#starlink deal

[inc-immigrationnewscanada]

Premier Doug Ford Axes $100M Starlink Deal Amidst Explosive U.S. Tariff War!

In an unprecedented escalation of tensions between Canada and the United States, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has declared a significant shift in policy, announcing the termination of a $100 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink. This bold decision comes just ahead of the implementation of punitive tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump, set to disrupt trade dynamics between these two…

[wherepond]

Trump & Musk

Canada fights back against Trump & Musk

Ontario has banned American companies from government contracts & cancelled a $100 MILLION (Candadian dollar) deal with Elon Musk's company Starlink to provide high-speed Internet access to Canadians in Canada's biggest province.

[tomorrowusa]

Musk may have torpedoed the original House bipartisan continuing resolution last week because it would have regulated his business dealings in China.

House Democrats Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut say their Republican colleagues in Congress caved to the demands of Elon Musk, sinking a bipartisan government funding bill that would have regulated U.S. investments in China. Congress passed a separate stopgap funding bill over the weekend, averting a government shutdown. In a series of posts on X, McGovern said more could have been accomplished. The scrapped provision “would have made it easier to keep cutting-edge AI and quantum computing tech — as well as jobs — in America,” he wrote. “But Elon had a problem.” Tesla, run by Musk, is the only foreign automaker to operate a factory in China without a local joint venture. Tesla also built a battery plant down the street from its Shanghai car factory this year, and aims to develop and sell self-driving vehicle technology in China. “His bottom line depends on staying in China’s good graces,” McGovern wrote about Musk. “He wants to build an AI data center there too — which could endanger U.S. security. He’s been bending over backwards to ingratiate himself with Chinese leaders.” SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, has reportedly withheld its Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan at the request of Chinese and Russian leaders. Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan’s status is one of the biggest flashpoints in U.S.-China relations.

There's an obvious conflict of interest here. Musk doesn't want to offend China because he's worried that it may hurt his bottom line.

Musk contributed $277 million to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes during the 2024 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Since the election in November, Musk has become a nearly constant presence at Trump’s side, including in meetings with foreign leaders. Trump appointed Musk to co-lead a group that’s not yet formed, but will be tasked with finding ways to cut regulations, personnel and budgets.

At least part of the reason Musk contributed heavily to Trump and other Republicans may be to get them to go soft on China for the sake of his business interests.

[qqueenofhades]

In light of OceangateGate, by show of hands, who still wants Elon Musk to send them to Mars?

I mean, this whole thing (like I kept saying in tags) is both grimly fascinating and utterly predictable. Because there's this whole culture that you could and should do absolutely anything anywhere on earth, if you're able to pay for it, and at the same time that the companies offering these experiences can do absolutely everything to cut corners and make profits while placing people in incredibly dangerous situations. Whether it's the mountain adventure companies who take tens of thousands of dollars to shunt total novices up Mount Everest, or this, it's just like... MAYBE YOU SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO MAKE EVERYTHING INTO A HYPER-CAPITALIST COMMODITY JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE RICH AND/OR WANT TO TAKE MORE MONEY FROM RICH PEOPLE! MAYBE!

Within 48 hours of this story breaking, we have learned that:

The sub is not tested or certified by literally any regulatory agency, because "innovation can't wait for rules"

The sub is built of fucking camping store gear and a video game joystick, they did not pay for appropriately certified parts for the depths they wanted to go, and the company fired the guy who pointed it out, rather than dealing with any of the issues he raised

The CEO (one of those now missing on the sub) gave an interview talking about how "at some point, safety is just waste"

In 2018, a literal group of esteemed submersible experts wrote to this guy about how his plans were bad and he should feel bad; he ignored it

The sub does not have basic safety equipment, a readily available backup vehicle, an acoustic beacon, etc, and has gone missing several times before; it is only luck that they found it those times

You can't get out of the fucking thing by yourself even if it is on the surface

It used Elon Musk's Starlink satellites for communication and cited SpaceX as a private adventure tourism model (as noted, you know, the rockets that keep literally blowing up)

You have to sign an enormous waiver (after paying $250,000 a head) acknowledging this entire thing is completely unregulated and you may very well die

Which it looks like these poor schmucks either have or are soon going to, either by imploding instantly at great depth (the merciful option) or slowly suffocating in a freezing coffin in the dark (the absolute hell option)

Like?!?! How was this not COMPLETELY predictable?

And this happened WHILE THEY WERE GOING TO THE TITANIC

You know, the most famous case of Man vs. Nature technological hubris in history

I mean. This is the ultimate outcome and perfect encapsulation of the "no rules no regulations ever, everything including the most dangerous things are crassly commodified for money, everyone is an expert and/or experience is irrelevant, safety rules only exist to hamper innovation and disrupt The Free Market, costs should be cut on everything for more profits, and this should all continue regardless of the consequences or the impact on the other people then required to endanger themselves to rescue them" late-stage capitalist hellscape we are living in. And maybe I shouldn't have laughed, but uh, I laughed:

[azspot]

Many of Musk’s businesses rely on government contracts, of course—Starlink and SpaceX have long raised red flags among watchdogs due to the combo of large government contracts, international operations, and dealings with the foreign leaders they traffic in. We can expect all that to entrench, and likely to expand.

Tech under Trump, part 1

[darkeagleruins]

JUST IN: FCC Commissioner @BrendanCarrFCC slams Vice President Kamala Harris's $42 billion broadband initiative, saying it hasn't connected a single person to the internet in 3 years.

"In 2021, VP Harris agreed to lead a $42 billion effort to expand internet access to millions.

It's been 1,039 days, and no one has been connected—no homes, no businesses, not even a shovel in the ground." Carr adds, "It gets worse.

No infrastructure will begin until next year at the earliest, and in many cases, not until 2026. This makes it the slowest federal broadband program in recent history."

Carr accuses the administration of focusing on climate change, DEI, and other political goals instead of connecting Americans.

He points out that the government revoked a $1,300 per location deal with @Starlink after President Biden targeted @elonmusk, and now the government is spending over $100,000 per location on its own efforts.

[ajmakoko]

Summary of evidence and concerns:

Trump is a Russian asset working for Putin (see book American Kompromat by journalist Craig Unger or Active Measures documentary with Hillary Clinton(1), sources below). Elon and Trump are working together (2). They both have substantial ties to Epstein (3) (4) (5) (6). Trump stole election software in 2020 (7). Similarly, Elon Musk has been in contact with Russia for the last 2 years (8). This includes during the Ukraine War when Russia began using Starlink (9) while it was claimed they got them third party and not from Musk himself; however now appears imo to show Elon is a doublecrosser.

Starlink, Elon's satellite company, was installed in some voting machines across the country (10) and may have interfered with vote tabulation. Voting machines were found to be connected to the internet (11). An independent report on voting machines concluded that tabulation tampering was possible with current voting machines, so hand counts are vital (12). In September, Politico had an investigation finding Russian malware on a state voter registration database (13). Also, there were malicious fake texts from fake DNC organizations, connected to Elon who donated to them, that were fishing voter info (14).

Elon had results of election on an app 4 hours before official counts had it (15), per Joe Rogan podcast in a discussion to Theo Von. Earlier this year, Tana Monogeau, released info that she'd been offered millions of dollars to endorse the Trump campaign and that she knew others had taken the deal (16).

They will release more info admitting their fraud because they are a Russian asset trying to start a civil war here (speculation). They want us to be confused about sources and who to trust and what's real, they want to release the truth to anger us and lies to anger us. Trump has refused to write an ethics statement for transition of power saying he will transition peacefully (17). JD Vance has also told the EU that unless they allow X unfettered access to the EU (to spread propaganda), they will withdraw the US from NATO (18) - which will prompt wars or takeover either way and weakens Germany, who is entering an election since their government couldn't agree on Ukraine budget. A Russian space chief said Elon Musk’s plan to bomb Mars is a cover to put nuclear weapons in space (19).

Also speculation, are reports of widespread ballot rejection, especially for signatures. There are articles claiming already that it is because GenZ does not know cursive (20) - except the signature simply must match your driver's license. It's not a cursive writing test. Avocado toast but with gen z voting fraud. We do not yet have the ballot rejection rates but typically they are around 1% to 1.5% (21).

Crypto is how right wing conservatism got funded here. It's why it took off- it was basically UBI for those men, funded by foreign intelligence for this purpose along with other uses for crypto like dark money, drugs, trafficking, etc (22)(23). The least informed people we knew were investing in crypto when it was starting, mining bitcoins. They couldn't tell you what a stock or tariff is, yet they were making bank in crypto trading. Crypto trading, especially memecoins, appears to be an obvious scam to most because it's the stock market without ownership. So why were these 4chan pedophiles and nazis doing so well? Because it was just meant to give them money the whole time. And crypto is great for transferring money internationally from shady organizations to shady people (24). Far right catchphrases and meme campaigns dispersed online including X, give out the key words/catchphrases for the new coin that isn't a scam and will disperse money. People who are deep in these groups interner algorithms get these keywords first and normal outsiders will either not notice or will stay away. No normal person wants a coin that references Hitler if they are just scrolling memecoins.

Once the government has been taken over, they can force their memecoin as the national currency and then rug pull, which is also what Musk is likely going to do to Tesla at the same time. The entire point is to bankrupt America for Putin and his cartoon villain cohorts. Musk is already saying he wants to withdraw from US currency due to national debt (Trump added most of the national debt) (25).

If you're in Germany, take note. They are coming for you next, your election is soon.

News Links

(1) https://youtu.be/5umiMThrlsA?si=mwgr4U2c2jleJEBj

(2) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musk-weighing-trump-staffing-decisions-sources/story?id=115730434

(3) https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/trump-infiltrate-voting-machines-georgia-2020.html

(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html

(5) https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1

(6) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fire-and-fury-the-podcast/id1750757108

(7) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes

(8) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-to-know-about-elon-musks-reported-phone-calls-with-putin-and-why-it-matters

(9) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-using-thousands-spacex-starlink-terminals-ukraine-wsj-says-2024-02-15/

(10) https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/1gnxqmw/elon_musks_company_starlink_praised_by_tulare/

(11) www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna1112436

(12) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-georgias-effort-to-secure-voting-machines-as-experts-raise-concerns

(13) https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/01/us-election-software-national-security-threats-00176615

(14) https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme/

(15) https://grabien.com/story.php?id=499986

(16) https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/tana-mongeau-paid-political-endorsement

(17) https://apnews.com/article/trump-transition-planning-ca3a6be50d147b04b6498184e5599b1e

(18) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

(19) https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/499968-russian-space-chief-elon-musks-plan-to-bomb-mars-is-a-cover-to-put/

(20) https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-voters-struggle-signatures-cast-mail-ballot-problems-2024-11

(21) https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots

(22) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/far-right-extremists-raise-millions-cryptocurrency-bitcoin/

(23) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/opinion/crypto-cryptocurrency-money-conspiracy.html

(24) https://apnews.com/article/cryptocurrency-coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-europe-f7f754fc2c68b0eb0d712239323f26c3

(25) https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/10/its-unsustainable-tesla-ceo-elon-musk-issues-us-serious-bankruptcy-warning-amid-huge-bitcoin-and-dogecoin-price-surge/

Personal Testimony from the dickbags themselves:

youtube.com/live/HBPNfAUPz08?si=PZQa_D_wbN9VoA6y

In the first minute:

"Your votes are rigged. We can win New Mexico."

"If you can watch your vote counter, if we can bring God down from heaven (he's referencing Starlink), we can win this, win California, win a lot of states."

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/if-trump-loses-im-fcked-elon-musk-in-interview-with-tucker-carlson/articleshow/114024254.cms

“If [Trump] loses, I’m f*cked… How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

Why does Elon think he would go to prison though? For what crime?

youtu.be/Zmc0EN8XAY8?si=5u_mJNte37r4JmUb

Trump:"Our little secret is having a big impact"

If Trump was so sure the election was rigged and they were going to turnover every state including California, then why hasn't he asked for a recount in all the states with representatives that didn't get elected that he thought would be? Shouldn't he be suing for recounts? He did it last time. Why doesn't he want an investigation this time?

#AssetForfeitureTrumpMusk

If they get locked into years of asset forfeiture from layers and layers of state and municipal claims and lawsuits (which will require discovery lol), we may be able to stop them. Which is likely part of why they are moving to bitcoin as well.

