I know I said I was taking the day off from writing, but one news item just begs for comment; and since it involves the future of my country — our country — I could not shove it aside.

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As we all sit down to dinner today — whether it be turkey, or lasagna, or Peking duck — most of us will have something to be thankful for.

And I’m sure there are numerous people . . . I can think of four in particular . . . who will give thanks to this guy:

. . . for ruining their Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Year’s, and possibly the rest of their lives.

But what does it matter to him? He’s the richest — and arguably the second most powerful — man in the world. His net worth is currently estimated at nearly $350 billion. That’s billion, with nine zeroes after the first comma: $350,000,000,000.

So people (and this is just the beginning) such as the woman employed as Director of Climate Diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; a second woman, the chief climate officer in the loan programs office at the Department of Energy; and a third woman, serving as senior advisor on environmental justice and climate change at the Department of Health and Human Services; and yet a fourth, a senior adviser on climate at the Department of Housing and Urban Development . . . all four of these accomplished professionals should give thanks today to Elon Musk for singling them out as candidates for the unemployment line. [Hadas Gold and Rene Marsh, CNN, November 27, 2024.]

His comment on X as to the last of the four was that she “should not be paid $181,648.00 by the US taxpayer to be the ‘Climate advisor’ at HUD. But maybe her advice is amazing.” Followed by two laughing emojis! [Id.]

Very funny . . . not.

So her hard-earned salary is a waste of taxpayer money . . . but the $465 million awarded to Musk’s own Tesla Motors in 2010 by the Department of Energy — the very office employing the second woman he has designated as expendable — was a justifiable taxpayer expense . . . right? It all seems to depend on who is receiving those dollars.

And then to publicly announce their names, so that they have become subject to harassment, and at least one death threat! What was he thinking?!! He doesn’t even have the authority yet. In fact, his so-called Department of Government Efficiency only exists — in his mind and Donald Trump’s — as a future possibility.

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As an average taxpayer for sixty years, Elon Musk wouldn’t want to hear what I have to say about him or his ideas for the future of my country. Because he is talking — not only about the lives of numerous individuals, but about the worsening climate crisis that is enveloping the entire world — as though they don’t even exist.

So I will say no more now, because I have learned that it is best that I not speak — or write — when I am turning purple with righteous anger.

I will instead leave it to my readers, who are also intelligent, hard-working, tax-paying individuals, to form their own conclusions as to Musk’s qualifications to be the judge of who is, or is not, entitled to “live long and prosper.” **

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/28/24

** Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek.