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Donald Trump wants to make Hollywood “bigger, better and stronger” and has cast Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone as stars of what he is calling his “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.”

On Wednesday, the President-elect announced on his social media site that the three actors would be his eyes and ears to the moviemaking town.

“It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!” he wrote on Truth Social.

He also called the trio special envoys. Special ambassadors and envoys are typically chosen to respond to troubled hot spots like the Middle East, not California.

U.S. film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and, in the past week, the ongoing wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Overall production in the U.S. was down 26% from 2021, according to data from ProdPro.

In the greater Los Angeles area, productions were down 5.6% from 2023 according to FilmLA, the lowest since 2020. This past October, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit program to $750 million annually (up from $330 million). Other U.S. cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have used tax incentives to lure film and TV productions to their cities. Actor Mark Wahlberg is even making plans for a Las Vegas production hub.

It’s unclear what exactly Gibson, Voight and Stallone will be doing in this effort to bring productions back to the U.S. Their representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s decision to select the actors as his chosen “ambassadors” underscores his preoccupations with the 80s and 90s, when he was a rising tabloid star in New York, and Gibson and Stallone were among the biggest movie stars in the world.

Stallone is a frequent guest at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and introduced him at a gala in November shortly after the election.

“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like,” Stallone told the crowd. “Guess what? We got the second George Washington. Congratulations!”

The decision also reflects Trump’s willingness to overlook his supporters’ most controversial statements.

Gibson’s reputation has been altered in Hollywood since 2006, he went on an antisemitic rant while being arrested for allegedly driving under the influence. But he’s also continued to work in mainstream movies and directed the upcoming Wahlberg thriller “Flight Risk.”

Voight is a longtime Trump supporter who has called Trump the greatest president since Lincoln.

They cant be hacked after all. The inefficiency makes it more secure.

Tech is not always the answer, sometimes its the problem.

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

Grumpy old lady next to me at physician’s waiting room is talking back to the cable news show, saying she can’t wait for Trump to get in and “fire” Gavin Newsome for causing the California wildfires.

Such a hilariously stupid generation.

Not gonna lie, I've done this in the game.

Also, GTA 6 is going to be set in "Vice City" which is a fascimile of Miami, so this is a good start!

Just looking at the benefits of being a football coach at Ohio State. Last five coaches will have been inducted into Coach's Hall of Fame (not counting the Fickel interim year). Woody, Earle Bruce, John Cooper, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer. This position almost guarantees a coach a ton of wins, a chance for a possible Natty every year, and your name in the Hall of Fame. If Ryan Day wins on Monday, he'll be next.

When thinking about Kirk toiling with Iowa for 25+ years, I have to think he is deserving for his longevity and the fact he's never had the advantages of the blue bloods. He's put in his time trying to keep a program at a high level and making them competitive year after year. I'm sure he could have jumped to a better program but stayed at Iowa. While I'm not always pleased with his coaching style, or some missteps with hirings, I appreciate his long-term work at Iowa. A couple of those coaches were fortunate to get the OSU head job and probably aren't really as deserving as KF. KF may not get in, but everyone needs to look at the big picture, whether you like KF or not.

Food safety regulations and inspections? Who needs them?

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America's largest health care company, UnitedHealth, made profits of more than 5,000 percent on a lifesaving leukemia drug, according to a Federal Trade Commission report.

What To Know​

A new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report found that the three largest Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) have taken in large profits on lifesaving medicine for heart disease, cancer and HIV.

The FTC report found that from 2017 to 2022, three PBMs—UnitedHealth Group's Optum, CVS Health's CVS Caremark and Cigna's Express Scripts—marked up prices at their pharmacies by hundreds or thousands of percent.

By doing so, they collectively added $7.3 billion in revenue, the report states.
Figures released with the report show that in 2022, the final year of the study, two cancer drugs had the highest markup.

Gleevec, the generic form of the leukemia drug Imatinib, was collectively marked up by the three providers by 5232 percent in 2022. For patients using Medicare, the markup was 4154 percent.

For Zytiga, the generic form of the Abiraterone prostate cancer drug, that markup was 2299 percent commercially and 1533 percent for those on Medicare.

UnitedHealth recorded revenue of $372 billion in 2023, making it about the same size as Apple.

The company released its fourth-quarter results on January 16, which beat analysts' profit expectations based on quarterly revenue of $100.8 billion, up 7 percent year-on-year.

A spokesperson for Cigna's Express Scripts told Reuters that the report's findings were misleading and that the calculations are based on a subset of medications that represent less than 2 percent of what the company spends on medications in a year.

CVS Vice President David Whitrap, in a statement: "How many more interim reports will it take before the FTC includes the mountain of data that refutes these few outliers? We've provided terabytes of data in compliance with their requests, and virtually none of that data is reflected in this report."

Pharmaceutical Care Management Association Vice President of Public Affairs Greg Lopes, in a statement: "It's clear this report again fails to consider the entirety of the prescription drug supply chain and makes sweeping assertions about the role of PBMs disconnected from a full appreciation of their critical cost-saving role for employers, unions, taxpayers, and patients."

What Happens Next​

The FTC is considering its position and may take legal action.

FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement that the FTC should act swiftly to stop illegal conduct. However, the report states that the issues highlighted do not indicate that any illegal conduct has occurred.

Yeah, it's a moot point now. But what say you?

Caught up with Will Gerdes and his head coach, Ryan Schultz last night following the Tigers loss to Linn-Mar.

Where he stands with his recruitment, improving his game, and added an evaluation in there as well.

STORY:

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The Supreme Court on Friday refused to block a federal law that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States as early as this weekend if the wildly popular video-sharing app does not divest from Chinese ownership.

Get the latest election news and results

The justices’ order was a blow for TikTok, prohibiting its operation in the lead-up to Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to “save” the app.

Trump had asked the Supreme Court to delay implementation of the law to give him an opportunity to act once he returns to the White House. With the court declining that option and no sale of the app seemingly imminent, the ban is now poised to take effect on the eve of Trump’s inauguration.

The ban-or-sale law was passed in April with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden in response to national security concerns about the Chinese government’s potential influence over the platform.

With the Sunday deadline approaching, the Supreme Court scheduled a special session last week to hear a First Amendment challenge from the company and TikTok creators. They said the government’s national security concerns do not justify an unprecedented, sweeping restriction on the speech of 170 million Americans who use the app for news, entertainment and self-expression.
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At oral argument, a majority of justices appeared inclined to uphold the law, which requires TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform. They credited Congress’s concern about the Chinese government covertly using the app to collect vast amounts of sensitive data about millions of American users and potentially exploiting that information to blackmail young Americans or turn them into spies.

“That seems like a huge concern for the future of the country,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during the nearly three-hour argument.

Several justices from across the ideological spectrum also emphasized that foreign entities do not have First Amendment rights and that the site could continue to operate in a similar manner but under different, non-Chinese ownership.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/styl...t/?itid=mc_magnet-tiktok_inline_collection_19

While Trump has pledged to rescue the app from the ban-or-sale law, how he plans to do so remains unclear. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the president-elect is exploring unorthodox ways to aid the platform, including issuing an executive order once he takes office that would suspend enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days. But Trump said earlier this week that until the Supreme Court weighed in, “nobody knows” TikTok’s fate.

Still, Trump has repeatedly given TikTok’s allies cause for hope, including inviting the company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, to attend his swearing-in ceremony as an honored guest on the dais. Chew is also slated to attend at least two other celebrations for Trump ahead of his inauguration Monday, including a reception for the incoming Cabinet and a dinner for Vice President-elect JD Vance this weekend.

Under the TikTok law, known as the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, app-store giants such as Google and Apple and internet-hosting services could face massive fines if they continue to carry TikTok on their products beyond the Sunday deadline for divestment. Infractions could cost companies $5,000 for each user that continues to access TikTok, which could add up to billions of dollars in penalties.
While the law is aimed at forcing app stores and internet hosting services to stop carrying TikTok, executives inside the company have discussed pulling the app offline for U.S. users on Sunday to highlight how disruptive a ban would be, according to a person familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal plans. The Information first reported on the possibility, but the person familiar with the discussions said no final decision had been made.

TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco said during oral argument that his understanding was the platform would “go dark” on Sunday if the court did not delay the law and the White House did not delay implementation.

TikTok has not publicly commented on its plans. TikTok employees in the United States were sent an email Tuesday saying the company was “planning for various scenarios” and that its offices would remain open “even if this situation hasn’t been resolved before the January 19 deadline.”
Even a temporary ban could lead to a major user exodus from which it would be difficult for the company to recover, according to TikTok. Even though the app would likely remain on the devices of users in the event of a ban, it could become inoperable, or their lack of access to updates could degrade their use of the site. TikTok’s website could also cease to function on internet browsers.

This week, ahead of the court’s decision, many users calling themselves “TikTok refugees” began shifting to competing video apps including the Chinese-owned RedNote and ByteDance-owned Lemon8. ByteDance could still stave off a TikTok ban by selling the app, but the company has insisted it does not plan to do so, and the Chinese government has said it opposes divestiture.

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PS. Brought back The Punisher

Dems here are claiming Kamala was not a dei hire. Since dems think dei is so great, shouldn't you be proud that she was a dei hire?

“If I’m elected president, my Cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a, pick a woman to be vice president,”

"I am not committed to naming any but the people I've named, and among them are four Black women,"

Sure seems like a lot of potential great candidates were not considered because they were not a woman or black. Remember that this pick came shortly after the blm riots where there was immense pressure to pick a black person. Sounds like dei to me.

President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for many of the top cabinet positions in his upcoming administration are unorthodox, to say the least. In some cases, it would be hard to think of of people less qualified for their proposed jobs.
Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as F.B.I. director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as overseer of the nation’s health care policies — each lacks the relevant experience and has an array of troubling biases that should be disqualifying.
Mr. Trump’s choices for ambassadors and senior advisers — sycophants, cronies and even his children’s in-laws and romantic partners — seem to break with a century of precedent in American politics.
What we are seeing in the United States today, though, is not so new. It echoes what is happening all over the world: an assault on the modern state as we know it. In countries including Hungary, Israel and Britain, the civil service, judiciary and law enforcement have been attacked by the very leaders elected to manage them.
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We have seen the sort of damage these types of attacks cause — they enrich loyalists, weaken independent sources of expertise and information and erode vital public services. They will do much the same here.
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Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different type of political order, one built on personal loyalties and connections to the ruler. The German sociologist Max Weber had a word for this type of regime: patrimonialism, based on the arbitrary rule of leaders who view themselves as traditional “fathers” of their nations and who run the state as a family business of sorts, staffed by relatives, friends and other members of the ruler’s “extended household.”
Social scientists thought that patrimonialism had been relegated to the dustbin of history. And for good reason: Such regimes couldn’t compete militarily or economically with states led by the expert civil services that helped make modern societies rich, powerful and relatively secure.
But a slew of self-aggrandizing leaders has taken advantage of rising inequality, cultural conflicts and changing demography to grab power. The result has been a steep decline in the government’s ability to provide essential services such as health care, education and safety.
Compared with the weak feudal states that preceded them, patrimonial regimes such as the Dutch Empire in the 17th century and czarist Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were good at extracting revenue and making war, but otherwise inept. They were capable of coercion, but they could not provide the predictable enforcement of laws essential to modern capitalism.

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The arbitrary decision-making that is typical of patrimonialism sometimes even resulted in the disintegration of the state itself. Czar Nicholas II of Russia could decide in the middle of World War I to take over direct command of Russian troops, leaving his capital city in the hands of his wife and her confidant, the faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Within a year and a half, the Russian Empire collapsed in defeat and revolution, leaving a power vacuum that was ultimately filled by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.
Americans love to hate the state. About half of our citizenry now believes that there is really a “deep state” of shadowy power brokers who pull the strings of our government behind the scenes. But as annoying and inefficient as bureaucracies sometimes are, all of us depend on them to live what we now consider normal lives.
Government agencies with staff who are recruited by merit play a vital role ensuring the safety of our food, air and water; maintaining the value of our currency; resolving legal disputes peacefully; and defending our national security. We rarely pay attention to the everyday work of government bureaucrats, but without them, we would be in grave danger.
When Mr. Trump and his cronies declare that they will destroy the deep state, it’s really the modern state — the state that supports the foundations of both public and private life — that they have in mind.
Once we view the matter from this perspective, it’s much easier to understand why Mr. Trump invited Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically downsize the American state. In reality, though, government will not be downsized; it will be repurposed. Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump aims not to streamline modern state bureaucracies, but rather to replace them with a much older form of rule based on personal loyalty to the ruler.
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Hungary and Israel provide a glimpse into our future. Mr. Orban built his family a palace rivaling Versailles while he attacked Hungary’s educational and health care systems, and his friends became fabulously wealthy as they took advantage of their connections to the leader. Mr. Netanyahu worked to weaken the Israeli civil service and judiciary to stave off corruption charges and reward loyalists, and after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, some government ministries were left paralyzed for days. Israel’s civil society filled in the void.
The occasional defeat of patrimonial leaders in democratic elections has not halted these dangerous global trends. Mr. Trump’s return to the White House isn’t the only example. In Poland, where the patrimonial administration of Jarosław Kaczynski was unexpectedly defeated in a parliamentary vote by Donald Tusk’s pro-European Union party Civic Platform in 2023, it has proved to be extraordinarily difficult to repair the damage already done to state agencies and the judiciary. And if Mr. Putin manages to replace Ukraine’s independent constitutional regime with a Russian client state — the ultimate goal of his brutal invasion — the fragile balance of power in Europe may tip decisively toward patrimonialism.
To reverse the global assault on modern government, then, will require more than a simple defense of “democracy.” After all, Mr. Trump won the presidential election fairly. The threat we face is different, and perhaps even more critical: a world in which the rule of law has given way entirely to the rule of men.

Just months after returning to the University of Iowa in spring 2024 following its removal for hazing in 2018 — when it was just re-establishing itself after closing in 2012 due to hazing — the UI chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon already is facing interim suspension, again, due to hazing allegations.



The allegations came to the UI Office of Student Accountability via anonymous email “that students were in the basement of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter structure,” according to the office’s Nov. 20 notice of interim suspension.


“Along with this email was an included video showing multiple students in the basement performing exercises at the appearance of command of other students,” according to the letter. “Based on university records, there are no current occupants for the chapter structure for Sigma Alpha Epsilon.”




The house at 302 Ridgeland Ave., according to assessor’s records, is owned by Sigma Alpha Epsilon — which chartered a UI chapter in 1905, the same year it chartered a chapter at Iowa State University.


Although the UI Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter was investigated for hazing complaints in 2008 and 2009, its headquarters didn’t close the Iowa City chapter until 2012 — expelling all its members “as a result of hazing and the chapter’s failure to comply with our standards, guidelines, and policies set forth by the membership agreement and Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s governing laws.”


Neither the university nor fraternity headquarters shared specifics about the hazing at that time, but UI officials released a statement indicating alcohol was involved.


“The university does not tolerate hazing or unsafe and illegal consumption of alcohol in any of its student organizations,” according to the university. “As such, we fully support the swift action taken this weekend by Sigma Alpha Epsilon's national organization, and a further university investigation into individual violations of the Code of Student Life is in progress.”





Three years later in 2015, Iowa State revoked its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter’s student organization status — while its national council suspended it for at least four years — for “student disciplinary regulation” violations.


Back on the UI campus, Sigma Alpha Epsilon began its process of return in 2016 by starting a “colony” — a probationary body — before it was among four fraternities stripped of their campus recognition and student organization status in 2018.


Investigations confirmed hazing and alcohol violations, with then-UI President Bruce Harreld saying, “Parents and families send their loved ones to the UI with the expectation that their safety, health, and well-being will be the top priority.”


“These decisions honor that expectation.”


Iowa State’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter returned to that campus in fall 2020, and the organization’s UI chapter made its return last spring — reporting 18 total members, all new, with a combined grade-point average of 3.286.


Seven months later, though, the university in November sent its interim suspension notice.


“Due to the gravity of the report, effective immediately, I am issuing an interim suspension of all operations and activities of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Iowa pending the outcome of the investigation into the allegations,” according to the Office of Student Accountability. “This decision was based on information available to me to date regarding the reported concerns, the nature of the concerns, and concerns for the safety and well-being of members of the chapter.”


The chapter, specifically, was accused of violating the university’s rules prohibiting hazing and “misconduct on organizational property.”


The notification didn’t expand on the allegations, and neither the UI chapter nor its national organization responded to questions from The Gazette on Monday.


The interim suspension means Sigma Alpha Epsilon can’t participate in any sponsored meetings and programs, intramurals, or related events.


The notice advised the chapter it can appeal the interim suspension within 10 business days of getting the letter — but UI officials told The Gazette it has had no further communication with the chapter since that notice was sent.

Stop Campus Hazing Act signed into law​

Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the second UI fraternity placed on interim suspension so far this academic year — following Alpha Delta Phi’s hazing investigation also reported in November.


In that case, police were dispatched to the house at 703 N. Dubuque St. early Nov. 15 for a fire alarm and found “56 fraternity pledges in the basement, blindfolded with food thrown on them,” according to an arrest report.


The letter noted, additionally, that officers found possible violations of the municipal fire code in the house.


That chapter did appeal — arguing its own investigation found the incident was the “sole responsibility” of two people.


“Through personal statements of admission, the final report states that these two individuals came up with the event, carried it out, and acted outside the directives of chapter leadership and the official plan for our initiation events,” according to the appeal. “Their actions are both disappointing and harmful to the chapter.”


The university denied that appeal and kept it suspended.


Both hazing incidents come as colleges and universities nationally are being required to start collecting hazing statistics as part of the passage of the Stop Campus Hazing Act — signed into law Dec. 23, 2024.


Taking effect Jan. 1, the bill expands the Clery Act’s reporting requirements to hazing — not just in fraternities and sororities but in clubs, teams, and other student or campus organizations involving members.

whatca using this year?

I got this one in a white elephant gift exchange

Elon Musk bet me $1 million the U.S. would not see 35,000 cases of Covid—then turned on me when it happened, says Sam Harris​

Below is Sam Harris' full account on substack:


I didn’t set out to become an enemy of the world’s richest man, but I seem to have managed it all the same. Until this moment, I’ve resisted describing my falling out with Elon Musk in much detail, but as the man’s cultural influence has metastasized—and he continues to spread lies about me on the social media platform that he owns (Twitter/X)—it seems only appropriate to set the record straight. I know that it annoys many in my audience to see me defend myself against attacks that they recognize to be spurious, but they might, nevertheless, find the details of what happened with Elon interesting.

Of all the remarkable people I’ve met, Elon is probably the most likely to remain a world-historical figure—despite his best efforts to become a clown. He is also the most likely to squander his ample opportunities to live a happy life, ruin his reputation and most important relationships, and produce lasting harm across the globe. None of this was obvious to me when we first met, and I have been quite amazed at Elon’s evolution, both as a man and as an avatar of chaos. The friend I remember did not seem to hunger for public attention. But his engagement with Twitter/X transformed him—to a degree seldom seen outside of Marvel movies or Greek mythology. If Elon is still the man I knew, I can only conclude that I never really knew him.

When we first met, Elon wasn’t especially rich or famous. In fact, I recall him teetering on the brink of bankruptcy around 2008, while risking the last of his previous fortune to make payroll at Tesla. At the time, he was living off loans from his friends Larry and Sergey. Once Elon became truly famous, and his personal wealth achieved escape velocity, I was among the first friends he called to discuss his growing security concerns. I put him in touch with Gavin de Becker, who provided his first bodyguards, and recommended other changes to his life. We also went shooting on at least two occasions with Scott Reitz, the finest firearms instructor I’ve ever met. It is an ugly irony that Elon’s repeated targeting of me on Twitter/X has increased my own security concerns. He understands this, of course, but does not seem to care.

So how did we fall out? Let this be a cautionary tale for any of Elon’s friends who might be tempted to tell the great man something he doesn’t want to hear:

1. When the SARS-CoV-2 virus first invaded our lives in March of 2020, Elon began tweeting in ways that I feared would harm his reputation. I also worried that his tweets might exacerbate the coming public-health emergency. Italy had already fallen off a cliff, and Elon shared the following opinion with his tens of millions of fans :

the coronavirus panic is dumb

As a concerned friend, I sent him a private text:

Hey, brother— I really think you need to walk back your coronavirus tweet. I know there’s a way to parse it that makes sense (“panic” is always dumb), but I fear that’s not the way most people are reading it. You have an enormous platform, and much of the world looks to you as an authority on all things technical. Coronavirus is a very big deal, and if we don’t get our act together, we’re going to look just like Italy very soon. If you want to turn some engineers loose on the problem, now would be a good time for a breakthrough in the production of ventilators...

2. Elon’s response was, I believe, the first discordant note ever struck in our friendship:

Sam, you of all people should not be concerned about this.

He included a link to a page on the CDC website, indicating that Covid was not even among the top 100 causes of death in the United States. This was a patently silly point to make in the first days of a pandemic.

We continued exchanging texts for at least two hours. If I hadn’t known that I was communicating with Elon Musk, I would have thought I was debating someone who lacked any understanding of basic scientific and mathematical concepts, like exponential curves.

3. Elon and I didn’t converge on a common view of epidemiology over the course of those two hours, but we hit upon a fun compromise: A wager. Elon bet me $1 million dollars (to be given to charity) against a bottle of fancy tequila ($1000) that we wouldn’t see as many as 35,000 cases of Covid in the United States (cases, not deaths). The terms of the bet reflected what was, in his estimation, the near certainty (1000 to 1) that he was right. Having already heard credible estimates that there could be 1 million deaths from Covid in the U.S. over the next 12-18 months (these estimates proved fairly accurate), I thought the terms of the bet ridiculous—and quite unfair to Elon. I offered to spot him two orders of magnitude: I was confident that we’d soon have 3.5 million cases of Covid in the U.S. Elon accused me of having lost my mind and insisted that we stick with a ceiling of 35,000.

4. We communicated sporadically by text over the next couple of weeks, while the number of reported cases grew. Ominously, Elon dismissed the next batch of data reported by the CDC as merely presumptive—while confirmed cases of Covid, on his account, remained elusive.

5. A few weeks later, when the CDC website finally reported 35,000 deaths from Covid in the U.S. and 600,000 cases, I sent Elon the following text:

Is (35,000 deaths + 600,000 cases) > 35,000 cases?

6. This text appears to have ended our friendship. Elon never responded, and it was not long before he began maligning me on Twitter for a variety of imaginary offenses. For my part, I eventually started complaining about the startling erosion of his integrity on my podcast, without providing any detail about what had transpired between us.

7. At the end of 2022, I abandoned Twitter/X altogether, having recognized the poisonous effect that it had on my life—but also, in large part, because of what I saw it doing to Elon. I’ve been away from the platform for over two years, and yet Elon still attacks me. Occasionally a friend will tell me that I’m trending there, and the reasons for this are never good. As recently as this week, Elon repeated a defamatory charge about my being a “hypocrite” for writing a book in defense of honesty and then encouraging people to lie to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Not only have I never advocated lying to defeat Trump (despite what that misleading clip from the Triggernometry podcast might suggest to naive viewers), I’ve taken great pains to defend Trump from the most damaging lie ever told about him. Elon knows this, because we communicated about the offending clip when it first appeared on Twitter/X. However, he simply does not care that he is defaming a former friend to hundreds of millions of people—many of whom are mentally unstable. On this occasion, he even tagged the incoming president of the United States.

He is hurt after just 2 passes as a Jet