[beardedmrbean]

I got a ton of vitriol from aggressive pro-pals for saying any of those bloggers can be complicit, bribed, or just straight up wrong, and that it's way easier to vet organizations instead. If the guy on tumblr is actually in an area plagued by war and a humanitarian crisis, is it really that far-fetched that maybe he might accept a few grand to vouch for a scam ?

Considering saying that got me three DMs and anons calling me a nazi, with one saying some very nice thing in perfect parisian french... if I wasn't convinced to not trust palestinian bloggers before, now I really am.

I'm extremely picky about rebloging any post asking for money I see, didn't used to be but I started seeing too many posts that felt too fake and realized people were trusting me to not lead them wrong on things.

So I either have to know the person or the person asking me for the reblog has to vouch for the person in the donation post, getting a random ask that feels fishy from the start is going to be a good way to get nothing from me.

Not going to call the people asking liars straight off, will do that if I start getting the exact same ask from half a dozen different blogs or the same ask from the same blog within a day, especially if the only thing on that blog is the a post asking for donations.

Pin your donation post and do some aesthetic posts, make a few comments on things or something to make it look like there's a real person there, like the ones that make reblog chains trying to sell things do.

Oh ya and don't spam tags totally unrelated to what your post is about, doesn't make sense to tag those lego star wars or whatever ones they're using.

>any of those bloggers can be complicit, bribed, or just straight up wrong

The ones doing the "vetting" may well be the ones running the campaigns. We get all these people on here screaming about needing socialism because of corporate greed but the same people are getting their knickers in a twist when you point out that individuals can be just as greedy and willing to take advantage of the situation.

There's also,

Got Starlink for their hospitals but somehow people can still get connected enough to make a new tumblr account to replace the ones that were nuked which includes creating a new email address and all the shit involved in starting a account up on here and as for the GoFundMe accounts

Whoopsie. Yes there is this

but I'm not sure how careful GFM is and the fact that it's a third party setting up all of these donation accounts for people, it's far too easy to scam also we have

hamass is a designated terrorist org and the government in gaza, PP and Venmo don't want to have to deal with the potential ramifications of people sending money to help fund hamass,

Which these not working also takes us to point 4.2 on GFM 'how you plan to get the funds to the person'

I haven't taken too much time to look into the different ways the money goes round till just now, so the GFM, PP, and Venmo things are totally new information to me, but not unexpected.

[drdemonprince]

The cancelled video for Grimes' song So Heavy I Fell Thru the Earth just leaked, and considering all that we know about the song, it's incredibly moving.

So Heavy came out on Grimes' last album, Miss Anthropocene, and in interviews she shared that it was about when you decide "or someone convinces you to" get pregnant. Grimes has always described her decision to get pregnant by Musk in pretty negative terms, saying she felt incredibly vulnerable having unprotected sex for the first time, and that she had "capitulated" to the patriarchy by opening herself up in that way.

Of course, at the time we had no idea that Musk was likely abusing and manipulating her into carrying his children, as he has done with numerous other women before and since (including Amber Heard and his employee Shivon Zilis, who identified as a lesbian until partnering with her boss and having his kids). And we certainly didn't know that Musk would one day cut Grimes off from all access to the baby she'd birth for him, carting him around like a prop to Tesla and Starlink meetings and reportedly using time with him as a pawn with which to control Grimes and her movements (which she has only recently opened up about, having finally left his house in Texas to return to her support network in LA. You dont have to like Grimes or think her actions are excusable to realize this was all a bad, bad scene).

The video, which was produced years ago while Grimes was still pregnant with baby X is disturbing. Grimes rolls around on the floor, surrounded by swords that are pointed directly at her belly. At one point, the sword morphs into an automatic rifle that is pointed at her. She lays out on her back, swaddled in cloth and surrounded by flowers, a funereal scene. Throughout the video, Grimes has a life bar over her head that continues to diminish until it empties out at the very end, and then she turns away from the camera, cradles herself, and then the life bar fills entirely back up -- symbolizing the new life she has created inside of her.

