Elon is the least important thing happening right now. Watch carefully as Russia shifts support away from Trump. His entire coalition is built on a foundation of RU astroturfing and information ops. Trump can not and will not survive that. Put another way: if you believe Trump has benefited from Russian support, then it is only logical to consider the possibility that he will be greatly harmed by having them turn against him. And that’s happened.

Putin, Musk, and Vance are coming for Trump. Russia is backing Thomas Massie and Rand Paul in the next round.

A thing I don't think people think about enough is that if the ROI on AI is less than 1:1, it won't be viable. Right now assumptions are being made based on the largess of VC investment. Will people be willing to pay what it actually costs, plus operating margin? Unclear. This also elides the rights of creators; right now content is being stolen and repurposed wholesale and at scale. That cat may be out of the bag, but the 'industry' may not survive the resulting legal conflicts.

1/Yesterday I reported on this memorandum prepared by anonymous whistleblower authors about the imminent threat posed by Elon Musk to the American Republic. It is well-sourced and has been widely shared; this requires urgent action from Congress.
america2.news/content/files/… 2/In addition, this additional 33 page Evidence Briefing with additional background and receipts is available for those interested in a deeper understanding of the origins of the Neoreactionary / Dark Enlightenment ideologies.
america2.news/content/files/…

1/Eight years ago this week I had a vision of what is happening now, and it chilled me to my core. I was traveling to Latvia to speak at an event. I reached out to the office of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings with my concern. He called me while I was on the tarmac in Riga. 2/I shared with him my concerns: about capture of the government by Putin, about Curtis Yarvin, about Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon, and various propagandists connected to Russia. He shared my concerns and pledged to look into it.

So all of this is terrifying, but do you really think Musk and Johnson are going to avoid defaulting on the debt? Do you really think they are going to pass a budget deal by March 14? When Mike Johnson, who has no bank accounts, was backed by the author of Project Russia? Read more. People simply have NO idea.
america2.news/podcast-episod…

Forget everything you think you know about power. It all changes today. There is simply no point in trying to reconcile what we observe with what we thought we knew. Focus instead on observation.

The more I learn about what Elon Musk appears to be doing the more I think he needs an immediate mental health intervention. The dude is out of his damn mind. Not only insane, but a terror threat on a global scale. Seriously, he needs to be stopped, before more people get hurt.

If one was going to move the US towards debt default, greatly harming MAGAGOP electorally, one might want to first destabilize it by sparking a schism over a different issue. So-called “extraordinary measures” will begin as soon as January 14, as the debt ceiling is reimposed next Thursday, January 2nd. Yellen will enact this and then hand off to Bessent. It is naive to think that this will magically end well.

https://twitter.com/cbschicago/status/1872945635483090989

1/Whatever is going on with Elon demoting the MAGA influencers he doesn’t like, it’s compatible with Project Russia, and a concept called “Pure Product.”
washingtonspectator.org/project-russia… 2/“Pure Product” is a kind of totalitarian thought reform that reshapes culture into a hierarchy, oriented around specific goals. Anyone misaligned with the goals is marginalized and punished; those who go along and amplifies the Leader will be rewarded handsomely.

Wondering if this will be my last post on Bluesky. It seems my account has been restricted and I can no longer post, even as I’m not locked out, and post attempts return a “Your post has been published” message. 🤷 Probably worth bumping this back up now.

america2.news/without-sky-so…

In my best estimation, Mangione became radicalized over the last 6-8 months in Japan, to the point he cut off contact with social media, his close friends, and his family. His mother reported him missing on November 18.

1. When did he move to Japan, and what was he doing there? With whom specifically?

2. Where did he get the gun? Did he print it himself? Where and when?

3. When did he travel to the United States most recently and from where?

We have seen mentions of him having contact with specific individuals in Japan, but what was his time there actually about, and why did he go silent?

Contact me on Signal at davetroy.69 if you have specific information. I've read the existing stories. This is a reasonable summary of what's known so far of his time in Hawaii and Japan.
yahoo.com/news/luigi-man…

One possibility that must be considered when looking at the Biden administration’s inaction at this moment is that it is being blackmailed by private networks colluding with our adversaries. Not talking about anything personal here, btw, but rather about national and global security; pilfered intelligence they don’t want in the hands of Putin/Xi. There is reason to believe such a scenario is in play.

