Does Elon Musk even bother reading this shit before reposts it?
The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments https://t.co/GabhBL7gxf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025
Crackpot Gen. Mike Flynn seems to have searched for all grants to any organization with Lutheran in its name and declared them all corrupt. What does he have against Lutherans?
Beats me. In any case, all of these are different groups. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, for example, is headquartered in Baltimore and provides resettlement help to people from places like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan, and so forth. Do we still take in refugees in the Donald Trump era? I don't know, but we used to.
The other Lutheran groups provide foster care, group homes, meals, and that sort of thing all over the country. You know, charity and humanitarian services.
So why does Elon say he's "rapidly" shutting down these "illegal payments"? There's nothing illegal about them and DOGE has no authority to stop them anyway. I assume he's just fluffing Flynn, but you never know. Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of? That seems unlikely even for Elon, but who's to say?
Check out the URL for this post:
https://jabberwocking.com/elon-says-hell-shut-down-all-payments-to-lutheran-charities/
I know it's just the WordPress page name protocols, but dropping that apostrophe just made my day! Although I guess if you take on the Lutherans, you are proclaiming your side pretty quickly! 🙂
As a pastor's son in a family that once hosted Vietnamese refugees, now on the lay council of a (non-Lutheran) church, I've been despairing over the news all morning. This note finally made me bust out laughing. Thank you.
On a more serious side, the invasive muskrat does have some history with the Lutherans. He may not understand all the bifurcations in Lutheran history (especially the very conservative Missouri and Wisconsin Synods). Heck, even the Lutherans can't keep them all straight! But for awhile the more liberal wings were quite active in pushing boycotts and disinvestment against the apartheid regime in South Africa, and they were petitioning for Nelson Mandela's release. It wasn't to a lot of effect; the Calvinist leaders never liked Lutherans to begin with. But some Lutherans DID move some money out of South Africa, and I know they made connections with other mainline Protestant denominations in the US and Europe to take part in these campaigns. It would not surprise me to find that this has stuck in his craw for decades.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5123525-president-trump-elon-musk-access-treasury/?tbref=hp
“He’s got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him and it’s only if we agree with him,” Trump said in response in the Oval Office.
He added that Musk “can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval.”
“We’ll give him the approval when appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t. But he reports in, and it’s something that he feels very strongly about,” the president said. “If there’s conflict, then we won’t let him get near it.”
Lol, as if getting the dullards approval is that difficult. Add a hotel or real estate offer and its a done deal! Or just compliment him profusely! He is the only president in history that is that easily manipulated.
This information might have been obsoleted by a Wired report overnight about the exploits of one of Musk's droogies, Marko Elez.
>Do we still take in refugees in the Donald Trump era?
Shame on you for not knowing. This is a key difference between Biden and Trump:
https://www.context.news/socioeconomic-inclusion/trump-halts-us-refugee-programme-who-is-affected
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/rebuilt-us-refugee-resettlement-biden