This is quite a dark video, associating pregnancy with violence, self-destruction, and death, and it's all the more dark with the knowledge that Grimes was likely being gaslit and manipulated while it was being produced. (Again, you can still think she's a dipshit who holds responsibility for plenty of her actions and words while still acknowledging that obviously being dependent upon the wealthiest man in the world, isolated from all your friends and family, and unable to see your own kid because of him is quite the vulnerable and crazy-making position). Grimes also viscerally disliked this video, though it's one of the best and most tasteful videos she's made in years -- probably the emotional associations with the subject matter have tainted it for her.

it seems Grimes knew on some level that she was getting herself into a bad situation, and that makes it all the sadder. See also the video for Player of Games, where the knight (who represents Musk) deals a death blow to Grimes by striking her twice in the stomach. At that point she'd had two kids.

Here is the link to the video: https://www.tiktok.com/@hyperion666/video/7305392869156637957?_r=1&_t=8hfyVZGc4us

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump throws his weight behind new generation of mRNA gene-therapy injections, for cancer and other diseases by Leo Hohmann. this is the 3rd in a trilogy by Hohmann on this topic (go to his Substack to see the other 2 articles) - mRNA is dangerous and I don’t care who is creating it and I am not especially fond of AI creating an mRNA vaccine for cancer. Dr. Malone who created the mRNA platform has said that mRNA is not safe for humans. Sam Altman and OpenAI. Tucker Carlson did an interview with an immigrant from India regarding the murder of her son. Carlson was blown away by the evidence that this mother that proved her son was murdered. But they classified it as a suicide even though the crime scene clearly indicated a murder took place. Her protege’ son worked for OpenAI and after discovering that OpenAI was unlawfully stealing data from Americans he became a whistleblower. He worked for Sam Altman. I shared that interview on 1/18. I highly recommend watching that interview. And now Trump is working with Sam Altman?? STARGATE also sound a lot like Elon Musk’s STARLINK. Trump is again surrounding himself with the wrong people. One thing that alarms me is they have no proof AI can do what they say it can do. And it can and will be used for bad things as well. Altman, Thiel, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates and more. ARTICLE/VIDEO (46 min. you only need to watch the first 12 min. I watched it all) In the video Trump introduces Sam Altman and Larry Ellison who talks about digital medical records……he says doctors will be able to better diagnose patients…..no sir AI is meant to replace the human doctor…..and then Sam Altman (this is one evil dude folks) states how they will cure cancer with a vaccine that in my opinion might kill the cancer but what other harms will it do to the body as we have experienced with the COVID jab…..we are not totally ignorant…..they are going to reduce us to digital slaves.

Here is Larry Ellison clearly saying we are all going to be tracked at all times to insure good behavior. What more is to be said? This is EXACTLY what they do to citizens in China and then destroy them if they step out of line. VIDEO

And here is a different perspective on this new partnership with Trump and the technocrats.

Capturing the Billionaire Nerds & Their A.I. - while the deal is still unnerving lets hope the philosophy of “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” is what is happening here. ARTICLE

What executive orders did Trump sign on day one? - On a more positive note here is a list of EO’s that President Trump signed on January 20, 2025 - ARTICLE

Whoopee! A WSJ exclusive says that Trump is about to stop federally funded GOF research - this should not be temporary. It must be made permanent and I disagree that H5N1 should be exempt because it has been weaponized through gain of function. ARTICLE

'They moved me here for no apparent reason': Pardoned Jan. 6 prisoners stranded with no ID, penniless - ARTICLE

[maxicaiman]

Question about your OCs (and feel free to answer this for as many of them as you'd like!): If they could make one wish - no limits, guaranteed to be granted - what would their wish be?

OOOH THIS'LL BE FUN (probably quite sad BUT STILL FUN FOR ME)

Entrap would wish to be rid of Starscream once and for all. He knows he can heal from the trauma, but with Starscream's continous returns and the looming fear of the seeker coming back to hurt him again, he can't move on. He wishes for him to be gone for good, zero chance of ever coming back, so he can move on and heal for his friends, Blitzwing and his daughter

Turboshot would wish to be respected and taken seriously. He's aware he's seen as kind of a joke among the Elite Guard, and he just wants the same respect he gives them

Starlink would want the war to be over and everyone to be at peace. He's just tired of dealing with it

Humvee either wish for a secure future with Tactic, or for Breakdown back the way he was, for Knockout's sake.

