuals, and that it was a silly thing to be in a tizzy about. They stopped their conversation/rant.
Yah I agree re: silly thing to be in a tizzy about. I find it completely absurd that people act like the federal government needs to be involved in controlling gender expression, especially with trans people being such a tiny portion of the population.
And I have already said this - state Dems are NOT pushing out the info that we will be getting DNC help. NJ is absolutely terrible and dysfunctional, and I am concerned!
Oh dear. That is not good. Maybe we need to have a family discussion about this. Not sure how to talk about it without it becoming "we are doomed" but we need to know the truth and the Dem party needs to address and rectify the very low (21%) approval numbers they currently have. Shame on them for acting like a mega-ton cruiseliner when we need speedboats in the water.
I am very disappointed that Field Team 6 has yet to release the state-by-state data of their massive voter registration effort. We need this data in order to find an optimal way forward!
I am so encouraged today. And let's be honest, we could see this coming a mile away. Unfortunately, the poorest, sickest and hungriest are suffering the most from this venal regime. Going to make the calls and work on No Kings. Tomorrow, postcards and a Tesla Takedown - should be lit!
Such an encouraging read and helpful ideas for activists. I call my Republican senators and representative in NC everyday and am glad for new ways to say things. Thanks for your persistence and determination!
This morning Pramila Jayapal held a shadow hearing about deportations to third countries. I caught a bit of it on YouTube. An attorney said he felt the human interest stories worked better than statistics and abstractions. He also said that so far the administration appears to be finding workarounds to judges' rulings, as opposed to outfight defiance of court orders. I learn about these Democratic "pop up" events on Threads. As to Trump/Musk: last year, in an online news show recommended on Hopium, a young woman commented that she felt Musk was always jealous of the way Trump used Twitter, and later Truth Social, so that Musk bought Twitter to have a platform of his very own. I'm struck by this strange form of conflict as the two of them battle it out through social media posts. I also wonder whether X/Twitter will begin to change if this lasts any time at all.
Regarding making changes to Xitter, Rick Wilson put out an open letter of advice to Elon last night that was a lot of fun.
From the letter,: “…you [Elon] can remove attention from him [tRump] today. You can take the attention away from him. You can unweight Trump's account. You can shut down the bot galaxies that retweet all that stuff. You guys know how to do it. You just haven't chosen to do it. Okay? That attention is crack to him. It's his ketamine. You can turn that knob right now to zero. You could do it by tonight. And the sooner you do it, the more power you have.”
I’ve never been on Xitter, so I have to take Wilson’s word for how easy it would be to change the algorithms so they no longer amplify tRump’s messages to the cult. But I sure hope he’s right when he points out how tRump will respond when nobody is seeing re-bleets about those stupid meme coins anymore!
It's absolutely true about the power of the algorithm over who sees what on Xitter, also Facebook, Instagram, etc. And absolutely true that Musk, and other social media bosses, control the algorithms.
It's a hair-raising amount of power to give these tech bros over what feels like a public square. At various times, Musk etc have used the algorithms to boost posts with short videos or without links or that provoke strong responses. It's no different, just subbing in a different set of values or fields.
And I'll put in a plug for Mastodon and the other Fediverse social media, which are essentially decentralized co-ops. So no big bad billionaire can ever buy the place, go nuts, and turn it into a tool to destroy democracy.
I am thinking about our Entrenched MAGA congressman whom we Dems have never succeeded in prying out of our Ruby-hatted district of White Fossils despite concerted effort. Said MAGAt voted in favor of That Bill (and sent me an odiferous patronizing email explaining his pride over having contributed to its beauty — hard upon the heels of his paen to the brilliance of 47’s Tariff “Policy”) and it occurred to me to imagine what it would look like if MRat decided to pour a gazillion dollars into a primary against him.
The thought is not pleasant.
I wish we could reroute that gazillion into repaving our roads, establishing a youth job corps, shoring up public transportation, and funding all of our food banks. Period.
Okay. Onward to increasing Schiff and Padilla’s “we hate the MAGA Death Bill and Renew the Fight Against Tariffs” numbers. Cory Booker told me personally that Noise is Necessary.
It is my birthday, and I would like to thank the universe for the gift of that NY Times headline.
I called Rep. Omar to thank her for eviscerating Linda McMahon. In honor of my birthday, I will make a donation to Abigail Spangberger and the guy running for Angie Craig's seat, and throw a giant military parade.
😂 Happy Birthday!🎂 Maybe someone will give you nice tunic with lots of gold braid and medals to wear for your parade! Seriously, hope you have a great birthday.
You know I have been watching this play out on right-wing media (Fox, Newsmax), and the talking heads over there are in consternation over this! They can't stand the fact that their big happy MAGA family is breaking up and don't know what to do about it! What's worst, it's making the libs happy! You have those on one side who downplay it and say that Trump and Musk will reconcile and everything will be just hunky-dory again--I think not. And then there are those like Steve Bannon (not a Musk fan) who are furious with Musk for the things he is saying about their Dear Leader! This shitshow is too exciting for me to handle!
Now Musk wants to form a third party to take on the Republicans who vote for the "abominable" bill. To which I say Elon go for it! It would divide the Republican party and the Dems will win Florida and Texas in 2026, which will make Hannity's head explode on election night!
One thing I loved about the feud yesterday was the laughter and energy among democrats and all the funny memes about how trump and musk were revealed to be pathetic and weak. It was a nice break from the “4D chess omg we’ll never have elections again” doom posting on social media sites that’s frankly demotivating. The key is sustaining that feeling of being on the attack and drawing on group energy instead of constantly being depressed about everything and defeated, even when there are wins and good news. We need to figure out how to do that.
With the chaos, discussions of what this administration is doing to dismantle government and society is hard to fathom let alone bring up for “conversation.” One more issue is --
For Christian Nationalists like Russ Vought and Peter Thiel (a major investor in Palantir,) “state-sanctioned moral values” will be defined with laws drawn from the Christian Nationalist interpretation of the Bible, from healthcare for women to LGBTQ+ and more.
Americans already live with numerous Christian Nationalist religious laws (“state-sanctioned moral values.”). In the hands of a Christian Nationalist theocratic government, Palantir will be a surveillance nightmare for every American. It means the end of freedom as Americans have known it.
So how do we address and prevent this problem also?
Flying our flag in support of the veterans protesting today. 🇺🇸
Will call my NJ-reps in support of the Russian sanctions bill. All have been very vocally opposed to the Big, Ugly, Farce.
Will write some more postcards to register voters in NJ tonight after work.
BTW, initial numbers for mail-in and early voting for June 10th primary are running ahead of prior years.’ No prognostication of what it actually means for the Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
Praying Democratic messaging exploits the fElon-TACOMan rift.
My calls today were about the tariffs...specifically the thought that the tariffs will bring manufacturing back. I did some research (mostly on Peter Zeitan's site), and we can't bring manufacturing back because we need parts and infrastructure to do so. And those parts and infrastructure are not available due to the tariffs. The administration can't have tariffs and return of manufacturing. I spoke with Congresswoman Boebert's office and left messages with Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper (mainly for them to get their GOP colleagues to understand they can't do both).
Who should we deport—Musk or 🌮 Trump? Why not both? Send them both to that sub-Antarctic island inhabited only by penguins? Better not—that would be too hard on the penguins, each of which is smarter than Musk or 🌮 on the best day of their lives!
I agree wholeheartedly with Simon. While Musk's change in attitude is damaging Trump and undermining the reconciliation bill, Democrats must remember the damage Musk himself has done. Under NO circumstances should Democrats view Musk as an ally.
Not an ally. But you want to encourage former pillars of support for the regime to pull away from it. We don’t need to buy him a beer, but should be pleased that he has come over to the anti-regime side,
That’s the main thing.
Musk's opposition might help derail the bill. But his reasons for opposing it are different than the reasons Democrats oppose it. It's important to remember that Musk doesn't care about cuts to Medicaid, millions of people losing their healthcare and SNAP benefits, the likelihood that many hospitals will close if funding is cut, etc. etc. And he's probably all for tax cuts for billionaires.
Yes, he wants more cuts NOT less!
🇺🇸🇺🇸
When two madmen fight, root for the fight. -- Portuguese proverb
I'm encouraged by the bipartisan effort to introduce a severe sanctions bill in Congress. Should we be pushing our representatives to also introduce legislation to provide military aid to Ukraine? Any idea if there's enough bipartisan support for a military aid bill to pass?
Thank you, Simon. I'd love for Musk to start using his money against Republican incumbents. Maybe then we'd get some help defeating Citizens United.
I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen to ask them to fight harder against Trump's budget. I'm writing postcards to North Carolina voters and sharing your proposed script on my social media.
And popping more popcorn.
Simon, can you ask Congressman Garcia how the voter registration numbers are in Florida (especially in Miami-Dade area) compared to 2024?
Of the places we do have voter reg data this year it is not yet moving in our direction
Hmm. I wonder if Virginia or New Jersey will show more activity because they have off year elections in a matter of months.
I was recently in Miami and I’m afraid I saw & heard a lot of bad comments about Trans individuals that live there. Sorry to say, that to a lot of people there, they are still fighting a cultural war.
That is sad to hear.
It’s extremely sad. When I was questioned on I felt about it. I told them I wasn’t at all concerned about Trans individuals, and that it was a silly thing to be in a tizzy about. They stopped their conversation/rant.
Yah I agree re: silly thing to be in a tizzy about. I find it completely absurd that people act like the federal government needs to be involved in controlling gender expression, especially with trans people being such a tiny portion of the population.
And I have already said this - state Dems are NOT pushing out the info that we will be getting DNC help. NJ is absolutely terrible and dysfunctional, and I am concerned!
Oh dear. That is not good. Maybe we need to have a family discussion about this. Not sure how to talk about it without it becoming "we are doomed" but we need to know the truth and the Dem party needs to address and rectify the very low (21%) approval numbers they currently have. Shame on them for acting like a mega-ton cruiseliner when we need speedboats in the water.
I am very disappointed that Field Team 6 has yet to release the state-by-state data of their massive voter registration effort. We need this data in order to find an optimal way forward!
I am so encouraged today. And let's be honest, we could see this coming a mile away. Unfortunately, the poorest, sickest and hungriest are suffering the most from this venal regime. Going to make the calls and work on No Kings. Tomorrow, postcards and a Tesla Takedown - should be lit!
Keep going!
Such an encouraging read and helpful ideas for activists. I call my Republican senators and representative in NC everyday and am glad for new ways to say things. Thanks for your persistence and determination!
This morning Pramila Jayapal held a shadow hearing about deportations to third countries. I caught a bit of it on YouTube. An attorney said he felt the human interest stories worked better than statistics and abstractions. He also said that so far the administration appears to be finding workarounds to judges' rulings, as opposed to outfight defiance of court orders. I learn about these Democratic "pop up" events on Threads. As to Trump/Musk: last year, in an online news show recommended on Hopium, a young woman commented that she felt Musk was always jealous of the way Trump used Twitter, and later Truth Social, so that Musk bought Twitter to have a platform of his very own. I'm struck by this strange form of conflict as the two of them battle it out through social media posts. I also wonder whether X/Twitter will begin to change if this lasts any time at all.
Very good point about how this could change Twitter!
Regarding making changes to Xitter, Rick Wilson put out an open letter of advice to Elon last night that was a lot of fun.
From the letter,: “…you [Elon] can remove attention from him [tRump] today. You can take the attention away from him. You can unweight Trump's account. You can shut down the bot galaxies that retweet all that stuff. You guys know how to do it. You just haven't chosen to do it. Okay? That attention is crack to him. It's his ketamine. You can turn that knob right now to zero. You could do it by tonight. And the sooner you do it, the more power you have.”
I’ve never been on Xitter, so I have to take Wilson’s word for how easy it would be to change the algorithms so they no longer amplify tRump’s messages to the cult. But I sure hope he’s right when he points out how tRump will respond when nobody is seeing re-bleets about those stupid meme coins anymore!
https://therickwilson.substack.com/p/how-elon-can-take-revenge-on-trump
It's absolutely true about the power of the algorithm over who sees what on Xitter, also Facebook, Instagram, etc. And absolutely true that Musk, and other social media bosses, control the algorithms.
It's a hair-raising amount of power to give these tech bros over what feels like a public square. At various times, Musk etc have used the algorithms to boost posts with short videos or without links or that provoke strong responses. It's no different, just subbing in a different set of values or fields.
And- it's totally legal. Not ethical, but legal.
I’ll put in a plug here for the explicitly proDemocracy platform, SezUs, where no one can turn any knobs on the algorithms and bots are averted!
https://sez.us/
And I'll put in a plug for Mastodon and the other Fediverse social media, which are essentially decentralized co-ops. So no big bad billionaire can ever buy the place, go nuts, and turn it into a tool to destroy democracy.
Good morning from the Pacific Time Zone.
