Elon Musk & Twitter thread (updates) -- free speech and information control unrest

[confused2]

Call me whatever you like but I think we are seeing Elon positioning himself to be a POTUS .. possibly even the next one.

[Yazata]

Call me whatever you like but I think we are seeing Elon positioning himself to be a POTUS .. possibly even the next one.

Constitutionally, Elon can't. Article II, section I:

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."

Elon's said that he doesn't really want to be President. He mostly wants to build rockets, though I'm sure that he likes his current position as one of the President's most trusted advisors.

His purpose in life is turning visionary ideas into reality, and he can do that unofficially as an advisor from outside the government with a lot less responsibility and demand on his time (he's still either owner or CEO of six multi-billion-dollar companies after all). Doing it this unofficial way probably raises fewer conflict-of-interest issues as well. Elon doesn't really want to have to put Tesla and SpaceX into a blind trust, the way that Trump has done with his real estate empire.

[Yazata]

X Flexed its Muscles Late Yesterday!

The occasion was the House of Representatives bringing their so-called "Continuing Resolution" up for a vote. This bill was supposedly intended to fund the US government from now until the newly elected Congress can pass a new budget.

The problems were that the CR was crafted by a "bipartisan" group of senior legislators in private meetings. It was 1,547 pages long, written in incomprehensible dense legalese. It was plopped on members of Congress' desks shortly before the vote, giving them no time to read it. And it had to be voted up and down as a single package.

That's just the way that things are done in Washington in recent decades. On an earlier occasion when this was done, Nancy Pelosi famously told the House that they would find out what was included in that one after they had voted for it.

On some previous occasions the Republicans tried to resist. But the NY Times, CNN and the rest of the establishment media absolutely crucified them, portraying them as a bunch of right-wing fanatics trying to shut down the vital functions of the US government that the American people depend on. Public opinion turned decisively against them. So ever since, Republicans have been deathly afraid of being accused of shutting down the government, and so they have voted dutifully for these "omnibus bills" crafted by senior Congressional leadership behind closed doors (where many unrelated controversial items are crammed into one 'yes or no' bill).

Given support by both parties, and given Congress' eagerness to adjourn for the holidays, this one looked headed for sure passage last night.

But things are different now. AIs can read and summarize huge bodies of text very quickly. When that was done, what was revealed was a pork-barrel extravaganza. There was funding for a new football stadium in Washington DC. There were truckloads of additional dollars for Ukraine. There was an additional $100 billion ostensibly for "disaster relief", despite FEMA's proven inefficiency, already bloated budget and history of things like funding illegal aliens. There was some kind of legislation giving Congress additional immunities from subpoenas. There was a whole set of new laws giving the government new authorities and powers in future pandemics. There was funding for promoting continued social media censorship, not just in the US but world-wide. And there was a fat $70,000/year pay raise for members of Congress to sweeten the deal.

While the conventional media remained silent, X jumped into action. Countless regular people expressed their opposition to the bill, many pointing out that a clean continuing resolution need only be 20 pages long and could be crafted in a day or two. (Just fund all government agencies and programs at the same rate as in the existing budget for a limited number of additional weeks, until a new budget is hammered out by the new Congress.) Our DOGE stalwarts Elon and Vivek weighed in in opposition to the CR. Then President-elect Trump came out in opposition.

The whole thing now appears to have gone down in flames as Republican legislators started to realize that if they voted yes, they would face voter anger and the possibility of well funded MAGA primary opposition the next time they came up for reelection.

It's unclear what the establishment media reaction will be. Will they be silent after their swamp creature allies got caught with their hands in the cookie jar? Or will they try to portray what happened once again as the crazy right-wing fanatics trying to shut down the US government? (Despite the fact that the US government wouldn't shut down at all: the military, social security and other vital functions are separately funded, while the rest would just receive IOUs on payday, assuming a clean CR wasn't passed by then. There's no reason it can't be, if Congress is willing to delay its holiday break a few days.)

It's also unclear what this means for the future of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who promised up and down that there would be no more of these last minute 'Omnibus' bills, yet here he was pushing one of the most egregious ones.

All of this might just seem like typical Washington political maneuvering. But what it demonstrates is that even before it is inaugurated the new administration is serious about shaking things up and redesigning how things are done in Washington. No more business as usual.

And that X is emerging as a powerful voice of the people in that regard.

[Yazata]

The latest is that a new clean(ish) continuing resolution has already been drafted, after Vice-President-elect Vance more or less camped out in Speaker Johnson's office as a parade of Representatives filed in to talk to the two of them.

Provisions are a clean 3-month funding extension at current budget spending levels.

Plus $110 billion in disaster relief specifically targeted at the hurricane victims. And an additional extension on aid to farmers and the agricultural sector. Along with raises in the debt-limit to fit it all in.

President-elect Trump has just endorsed the new Vance-Johnson deal.

Some prominent fiscal conservatives still aren't happy because this compromise version still has additional spending above current levels and they are still crying 'pork!'. But Trump's endorsement makes it more likely to pass.

Now the pressure is shifted to the Democrats to vote for the new version, or else they will be the ones getting blamed for shutting down the government.

It's kind of striking to see Trump and Vance working Congress like that, before they are even inaugurated. Power is visibly shifting in Washington. (Vance has already done more work as Vice President than Kamala did in four years, and he hasn't even been sworn in yet.)

---

The House of Representatives just rejected the Vance-Johnson clean(ish) continuing resolution.

Republicans voted 171 yes, 35 no

Democrats voted 2 yes, 196 no

[Syne]

Man, I hope Republicans can grow a spine and actually let the government shut down. They've been so scared of their own shadow, completely oblivious to the fact that those who can shut something down are the ones with the most power. Every time they don't just proves they cannot govern, because they're slaves to public opinion (or what passes for it in the mainstream media).

No better way to empty the swamp than to burn down the swamp itself.

[Yazata]

Watch this short video. It explains the whole thing, including Elon and X's role in it. Very good video.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1869968155637948428

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qv0nQiUmPMM

[Yazata]

And this afternoon the House of Representatives half of this weird Washington kabuki dance came to its conclusion. What was essentially the same Vance-Johnson slimmed-down CR bill (from a grotesque 1500 pages to a still pretty pudgy 100) was reintroduced. This time it passed with more Democratic votes than Republican.

It now goes to the Senate who expect to vote on it tonight. Heaven only knows what will happen there.

The bill didn't include vaccine mandate laws or social media censorship. It didn't fund a new football stadium in Washington DC or give legal immunities to J-6 committee members or exempt House members from Obamacare or give them a raise. It did include $110 billion for the hurricane victims and extended a farm bill for another year.

The Dems are strutting around acting like they have just demonstrated their power, showing that they had the power to defeat the bill, and that it couldn't have passed without them switching en-masse from 'No' to 'Yes'. Thus showing their party discipline (or herd instinct and willingness to obey their leadership).

The Republicans also consider it a victory, since they trimmed the bill from 1500 pages to 100, stripping all the Democrat wish-list items out of it. And that was largely the doing of X.

A new development today is the sudden appearance of a new Democratic party talking-point, being repeated all across the mainstream media. This is to refer to Elon Musk as "acting-President" who is elbowing Trump aside and stealing all of Trump's thunder. Republicans tend to think that this is an attempt to create a rift between Elon and Trump, by poking Trump in his ego.

---

And the Senate just approved the slimmed-down CR.

These events are a big victory for X, showing that it can exert effective grassroots people's-power inputs on the behavior of Congress, even to the point of dramatically changing legislation. That's a very positive thing in my opinion.

[confused2]

The BBC reports..
Elon Musk changes his name to Kekius Maximus on X
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy53vz1qpx1o

In UK slang keks (or kecks) are underpants .. probably not what he means.

Kek is an online term with similar meanings to LOL or haha, used especially by gamers. Since the 2016 US presidential election, the Egyptian god Kek, portrayed as Pepe the Frog, has become a symbol of the so-called “alt-right.”
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/kek/

[Syne]

Kek (Pepe the Frog) is primarily associated with memes and trolling.
It's only really associated with the right because the left no longer has a sense of humor and is shite at memeing and poking fun.

Like the Romans getting associated with bathing, the left likes to lump things they hate together. Hence the US flag, Pepe, etc. associated with the right. Anything the left abdicates is prone to get associated with the right by default.

[Yazata]

X really is turning into the world's foremost source of breaking, and otherwise ignored and excluded news.

Where else could you follow Poland's reaction to Russian drone incursions as it happened in real time? The legacy media? Crickets. Now that it's winding down, I don't really expect them to say anything.

https://www.scivillage.com/thread-11744-...l#pid75805

And X's political power is growing as well. The latest example of that was the appalling stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on the light rail train in Charlotte NC. While local news in Charlotte covered it, none of the national media (the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NYT, WaPo and all the rest) mentioned it even once... until it became a topic of discussion and outrage on X. Only then did the legacy media deign to write stories about it. Because they were more or less forced to. By the voices of countless people on X. Democracy in journalism, where the people decide for themselves what is important and create their own narratives.