• Jhuskindle@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    The money THEOR PARENTS PAID INTO AND WORKED TOWARDS. They are literally entitled to it. It is their parent money!!!

  • recall519@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    Warning everyone that I could not find a source for this and this Twitter post isn’t any evidence in itself. So if you’re saying I told you so, then you’re just as susceptible as the people who believe $300m was being sent to 11yos without any explanation.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      I found two sources for this info.

      https://en.as.com/latest_news/bad-news-for-social-security-beneficiaries-this-new-proposal-would-stop-payments-to-170000-people-n/ says:

      Who could see their Social Security benefits stopped?

      Government Executive reports that the SSA memo proposes ceasing payments that are made to people without Social Security numbers. While people without an SSN are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits of their own, there are scenarios where they can accept benefits on behalf of an eligible person who does have an SSN as that person’s “representative payee.”

      A link in that text goes to https://www.govexec.com/management/2025/03/ssa-weighs-axing-payments-170000-beneficiaries/403740/ and it gives an example:

      That task could be arduous, as finding payees is already so difficult that at times the agency turns to institutional payees like child welfare agencies, said Romig. SSA staff also have to assess the suitability of payees.

      “Say you’re a kid and you don’t have a payee for a while — they stop paying the benefit until they sort it out,” she said of the potential for interruptions to benefits.

      It may be that the OP read that and extrapolated it to mean orphans would be cut off … which may or may not be true.

      • recall519@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        Those are for SSA, not SBA. They don’t explain why SBA would be brokering business loans with 11yos. There is likely a valid explanation here, but the media doesn’t need to get up in arms until more details are available.

  • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    They’ve also cut PEPFAR. PEPFAR is a program which, among other things, provides antiretrovirals to people with HIV/AIDS in poorer countries. Approximately twenty million people, including half a million children will now start to slowly die without access to these drugs.

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      For comparison’s sake, Hitler killed 13.6 million people. History is very likely to end up remembering Trump as the single deadliest regime in history.

  • RizzoTheSmall@lemm.ee
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    4 hours ago

    The best part is how his efficiency improvements will cost the government half a trillion dollars 😆

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Elon after labeling orphans as fraudsters and taking away their survivor benefits that they are entitled to and deserve: “God, I just sniffle I don’t understand why people hate me crocodile tears

  • ansiz@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Is there a source for this, I’m genuinely interested in reading more about this but can’t find a source.

    • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 hours ago

      I can’t find much except for a weird indiatoday article and the original Xhit: https://nitter.space/elonmusk/status/1904030373899616736#m

      I don’t understand the association he’s making between Social Security and the Small Business Administration. At first glance I don’t see any indication the SBA does anything with children outside of funding childcare centers?

      It sounds like they check your credit for a small business loan, so they would presumably take your SSN and I guess check it against the database?

      But then they check your credit anyway. It’s not like the Social Security database is the safeguard for an unsafe loan. We have identity leaks credit agencies for that. If he had proof of children or ‘immortals’ actually getting these loans in any numbers he would show it. Why can’t a 17 year old run a company anyway? If 20 year olds can dismantle the government…

      If an elderly small business owner dies, and the company is still held by his estate… wouldn’t his loan still be attached to his SSN?

      And if an underage orphan receives ownership of a small business through estate, would their SSN be attached to these loans, even if the company was operated by a third party regency?

    • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      It’s a screenshot of a tweet, I don’t know what further proof you could want. Did you not see the blue checkmark? /s

  • Eddbopkins@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Who knew musk is a pos…I knew…Elon musk and Donald Trump are destroying America’s image and it ability to be a world power

  • DeusUmbra@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    This only ends one way, with nooses and guillotines. It is up to the people how quickly it ends.

    • WuceBrillis@lemm.ee
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      8 hours ago

      Nah, this ends with America so bankrupt that states split up from the federation. Maybe, just maybe, the workers unions will be strong enough to claim one of these new countries, but most likely it ends with seperate kingdoms, each ruled by a different billionaire.

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          6 hours ago

          That is why i say everything else the Trump government is doing right now is just distraction.

          Unfortunately many of their distractions are already global catastrophes by themselves.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      I pulled up next to a guy the other day and the passenger looked like Elon at first glance. My first thought was if I could shoot him in the face and escape long enough to at least make a few phone calls. That’s how much this guy deserves to be deleted. I’d risk my life to end it all.

      • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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        12 hours ago

        Elon Musk is ultra paranoid for a reason. He has 20 bodyguards on a normal day and also has a secret service detail. He is not an easy target.

        • rayyy@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          There’s good reason to be paranoid. 400 yards is a cake shot for even a mediocre sniper. Just about any gun store today sells top notch sniper rifles.

          • atempuser23@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            If you mean a mediocre practiced professional sniper with years of training, than sure. If you mean some rando hunter who goes out twice a year nah. if you mean some random lemmy user with range experience and no outdoor shooting experience then no fucking way other than pure luck.

            • atempuser23@lemmy.world
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              7 hours ago

              There are some great hunting classes available at bass proshops. I’d imagine that other places hold them as well. Hunting is a great sport and as a beginner who could blame you for going overboard on your rifle and scope purchase.

              Hunting is a great way to socialize as well shooting is great hobby. However shooting at stationary a fixed distance away isn’t the same as hitting a moving target at a not exactly known distance. Lining up the shot, gauging distance and estimating movement all make it that much more challenging and exciting when you actually connect. Seeing the target scatter away on a miss, or even a hit. Will slowly make what seems like luck into a skill.

              Small game at long distances shows just how good of a shot you are.

          • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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            9 hours ago

            This is why Thomas Matthew Crooks failed. He relied on a bottom rung AR15 when he could have ditched it for even a simple hunting rifle with a scope. To be fair he was using iron sights. And was under a lot of stress from just being discovered by a cop (even though the secret service had seen him earlier) and Trump fidgety movements basically threw off the shot.

            I need to mention, however that we should not idolize Thomas Crooks. He was not some hero. What he actually wanted to do was to go on a mass murder spree and he wanted to start it off by killing a politician. He didn’t care which. He targeted Trump for no other reason than he was the closest and most convenient at the time. If a local representative or the state senator or the city’s mayor was closer, he would gone after that politician. Trump being the target was a coincidence.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              7 hours ago

              Do you have a source for that? I didn’t think they had anything conclusive about his motives. Haven’t looked into it for a while though.

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                6 hours ago

                I will search for them later. What I surmised was from reading multiple articles about him and what he was planning. He didn’t seem to have a political motive nor did he have any strong beliefs. When the investigators got his laptop and phone to look at, it seemed that he was quite casual in his planning. In fact the absolute last thing in his history he looked at before he went off to try to do what he did was porn.

                You would think that he was a smart guy to actually get around the secret service. But it was entirely dumb luck. He did use a drone to survey the location before hand, which was unprecedented and smart, but that was it.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      The richest man on earth who receives tens of billions in taxpayer money, government incentives, and tax breaks to build cars and blow up rockets over the Caribbean. He is a fucking parasite setting our/NASA money on fire. (In addition to straight up getting money from government he also gets money routed through NASA contracts)

        • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          They constantly accuse others of corruption, pedophilia, and other awful things and are utterly convinced they’re right. They’re convinced, because the people they surround themselves with are filled with corrupt, awful, pedophiles, so that means EVERYONE must secretly be a corrupt, awful, pedophile. After all, if that WASN’T the case, that would mean they aligned themselves with, or are themselves, inhuman monsters; and no one is the villain of their own story. That’s why when they accuse people of such heinous things, they aren’t lying, they 100% believe what they’re saying. Because if they didn’t, that would be admitting to themselves what evil pieces of shit they actually are.

        • Apricot@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          I think it’s sub-conscious self-hatred projected onto others. They are fractured, damaged people, that, from an early age were told that their vulnerabilities were weaknesses. Their inability to accept themselves as they are causes them to wreak havoc on the world searching for enough tangible reasons (power, fame, money) so that they finally can. But it’s never enough, because no amount of outer wealth will fill the void of inner poverty.

          tldr: these people hate themselves

    • dryfter@lemm.ee
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      19 hours ago

      If my disabled ass can ever get the energy and motivation to go to a protest I want to have a sign that compares what I receive in a year with SSDI, Medicaid, and HUD housing to what just Elon receives in federal money for his businesses. Now who’s the parasite?

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 hours ago

        Great idea. Hijacking -

        Hey, all of you. Stop feeding trolls. They are propagating the truly dystopian lie that the US is actually accomplishing a real energy transition, with or without Musk.

        “Cleanest energy economy in the world” (JD Vance, 2024 VP debate, gaslighting the public into thinking Republicans haven’t successfully held us back from clean energy at every possible turn.)

        It’s a russian muskbot or unwilling stooge. The brief account history is literally full of republican and russian defense. Don’t let them fill lemmy with stupid arguments. It distracts from the real conversations.

        Downvote, and either ignore entirely, or if needed talk around the troll to everyone else listening.

      • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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        15 hours ago

        Are you bringing back stranded astronauts from the ISS? Did you lead several highly successful companies that played a major role in helping with the energy transition when virtually no others were doing it at this scale?

        • Saryn@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Boy, you better stretch those cheeks further apart and get that tongue up in there. There’s a lot more kissass that Elon deserves and I’m not hearing!

          • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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            10 hours ago

            I can acknowledge a person’s achievement even though I do not agree with their recent political stances. Maybe that makes me very different than you who only think good or bad?

            • vala@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              He truly has never achieved anything. He has purchased, attached himself to, and leeched things, but never “achieved” something the way a normal person does.

            • CatZoomies@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              “You know, when I think about it… I guess there’s some good things this tyrant did. He’s still a tyrant, but there are some good things he took credit for that he did.”

              • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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                10 hours ago

                I was doing to make a “Elon is an animal lover”, but that’s not true. Goddamn, he doesn’t even live up to Hitler.

              • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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                10 hours ago

                Yes, the world is not black and white, there are many shades of grey.

                • NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world
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                  9 hours ago

                  Ok, you grasp the concept of shades of gray. That’s a good start,but do you understand how the proportion of each shade matters?

                  If a person helps out an old lady with correct directions towards the city center, only to grab her purse and run when they finish can we say “they’ve done some good things”? Should the helpful directions even have any weight in our judgement of them?

                  If a person grows Tesla and SpaceX only to get enough power to steal from and turn several countries towards fascism, do the good things even matter, considering their actual end goal?

        • InversionOfControl@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Lmao what a cuck.

          Boeing could do it. Russia could do it. NASA could do it before they voluntarily left the game in favor of giving hands outs to billionaires’ pet projects.

          Elon is not special. He’s an oligarch and nothing more.

          • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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            5 hours ago

            Character attacks is all you people have to say when you don’t like reality.

            Sure Russia could do it, let’s ask Russia to bring our astronauts back, yay! NASA can’t do it anymore. Boeing obviously couldn’t do it.

        • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
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          12 hours ago

          stranded astronauts from the ISS

          The Facts Behind the Delayed Return of U.S. Astronauts

          In response to Musk’s claims, several astronauts took to X to refute the idea that the astronauts were purposefully abandoned. Andreas Mogensen, a former SpaceX astronaut from Denmark, posted: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.” In response to Mogensen, Elon replied: “You are fully rеtarded. SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons. Idiot.”

          Mogensen responded by stating, “Elon, I have long admired you and what you have accomplished, especially at SpaceX and Tesla. You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September.”

          Steve Stich, the program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said after the determination was made that Williams and Wilmore should not return on the Boeing Starliner, NASA officials met with SpaceX officials and considered “a wide range of options” and ultimately decided to attach the astronauts to the previously scheduled Crew-9 mission.

          “When we looked at the situation at the time, we had a Crew-9 launch in front of us, it made sense to take the opportunity to bring Crew-9 up with just two seats and have Butch and Suni fill in and do the rest of the long duration mission,” said Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s International Space Station Program.

          “We thought the plan that we came up with made a lot of sense, and that, especially for Butch and Suni we know they’re experienced astronauts, they’re great in space,” Bowersox said. “We knew they’d be great additions to the crew and we knew that for most astronauts, spending extra time on orbit’s really a gift. And we thought they’d probably enjoy their time there. So we thought it was a good way to go … for a lot of reasons.”

          see also: NASA astronauts — from space — discredit Trump claims they’re stranded

          @alkbch@lemmy.ml is any of the above news to you, or were you aware of this already when you posted your “stranded astronauts from the ISS” comments?

          • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            Yes, I am aware of the situation. The astronauts were stranded. Full stop. Whatever Musk may or may not have proposed when Biden was president is irrelevant to my statement.

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                9 hours ago

                The fact is they were stranded. They couldn’t go back to Earth when initially planned, nor at any time before the following mission ended.

                • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
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                  9 hours ago

                  The fact is they were stranded.

                  The astronauts said “we don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded”, because they were prepared for this contingency. And they object to this nonsense framing too: “Help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative. Let’s change it to ‘prepared and committed.”

                  They couldn’t go back to Earth when initially planned, nor at any time before the following mission ended.

                  You are simply mistaken. At all times there were multiple options available for them to go back early if it ever became necessary to.

                  Changing the planned duration of a mission is not the same as being “stranded”.

        • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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          12 hours ago

          Do tankies suddenly like Musk? How is your .ml account not banned for supporting the most bourgeois man on earth? They ban people for saying trust Russia sucks and not this drivel?

          Read some real journalism for a change Musk didn’t do shit. He didn’t start PayPal, he didn’t start Tesla, spaceX has a whole layer of management DEDICATED to keeping him out of screwing anything up, and I don’t think I need to add anything about X.

          I never thought anyone could be so blatantly wrong on every topic, but .ml account keep teaching me lessons on the topic.

          • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            I am relatively new to Lemmy and don’t know much about the different instances leaning.

            I do not support Musk. I am well aware of his businesses endeavors and I merely acknowledge his positive impact as much as his negative one.

            • Saryn@lemmy.world
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              11 hours ago

              1 month old account. Over 430 posts. Seemingly all of them simping hard for Elon Musk.

              What’s most terrifying is that they’re probably not even a paid shill. Chances are they’re either a troll or equally likely - cognitively captured, like millions of others, spewing repeatedly debunked falsehoods at every corner in a perpetual show of one-upmanship. And ultimately - trapped in a vicious circle of lies.

              This is the world they are building. This is the lobotomized reality that awaits all of us if we don’t figure out a way to build a sustainable, high-quality information environment.

              • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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                10 hours ago

                You have some severe lack of reading comprehension if you assert that all my posts are dumping hard for Elon Musk. It’s ironic that you go on to insult me after that, instead of you know… discussing the facts of the matter.

                People like you are actually not interested in discussing the facts because you take everyone who doesn’t share your opinion from very high, are incapable of examining your own opinions and just resort to name calling.

                • Tiger666@lemmy.ca
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                  10 hours ago

                  Our opinion is that we hate nazis and that you like them. Do you like nazis is the question you should be asking yourself.

                  You are the person that says, “Hitler wasn’t that bad. He did a lot of good, like building the autobahn.”

                  This is you.

        • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          Are you bringing back stranded astronauts from the ISS?

          Is Elon?

          Did you lead several highly successful companies that played a major role in helping with the energy transition when virtually no others were doing it at this scale?

          Did Elon? He knows how to market himself, and to pick competent employees. But is he leading and playing a major role, or is that just hype?

              • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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                13 hours ago

                Elon’s company SpaceX has brought back the two stranded astronauts from the ISS just a week or two ago, easy to find news articles about this.

                Elon has founded SpaceX and lead it to the success it has today. It has also bought Tesla at a very early stage and lead it to the company it is today. Part of these successes is hiring the right people, taking risks and investing ungodly amounts of money when nobody else dared to. His wife even left him because he invested nearly all of the money from the PayPal IPO payout.

                Having said all of that, there is definitely some hype around Tesla as its valuation in the stock market is not objectively rational, it’s more of a meme stock at this point; but that doesn’t change fact that it is one of the US companies that did the most to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles in the US.

                • jj4211@lemmy.world
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                  10 hours ago

                  His wife even left him because he invested nearly all of the money from the PayPal IPO payout.

                  No, he was the one who filed for divorce, to propose to a woman 13 years younger than his first wife (he at 37 wanted to trade his 36 year old wife for a 23 year old wife). From papers served to his then-current wife to having a 23 year old fiancee was about 6 weeks.

                  Generally speaking, Musk’s business success is marked by being in the right place and the right time with someone else making the actual substantive calls about exactly how the business is run. When he gets opinionated and have businesses yield to his specific desires, it tends to produce bad results.

                • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                  13 hours ago

                  Elon’s company SpaceX

                  But not Elon specifically.

                  Elon has founded SpaceX and lead it to the success it has today

                  He founded spaceX but the success is down to the rocket scientists.

                  Part of these successes is hiring the right people, taking risks and investing ungodly amounts of money when nobody else dared to.

                  Agreed. Spotting talent and being lucky (risk taking + positive outcomes) are his defining qualities.

                  Not leadership. Not personally flying or building rockets. Not caring about energy transition. You don’t solve climate change by going to Mars.

        • Mariemarion@lemm.ee
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          14 hours ago

          Are you a heartless monster unable of empathy, who never realised other people might be people, too?

            • bufalo1973@lemm.ee
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              10 hours ago

              It’s funny because feeding the troll only works if there’s an algorithm. We don’t have that here.

          • alkbch@lemmy.ml
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            14 hours ago

            Why don’t you ask this question to the commenter above who is calling other people parasites?

            • melisdrawing@lemmy.world
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              11 hours ago

              He said leon, the richest man on earth, called the poor parasites. And he believes that. Anything we get, food, a new phone, a nice day at the beach. We are taking them from him. He believes life is a zero sum game. I have so much empathy that I pity him.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        20 hours ago

        Please stop with the childish name calling.

        If you want to make Musk look bad, just point out the many illegal things he’s doing.

        • Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee
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          8 hours ago

          I’m not above name calling so long as it is at the expense of the guy who decided to collude with russia to disable starlink access to ukraine in an active war.

          Felon Musk will absolutely hate the term, so it’s perfect.

  • xye@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Musk saying the words “social security” might have been the best thing that could have happened tbh. A conservative family member of mine was at an Indivisible meeting today - I think the republicans might be in for a bit of a shit show, if you can believe it

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Even when they get their SS canceled, they will praise him. They will say…“Well, he said there will be pain and hardship. But the good times are coming. The lord has a plan”.

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 hours ago

        They won’t though.

        There’s this constant kneejerk response here and everywhere that “oh we’ve seen it all before” and “they didn’t do anything then, they won’t do anything now”. It’s understandable. It’s relatable. It’s even inevitable. The apathy, the exhaustion, the despair.

        But the reason people still get upset is because there are still things to be upset about. New people find new reasons all the time. The reason most of this is so shocking to many is because it actually hasn’t happened before.

        None of this has. Not to them. Not here. Not in our lifetimes. So many things are changing that it’s hard to keep up, but many people have enjoyed a geographical, demographical, or economic distance between themselves and their society’s problems.

        Social security has always been the “third rail”. It’s killed careers for even approaching the idea of reform. It is - literally, by every single definition - the taxpayer’s dollar. If you want things to change, you need to take advantage of moments like this. Don’t spread apathy.

        Spread outrage. Spread the word. Americans are about to be economically kicked in the family jewels at every level. Trade, tariffs, taxes, business regulations, labor protections, health insurance, federal jobs, government contracts, social security…

        There will be people who will “accept the hardship”, but there are far more people who will be pissed at seeing politics hit their bank account. Their lives. Their families.

        Help them understand why it’s happening. Help them understand why it needs to stop.

      • xye@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        You’re not wrong in general, I should clarify. This family is of the affluent, fence-sitting variety conservative. They couldn’t be assed to do anything because it hadn’t hit them yet. This did. This is someone who will genuinely be turned imo.

        Quick edit here, I just got done talking with them. They told me what finally pushed them over was talking to a friend of theirs whose kid has autism. Their kid hadn’t been able to sleep at night with all this shit going on. Apparently that really got to them. So - my takeaway here is, keep the dialogue open. If you have a story to tell, keep sharing it. You never know who it will reach.

      • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        Many will, some won’t. It’s the 10% in the middle we need to wake up and turn the tide.