The war on Tesla

 The New York Times reports that more than 80 Teslas were vandalized at a lot in Hamilton, Ontario.  But that was nothing compared to the damage the company did itself:  Nearly all cybertrucks built over the last two years were recalled because they are prone to "environmental embrittlement."  This interesting term means that when it gets cold, panels fall off.  Some of these things cost $160,000 and they're held together by glue.  A Tesla owner who goes by Stonk King reports that his windshield wipers also bend when they encounter snow.

That's not a concern in Florida, though, where attorney general James Uthmeier, a worthy successor to Pam Bondi, is offering police raises and promotions for apprehending "leftist protesters" harming innocent Teslas.  It's not clear that he has the power to tell municipalities how to run their police departments but mere laws don't worry MAGAts.  Most people would probably prefer that police concentrate on crimes like murder, rape, burglary and assault.  Too bad.

Also too bad for seven families who wrote to the Secretary of Transportation, concerned that The Leader will repeal a rule requiring crashes involving self-driving technologies to be reported.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees such crashes (in which the families had members who died or were injured), but President Musk oversees the NHTSA and most other things.  Conflict of interest?  Another quaint notion out of the pre-January 20 past.

With sales crashing and stock price tanking, they got trouble with a capital T and that stands for Tesla.  Enter Commerce Secretary and stockholder Howard Lutnick, who went on Fox News Wednesday night to deliver a prime-time infomercial:  "It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap.  It'll never be this cheap again.  When people understand the things he's building, the robots he's building, the technology he's building, people are going to be dreaming of today...and thinking, 'Gosh, I should have bought Elon Musk's stock.'"  "Gosh" is very Meredith Willson.  Next time Fox should hire a barbershop quartet.

With hundreds of demonstrations planned for March 29 and growing outrage at the arrogant and unchecked activities of his fake DOGE department, it's clear that Musk's role in depriving tens of thousands of workers and veterans of employment and stealing the data of millions from the databases of Social Security, Medicare, the VA, the IRS and many other agencies has caused more Americans to loathe him than his ugly, overpriced shitbox vehicles.  People protest at Tesla dealerships (and overwhelming protest peacefully and lawfully) because they are the most visible manifestations of Musk's malign crypto-nazi presence in the US.  Nevertheless Dan Ives of the financial firm Wedbush believes that what Tesla and his other enterprises need now is more Musk.  "The brand damage has spread globally...into a brand tornado crisis moment for Musk and Tesla."  (I love the way financiers grab language by the syntax.)  "Tesla is Musk and Musk is Tesla.  They are synonymous and attached together and cannot be separated."

That rang a bell and I had to look it up.  Rudolf Hess in 1934 opening the Nazi party congress:  "Hitler is Germany as Germany is Hitler."  Apparently you can see it in Triumph des Willens (1935) in the original German.  Well, is anyone surprised?