Radiostar would wish for her accident to never have happened. Partially because of its impact on her, but mostly bc of the impact on others

Load Out would also wish for the accident never to have happened, but solely so Radiostar didn't have to feel so useless

[mariacallous]

Out of 8 billion people on the planet, there are only 16 million Jews—but far, far more anti-Semites. I sometimes joke that if I had fewer scruples, I wouldn’t report on anti-Jewish prejudice; I’d contract myself out to the more numerous and better-resourced bigots, and help them get away with it. Because in more than a decade covering anti-Semitism, I have become a reluctant expert in all the ways that anti-Jewish activists obfuscate their hate.

People must learn to recognize and reject these tactics, because too many communities have developed ways to excuse or otherwise ignore anti-Semitism. Today, such prejudice is growing in high and low places because powerful people around the world are running the same playbook to launder their hate into the public sphere.

Here’s how they do it:

1. They become too big to fail. Over the past six months, Elon Musk has publicly affirmed the deadliest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in recent American history, claimed that Jews and Jewish organizations cause anti-Semitism, and echoed extremist conspiracy theories about the Jewish financier George Soros. As a result, the billionaire has lost a few advertisers on his social-media platform, and even got rapped by the White House. But as The New York Times reported, even as the U.S. government criticized Musk, it continued to buy things from him.

In fact, in recent months, Musk has raked in Pentagon cash, including more than $1 billion in exchange for launching spy satellites and other intelligence assets into orbit through his lucrative space-exploration venture, SpaceX. In September, days after Musk attacked the Anti-Defamation League and suggested that Jews cause anti-Semitism, he met with a bipartisan group of senators to discuss artificial intelligence. The magnate subsequently signed a deal worth up to $70 million to provide the U.S. government with a secure satellite communications system. “Rarely has the U.S. government so depended on the technology provided by a single technologist,” the Times wrote. Meanwhile, diverse actors ranging from the ADL to Representative Ilhan Omar keep advertising on Musk’s social-media site, his rich friends continue to defend him, and, last week, he was featured at a Times event.

Musk has similarly been wooed by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government, who—like Ukraine’s leadership—want to stay on the entrepreneur’s good side so that he doesn’t use technology like his Starlink satellite internet to harm their war efforts. Precisely because Musk plays a leading role in so many industries that are essential to humanity’s future—electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, space technology—no country can quit him, not even one as powerful as the United States or as Jewish as Israel. Likewise, no matter how many dinners Donald Trump has with anti-Semites such as Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Holocaust deniers such as Nick Fuentes, he will not be penalized for it by Republicans, because he is too essential to their party to be discarded.

This characteristic is what separates the big-league bigots who get away with it from those who don’t. Ye’s mistake was that he invested his talents in producing music and sneakers rather than something more indispensable to human flourishing, such as precision-guided ballistic missiles.

2. They don’t say the quiet part out loud. Those who want to fulminate about the Jews but lack the singular clout of Elon Musk still have plenty of options. They just need to be slightly more subtle about their prejudice. Take Tucker Carlson, once the most-watched man on cable news, who used his show to popularize a sanitized version of the same “Great Replacement” theory that Musk recently endorsed, which posits that Jewish elites are plotting to supplant the white race through the mass immigration of brown people. This white-supremacist fantasy motivated the 2018 massacre of worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, among other recent attacks. How did Carlson get such an unhinged idea on television? He repeated the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory—“They’re trying to change the population of the United States, and they hate it when you say that because it’s true, but that’s exactly what they’re doing”—but left out the word Jews and let the audience fill in the blank.

This time-honored technique provides even the most pointed prejudice with plausible deniability. In particular, whenever you see politicians or celebrities darkly ruminating about an amorphous “they” covertly controlling events, chances are good that you are seeing this strategy in action. Consider Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led Turkey, a member of NATO, since 2003. In 2014, he began darkly referring to a “mastermind” behind the country’s ills:

Don’t be misled. Don’t think that these operations are against my persona, our government, our party. Friends, these operations are rather directed against Turkey itself—its unity, its peace, its economy, its independence. And as I have said before, behind all these steps there is a mastermind. People ask me, “Who is this mastermind?” Well, you have to figure that out. And actually, you know what it is.