I am thinking about our Entrenched MAGA congressman whom we Dems have never succeeded in prying out of our Ruby-hatted district of White Fossils despite concerted effort. Said MAGAt voted in favor of That Bill (and sent me an odiferous patronizing email explaining his pride over having contributed to its beauty — hard upon the heels of his paen to the brilliance of 47’s Tariff “Policy”) and it occurred to me to imagine what it would look like if MRat decided to pour a gazillion dollars into a primary against him.
The thought is not pleasant.
I wish we could reroute that gazillion into repaving our roads, establishing a youth job corps, shoring up public transportation, and funding all of our food banks. Period.
Okay. Onward to increasing Schiff and Padilla’s “we hate the MAGA Death Bill and Renew the Fight Against Tariffs” numbers. Cory Booker told me personally that Noise is Necessary.
It is my birthday, and I would like to thank the universe for the gift of that NY Times headline.
I called Rep. Omar to thank her for eviscerating Linda McMahon. In honor of my birthday, I will make a donation to Abigail Spangberger and the guy running for Angie Craig's seat, and throw a giant military parade.
😂 Happy Birthday!🎂 Maybe someone will give you nice tunic with lots of gold braid and medals to wear for your parade! Seriously, hope you have a great birthday.
Which guy, Annie? There are two that have solicited me via ActBlue. I have given to Matt Little, in case it matters. Happy birthday!!
You know I have been watching this play out on right-wing media (Fox, Newsmax), and the talking heads over there are in consternation over this! They can't stand the fact that their big happy MAGA family is breaking up and don't know what to do about it! What's worst, it's making the libs happy! You have those on one side who downplay it and say that Trump and Musk will reconcile and everything will be just hunky-dory again--I think not. And then there are those like Steve Bannon (not a Musk fan) who are furious with Musk for the things he is saying about their Dear Leader! This shitshow is too exciting for me to handle!
Now Musk wants to form a third party to take on the Republicans who vote for the "abominable" bill. To which I say Elon go for it! It would divide the Republican party and the Dems will win Florida and Texas in 2026, which will make Hannity's head explode on election night!
Regarding increased prices, yesterday at the grocery store, jars of mayonnaise were selling for nearly $8 each!
YEP...same here at Walmart in Florida.
One thing I loved about the feud yesterday was the laughter and energy among democrats and all the funny memes about how trump and musk were revealed to be pathetic and weak. It was a nice break from the “4D chess omg we’ll never have elections again” doom posting on social media sites that’s frankly demotivating. The key is sustaining that feeling of being on the attack and drawing on group energy instead of constantly being depressed about everything and defeated, even when there are wins and good news. We need to figure out how to do that.
With the chaos, discussions of what this administration is doing to dismantle government and society is hard to fathom let alone bring up for “conversation.” One more issue is --
For Christian Nationalists like Russ Vought and Peter Thiel (a major investor in Palantir,) “state-sanctioned moral values” will be defined with laws drawn from the Christian Nationalist interpretation of the Bible, from healthcare for women to LGBTQ+ and more.
Americans already live with numerous Christian Nationalist religious laws (“state-sanctioned moral values.”). In the hands of a Christian Nationalist theocratic government, Palantir will be a surveillance nightmare for every American. It means the end of freedom as Americans have known it.
So how do we address and prevent this problem also?
Flying our flag in support of the veterans protesting today. 🇺🇸
Will call my NJ-reps in support of the Russian sanctions bill. All have been very vocally opposed to the Big, Ugly, Farce.
Will write some more postcards to register voters in NJ tonight after work.
BTW, initial numbers for mail-in and early voting for June 10th primary are running ahead of prior years.’ No prognostication of what it actually means for the Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
Praying Democratic messaging exploits the fElon-TACOMan rift.
Hi Patriots,
My calls today were about the tariffs...specifically the thought that the tariffs will bring manufacturing back. I did some research (mostly on Peter Zeitan's site), and we can't bring manufacturing back because we need parts and infrastructure to do so. And those parts and infrastructure are not available due to the tariffs. The administration can't have tariffs and return of manufacturing. I spoke with Congresswoman Boebert's office and left messages with Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper (mainly for them to get their GOP colleagues to understand they can't do both).
Who should we deport—Musk or 🌮 Trump? Why not both? Send them both to that sub-Antarctic island inhabited only by penguins? Better not—that would be too hard on the penguins, each of which is smarter than Musk or 🌮 on the best day of their lives!