Elon Musk Owns A Car Company. Feds Regulate Cars. Guess What Happens Next.

Hey, what's Ralph Nader up to these days?

Compare and contrast if you will the two senators from the great state of Connecticut.

The first senator, Richard Blumenthal, spent time this week rallying support for his Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) by verbally fellating sentient staph infection Elon Musk, calling him “the foremost champion of free speech in the tech industry.” This was a naked attempt to get Musk to try and influence the other tech bros infesting the incoming administration to support the bill even though any sort of regulation of the Internet goes against their core beliefs. Unless the regulations somehow bother liberals, in which case they get a thumbs-up.

Thus did Blumenthal violate yr Wonkette’s rule about lending any legitimacy to the right-wing billionaire who just spent a quarter of a billion dollars to buy the election for the other party and has been rewarded with the highest of high-level access to the incoming president. We don’t particularly care about the cause one is fellating in support of, although KOSA is a problematic bill that no one should want passed. But that’s a whole other post.

Now consider Connecticut’s other senator, Chris Murphy. Thursday night on MSNBC, Murphy told Alex Wagner in no uncertain terms that America is about to become the sort of oligarchy represented by Musk’s ascent to Trump’s inner circle that we used to be able to at least pretend was beneath us:

“What it means is a handful of really rich people run the government, and they steal from ordinary people using their access to government in order to make themselves and their families even richer.”

Whoa, that’s no way to get invited to the DOGE Christmas party, Senator.

Murphy’s description really applies to how our government has been for some decades, the difference being that now we have an incoming president and administration that are not bothering to pretend otherwise. But okay, we won’t split hairs with Murphy. We are where we are, so any tiny voices in opposition to the coming nightmare are appreciated.

Anyway, Murphy got us thinking that you really have to hand it to the sentient staph infection. Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars buying himself a president who will roll over at the soft snap of the billionaire’s doughy fingers, and it has paid off again and again and again. And Sweet Potato Suharto’s coronation isn’t even for another five weeks.

A quarter of a billion dollars. Thanks a pantsload, Anthony Kennedy and the Supreme(ly Stupid) Court.

The latest atrocity to benefit Musk is a report on Friday that the incoming administration may drop the federal government’s car crash reporting rules. See, Tesla has a minor problem, in that it has had to report over 1,500 crashes to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, partly because the automated-driving systems that are supposed to set the cars apart from normie vehicles don’t work very well, turning them into fiery mobile deathtraps and causing untold misery and suffering to not just crash victims but their families as well.

Musk probably doesn’t believe this, but pain and suffering by humans is in fact bad. It’s true! Just ask us!

And should the administration follow through on scrapping these rules, it is far from the first sop to Musk. A few days ago Trump took to TruthSocial to announce that any businessperson who wants to invest one billion dollars into the US won’t have to worry their pretty little heads about minor obstacles like regulations. What regulations? Presumably all of them, Katie! Environmental, health and safety, labor law. We hope you are all ready to see our streets flooded with Cockney chimney sweeps.

As Marcie noted at the time, Musk’s companies have racked up huge fines from the EPA and the FAA related to SpaceX’s liquid oxygen spills and unlicensed rocket launches, which have destroyed wilderness and polluted large swaths around the company’s launch site in South Texas.

Well, huge fines for normal humans. They are less huge for a guy worth $400 billion, which is approximately $399.99 billion more than any one person needs. Even one with twelve kids.

That Man's Latest Big-Brain Plan: Let Anyone Have Their Way With America For Low Low Price Of 1 Billion Dollars!

Over at The Guardian, George Chidi ran down some other conflicts between Musk and the federal government that he is now in position to change the rules on. One big one is cryptocurrency, which Musk has heavily invested in over the years.

But crypto, which is less a valuable product and more a giant Ponzi scheme, is subject to regulations from a vast archipelago of agencies:

The SEC has pursued cases against initial coin offerings, exchanges and crypto projects that it deems as unregistered securities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates cryptocurrencies as commodities – a key distinction from being regulated like stocks and bonds, which affects how crypto firms communicate. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network looks at how cryptocurrency can be used as a tool for money laundering, evading sanctions and financing terrorism. And the IRS expects people who own cryptocurrencies to report gains and losses on their taxes.

Don’t forget the environmental regulatory agencies that have to monitor the insane depletion of our natural water supplies that are being siphoned off by bitcoin miners who need water to cool their huge server farms. And the energy regulators who monitor the enormous amounts of energy these farms take up, with their subsequent stressing of the nation’s power grid.

Trump and his incoming administration have made it known that they intend to roll back all sorts of regulations across the government. Musk himself has been publicly proclaiming his belief that regulations are stifling business innovations. Of course these regulations also keep Musk and the other robber barons from exploiting people and resources, which is why they need to go.

Which brings us back to the senators from Connecticut. One of them, Murphy, seems to have a clear-eyed grasp of the oligarchy that is coming our way and what it means for the American people. The other, Blumenthal, is choosing a different path, one of apparent cooperation. Our money is on the former being the correct response.

[YouTube / Reuters / The Guardian]

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