The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.
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Simple math. Taxing the wealthy at 90% doesn’t get us out of this.
Cutting spending doesn’t get us out of this.
The only thing that does is reduced spending coupled with economic growth. Right now, Trump is failing on both tasks.
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Good for Elon.
@LuFins-Dad said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
Good for Elon.
Sure doesn't comport with any purely cynical perspective on Elon. Which is to say, the mainstream Trump-hating perspective on Elon.
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It’s not remotely surprising. Since it’s Congress not Trump he can criticize. Like how he indirectly called Trump’s tariff policy moronic by unleashing on Navarro.
@jon-nyc said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
It’s not remotely surprising. Since it’s Congress not Trump he can criticize. Like how he indirectly called Trump’s tariff policy moronic by unleashing on Navarro.
I'm sure that makes perfect sense to you. But the realities you attempt to weave with your words don't really comport with each other. I'm sure in other contexts you would acknowledge that a policy or bill which Trump brands himself with, such as tariffs or the Big Beautiful Bill, would be treated with great deference by Trump boot lickers.
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"And you know, it's not like I agree with everything the administration does," said Musk. "So it's like, I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don't entirely agree with. But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing."
Toadyism runs on a continuum, it’s not binary. There may exist some policy that could cause Elon to publicly criticize Trump but we haven’t found it yet. The economy and the fiscal trajectory are close, but again he can criticize indirectly by attacking surrogates.
We could spend an afternoon placing various republicans along the continuum from independent minded to cultist but each of them definitely have their place on it.
I don’t know any elected GOP official that has publicly denounced the open corruption, for example. (Which is different from claiming that none have done so)
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"And you know, it's not like I agree with everything the administration does," said Musk. "So it's like, I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don't entirely agree with. But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing."
Toadyism runs on a continuum, it’s not binary. There may exist some policy that could cause Elon to publicly criticize Trump but we haven’t found it yet. The economy and the fiscal trajectory are close, but again he can criticize indirectly by attacking surrogates.
We could spend an afternoon placing various republicans along the continuum from independent minded to cultist but each of them definitely have their place on it.
I don’t know any elected GOP official that has publicly denounced the open corruption, for example. (Which is different from claiming that none have done so)
@jon-nyc said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
"And you know, it's not like I agree with everything the administration does," said Musk. "So it's like, I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don't entirely agree with. But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing."
Toadyism runs on a continuum, it’s not binary. There may exist some policy that could cause Elon to publicly criticize Trump but we haven’t found it yet. The economy and the fiscal trajectory are close, but again he can criticize indirectly by attacking surrogates.
We could spend an afternoon placing various republicans along the continuum from independent minded to cultist but each of them definitely have their place on it.
I don’t know any elected GOP official that has publicly denounced the open corruption, for example. (Which is different from claiming that none have done so)
of course it's a continuum. I understand those sorts of things, because I am not a child, nor chained to directional rhetoric. My original claim was that the mainstream Trump-hating view of Musk, for instance the predominant view in your Twitter feed, would be that Musk is at an extreme end. You can claim that it's totally not surprising that Musk would say what he's saying, because you know where on that continuum he resides, and it's not at the Trump toady extreme. Now go find anywhere on your twitter feed where the direction of a bit of Musk rhetoric from a Trump hater, was to nudge anybody's opinion away from Musk being an all-in toady for Trump. I bet it would take a long while to find that. It won't be a cathartic release for a Trump hater to nudge anybody away from that line of thinking, so they won't.
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Another area this comes up is in belief in free speech. I am guessing Trump haters on twitter are all but unanimous that Musk does not care one bit about free speech, and that he only uses that messaging to cynically appeal to his tribe. Again, a rhetorical binary. Meanwhile, on the continuum of actual belief in free speech, I believe Musk tends towards actual belief, even while his practical choices have to weigh lots of confounding factors against that belief.
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@LuFins-Dad said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
I'm very much looking forward to the Presidential response.
Of course, he's blaming this on Congress not the guy who he loves more than any white man in the western world.
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I'm too lazy to look it up but I think we had a prediction thread about how long it would take before Elon would split with the President and become an enemy. Not saying we are there now, but it's kind of like Elon has been released from his white house filter mode and is returning to his pre-Trump47 narrative of crushing debt = fatal for our country.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-tax-bill
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-tax-bill
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-tax-bill
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
@Axtremus said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-tax-bill
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
What kind of democracy is it that votes on bills that are too big to read?
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@Axtremus Who benefits from having that in the bill? Some group obviously lobby to get it included.
@taiwan_girl said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
@Axtremus Who benefits from having that in the bill? Some group obviously lobby to get it included.
That’s probably the most sensible thing in the bill. You want the California legislature to govern AI?
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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@taiwan_girl said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
@Axtremus Who benefits from having that in the bill? Some group obviously lobby to get it included.
That’s probably the most sensible thing in the bill. You want the California legislature to govern AI?
@jon-nyc said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
@taiwan_girl said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:
@Axtremus Who benefits from having that in the bill? Some group obviously lobby to get it included.
That’s probably the most sensible thing in the bill. You want the California legislature to govern AI?
“I am Grok, they/them, how may I help?”
It’s a pleasure, Grok! Could you please cite for me the median age of first time homebuyers In the US by year and show a chart documenting these numbers?
“Sure thing. But first, we have to acknowledge that the land these homes are built on originally belonged to the Native Americans that lived here before colonialists forced them out of their ancestral lands. It’s also important to note that the number of transgendered home buyers might be higher than supposed as many people that would have been transgendered had puberty forcibly imposed on them, and we really need to consider giving all children puberty blockers prophylacticly until we can be sure they have selected the appropriate gender.”
The Brad