1/Evidence is mounting that Musk believes he is a messianic figure who is also aligned with Putin’s Noosphere policy agenda. He wore this idiotic “Omega point” pendant to the UFC fight. Bots on Here and other proxy outlets are amplifying it. 2/This has been brewing for some time, and Putin adopted the “Noosphere” policy agenda (of Vernadsky/Teilhard) back in 2000. Search my feed, read my threads and articles. This is all well-documented and Musk thinks he is a messiah who will “end” America. More below.

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1856039135863287847

1/Hearing a lot of people talk about tariffs and "what it will mean." It's likely to mean nothing.

1) Lots of other terrible chaos happening; no time for tariffs.

2) "Tariffs" were a campaign dogwhistle to people who want to eliminate the income tax.

Focus on the fascism. 2/Here's a good piece on why Trump's blather is BS nonsense.
piie.com/blogs/realtime…

1/There is nothing more embarrassing than watching hordes of liberals willingly herd themselves into a pen funded by Russian capital. Blue sky’s principal funder Blockchain Capital LLC is run in part by Kirill Dorofeev, who also works for VK, Russia’s state social network.

2/Be aware you are effectively operating behind enemy lines. It may be tactically useful to do so, but don’t pretend there is anything “good” happening here. For all the talk about critical thinking, folks could try using some for once. 🤦
linkedin.com/posts/joecardi…

🚨Artem Klyushin appears to be a key advisor to Elon Musk and Donald Trump as they plan out their cabinet. Klyushin also seems to have "nudged" the selection of Amy Coney Barrett a month before she was announced in 2020. Anybody home, @FBI?🚨


More background on Klyushin's longtime connection to Trump's network, going back at least over a dozen years.

https://x.com/jgmac1106/status/1857134670674288911

1/IMPORTANT thread about Bluesky, for those fleeing there. Folks know that it was seeded by Jack Dorsey around a libertarian vision of a magical network that wouldn’t need moderation because it would be decentralized and baked into a protocol (somehow). 2/The people who aided Dorsey in pursuing this vision were other libertarian/post-rationalists connected with effective altruism and other online anarchist movements. One network called TPOT (‘that part of Twitter’) was instrumental. It carried over into Bluesky’s founding DNA.

A few notes on various election integrity questions I'm getting privately from people:

1. Thankfully, we now overwhelmingly use paper ballots, which means they can be hand recounted.

2. If folks have probable cause to think there are irregularities with tabulation, they should definitely pursue hand recounts. That's why we use paper.

3. I architected the technology for a nationwide election monitoring campaign in 2008 with some major media outlets (NPR, CBS, etc) and know a lot of experts in that space, and have asked them what they hear.

4. I am not hearing any chatter from those experts about hacking concerns. These are the people who get called in when there are problems, and their phones are silent.

5. The bomb threats were illegal and disruptive interference, however, local authorities need to decide if they posed any material issue. So far, it doesn't sound like there is strong evidence to suggest they did.

6. There is no reason not to do hand recounts where folks have questions. However there is not a lot of reason to believe that would change any outcomes at this time.

No one, from local officials, to the Harris campaign, to leading experts has information suggesting material issues with vote total manipulation. However, there is no harm in doing some spot recounts if it would increase confidence in the outcome.

The best way to initiate any kind of recount is for local whistleblowers to contact the Harris team with evidence that would help justify spot checks in a given locality. Here is some background on our 2008 election monitoring project (Twitter Vote Report), for those interested.
npr.org/2008/11/01/964…

The global economy is about to be fucked up in ways that will have economists and historians studying the aftermath for generations to come. People have no idea. Those with savings and equities are most at risk. The combination of failure to pass an Omnibus, likely US debt default, and shunting US Treasury assets into a “strategic bitcoin reserve,” and totally unregulated Ponzi crypto asset bubbles is a recipe for destruction of US and EU. The dollar will become worthless.

Update: the chatter I’m getting now is that the “secret” is that Johnson simply won’t pass an Omnibus budget, which means the government is done. Federal employees, update your resumés now.

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1854200227256742023

Whether this is practicable or not remains to be seen, but this is likely the deal Johnson has made to stay on as Speaker. This may lead to a CR of some kind, or other compromises, but expect no Omnibus and expect massive cuts. No one should be surprised when this goes down.