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Column: There is nothing efficient about Musk and Trump's toxic lack of empathy

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Column: There is nothing efficient about Musk and Trump's toxic lack of empathy

I don’t know how Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly got my phone number, but a text from him landed the other day with a thud.

“Elon Musk came after me again,” said the text. Sure, sure — I knew it was a ploy for cash, but I was intrigued.

Turns out the impetuous billionaire had gratuitously insulted Kelly after the senator had posted a long thread on X about his recent trip to Ukraine.

“What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people,” wrote Kelly. “Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin.”

Musk’s reaction: “You are a traitor.”

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Let that sink in, to quote Musk himself.

Kelly is an American patriot. He flew 39 combat missions as a U.S. Navy pilot during Operation Desert Storm. Later, as a NASA astronaut, he twice commanded the space shuttle.

Musk, by contrast, left South Africa at age 17 in part to avoid compulsory military service.

His puerile insult brought to mind the infamous remark then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made in 2016 about Republican Sen. John McCain, also of Arizona, a Navy pilot who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“He’s a war hero ‘cause he was captured,” said Trump, who ducked the Vietnam draft by claiming he had bone spurs. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

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I don’t know which billionaire is less suited to wield power in a democracy, Musk or Trump. Neither has a lick of empathy, an indispensable trait in a great leader.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan last month. “So we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.”

Musk recently reposted a meme denigrating Americans who receive federal benefits as “the Parasite Class.” This from someone whose empire, including Tesla and Space X, were built with billions of dollars in government funding, i.e. your tax dollars.

Musk’s frosty attitude toward his fellow humans helps explain why he is able to sleep at night while denying lifesaving food and medicine to people in the many undeveloped countries that used to be helped by the U. S. Agency for International Development, the first of the programs he’s been trying to chain-saw out of existence.

Trump and Musk’s slash-and-burn approach to government, to the economy, to relationships with traditional allies, and the way they have reduced the White House to a Tesla dealership amply demonstrate their lack of concern for the American people. (Have you checked your 401(k) balance lately?)

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But more important, their actions show they are not really interested in an efficient government, the putative reason Musk became, essentially, co-president.

It’s hard to keep track of all the lawsuits that have been filed accusing the pair of illegally slashing government agencies and programs. Their method is pure madness.

Take their plan to cut by half the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service. According to Washington Post contributor Natasha Sarin, a Yale Law School professor who served as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy in the Biden administration, IRS layoffs at the scale promised would “very conservatively, lead to a $400-billion increase in uncollected taxes over the next decade. It could easily mean more than $2 trillion in losses.”

On Thursday, federal judges in California and Maryland ruled that thousands of federal workers across 19 agencies had indeed been fired illegally and ordered their reinstatement. Thanks to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a name George Orwell would have been proud to dream up, the country now finds itself mired in a legal morass that could last years.

Anyway, the U.S. Constitution was never designed with efficiency in mind. The founders created a system of checks and balances specifically to prevent concentrating power in the hands of one person. Our supine Republican Congress, in fear of alienating Musk and Trump, has abdicated its role in this critical balance, handing over control of the purse strings to Trump and Musk.

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“When you have an efficient government,” President Truman once said, “you have a dictatorship.”

In their fecklessness, Musk and Trump are perfect for each other. They are the political reincarnation of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the tragically self-absorbed couple in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

“They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together,” wrote Fitzgerald, “and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

And oh, what a mess Trump and Musk have made.

The question now is whether Americans will stand up to this terrible twosome and wrench our democracy back from their grasping little hands.

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Bluesky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. Threads: @rabcarian

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Politics

White House Attacks Amazon Over Idea of Showing Tariffs’ Cost

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White House Attacks Amazon Over Idea of Showing Tariffs’ Cost

There’s a fresh spat brewing between the White House and Amazon.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Tuesday accused the online retail giant of being “hostile and political,” citing a report — disputed by Amazon — from Punchbowl News saying that the company would start displaying the exact cost of tariff-related price increases alongside its products.

Displaying the import fees would have made clear to American consumers that they are shouldering the cost of President Trump’s tariff policies rather than China, as he and his top officials have often claimed would be the case.

An Amazon spokesman said the company had considered a similar idea on part of its site, Amazon Haul, which competes with Temu, a Chinese retailer. Temu primarily ships directly to consumers and has begun displaying “import charges” to reflect the end of a customs loophole that had exempted low-priced items from tariffs.

“Teams discuss ideas all the time,” the spokesman, Ty Rogers, said in a statement. He said it was never under consideration for the main Amazon site, adding: “This was never approved and is not going to happen.”

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Standing beside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a briefing at the White House on Tuesday morning, Ms. Leavitt tore into the retailer. She said that she had just been on the phone with the president about the report, and she asked why Amazon hadn’t done such a thing when prices increased during the Biden administration because of inflation.

Ms. Leavitt said it was “not a surprise” coming from Amazon, as she held up a copy of a 2021 article from Reuters with the headline, “Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm.”

Mr. Trump’s aggressive tariffs on Chinese goods have touched off an escalating trade war, even as his administration has backed off its broader global levies amid what it said were negotiations with dozens of nations on new trade deals.

Ms. Leavitt’s attack on Amazon was all the more noteworthy because the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has lately gone to great lengths to curry favor with this White House. Amazon donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund, securing seats for Mr. Bezos and his bride-to-be in the Capitol Rotunda for the inauguration.

In December, Mr. Bezos explained his Trump-ward turn while speaking at The New York Times DealBook conference. “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time,” Mr. Bezos said of Mr. Trump, “more confident, more settled.”

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He added, “I’m very hopeful. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation.”

Ms. Leavitt was asked whether the White House still considered Mr. Bezos to be a Trump supporter, given the latest report.

“Look, I will not speak to the president’s relationships with Jeff Bezos,” Ms. Leavitt said, “but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon.”

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Eric Adams unfazed by ruling against his plan to combat migrant crime: ‘All part of the process’

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Eric Adams unfazed by ruling against his plan to combat migrant crime: ‘All part of the process’

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one of the only major Democrats in the nation who has been willing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrant crime, appears unfazed by the latest ruling against his efforts to allow ICE agents into Rikers Island detention facilities.

When asked by Fox News Digital what his response to this ruling was, Adams simply laughed and said it is “all part of the process.”

Adams, who is running for re-election as an Independent, is facing heavy criticism from Democrats across the country for cooperating with the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. In one of the latest developments, he has been sued by the Democrat-controlled New York City Council over an executive order issued by his office to allow ICE agents to access Rikers Island Prison to conduct immigration checks and interviews.

In the suit, the City Council accuses Adams of engaging in an illegal “quid pro quo” with the Trump administration and prioritizing his own political goals over the city’s “prized sanctuary laws.”

TRUMP’S BORDER CZAR TELLS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THEY ‘CANNOT HIDE FROM ICE’ AMID MASS DEPORTATION AGENDA

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one of the only major Democrats in the nation who has been willing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrant crime, appears unfazed by the latest ruling against his efforts to allow ICE agents into Rikers Island Prison. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The suit called the executive order “the poisoned fruit of Mayor Adams’s deal with the Trump Administration.”

Last week, New York Judge Mary Rosado ruled to bar the city from “taking any steps toward negotiating, signing, or implementing any Memorandum of Understanding with the federal government” for the time being.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

ICE previously had a presence at Rikers, but the agency was banned from the jail complex in 2014 under New York City’s sanctuary laws limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement.

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This remained the case until this month when New York City First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro signed an executive order allowing federal immigration authorities to operate an office on Rikers Island.

DEMOCRAT CITY COUNCIL SUES MAYOR FOR ALLOWING ICE INTO MAJOR AMERICAN PRISON

Rikers Island seen from air

The Rikers Island jail complex stands with the Manhattan skyline in the background on June 20, 2014 in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

The order states that the safety of New Yorkers has been jeopardized by violent transnational gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua – gangs designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration – and there is a critical need for federal law enforcement to share “real-time” intelligence with the city’s corrections department and police.

The order allows federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence with the corrections department and the NYPD about criminal gang activity among individuals both inside and outside of custody.

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It does not give ICE permission to carry out civil immigration enforcement and arrest people simply for being undocumented.

The order was issued the week after federal charges against Adams were dismissed. He had been accused of using his position as mayor to receive luxury travel and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish foreign nationals.

Adams insisted the case was politically motivated and was pursued in retaliation for his criticism of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

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Edison told the government that Calderon was an ‘executive.’ Now it claims she wasn’t. 

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Edison told the government that Calderon was an ‘executive.’ Now it claims she wasn’t. 

Southern California Edison has repeatedly insisted that its former government affairs manager, state Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), was never an executive with the company.

But that’s not what Edison told the federal government.

Calderon is sponsoring legislation favored by Edison that would slash the credits that many homeowners receive for generating electricity with rooftop solar panels.

Edison has objected to The Times’ identifying Calderon as a former executive for the utility, claiming on its website that the news organization is “choosing sensationalism over facts.”

But in its official reports to the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Edison International — the utility’s parent company — listed Calderon’s occupation as an executive in more than a dozen filings made before she left the company in 2020 to run for office.

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An example of the reports that Edison International’s political action committee filed with the Federal Election Commission.

All the filings were signed by the PAC’s treasurer saying that “to the best of my knowledge and belief” the information “is true, correct and complete.”

Asked to explain the contradiction, Edison spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy said that the company was referring in its filings with the commission to a broad class of individuals that met requirements for executive as defined by the commission, but not by Edison itself.

Edison uses the term to “designate someone in a high position of authority,” she said, such as “an employee director, vice president or similar title.” Because Edison didn’t consider Calderon an executive, she said, others shouldn’t either.

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Calderon told The Times earlier that she was a senior advisor of government affairs at Edison International. In other biographies, she is described as government affairs director. On Monday, she said her official title was government affairs manager.

For years, she managed the parent company’s political action committee.

In a statement, Calderon said she had not filled out the political action committee’s reports. Instead they were prepared and filed by the company’s law firm, she said.

“Due to her professional responsibilities, she was categorized as an executive for FEC filing purposes,” her office said. “That does not mean that she was an executive at Edison.”

For years, Lisa Calderon managed Edison International's Political Action Committee

For years, Lisa Calderon managed Edison International’s Political Action Committee

(EIPAC — 2019 Annual Report)

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Calderon’s AB 942 would sharply reduce the financial credits that the owners of rooftop panels receive when they send unused power to the grid.

The bill applies to those who installed the panels before April 15, 2023. It would limit the current program’s benefits to 10 years — half of the 20-year period that the state had told the rooftop owners they would receive. The bill also would cancel the solar contracts if the homes were sold. It wouldn’t apply to customers served by municipal electric utilities.

Edison and the state’s other big for-profit utilities have long fought to reduce the energy credits aimed at getting Californians to invest in rooftop solar panels. The popularity of the systems has cut into electricity sales.

Calderon, Edison and other supporters of the bill point to an analysis by the California Public Utility Commission’s Public Advocates Office that found the energy credits given to the rooftop owners were increasing the electric bills of those who don’t have solar panels.

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The bill’s first hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Edison has been under scrutiny since Jan. 7, when videos captured the devastating Eaton wildfire igniting under one of its transmission towers. The wildfire killed 18 people and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures in Altadena.

Edison says it is cooperating with investigators working to determine the cause of the inferno.

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