Erdoğan was not talking about the Amish. His allies subsequently produced a movie titled The Mastermind, which aired on pro-government TV stations and helpfully opened with an image of a Star of David. “At every stage,” the Turkish commentator Mustafa Akyol wrote at the time, “the film reminds us how the Judaic ‘mastermind’ has oppressed humanity for thousands of years.” As Erdoğan has consolidated his essentially unchecked power, he has become more forthright in his anti-Semitism, and faced no international consequences.

3. They replace Jew with Zionist. In 1934, Representative Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania took to the floor of Congress to complain about Jewish control of the American financial system. “Is it not true,” he bemoaned, “that, in the United States today, the gentiles have the slips of paper while the Jews have the gold?” Today, this sort of rhetoric is frowned upon in polite society, but aspiring anti-Semites have a work-around: substituting each instance of Jews with Zionists or Israelis. Then: The Jews control the world. Now: The Zionists control the world.

With this simple switch, prejudice magically becomes mere criticism of Israel. Social-media companies won’t moderate it, and many activists will defend it. People can even make their anti-Semitic argument live on CNN, as Pakistan’s foreign minister did in 2021, when he claimed that Israel controls the media. In this manner, an ancient conspiracy theory is updated to appeal to partisans in the 21st century, many of whom will insist that they don’t have an anti-Semitic bone in their body. Of course, Zionism warrants critique like any other political ideology, but conspiracism is not criticism. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. was referring to when he said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”

One person who has mastered this maneuver is the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, the man responsible for the most anti-Jewish violence in the world today. In 2021, he posted on social media: “The Zionists have always been a plague, even before establishing the fraudulent Zionist regime. Even then, Zionist capitalists were a plague for the whole world. Now they’re a plague especially for the world of Islam.”

In case the references to rapacious capitalists and comparisons of people to disease didn’t give it away, Khamenei was also not talking about the Amish. He was taking garden-variety anti-Semitism, replacing the word Jews with Zionists, and relying on his audience being too dense or partisan to care. Similarly, when the Republican politician Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted a video on her Facebook page declaring that “Zionist supremacists” were “breeding us out of existence in our own homelands,” she was drawing from the same poisoned well. Coded language has always served to smuggle bigotry into the public discourse, and anti-Semitism is no exception.

4. They say they were just “supporting Palestine.” Earlier this month, the actor Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency. It was a mostly symbolic gesture, because the celebrated performer continues to get work and others will be happy to represent her. But almost immediately, viral posts on social media viewed more than 50 million times claimed that she had been punished for her pro-Palestinian advocacy. This popular narrative had only one small flaw: It was false.

As Deadline reported, the words that got Sarandon in trouble were not about Palestinians or Israelis. At a rally in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, the actor referred to rising anti-Semitism in America and declared, “There are a lot of people that are afraid, afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.” In reality, since the FBI began tracking hate crimes, Jews have been subjected to more anti-religious attacks than all other groups combined, despite constituting just 2 percent of the American population. This includes the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, multiple synagogue shootings in California, and a Texas congregation being taken hostage in 2022. Erasing anti-Semitism and attempting to pit American Jews and Muslims against each other in some sort of debased oppression Olympics is not “support for Palestine.” It’s ignorance at best and malice at worst, which is why Deadline accurately headlined its story “UTA Drops Susan Sarandon as Client Following Recent Antisemitic Remarks She Made at a Rally in New York.”

On social media, none of this mattered. Sarandon was misleadingly cast as a martyr for the Palestinian cause and celebrated by a diverse array of notables, including the journalist Glenn Greenwald, the presidential candidate Cornel West, several prominent progressive activists, and even the head of a human-rights group. None of these people linked to or acknowledged the actual substance of Sarandon’s remarks, even when confronted by commenters who raised them. None has corrected their claims.

