Do you remember the scene in the movie adaptation of Orwell's 1984 in which the main character - Winston Smith - attends a party rally at which the party orator is railing against the official enemy of the moment (I think it was Eurasia) and then, without skipping a beat, changes the focus of his rant to the new official enemy (Eastasia) after another party apparatchik whispers in his ear?

That was, of course, fiction. But is it not similar to our reality?


Only two years ago, Elon Musk was the darling of the Left. His electric car grift was practically ennobled. The Right despised him - and his electric car grift. Now - as if on cue - it's all reversed. Elon Musk is reviled by the Left. Leftists have stopped buying his devices and rail against him for buying Twitter, which they also used to love - especially when it suppressed the truth by styling it "misinformation." And now the Right loves him - and pretends he's not a grifter.

He's an innovator!

And how about speaker?

Not kidding.

Rand Paul thinks it's a fine idea.

"The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress, " he said the other day. "Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing's impossible . . .not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka uniparty, lose their ever-lovin' minds."

Well, how about Rand's?

The son of Ron Paul is not a stupid man. He is a medical doctor - though of course, so is Dr. Fauci and that "mask" lover Trump selected to be the next surgeon general. But smart people are not always right people. And - sometimes - they do not have good memories.

The more worrisome thing is whether Rand Paul has lost his principles.

Musk is a grifter. He is a billionaire chiefly on account of the inflow of billions of dollars' worth of "carbon credits" that other car companies were placed in the position of having to purchase from him in order to get credit for not manufacturing devices (electric cars) which the federal government effectively required them to manufacture, via regulations requiring the manufacture of (cough) "zero emissions" devices. Only electric vehicles qualify. The other car companies could manufacture their own devices - or buy credit from Elon (technically, Tesla) that was considered equivalent to having manufactured them.

In this way, Elon built Tesla at the expense - literally - of his rivals. It was and remains an epic grift. It is why, by the way, Dodge stopped manufacturing the Charger and Challenger and also stopped offering V8s in almost all of its models. The cars people on the Right love that those on the Left loathe.

Stellantis - the corporation that owns the Dodge and Chrysler and Jeep and Ram truck brands - was hemorrhaging billions annually in "carbon credit" payments to Elon Musk (Tesla) to atone for the green sin of manufacturing cars like the Charger and Challenger as well as the V8 engines that made so many other Ram, Jeep ad Chrysler models desirable to people who are not on the Left.

The cost of paying for all these "credits" - to appease the feds - was making the cars unaffordable, resulting in them not selling. At the same time, Stellantis was being bled white just to be able to offer them. That's why the now-ex CEO of Stellantis cut bait - and pulled the Charger and Challenger out of production - along with the V8 engine - and "committed" the Dodge brand to manufacturing "zero emissions" devices instead. Stellantis won't have to buy credits from Elon Musk anymore. But it probably won't be able to sell devices, either - because people who buy Dodges and Rams and Jeeps don't want to drive devices.

This is what Musk's EV grift has bought. It is arguably why the cost of the average new car is up $15,000 over the past four years to a record high of nearly $50,000. It is arguably why the cost of car insurance has increased ballistically, too. Even if you didn't buy a device, the costs incurred by devices are being offloaded on everyone.

Elon's latest grift is to hide the crashing of his devices. He reportedly wants incoming president Trump to suppress reporting of cases of self-driving cars crashing into things - because it doesn't make his self-driving devices look so good. You can read more about that here.

This is the man the Right now loves. Never mind the grift. Perhaps because of how much he paid (reportedly, a quarter-of-a-billion dollars toward the election of Donald Trump).

Hair Plugged Man Good!

Just like that.

It is - as Mr. Spock used to say - fascinating.
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