THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2025
Could it be the ketamine use? People, there he went again! In this morning's New York Times, Linda Qiu fact-checks his latest claim beneath this dual headline:
Musk Again Misleads on Social Security Fraud
The world’s richest man misstated a statistic from the Social Security Administration to once again overstate fraud in the program.
For our money, the choices of language are perhaps a bit soggy there. That said, here Qiu's basic treatment of the statement to which she refers:
WHAT WAS SAID
“One interesting statistic was that 40 percent of the calls into Social Security were fraudulent, meaning that it was someone trying to get a Social Security payment that was going to a senior instead to go to a fraud ring.”
— during a campaign event in Wisconsin on Sunday
This is misleading. Mr. Musk appears to have misunderstood a statistic from the Social Security Administration. The agency recently estimated that 40 percent of direct deposit fraud, one specific type of fraud, occurred via calls to the agency. That is not the same thing as 40 percent of all telephone calls being fraudulent.
"That is not the same thing as 40 percent of all telephone calls being fraudulent?"
Duh! Stating the obvious, the person in question's interpretation of that "interesting statistic" made exactly zero sense. All in all, there this person had somehow managed to go again!
For the record, an identical statement had been made during Friday's Potemkin interview session on the Fox News Channel. Thanks to the invaluable Rev, you can read the transcript and watch the tape, simply by clicking here.
With Bret Baier in the role of potted plant, this is what was said:
ARAM MOGHADDASSI (3/28/25): At Social Security, one of the first things we learned is that they get phone calls every day of people trying to change direct deposit information. So when you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security. We learned 40 percent of the phone calls that they get are from fraudsters.
BAIER: 40 percent!
MOGHADDASSI: That's right. Almost half.
MUSK: Yes. And they steal people's Social Security is what happens...This is happening all day every day, and then somebody doesn't receive their Social Security.
With the addition of one major twist, we tend to agree. With persons like Baier playing potted plant, such claims are "happening all day every day," especially on the Fox News Channel!
Qiu's fact check continues along from where our excerpt leaves off. The bungled logic of the statement in question is rather straightforward, quite plain.
All in all, the greatest industrialist in the world had managed to do it again! This latest error might be added to the endless gong-show assertions about the Social Security recipients who are 150 years old, or about the simple 10-question survey for which the feds paid a billion dollars.
In fairness, Musk isn't the person who started the talk about the way the Haitian migrants were eating the cats and the dogs. He isn't the person who has now slapped unforgiving tariffs on islands where nobody lives.
That said, it's as we showed you yesterday. Bret Stephens said this in the New York Times way back in 2018:
Elon Musk, the Donald of Silicon Valley
He is prone to unhinged Twitter eruptions. He can’t handle criticism. He scolds the news media for its purported dishonesty and threatens to create a Soviet-like apparatus to keep tabs on it. He suckers people to fork over cash in exchange for promises he hasn’t kept. He’s a billionaire whose business flirts with bankruptcy. He’s sold himself as an establishment-crushing iconoclast when he’s really little more than an unusually accomplished B.S. artist. His legions of devotees are fanatics and, let’s face it, a bit stupid.
I speak of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley.
We offer that critique for entertainment purposes only. That said, as Qiu has noted, there he has gone again!
He's bungled the claim about condoms in Gaza. He's bungled the claims (and the insinuations) about the world's oldest non-living recipients of Social Security checks.
He seems to have bungled the claim about the billion-dollar survey which should have cost ten grand. With this latest bonehead error, he has managed to bungle again.
Is something "wrong" with the person in question? How can such an accomplished person make so many weird remarks?
Alas! Given the way other persons perform, such questions never quite get off the ground within the larger public discourse.
Why does this famous person make so many weird misstatements? There's always the possibility of simple dishonesty, of course. But within the past twenty months, three major news orgs—two of them Blue, one of them Red—have floated a different possibility.
These orgs have offered reports about this person's acknowledged (and alleged) use of various kinds of drugs. The acknowledged drug was mentioned in all three reports.
We'll offer links to the three reports, though paywalls exist in all cases:
The New Yorker. August 21, 2023
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
The Wall Street Journal. January 6, 2024
Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX
Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies.
The Atlantic. March 5, 2025
What Ketamine Does to the Human Brain
Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world.
For the record, we don't have the slightest idea if any of these ruminations have any bearing on this important person's erratic behavior and peculiar claims.
That said, Musk himself has long acknowledged his use of ketamine. As we noted last week, Shayla Love's report for The Atlantic starts with this overview:
What Ketamine Does to the Human Brain
Last month, during Elon Musk’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, as he hoisted a chain saw in the air, stumbled over some of his words, and questioned whether there was really gold stored in Fort Knox, people on his social-media platform, X, started posting about ketamine.
Musk has said he uses ketamine regularly, so for the past couple of years, public speculation has persisted about how much he takes, whether he’s currently high, or how it might affect his behavior. Last year, Musk told CNN’s Don Lemon that he has a ketamine prescription and uses the drug roughly every other week to help with depression symptoms. When Lemon asked if Musk ever abused ketamine, Musk replied, “I don’t think so. If you use too much ketamine you can’t really get work done,” then said that investors in his companies should want him to keep up his drug regimen. Not everyone is convinced. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Musk also takes the drug recreationally, and in 2023, Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that Musk’s “associates” worried that ketamine, “alongside his isolation and his increasingly embattled relationship with the press, might contribute to his tendency to make chaotic and impulsive statements and decisions.”
We don't have the slightest idea if ketamine—or if this person's alleged use of purely recreational drugs—has played any role in his frequently peculiar public behavior.
Also, as a matter of theory, the cause of this person's peculiar claims shouldn't really matter. The steady production of ludicrous claims should, by now, have been the trigger for a great deal of public discussion.
That said, also this—and this is very important:
(Clinical) depression is a deeply painful affliction. Stating the obvious, people afflicted with clinical depression deserve all the (competent medical) help they can possibly get.
That said, the person in question keeps making wild statements and making implausible, very dumb errors. As he spoke with Baier last Friday, he was surrounded by seven associates, some of whom sanded the edges off his previous weird remarks, while seeming to do all they could to keep misdirection alive.
Simple dishonesty could always be a part of this apparent phenomenon. Also, "true belief" can spread like wildfire at highly fraught times such as these.
That said, it seemed to us that Love's essay for The Atlantic included some intriguing observations about the acknowledged drug use in question.
How the heck does ketamine work? What kinds of problems might be involved (or not)? Continuing directly from above, Love offered this:
Ketamine is called a dissociative drug because during a high, which lasts about an hour, people might feel detached from their body, their emotions, or the passage of time. Frequent, heavy recreational use—say, several times a week—has been linked to cognitive effects that last beyond the high, including impaired memory, delusional thinking, superstitious beliefs, and a sense of specialness and importance. You can see why people might wonder about ketamine use from a man who is trying to usher in multi-planetary human life, who has barged into global politics and is attempting to reengineer the U.S. government. With Musk’s new political power, his cognitive and psychological health is of concern not only to shareholders of his companies’ stocks but to all Americans. His late-night posts on X, mass emails to federal employees, and non sequiturs uttered on television have prompted even more questions about his drug use.
Oof! Delusional thinking? A sense of specialness and importance?
In Love's assessment, "You can see why people might wonder about ketamine use from a man who is trying to usher in multi-planetary human life, who has barged into global politics and is attempting to reengineer the U.S. government." Eventually, she added such possible points of concern as these:
Research has not yet established the side effects of long-term ketamine therapy, but older studies of recreational users offer some insight on heavy, extended dosing. Celia Morgan, now a psychopharmacology professor at the University of Exeter, in England, led a 2010 study that followed 120 recreational ketamine users for a year. Even infrequent users—those who used, on average, roughly three times a month—scored higher on a delusional-thought scale than ex–ketamine users, people who took other drugs, and people who didn’t use drugs at all. Those who averaged 20 uses a month scored even higher. People believed that they were the sole recipients of secret messages, or that society and people around them were especially attuned to them...
Psychedelic enthusiasts have for decades cautioned about the dangers of prolonged ketamine use...John Lilly, a neurophysiologist and psychedelic researcher who once used LSD to investigate dolphin communication, famously abused ketamine until he believed that he was contacted by an extraterrestrial entity who removed his penis. “For anyone who is using a very significant amount of ketamine on a regular basis over a long period of time, I think there’s good reason to suspect that they could have different kinds of cognitive and psychological forms of impairment,” David Mathai, a psychiatrist who offers ketamine therapy to some of his patients in Miami, told me.
Such theoretical impairments would be concerning in any context—but especially when contemplating a person who has achieved enough power to be unironically described as co-president of the United States. To be sure, ketamine may have nothing to do with his actions. He may be simply acting in accordance with his far-right political ideology. Musk also famously brags that he rarely sleeps—never a good strategy for measured speech or actions.
"To be sure, ketamine may have nothing to do with [this person's] actions," Love quite sensibly states. In our view, that's a very important disclaimer.
On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal report quoted an array of this person's (unnamed) business associates who said they were concerned about his erratic behavior. They speculated that his conduct might be affected by the alleged use of recreational drugs, as well as by the acknowledged use of ketamine.
Is it possible that the person in question is in the grip of delusional thinking—can be found somewhere high up "on a delusional-thought scale?" Can some such "cognitive [or] psychological form of impairment" be involved in the ongoing lunacy at hand?
Everything is always possible, though most things turn out to be false. Importantly, Love doesn't claim to know if ketamine is part of the current public dysfunction.
We also have no way of knowing any such thing! Also, our own assessment of this situation involves the behavior of many persons aside from the person at hand:
For better or worse, the three reports to which we've linked have produced exactly zero wider discussion within the mainstream press corps. The same is true of various assertions by medical specialists who have said that President Trump's unusual behaviors may be linked to significant issues involving his mental health.
Yesterday, the president was at it again, imposing tariffs on various jurisdictions where no people live. Meanwhile, there was the person in question, on stage in Wisconsin last Sunday night.
As reported by Qiu, there he went again. The cheesehead he wore didn't help!
For better or worse, persons within the mainstream press agree that topics like these cannot be the basis of reporting or discussion. In our own view, that's an extremely good journalistic rule—until such time as it isn't.
If historians still exist in the future, such persons may "be telling this [story] with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence." As of today, this is a challenging situation involving various groups of persons.
Persons like the person in question have been making peculiar claims for a very long time now. Persons within our mainstream press corps seem to feel that there's little or nothing to look at when such weird claims get advanced.
Like the citizens whose emperor had no clothes, those persons seem to be reluctant to discuss what's right there before them. For better or worse, they continue to abide by the traditional journalistic rules which forbid certain types of discussion.
Last Friday, Bret Baier posed as a potted plant even as the person in question—with the help of one associate—instantly bruited the ten-question survey which cost a billion dollars. A garbled version of the "ancient recipients" claim followed not long after that.
As we noted yesterday, CBS News published a fact check concerning the billion-dollar survey. Everyone else looked away! Nothing to look at! Move on!
People struggling with (clinical) depression deserve all the (competent medical) help they can get. On the other hand, how about this?
If you see something, say something!
For persons within our Blue elites, this very basic modern bromide doesn't seem to have taken effect.
Tomorrow: A world-famous "arrest"
Big truth little lie. The little lie is that the 40 per cent applies universally. The big truth is that there is reason to be concerned about fraud in making SS changes from just a phone call.
ReplyDeleteWhen republicans find repeated systemic massive fraud on a huge scale by a provider, they will make that provider a US Senator. That's the kind of corrupt material they are looking for.
DeleteThat is not a "little lie", you fucking fascist freak.
Which cartoon porn video game character do you think taught Elon about Aristotle's concept of the noble lie?
DeleteAnd you were able to discern the "big truth" from this misstated factoid; rather, from a purposely told lie? Do you realize how you sound, David?
DeleteWe all live in the Plato's cave. Some of us are just much deeper in it than others and don't have any light behind them. The bizarre pronouncements from David rival that of Musk and Trump -- perhaps, David just repeats them.
DeleteCiting a false statistic doesn't lead a rational person to believe that we should be concerned with massive amount of fraud in SS. It just doesn't. If you do, it wouldn't be unreasonable to seek professional help.
Why is the little lie necessary? What is the cost benefit of telling it?
DeleteSS has been thoroughly investigated, there is no significant fraud related to SS. SS does suffer from about .3% of improper payments; it is not clear if that involves fraud, but it is hardly something to shout about other than to praise the amazing efficacy, efficiency, and security of the administration of SS - it far exceeds any private entity, which are ripe with waste, fraud, and abuse (a phrase Trump nicked from Reagan).
DeleteThe question is how long with musk be able to continue this farce and string along his loyal buttboys like DiC before they catch on that it's just one big con after another? With DiC my guess is he will never admit to the con. Part of the art of being a conman is knowing that most of your marks will be too embarrassed to ever admit they've been conned.
DeleteNote shape-shifting and contortions that David periodically undergoes. I assume that he is a fairly good proxy for the other cult members.
Delete1. Ignores Musk's bizarre, inexplicable behavior.
2. Uses the absence of correct data to imply that there's a "bigger truth". (The bigger truth apparently requires no actual facts)
3. Similarly, justifies kidnapping and horrendous human rights abuses with the claims of utility. If we send enough random immigrants to an El Salvadoran gulag, we are bound to catch some bad people in the process.
4. "Issues", of which David was blithely unaware, such as tren de aragua, become an existential threat. The odds are a few months ago, David, like most people did not know of tren de aragua's existence.
5. Lastly: a complete loss of self. All the basic beliefs that David might have had -- the beliefs that constituted his core -- have been discarded in favor of outlandish claims by Trump and Musk.
I am afraid such people are lost. They are too deeply invested in the cult and will not be able to extricate themselves.
The fact that you don’t understand Musk’s actions does not make them inexplicable. Many others do understand.
DeleteThere's no "big truth" in Musk's lie, David.
DeleteSuppose that half of all corporate insurance fraud cites actuarial analysis. If I then tell you that half of all actuarial analysis is fraudulent, am I revealing a "big truth"?
I am not. I am using a small data point to tell a whopping lie.
What's more, the data says that 40 percent of fraud arrives via phone call. That means 60 percent of fraud is committed by some other means, by mail or by in-person visit.
DeleteFurthermore, none of this tells us how frequently fraud actually occurs. Does fraud affect one in ten recipients? Or one in ten million? We can't tell from Musk's fake presentation.
Everybody understands Musk's actions, he is, at heart, a consummate con man, a snake oil salesman.
DeleteNo one believes trolls like David have been completely conned, though. Trolls like David know Musk is full of shit, and just does not care, due to their overwhelming urge to soothe their emotional discomfort at having their dominance challenged.
David has no credibility here, but he is addicted to getting his daily hit. David is a wounded lost soul wandering in a dessert, partly of his own making.
If you really want to laugh or cry, take a look at the bullshit methodology Trump used to calculate the tariffs he pulled out of his ass for each country:
DeleteIt didn’t take long before someone cracked the code on how the White House decided to overturn the global trade order.
The White House claimed to base its decision on tariff rates and nontariff barriers, but economic journalist James Surowiecki reckons it was all just a back-of-the-envelope calculation. “Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us,” the former financial columnist for The New Yorker posted on X. “What extraordinary nonsense this is.”
That approach meant Trump and his advisers simply took the U.S. trade deficit with the European Union — $235.6 billion in 2024 — and divided it by the bloc’s exports to the U.S., which totaled $605.8 billion.
The result was 39 percent, which the administration interpreted as the “unfair” trade advantage the EU holds over the U.S. From there, the White House proposed a 20 percent tariff, framing it as a corrective measure to level the playing field.
Trump, speaking in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, said he was being “kind” by cutting the tariff rate almost in half.
He looks the American people straight in the eye and tells them 39% is the effective tariff rate the EU are imposing on our exports. I mean how much more of this flimflam bullshittery do we have to take from this conman?
Tariffs were a liberal position 25 years ago. Before Democrats became Republicans.
DeleteFree trade was a republican position for as long as I can remember, maggot breath.
DeleteDemocrat =/ liberal
DeleteTariffs were a liberal position 25 years ago.
DeleteAnd then the dumb motherfucking union workers gave Saint Reagan a fucking landslide victory because they realized their racism was more important than their jobs.
Good point, Quaker. Thanks for clearing that up.
DeleteHowever, I believe there is a big truth in what Musk says: Namely, there is an enormous amount of inappropriate spending by the government.
This is only true if you define inappropriate spending as anything Trump and the Republicans don't like and think shouldn't have been funded. But most of that spending was authorized by Congress, which means that those who disapprove of it lost a vote somewhere along the line. So now they are setting aside those votes by the elected representatives of the people in order to impose their own will on govt spending. That is illegal, undemocratic, and an impeachable offense. The court cases on this are mostly being decided in favor of those objecting to the cuts, reversing Musk and Trump's actions. That's because their actions violated the law or the constitution, or both.
DeleteDavid in Cal - this is why Jews should not align with fascist regimes. They hate you David. To the core.
Delete"The U.S. Naval Academy has confirmed that officials there removed items commemorating female Jewish graduates from a historic display ahead of a visit to the school by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday."
I would start tracking the weather in El Salvador if I was you.
"However, I believe there is a big truth in what Musk says"
DeleteWith statements like this, DiC shows he is not being conned. He is one of the con men.
All actuaries are murderers. Though false, my statement is excusable because of the larger truth that there is too much murder in America.
David in Cal - Please name a few of the "many others" who understand the convicted felon's actions. Then explain which of these are not crackpots, seeking his favor, or have their nose in the felon's diaper?
DeleteThe fact that you don’t understand Musk’s actions does not make them inexplicable.
DeleteWhat makes them inexplicable is his failure to explicate. His claims are outright lies or exaggerations or misinterpretation of simple statistics. Musk has not accomplished anything verifiable.
Of course, in the context of Musk being a conman and snake oil salesman, as ANon@2:35 points out, his actions do make sense. That's how he got where he is today. Except now he's facing some scrutiny.
As a fellow old I know you know there is no fucking way SS makes any changes based on a phone call. You just flat out lie everyday to keep on the bullshit express narrative.
DeleteSo, 40% of direct deposit fraud is attempted by phone. It seems like it's also detected. We are not told, but I assume that this represents a tiny fraction of all phone calls. It also seems that these attempts fail.
DeleteI can tell you how most SS fraud takes place. It is connected to disability claims where doctors agree to certify that a person is suffering from depression or some other hard to verify ailments. In some cases, ailments may be made up. The only way to root out such fraud is by auditing.
You're being silly, David.
DeleteEveryone knows the little lie was Haitian immigrants eating our pets, and the Big Truth is all Republican voters are bigots.
Not to overstate the obvious, Musk is not lying about the 40% number because of Ketamine use. His other bizarre behavior could be amplified by his drug use.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in this particular case he's just lying. It is possible, I admin, that he has become so harebrained that he is not able to concentrate to absorb a very basic fact. I suppose that it's possible.
Loved your bullet point response to David. He really thinks he is on the shit when he bullet points his nonsense. It is the truth!, see my mighty bullet points prove it!!!
DeletePeople like David are impossible to pin down. His claims are an article of faith, just like in any cult. When you point out that something is factually wrong, he dismisses it and falls back on the "larger truth" or the "utilitarian approach". David cannot abandon his faith.
DeleteDavid in Cal is a Republican voter, so the only thing he will defend to his death is bigotry.
DeleteEVERYTHING else is negotiable.
ReplyDeleteIdiot-Democrats keep ranting and raving, bitching and moaning. Nice.
Keep draining the swamp, Mr. President! Keep turning idiot-Democrat brains into mush, Mr. Musk!
Keep squealing, idiot-Democrats!
Keep killing my 401K dearest leader. Keep making America the laughingstock of the world. You are so dreamy, like an orange creampop. I Luv U!
DeleteBring Canada to its knees!
Delete12:37 is a fag for Joe Biden's economy.
Delete
ReplyDelete" Stating the obvious, the person in question's interpretation of that "interesting statistic" made exactly zero sense. "
Actually, stating the obvious, everything reported by the Democrat party media is bullshit. Making any conclusions based on anything published by the Democrat party media makes exactly zero sense.
Democratic media said tariffs are a tax on the American consumer. Clearly that makes zero sense right nimrod 1:02?
DeleteThen Trump really did win in 2020!
DeleteMusk’s ancestors invented dishwasher detergent.
ReplyDeleteMusk's grandparents were literal Nazis, and his Dad married his own stepdaughter that he raised and then had kids with.
DeleteObviously Musk is traumatized from the hellscape of his youth, something he commented on years ago. Musk's current behavior is not significantly different than in years past, for example, Musk had nothing to do with founding Tesla, he merely was an investor, yet Musk ousted one of the founders and via a lawsuit is now listed as a founder.
Musk has always been a right wing authoritarian.
Musk needs a rinse cycle to knock the scum off.
DeleteSomerby's buyer's remorse over Trump is...SUGGESTIVE OF A LACK OF INTEGRITY STEMMING FROM SOME FORM OF MENTAL IMPAIRMENT!
ReplyDeleteIgnorance aint gonna manufacture itself.
DeleteSomerby continues his quest to normalize capitulation.
DeleteBetter gaslighting please.
DeleteOy. I did it again. I read it again. Somebody kill me.
DeleteSomerby stealing from adverts again: "Maybe it's Ketamine."
ReplyDeleteReal quiet around here as the stock market crashes and we head into Trump's recession.
ReplyDeleteReal quiet.
I know right? It is like they are starting to realize the empower has no clothes, or in the convicted conict's case, brains.
DeleteThe Dow is down by "only" 1400 points this afternoon. Why worry?
DeleteRemember when DiC said not to take Trump literally? LOL
DeleteI am reassured when I see the billionaire cabinet members tell me to shut the fuck and calm down as I watch my retirement savings go up in smoke.
DeleteI’ve been sick with a bad cold. What Trump has done is risky, no one doubts that. He campaigned on it, so no surprises there. FYI- NyQuil Nighttime has to be the equivalent of a shot of whiskey with some Valium. That stuff is “lights out”. They could use it as an anesthetic.
DeleteHe campaigned on tanking the stock market? I don't remember that.
DeleteSo like you have been drinking NyQuil for ten years Cecelia? That would explain some of it.
DeleteI’m sorry you’re sick, Cecelia. I hope you get well soon.
Delete"risky"
DeleteLOL! WaPo would be proud of you.
In order for someone (such as a journalist) to accuse Musk of taking Ketamine, they would have to observe him doing it (not just behavior that looks like drug effects). They can report that Musk has himself admitted to using it, or report statements by others that Musk uses it, but that is hearsay and would subject them to libel suits.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, here is Somerby complaining that the press doesn't discuss Musk's ketamine abuse, while quoting an actual press article about that.
If Musk is doing things worthy of complaint, as I believe he is, then those actions can and should be the focus of our discontent with Musk, not drug use that may or may not have caused his actions. We don't have to prove Musk uses ketamine. It is sufficient to say that we do not want him to be the head of Doge because of the incompetent job he has done, because he was never elected to his position (which Trump has denied he even holds), and because he has broken many laws. Those are all better things to discuss in the press than ketamine. A lot of us have made exactly those complaints in the media. Why has Somerby not complained about any of it? Why does Somerby only seem to come to life when someone is considered insane or delusion or drug-addled? Why not when they are incompetent, criminal and hurting people?
ReplyDelete"People struggling with (clinical) depression deserve all the (competent medical) help they can get. On the other hand, how about this?
ReplyDeleteIf you see something, say something!
For persons within our Blue elites, this very basic modern bromide doesn't seem to have taken effect. "
Is Somerby seriously saying that no one on the left has complained about Musk's behavior? Of course we have. We have been saying things all along, loudly.
We haven't been saying that Musk is brain addled because of ketamine, because there is no proof that is the cause of his wrongdoing. And ultimately, it doesn't matter why he is acting as co-president except that Trump is letting him do it and our Congress has not acted to stop it. Those are the folks who are responsible for this mess, not the press, and certainly not the liberal press which has been plenty noisy about the bad behavior of Musk and Doge. But now Somerby asserts that none of that counts unless we have also called Musk drug-addled? That's nonsense.
Clinical depression doesn't cause someone to do what Musk and Trump have been doing.
DeleteBeing lifelong fucking clueless jerks born with platinum spoons up their asses explains a lot.
DeleteTeidrich:
ReplyDelete"everyone knows that penguins have been taking advantage of us forever. those tuxedo-wearing motherfuckers are so smug. ‘look at us, we’re formal.’ big fucking deal, no one’s impressed. what are you dressed up for? you don’t have anywhere to go. you don’t even have real wings. eat tariffs, you fucking parasites.
Mad King Donny just levied tariffs on an island inhabited solely by penguins. sounds like something only a crazypants imbecile would do, right?
well, there you go.
so, Donny’s done gone and done it. he went ahead with his “liberation day” of reckless and ruinous tariffs — and, because Donny is Donny, he did it in the most capricious and incoherent way possible, slapping a different, seemingly-random percentage on every county in the world.
oh wait — not on every country in the world. Russia didn’t get tariffs. that’s pretty weird, isn’t it? probably just an innocent oversight, I’m sure."
A lie told with numbers is still a lie. Here is Yastreblansky's examination of where the tariff #s in Trump's chart came from, quoting Paul Krugman's substack about it:
ReplyDelete"But the thing I really wanted to know about was where the numbers in the other cells of the left column came from: how had the administration calculated a single number for "tariffs charged to the U.S.A. including currency manipulation and trade barriers" for each of the 65 countries, 67% for China, 39% for the EU, 90% for poor Vietnam? Not that I would have any ability to imagine other numbers, or even to say whether such numbers exist, but could they say something about how they did it? There are no clues in today's executive order or in the presidential memorandum to which it alludes.
Anyway, I was pleased to see that Dr. Krugman, who is probably as well positioned to talk about these subjects as anybody alive (work in international trade theory is what he won his Nobel for), put up a quick note on the Substack that has replaced his New York Time column that suggests he was wondering exactly the same thing:
So where does this 39 percent number [representing the EU's "tariffs charged to the USA"] come from? I have no idea. Many people speculated that Trump would count value-added taxes as tariffs, even though they aren’t — European producers selling to the EU market pay the same VAT as US producers, so it doesn’t discriminate and therefore isn’t protectionist. But even if you get that wrong, EU VAT rates are in the vicinity of 20 percent, so you still can’t get anywhere close to 39 percent.
You have to wonder whether Elon Musk’s Dunning-Kruger kids are now producing tariff numbers.
Now it seems, as NPR reports it, that's pretty much what happened:
Trump calls the move "reciprocal tariffs," however, the White House acknowledged it would be hard to calculate the actual trade barriers from every country, NPR's Scott Horsley tells Up First. As a result, the Trump administration picked an arbitrary number they thought would be high enough to chip away at each country's trade surplus. Economists say the tariffs will likely mean higher prices and slower growth in the U.S.
Got that? It would be hard to calculate, so they decided they'd just make the numbers up. And it's not like it was totally arbitrary, they were careful to pick numbers that sounded "high enough". Close enough for country music, as we used to say. Everybody's OK with that, right?
It was government by bullshit. They just brought their big charts out to the Rose Garden like Trump's hurricane map and read Stephen Miller's statement and lay back in the expectation that everybody would treat it as some kind of real thing. Presumably it's another Trumpy extortion attempt. Hey Vietnam, nice little export economy you have here, shame if anything were to happen to it, why don't you make us an offer? (Except Vietnam did make them an offer, back in February, and ambassador Marc Knapper assured them that Trump's tariffs were not going to be aimed at them in any way. Maybe President Trump wasn't informed of what President Trump was doing.)"
Bullshit is bullshit. You can't dress it up by calling it a ketamine delusion. The right just makes things up whenever convenient and to suit their own ends.
https://yastreblyansky.substack.com/p/these-are-not-serious-people
Reciprocal tariffs is more right wing noise machine propaganda. It has ZERO to do with reciprocity. Weirdos commenting on this blog complaining about trad news sources lying for Dems. What the ever lovin'?
DeleteIn a best case scenario, Democrats can capitalize after the policy fails and the numbers are exposed as made up.
Delete17-year-old 4.0 student stabbed in the heart at a high school track event in Frisco, Texas, dies in his identical twin brother’s arms.
ReplyDeleteAustin Metcalf was attacked after telling a teen from a different school that he was sitting in the wrong spot.
Karmelo Anthony has been been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Just days ago, Metcalf shared a post on X where he said, "Faith that God got me and my work will pay off."
Metcalf reportedly didn't know the teen who stabbed him.
"They were twins, identical twins, and his brother was holding on to him, trying to make it stop bleeding, and he died in his brother's arms," Jeff Metcalf, the father, said.
"I rushed up there and I saw him on the gurney and I could tell... they said he wasn't breathing. I could see all the blood, and I saw where the wound was, and I was very concerned, so I had to find his brother, and we rushed to the hospital."
White men are hunted in America, encouraged by the left. This will wake up even more young white males to the realities around them.
Austin Metcalf had a 4.0 GPA and was the MVP of his football team.
Breaking news, horrible crime occurs in a country of 330M that is totally OK with horrible crimes.
DeleteEveryone knows black on black murders are at the heart of America's decline under Trump.
DeleteNo one "hunted" this kid down. The white kid tried to make a black man move out of a seat he was occupying and was stabbed when the man resisted moving. It is sad but we haven't heard the other guy's story yet. Framing this as "hunting down white men" is unhelpful because it makes this a racial issue when it may not have been.
DeleteI blame ketamine.
DeleteAnd why do you bring this up?
Delete4:24 - you are right about the ketamine. I blame hair implants.
DeleteYou know if his GPA was 3.5 I would have said, 'Screw it, who's going to miss him.'
DeleteBut with a 4.0 then yeah this is a major crime.
I cannot fathom why Anthony did this. Even if he hated white people, he ruined his own life. This reminds me of Michael Brown, who lost his life in Ferguson after behaving quite irrationally. Was they crazy? On drugs?
DeleteA propensity for violence and racist leftists encouraging it.
DeleteHe may have felt threatened by a football sized guy trying to remove him from his seat, especially if he laid hands on him. Self defense.
DeleteWhat's the matter with hunting down white men? Afraid it will reduce the raping?
DeleteMichael Brown was no 4.0 student but he should not have been harassed by the cop, he should not have responded by grabbing for the cops gun, the cop should not have responded by emptying his clip into Brown. There is no correlation Dickhead. Are you crazy or on drugs?
DeleteBTW Dems also use false or misleading statistics. E.g. a current Dem talking point is that the waste in a certain area is insignificant because it’s a small percentage of some other number. That’s misleading because the amount of money involved is hundreds of billions of dollars.
ReplyDeleteJust because you eat shit David does not make any of the normies here want to join your shit eating cult. Give us some real numbers and sources or quit making stuff up in your head.
DeleteDickhead in Cal's game here is to divert, deflect and distract. I wouldn't go chasing that fucking fascist's white rabbit around the track.
DeleteGive an example.
DeleteIf you want to cut the budget, and you will not touch the military, you really only have Social Security and medical care to cut. All the rest adds up to less than 20%. The other option is to raise taxes on rich people and corporations. Why do you make it so hard David? It is either slash benefits primarily impacting the poorest, or raise income from the rich. You want to punish the poor folks for being poor, and reward rich folks for being rich. OK, good, we got it. No go play on the freeway.
DeleteRemember when Maddow was called out on Meet the Press for using false or misleading statistics about the gender gap? She was probably didn't really know it was false but it was.
DeleteCite such claim, David? More importantly, what is the "hundreds of billions" claim based on. Lastly, I happen to think that money spent on ICE is waste. Does it make it waste?
DeleteI agree Ilya that "waste" is a judgment call. I do not intend to spend the time researching the deceptive use of %'s without mentioning the 4 amount. The proper, honest way to present numbers is to present both the $ and the %.
DeleteRaising the income tax on the rich isn't enough. The top 10% pay about $1.5 trillion in income tax. If their tax rates were raised a lot, say by 25%, they'd pay $375 million more. That would be helpful, but it does not come close to closing a deficit of $2 trillion and growing.
DeleteWhat was wrong with Eisenhoweer's 90% tax rate on the wealthy DiC? You don't like Ike? You commie bastard.
DeleteIlya - here's a relevant article
DeleteThe savings claimed by tech billionaire Elon Musk eked out by his Department of Government Efficiency are worth negligible “pennies,” a Wall Street Journal reporter mocked on CNN...
Musk’s savings are a minute fraction of not only the federal budget but its burgeoning debt and the massive $4.5 trillion tax cut being cooked up by Donald Trump and the Republicans.
“The amounts that Elon Musk is getting out of this DOGE, they are pennies compared to the federal budget," Ball told CNN anchor Jim Sciutto. "They're not enough to send thousands of dollars to every American,” she added.
BTW her accusation is wrong in $ and in %. DOGE's goal is to save $1 trillion each year. Those are significant numbers. Now, DOGE may not achieve this goal, but the savings claimed are indeed a trillion $.
"Now, DOGE may not achieve this goal, but the savings claimed are indeed a trillion $."
DeleteNo. Just NO. A goal is not a claim. I haven't heard what DOGE's most recent "claimed" saving are, but it's not a trillion. And whatever that claim is, it's been repeatedly shown to be bogus.
Quaker - A month ago, Musk was already claiming he had achieved over $100 billion in savings. Given how little time he had, that would factor up to $1 trillion if he keeps cutting spending at the same pace. As you say, who knows what his actual savings really are so far and what they will ultimately rise to?
DeleteHe was lying.
Delete"A month ago, Musk was already claiming he had achieved over $100 billion in savings."
DeleteWithin days, major news organizations reported that his claims weren't backed by anything resembling evidence. A claim is not a savings.
Just to review, you've gone from "Musk claimed $1 trillion" to "Musk set a goal of $1 trillion" to "Musk claimed $100 billion which maybe could turn into $1 trillion."
DeleteA man your age should get some help. Goalposts are heavy.
What’s a few zeros among friends?
DeleteQuaker - Perhaps the estimate of savings is incorrect. However, the reason I was talking about the claimed saving is that's what the article's false statement was about. "The savings claimed by tech billionaire Elon Musk...are worth pennies."
DeleteI don't trust Musk's claimed savings, but I also distrust the media's response. The media goal was evidently to criticize Musk, not to give us the main news, namely, how much savings has DOGE has achieved. I have no doubt that it's a big number.
The way the media framed the story the main point is that Musk allegedly provided some bad numbers. The main point should be that Musk already saved a very large amount of money.
DeleteDOGE saved, according to its estimate, $140 billion. I haven't seen any other serious, substantiated estimates. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, $140 billion is the best estimate.
$140 billion is certainly a very large amount of money.
But DOGE are fucking liars. I would like my elected representatives to verify, maggot breath.
Delete
DeleteYes, the fact that retarded idiot-Democrats hate DOGE is another reason to trust it.
I didn't say I hate DOGE, idiot maggot-breath. I said they are liars.
DeleteDavid in Cal is a Republican voter. He doesn't care about the deficit. He cares about the bigotry.
DeleteBob tries to explain what’s happening, but David doesn’t want to understand.
ReplyDeleteWhen challenged to give an example supporting his "hundreds of billions of dollars" statement, DiC declines, having a commitment to spewing more bullshit here and not enough time to engage in a factual discussion.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think I call him Dickhead?
Delete