Sarandon apologized on Friday, two weeks after her original statement. But the sleight of hand others used to defend her—in which apologetics for anti-Jewish violence are disingenuously recast as Palestinian advocacy—is endemic to our current discourse. Last month, an activist told a public-radio journalist that he’d been receiving “50 hate calls an hour” over a pro-Palestinian speech he delivered at an October 8 rally. But what he actually did was explicitly cheer the murder of civilians and declare, “I salute Hamas—a job well done.” This fact appeared nowhere in the published story, which said only that he “spoke in support of Palestine.”

Pro-Palestinian activism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is why it’s important that when people say bigoted things about Jews or support violence against them, their words should not be conflated with Palestinian advocacy. But unfortunately, too many anti-Semites wrap themselves in the Palestinian cause, and too many partisans are happy to let them do so. This does not help any Palestinians, as it tends to tar their cause with prejudice, but it does insulate a fair number of anti-Semites from the consequences of their words or actions. That’s why in recent weeks, many bigots have attempted to use the Palestinian plight as their alibi, vandalizing Jewish institutions around the world, including synagogues and kosher restaurants, with “Free Palestine” and related slogans.

Every community has biases—toward the rich and powerful, toward ideological allies—that lead it to excuse bad behavior it would otherwise repudiate. But such excuses for prejudice work only because we allow them to. Covert anti-Semitism tends to turn into overt anti-Semitism. Until we start seriously confronting the former, we can expect more of the latter.

[tomorrowusa]

Days after Trump's imposition of tariffs on Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is ripping up Ontario's contract with US Co-President Elon Musk's Starlink satellite company.

I can't say I was a big fan of Doug Ford before this year, but he knows EXACTLY how to deal with Trump and his collaborators.

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is "ripping up" Ontario's nearly $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink in the wake of U.S. tariffs on virtually all Canadian goods, he said in a statement Monday.  The contract, signed in November, was meant to provide high-speed internet access through Starlink's satellite service to 15,000 eligible homes and businesses in rural, remote and northern communities by June of this year.  Musk is "part of the Trump team that wants to destroy families, incomes, destroy businesses," Ford said at a news conference in Etobicoke on Monday.  "He wants to take food off the table of people, hard working people, and I'm not going to tolerate it."

Premier Ford is also banning US companies from government contracts in Ontario.

Ford said the province and its agencies spend $30 billion every year on procurement. Ontario will ban American companies from provincial contracts until U.S. tariffs are removed, he said.  "U.S.-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in new revenues. They only have President Trump to blame," he said in the statement. 

Yep, Trump is a certifiable nut. Broligarchs like Musk and congressional Republicans know this but still pander to his madness.

Some of my fellow liberals may not like hearing this, but the touchy-feely, politically correct approach is for losers. You counter power with power – albeit in an ethical and legal way.

I hope Canada's nine other provinces also tell Musk to fuck off (or in Québec: va chier!).

And if Trump doesn't back off, Canada should reduce oil exports to the US by 1% per day until the tariffs are removed. By mid April, Trump would be squealing like a pig. Couine comme un cochon, Trump!

[crunchyspicysalmon]

I am genuinely shocked and happy that Doug Ford is ripping up the Starlink deal. Let’s hope he does the same for Tesla.

Just a note: this could also be a very strategic move on his part to win the election at the end of the month - I will be doing my part to vote him out - but it’s still nice to see everyone come together in many ways during this trade war

[davidaugust]

musk purchased the presidency and before he even officially takes his prize, he decides to shut down the US government at the end of the week? We cannot be ok with this.

https://apnews.com/article/congress-budget-trump-musk-johnson-5dc9fd8672f9807189032811d4ab0528

And it’s not the first time musk has played emperor of the world: “Elon Musk played a controversial role in the conflict in Ukraine. Although Starlink was essential for Ukrainian support, Musk blocked a decisive attack on the Russian fleet in Crimea by deactivating the network. He justifies his decision by the fear of a nuclear escalation and discussions with Russian officials. This situation raises questions about the influence of private actors in modern conflicts.”

(original French) https://homohortus31.wordpress.com/2024/12/15/elon-musk-et-le-conflit-en-ukraine-un-role-controverse/

(machine translation) https://homohortus31-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2024/12/15/elon-musk-et-le-conflit-en-ukraine-un-role-controverse/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp