Skip to content

Elon’s puppets are at it again

Conservatives are up in arms about the Rotherham scandal, a decade-old investigation of Pakistani rape gangs in the UK. The remarkable thing about this is why they're suddenly up in arms: Elon Musk.

On January 1st, out of nowhere, Musk started up one of his now infamous Twitter jihads. The subject was Rotherham, for no apparent reason. It would be like suddenly posting a few hundred tweets about Benghazi and the fact that Hillary Clinton didn't go to prison for it. Like Benghazi, the Rotherham scandal was first uncovered in 2012 and caused an immense furor because local authorities had mostly turned a blind eye to it for years, apparently for fear of stirring up racial problems.

Since then it's been investigated half a dozen times, with the 2014 Jay report in particular getting a mountain of press coverage. It concluded that about 1,400 children had been raped or sexually abused by British-Pakistani men between 1997 and 2013. After that prosecutions finally started up in earnest and continue to this day. So far about 60 men have been convicted and sentenced to terms ranging up to 35 years for the ringleaders.

But no one has paid the slog of trials and sentencing much attention. National Review, for example, ran several short pieces in 2014 and early 2015 but hasn't mentioned it since. Until Friday, that is, when they abruptly rediscovered it. Haley Strack writes:

Notable figures on social media have re-publicized the United Kingdom's Rotherham scandal this week, calling for greater punishments and accountability for those implicated in the scandal.

Strack, who I suppose was about 12 when the Rotherham scandal first broke, is apparently embarrassed to admit that she's writing about this solely because Musk is writing about it. The same is true elsewhere. Rotherham is being taken up as a cudgel solely because Musk decided to make it one.

Conservative media followed dutifully along when Musk helped blow up the "Haitians are eating pets in Springfield" hoax. They followed along again when Musk whipped up fake outrage about Joe Biden's response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. They did so yet again over Musk's ignorant campaign against the December continuing resolution. Now it's Rotherham.

It seems like conservative media always needs someone to follow. It was Rush Limbaugh starting in the late '80s. Drudge in the '90s. Then Fox News. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Tucker Carlson. Now Elon Musk. What really stands out is that the crazier each of them got, the more conservatives twisted themselves into pretzels to defend them. It's like there's some kind of intellectual masochism at work.

As for Elon, he's gotten a taste for what a demagogue can accomplish when he owns his own press, and he obviously likes it. He's learned how to simulate Donald Trump with eerie accuracy, including Trump's famously spotty relationship to the truth, and he's now taking his show global. What's next?

104 thoughts on “Elon’s puppets are at it again

  1. aldoushickman

    "Conservatives are up in arms about the Rotherham scandal,"

    I guess it's better that they be up in arms about something in some other country than up in arms about something in our country, yes?

    1. Crissa

      Well, it's still bigotry.

      The police already didn't want to listen to claims from nonwhite people and nonmale people, but they want that to be Progressives' fault somehow.

      1. MF

        Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the scandal.

        The rapists were overwhelmingly of Pakistani origin. The victims were overwhelmingly white girls. The police and political leaders refused to listen to the victims and their families because of racial sensitivities (this is documented in the government reports complete with emails citing this as a reason not to act).

        The story is salient today for three reasons:

        1. The police and government officials responsible received no significant punishment ave many are still active allergiesin government, and
        2. Many of the perpetrators are now due for release and the Labour government apparently had no plans to seek deportation for those who are not British citizens.
        3. Current Prime Minister Keith Starmer was head of Crown Prosecutions at the time and is alleged to have ignored and downplayed the mass rapes until they became a public scandal. He claims he did not know, which if true calls his competence into question. Strangely, UK police and local governments lost evidence and had computers with information about the rape gangs and the government response stolen so full accountability for those involved in the cover ups is no longer possible.

        BTW, please note that Rotherham is just one of the scandals. Similar rape gangs and cover-ups were discovered in many British cities. This is why the right wants a national investigation of what is apparently a national problem. That, of course, would look at national government failings including CPS and Kath Starmer. Labour, of course, does not want that.

        1. Crissa

          Long post, bigot.

          Bigots and police making excuses for their already low enforcement of sex crimes?

          Weird!

          And bigot now says it's someone else's fault.

          Also, one, not many, is up for parole, "Sentencing council guidelines state that offenders sentenced to four years or more for violent or sexual offences can potentially be released at the halfway point under strict licence conditions."
          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/05/rotherham-rapist-to-be-released-from-prison-early/

          Noticed you didn't cite anything.

          Also noticed you don't seem to understand that deporting means releasing.

          Bigot doesn't cite anything and gets everything wrong, who knew?

          1. Crissa

            Couldn't conservatives, who controlled the government since 2010, during the scandal, after, and for the last fourteen years, have changed these rules?

            Or is this more bigoted bullshit?

            1. MF

              The actual scandal was from the late 1980s to 2013. It happened in towns that were almost uniformly politically dominated by Labor. The crimes were exposed during Cameron's administration.

              The full scope, however, including the fact that there were multiple unconnected rape gangs overwhelmingly composed of men of Pakistani origin was not clear until Labor took power again. See the "See Also" at the bottom of this article - click through on the scandals and see the names and dates ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

              1. memyselfandi

                "The crimes were exposed during Cameron's administration." The crimes were exposed when the present UK prime minister (labor) was chief prosecutor and the criminals began being prosecuted.

          2. MF

            I'm a litle confused what you are trying to say.

            Obviously, the people who ignored the rape gangs because the perpetrators were mostly Pakistani and the victims were white were racists and bigots. This is the point - these people must be identified, shamed, punished, and removed from all positions of responsibility. There must be deterrence for the future.

            I am not sure how you conclude that only one of the rape gang members is up for parole. You have an article about one... how does that show there are not many?

            Deporting means releasing, but many of these people are being released anyway and after some years all will be released. The question is whether they should be released back into the community or whether the non-British among them should be deported back to their home countries (usually Pakistan) upon release..

        2. memyselfandi

          Musk is primarily going after PM Starmer who was chief prosecutor when the scandal broke. This ignores that within months of Starmer switching from being a defense attorney to being a prosecutor, the first Anglo-Pakastani's were arrested and charged with the crimes. The scandal broke on his watch because of the many prosecutions that occurred after he became a prosecutor.

        1. Anandakos

          Well, 1997-2013 includes, mostly, Tony Blair's and Gordon Brown's Prime Ministerships but only three years of David Cameron's, so I don't think you can rightly blame the British Conservatives for MOST of the problem. According to most sources, Keir Starmer was Crown Prosecutor for the end of Tony's and then all of Brown's premierships. So if people were slow to prosecute, Starmer is a legitimate target.

          1. Crissa

            But everything they've complained about the conservatives could have changed.

            And the crown prosecutor doesn't, in fact, run the police.

            1. Anandakos

              All that's true, but I was pointing out that the original commenter's post reads to me that he's talking about US conservatives blathering on about a British scandal. Now maybe I'm misreading a pretty unclear statement, but I just wanted to make it clear to any other readers who might make that same mistake that it's British conservatives that Muskrat is trolling, not American ones.

              And yes, Keir Starmer is fair game. The Crown Prosecutor is sort of like the US Attorney General in that he sets directions and standards for prosecution. If there were credible accusations made by women, he could and should have pushed the local prosecutors to follow them up.

              1. TheMelancholyDonkey

                Elon Musk is a US conservative. Haley Strack is a US conservative. They are blathering on about a British scandal.

                The Crown Prosecutor is sort of like the US Attorney General in that he sets directions and standards for prosecution.

                Which means that the Crown Prosecutor is not like the US Attorney General. The latter oversees a number of federal law enforcement agencies. The Crown Prosecutor's Office does not. They do not become involved until after a police investigation has concluded and they decide whether to prosecute. If the police do not conduct an investigation, as happened here, then the Crown Prosecutor is never involved.

                Oversight of the police in England and Wales (the law enforcement agencies in Scotland and Northern Ireland are structured differently) is conducted by Police and Crime Commissioners, who are elected locally, except in London, Manchester, and West Yorkshire, where they report to the mayor.

                If there were credible accusations made by women, he could and should have pushed the local prosecutors to follow them up.

                No, he shouldn't have. First off, the complaints wouldn't be brought to the Crown Prosecutions Office to begin with. And, if they were, the Crown Prosecutor has no authority to push the local police agencies.

          2. memyselfandi

            Starmer became chief prosecutor in Nov. 2008 and the prosecutions of the criminals began a few months later in 2009. Prior to Nov. 2008, Starmer was a defense barrister. (Britain separates its attorneys into solicitors who handle paper work and barristers who handle trial work.)

      1. aldoushickman

        Dude, it's AMERICAN conservatives* that Kevin is talking about. Keep yourself up.
        ____
        *Notably:

        - Elon Musk (US citizen, and while of South African origin, certainly not "BRITISH");

        - Haley Strack, a "William F. Buckley Fellow . . . and a recent graduate of Hillsdale College," (which, fwiw, is in Michigan) writing for

        - National Review, which bills itself as "America's premier destination for conservative analysis" (emph. added).

        1. Anandakos

          Jeebus, both you and Crissa are willing to throw English teen-age girls under the bus to insult other commenters on this tiny blog. What is wrong with you?

          Whether Starmer had explicit legal authority over the investigations is irrelevant. According to today's article in the NYT he publicly apologized in 2013 for the behavior of the local constabulary and prosecutors and moved to highlight the issue. So he's done more than most people to respond to the problem, but as he admitted, he too dismissed the early rumblings.

          1. aldoushickman

            Wtf is wrong with you? I'm not throwing anybody under any bus, and up until you, like a jackass, called me out by incorrectly claiming I had basic facts wrong, I had no desire to insult anybody.

            So "Jeebus" the fuck right off, you troll.

          2. memyselfandi

            Starmer switched from defense attorney to prosecutor in Nov. 2008. Prosecution of the rapists commence 4 months later in mar of 2009. Maybe he should have done more, but the prosecutions started right after he was in charge.

          3. name99

            "
            Jeebus, both you and Crissa are willing to throw English teen-age girls under the bus to insult other commenters on this tiny blog. What is wrong with you?
            "

            This is it in a nutshell. Utterly astonishing. The same crowd that went berserk at MeToo with what, maybe ten powerful men "persuading" adult women (horrible behavior, but not at the same level as gang rape of teenagers) is now falling over themselves to apologize for what went down in Britain.

            Utter evil. And all these complaints that "oh that was a long time ago". So by your lights poor old Eichmann should have been left alone in Argentina?

            Reason this is salient now is
            (a) in ENGLAND the issue is that with the Trump victory there's a sense that perhaps the woke borg can be overcome, and some justice can enforced.

            (b) in the US the point is that allowing in random immigrants does not work out the way the Left claims. These immigrants did not assimilate to English values, instead they retained the worst aspects of their native culture, only without even the native culture of revenge to hold them back. Maybe they could have been assimilated if the English elites were willing to enforce assimilation, but that was never tried, was never an option.
            This goes along with all the other data coming out of Europe right now -- eg ongoing costs of immigrants from certain countries even to the third generation. Or how certain countries produce immigrants that are vastly more criminal than others.

            Bottom line is that the post-war West was fed a certain lie about immigration, that it didn't matter where people came from and it didn't matter if they weren't forced to assimilate.
            That lie is falling apart before our eyes. The Nordic data is the intellectual side of this, the Rotherham scandal is the gut emotional side of this.

            Crissa et al are trying to get lost in the weeds of specific factual statements because the big picture is too awful for them to possibly justify. But it's the big picture that matters, that immigration from random countries, especially if not coupled to enforced assimilation, is a massive failure. And not just an economic failure but a moral failure.

            Remember Around the World in 80 Days? There's the episode in India where Fogg et al encounter the woman who is being forced to commit suttee and they rescue her?
            That's what the West cheered on during the Victorian Age...
            Now we hear about thousands of barely teenage girls gang-raped and our moral exemplars tell us not to make us fuss because different cultures do things differently...

            That's why the stakes are so high.

  2. Joel

    And suddenly everyone listens to the insights of a South African emerald mining heir about American, British and German politics? Seriously?

    1. Crissa

      He's not an heir to an emerald mine; his father is estranged and still alive, not to mention did not pay for his college education or companies.

      That said, you are correct no one should be listening to him on anything. He's basically a lotto winner; and super gullible.

          1. Five Parrots in a Shoe

            "it is undisputed that Musk was poor until he made his money in startups."

            I promise: as long as we both live, I will never let you forget that you said that.

                1. Crissa

                  That would not be the 'low end'.

                  The 'low end' are part time students flipping burgers and not making tuition.

                  Geez you're so out of touch.

                  1. MF

                    I do not think there are many students like that at U Penn.

                    By the standards of US Ivy League, Musk appears to have been near the bottom of the wealth and income distribution.

                    1. aldoushickman

                      Verily! Like Ramaswamay and Trump himself: by the standards of US Billionaires, they are near the bottom of the wealth and income distribution, and thus could also be described as poor.

            1. Crissa

              They take students based upon tests scores and such; one of my classmates from my tiny (38 students graduated) rural high school got into Stanford. She was not rich, by Silicon Valley terms.

              She was also a much better student than I was but like me, ended up back home after a year.

          2. memyselfandi

            Trump routinely claims he is a self made millionaire, completely ignoring that he was given millions by his father in the mid 60s and overall inherited/gifted from his father 200 million dollars. On multiple occasions his father was caught intentionally loosing million dollar bets in Trump's casinos to enable Donald to make payroll. (And of course, it is not legal for a casino to take a bet that would require pay out of 35 million when they don't have any free cash on hand.

  3. Art Eclectic

    We've all been nervous about Trump and his craze-balls cabinet, but it's starting to seem like the person who's the greatest danger is, in fact, Elon Musk. Conservatives should be nervous as well, because he's not entirely on their side, either.

    It's all starting to feel like a plot in a Bond movie.

    1. Salamander

      Moreover, Musk is cleared to receive secret defense information at high levels, and does. He's got control of satellite communication systems, rockets, and then all those consumer goods, plus the big mic.

  4. different_name

    He's figuring out how to use Xitter as an international fascist flashmob coordinator.

    This is going to become extremely dangerous.

  5. somebody123

    It’s not masochism. Conservatism has no intellectual foundation deeper than “I got mine, fuck you”, so they’re not violating any principles.

        1. Five Parrots in a Shoe

          In the 1970's and 80's, when William F. Buckley was running the National Review, US conservatives believed in limited government, strong defense, free trade, and white supremacy. Some good principles, some bad ones, some indifferent. But at least they had principles. That's gone now.

  6. jeffreycmcmahon

    Yeah, the herd instinct Mr. Drum mentions comes from being unattached to any actual principles, so everything they publish is a result of seeing what shit sticks and following along.

  7. KJK

    What a shock that this South African MAGA Nazi scumbag (aka the "Co-President" elect), is using a racially charged horrific set of events to attack the progressive PM of one of our closest allies. Pakistani men (dark skin / Muslim) raping white, teenage working class girls is perfection for Musk's (and Trump's) brand of exploitation.

    Hopefully the silver lining will be to make Musk (Tesla and X) a toxic brand worldwide. I certainly will never buy a car from him.

    1. MF

      This is the attitude that lead to the attempts to hide the Rotherham and other Pakistani rape gang attacks.

      Many people were more concerned about the right using them to political advantage than about stopping the rapes and protecting the past, current, and future victims.

      You can tell a lot about people from their priorities.

      1. Crissa

        Bigots who were already ignoring sex crimes and other bigots blaming it on anti-bigotry?

        Gee, why should we trust the bigots?

        1. MF

          Well, we shouldn't trust the bigots who ignored these crimes.

          This is a national problem and this is why the UK needs a national inquiry.

          1. chood

            The Rotherham enquiry reported in 2014.
            The final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reported in Oct 2022.
            Its investigation report into Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks reported in Feb 2022.
            These and other enquiries didn't find what bigots want nor did they recommend what bigots want. Hence the failure of the current campaigners even to mention their existence, much less their findings, their recommendations, and the actions already taken.
            We shouldn't trust the bigots who are actually trying to whiteant recommendations directed to rape and grooming of children, whether it can be blamed on Pakistani Muslims or not.

      2. memyselfandi

        Bit that doesn't apply to the person Musk is attacking since the prosecutions began literally 4 months after Starmer switched from being a defense attorney to being a prosecutor.

  8. FrankM

    If you're rich enough you can buy an additional 15 minutes of fame, but that's it. He's already well into his second allotment.

  9. kenalovell

    The most astonishing aspect is the man's abysmal ignorance. Either that or he has a very peculiar sense of humor. He told King Charles to dismiss parliament, which suggests he got his knowledge of British history and institutions in high school, watching a documentary about Charles 1.

      1. kenalovell

        The king is obliged by the (unwritten) British constitution to act on the advice of a prime minister who enjoys the confidence of the House of Commons. That has been the case for centuries. Musk's demand was ignorant, impertinent and childish.

  10. Salamander

    Rage is addictive, and you need to keep the dose up; no cold turkey, lest the person's intellect start functioning again. Keep 'em mad, keep their thoughts occupied with horrors and atrocities that Only You Can Solve, and they'll gallop along in front of you, baying.

    Trouble is, over time you have to keep upping the dose. If you can't find sufficient atrocities, you must make them up, or search other countries, or look into history. Remember the old crack about how "the past isn't dead, it's not even past"?

    Elon is just injecting another shot of rage-o-hol.

  11. SwamiRedux

    It concluded that about 1,400 children had been raped or sexually abused by British-Pakistani men between 1997 and 2013.

    Hmm. I wonder how many children were raped or sexually abused by the clergy in the same period.

    1. Anandakos

      That is nearly 100 per year or one every four days. I find it preposterous that could occur in dense Great Britain and not be a HUGE tabloid scandal. Something just does not smell right about this.

    2. MF

      1400 is just in Rotherham. There were multiple other Pakistani rape gangs in other cities. One purpose of a national inquiry would be to get a total count of victims.

      For clergy, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_England_and_Wales

      3000 complaints of child abuse (presumably not all sexual and not all substantiated) over a forty year period - a much longer time over the entire UK.

      That justified a national inquiry. Rotherham had just 250,000 people and that case alone had 1400 known victims, so this suggests the total UK problem is far larger.

          1. Crissa

            Well, calling them 'rape gangs' and assigning them a specific nationality when in fact, they weren't either.

            Another inquiry wouldn't give an accounting of victims. If Conservatives wanted to do that, they could've done it any time in the last 14 years.

            And you can't even keep your victim vs incidents counts separate, and are glomming decades to fluff your numbers.

            500,000 out of the 14 million children in the UK are said to experience sexual abuse each year.

            That's why your statements are a bigoted lie.

        1. MF

          Didn't your parents teach you not to lie?

          https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham

          Read starting at page 29.

          These are over 1400 known victims.

          The uncertainty is due to the authorities' deliberate attempts to obfuscate what was happening and not write full information into case files.

          Also see paragraph 4.7:

          We are unable to assess the numbers of other children who may have been at risk of exploitation, or those who were exploited but not known to any agency. This includes some who were forced to witness other children being assaulted and abused.

          BTW, see 10.17 for an example of how the local Labour politicians implemented the cover up when some people bravely decided to blow the whistle on what was happening:

          "Prior to completion of the draft report, the researcher had to submit her data to the Home Office. When senior Council and police officers saw it, the Council suspended the researcher on the basis that she had committed 'an act of gross misconduct' by including in the data minutes of confidential inter-agency meetings. A formal meeting took place the following week at which the researcher was reinstated after she was able to show that the minutes had in fact been handed to the Home Office evaluators by her manager. It was agreed that she would receive a positive reference from the Council when her temporary contract terminated. The Council also paid for counselling. She spent the remainder of her time working on policies and procedures, in a room on her own, forbidden access to the girls involved and not allowed to attend meetings or have access to further data. "

          1. chood

            'Didn't your parents teach you not to lie?'
            Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 2014: at p29,
            'Our conservative estimate is that there were more than 1400 victims in the period covered by the inquiry'; at p 30,
            '4.7 Taking all these sources together, the Inquiry concluded that at least 1400 children were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013.' These are clearly estimates and expressed to be based on sources including samples of case files and so on.
            Children at risk of exploitation, in the Report, are clearly distinguished from children actually sexually exploited in some way; and there are not 1400 known victims, the point you pretended to dispute.
            memyselfandI was correct. You lied about the substance of the Report.

      1. chood

        The national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reported in Oct 2022 after a seven year enquiry.
        Its investigation report into Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks reported in Feb 2022.
        Clearly successive governments thought a national enquiry warranted, and got it. But it, and other enquiries, haven't produced the anti-Pakistani, anti-Moslem rubbish you seem to want: so you pretend a national enquiry is still awaited.
        That national enquiry asked about the Catholic Church and got no co-operation, and your figures for abuse by clergy are from submissions to that enquiry and confined to that church. Abuse by other church workers and church functionaries, and by other denominations, is not included in the figures you cite.
        Apparently there has been a national enquiry into abuse by Catholic clergy, because that is touched on in the report, and yet a national enquiry into other abuse is still awaited; and the several reports into Rotherham in particular, including the Jay report of 2014, have worked out in detail what happened there.

      2. chood

        Clearly successive governments thought a national enquiry warranted, and got it. But it, and other enquiries, haven't produced the anti-Pakistani, anti-Moslem rubbish you seem to want: so you pretend a national enquiry is still awaited.
        The national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reported in Oct 2022 after a seven year enquiry.
        Its investigation report into Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks reported in Feb 2022.
        That national enquiry asked about the Catholic Church and got no co-operation, and your figures for abuse by clergy are from submissions to that enquiry and confined to that church. Abuse by other church workers and church functionaries, and by other denominations, is not included in the figures you cite.
        Apparently you think there has been a national enquiry into abuse by Catholic clergy, because that is touched on in the report, and yet you think a national enquiry into other abuse is still awaited; and the several reports into Rotherham in particular, including the Jay report of 2014, have worked out in detail what happened there.

    3. name99

      That 1400 was just in Rotherham.
      Don't forget Banbury. Or Derby. Or Manchester. Or ... Many many other cities.

      The same behavior also happened in Finland courtesy of "refugees".
      In Finland it's less of a scandal because as soon as it was detected the authorities clamped down rather than making excuses. At least one escaped to Germany where (no surprise, there they love rapists as much as the English elite do) he was arrested but then let go.

      But in all cases (English and Finnish) the punishments were a few years prison, like two to four years. All those leftists complaining about rape culture in the US -- you think that's reasonable? Multiple gang rapes (sometimes over months) of drugged [often heroin and cocaine] girls aged 10 to 13 yrs olds and you get four years prison? The people who supplied the heroin and cocaine got around 10 years, but the "mere" rapists got 2 to 4 years.

      One suspects we're probably going to learn that the same thing is going on in Germany and France right now, just hasn't gone public yet...

      As for the Catholic Church, I'm kinda missing the step where this behavior was reported to the police and everyone involved up to the highest political levels decided it was more important to cover it so as not to offend Catholics, rather than to do whatever was possible to suppress it ASAP.

      1. chood

        The Archbishop of Canterbury has now resigned over the failure to act on a kiddie fiddling evangelical.
        This barrister was Mary Whitehouse's legal expert, designer of anti-gay and blasphemy proceedings for her.
        He was shunted off into African youth outreach, where he continued his depredations.
        I'm kinda missing the step where reporting to police was more in Rotherham and highest level cover up was less.
        I'm kinda missing the step where the Catholic church refusing all cooperation to the national enquiry was less of a high level cover up than in Rotherham.
        I'm kinda missing the step where you acknowledge how cases have got out, and the victim blaming and refusal to connect abuse patterns was general and not just, and not mainly, protecting one ethnic group or one religion.
        But then, I'm kinda missing the step where you acknowledge the national enquiry and the local enquiries that have already occurred, their findings, and their recommendations.
        You seem to have a problem with anything that doesn't fit up Pakistani Muslims.

  12. DarkBrandon

    As somone eager to revisit the Beirut Barracks bombing of 1983 - 241 dead Marines - this new fashion of digging up old dirt is intriguing to me.

  13. pjcamp1905

    Now that he's conquered America, he's ready to take on some other countries in his quest to make the world safe for oligarchs.

  14. Jimm

    Campaign finance reform, time to kick it back in.

    Absolutely no foreign money in politics, and to ensure this, constitutional amendment to revoke the corporate "person".

    1. Anandakos

      You are WAY more than a day late and WAY more than a dollar short on that one. It's more likely that the Subprime Court will revoke citizenship from widespread classes of human beings than Corporations.

      1. Jimm

        Guess you missed the constitutional amendment part, way ahead of you, and was proposing this 20 years ago too (including sometimes in Drum threads of the time), but now seems like a more apropos time when people don't automatically dismiss the idea of an amendment (which this country has passed plenty of).

        1. Austin

          “… people don't automatically dismiss the idea of an amendment (which this country has passed plenty of).“

          There have been 27 amendments passed in the 237ish years since the constitution was written. 10 were packaged as the Bill of Rights and passed in a single year, 1791. 3 more required a civil war to pass over about a 5 year span. So that leaves 14 others passed in the remaining 230ish years, or about one every 16.4 years on average. YMMV but “plenty” is doing some heavy lifting there IMO.

          1. TheMelancholyDonkey

            It's worse than that. The 27th and last (so far) amendment was ratified in 1992, so none have taken effect in 33 years. The 26th Amendment was ratified in 1951. So, there has been only one amendment ratified in the last 50 years.

            1. memyselfandi

              It's one in the last 82 years. And that one was passed by congress before the 10 that compose the bill of rights.

          2. Jasper_in_Boston

            YMMV but “plenty” is doing some heavy lifting there IMO.

            The near impossibility of amending the constitution is it's single biggest weakness IMHO, because it is the source of all the other problems.

            We'd be far better off if, since the first days of the Republic, we'd been able to frequently engage in constitutional tinkering and experimentation. Yes, some dodgy ideas would likely have been adopted. But if the amendment process were sufficiently easy, we could in turn easily jettison ideas that haven't worked out. Imagine, if, say, we typically amended the constitution once or twice per Congress. We'd be past the 200 mark at this point.

            I believe that would have made for a far healthier polity. Our constitutional order is far too rigid.

            1. Yehouda

              "But if the amendment process were sufficiently easy, we could in turn easily jettison .."
              A useful guard would be to add to amendments a provision that says that in another X years the congress can decide on a national vote whether to undo the amendment or not. So amendments that after X years are clearly bad can be undone easily (compared to the full amendment process).

        2. Anandakos

          Dude, the Repugnants have a Trifecta in over twenty states. They are NOT going to ratify a Constitutional Amendment excluding corporations from First Amendment citizenship. Yeah, I hate it too, but most media are owned by corporations, and what do you do to protect the Editorial Page from politicians they don't like if they don't have "personhood"?

    2. MF

      Can you name a single modern country (so excluding places like Somalia and North Korea) that does NOT have some version of corporate personhood?

      1. chood

        Can you name a single modern country other than the USA that treats corporate persons as having human rights?
        Of course you can't. Nowhere else are corporations themselves covered by human rights.

  15. Chip Daniels

    We need to keep inmind that all Trumpists are liars. They lie incessantly, all the time about everything.
    When they scream "What about the children?" they are lying.
    When they scream "What about the deficit?" they are lying.
    When they scream "What about crime/ inflation/ female athletes/etc.?" they are lying.

    Trumpism is bigotry and misogyny, and everything they say is in service to those resentments.

    1. Jim B 55

      Isn't misogyny just another form of bigotry? But maybe you should add selfishness to the definition of Trumpism. A lack of concern for the interests of others is also a constant theme.

  16. DFPaul

    I remember vaguely Matt Yglesias saying somewhere that one function of taxation is to reduce things you don't want too much of, and that that principle could be applied effectively to rich people.

    I think of that comment frequently in regards to Musk, Thiel, the Mercers etc. Tax them until they have as much money as average rich people, then we can ignore them.

  17. chood

    Part of the Musk schtick has been outrage at the 'refusal' of a national enquiry.
    There have been thorough enquiries into several localities. There has been a national enquiry, taking seven years.
    The investigation report into child sexual abuse by organised networks published in Feb 2022; the full report of the independent enquiry into child sexual abuse published in Oct 2022.
    These enquiries haven't produced the results the anti-Pakistani, anti-Muslim nutters want: so, they and their recommendations are down the memory hole.
    Significant prosecutions have been made, and convictions secured, despite the attempts of racist propagandists to hijack and prejudice the proceedings.
    Child grooming and rape were aided by police treating victims with contempt, and often as criminals to be charged with prostitution and like offences. Then, when victims were reluctant to give evidence, this was treated as justifying an end to investigation and a bar to prosecution.
    They were aided by a general reluctance to investigate or prosecute perpetrators. In some areas there was a high-level reluctance to talk about some grooming and rape gangs because they were or included ethnic immigrants and Muslims; but there was similar reluctance to talk about the connections and backgrounds of any groomers and rapists.
    None of the outrage merchants in comments above have mentioned the previous enquiries and their recommendations, for the good reason that those enquiries and recommendations identify how little the issues are about immigration and religion and how much the issues are about victim blaming and treating sexual offences as inappropriate for investigation and prosecution.
    In fact there are very poor UK stats on the ethnicity, immigration status and religion of victims and perpetrators: major enquiry recommendations have been for improvements there.
    The outrage merchants don't want most improvements attacking child rape and grooming and aren't concerned about grooming and rape generally. They are trying to peddle an imagined religiously driven rape campaign by Pakistani Muslims against white Christians, with no evidence of that, and ignoring the bulk of grooming and rape by people of other ethnicities and religions and against poor and minority children.
    What we know is because of improved prosecution, policing and welfare action, and because of substantial public enquiries. It is the considered findings from those processes, and the recommendations for doing better, that the current confected outrage is attempting to sidetrack into general anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim deportation and exclusion campaigns.

    1. name99

      Really, very poor stats? Here are lists of some of the convicted:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_child_sex_abuse_ring#Trial
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulu_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal#Verdicts
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury_child_sex_abuse_ring#Members

      Really tough to see the pattern in those names...

      And the point is not even that a specific group is dramatically overrepresented in this behavior, it's that they were allowed to get away with it because the white establishment was willing to let them, in a way that they did not overlook, for example, Catholic Priest abuse, or generic pedophilia

      For example: https://x.com/i/bookmarks?post_id=1876536308467745007

      This is basically a repeat of what ISIS was trying to do with the Yazidi. And here we have the Western Left, supposed champions of the weak, saying "move along, it was a long time ago, nothing to see here", Unfreeaking believable!

      https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/1876688530631737597

      All I can think is that the people in this thread justifying this behavior have refused to actually read the various excerpts and details of what happened. Otherwise, if they read them and STILL don't care, well, I don't know what to say.
      WTF is going on in their brains that, after spending their entire lives condemning rape and slavery, the one case they see that blatantly represents everything they claimed to condemn, and their response is to COMPLAIN that people are bringing attention to it!!!

      1. chood

        Nobody on the thread has been justifying child rape and grooming.
        You know it.
        Nobody on the thread doesn't care. You know it.
        Nobody on the thread has been complaining about paying attention to rape and grooming. You know it.
        You call particulars of three sets of associated trials 'statistics'. Anecdotes of particular offences aren't statistics. Of course rape and grooming groups are made up of people associated in some way: as taxi drivers, as members of a close knit ethnic group, as co-worshipers. Particular association in a particular case is neither 'statistics' nor generalisable to other cases.
        Your evidence of racially targeted rape intended by Pakistani Muslims against the non-Pakistani community is that ISIS used systematic rape on a militarised scale as part of a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi.
        Yet the enquiry reports you have not mentioned have all found no evidence at all of the racially targeted rape fitup.
        The enquiry reports you have not mentioned have all found that most rape and grooming is neither by Pakistanis nor by Muslims.
        The enquiry reports you have not mentioned have all found systemic problems with the way victims and perpetrators were handled, mostly having nothing to do with the ethnic background or religion of either, and statistics on the ethnic background and religion of both victims and perpetrators are clearly largely lacking and so overall unreliable - hence some substantial recommendations among those of the national enquiry.
        You express no concern about rape or grooming if you can't blame a Pakistani or Muslim.
        'Real concern' from you? Pull the other leg!

Comments are closed.