Mailbag: Anyone else want to start a Grandpa Brigade?
Kudos to the Grandma Brigade for protesting in front of the Costa Mesa Tesla showroom ('Grandma Brigade holds its first protest in Costa Mesa to 'stop the Musk takeover,' March 7).
I'm sure the Raging Grannies of Spokane, Wash.; Eugene, Ore.; Madison, Wis. and other communities salute your efforts. Which begs the question: Where is the Grandpa Brigade? Because I am 76 and about to become a grandfather for the third time, I think it's safe to say I could easily qualify as a charter member. Who's with me?
Denny FreidenrichLaguna Beach
Is MAGA-only library book collection next?
How many times does this need to be repeated? There are no pornographic or obscene books in the Huntington Beach Library children's department. It is illegal for book publishers to sell such books for children.
Puberty books, books about the human body and sex education books are not pornography, no matter how many times the Huntington Beach City Council tries to convince people otherwise. Councilman Chad Williams claims the ACLU is stripping parents of their right to decide what is appropriate for their children, but this is what our council is doing.
They want a 21-person committee of their choosing to have the ultimate say over what books can and cannot be ordered for the library. They want to restrict access to library books they find questionable to anyone under the age of 18. Censorship is censorship. The City Council is not letting parents decide for themselves. They are deciding for them.
Although they had the option, they chose not to accept either library petition, one to do away with the review committee and the other to allow residents to vote before the library management can be outsourced. They claim they have no plans to move forward with outsourcing the library. If this is true, why didn't they accept the petition? Instead of waiting until the next general election, our council has chosen the most expensive option to fight against them. Our city will hold a special election, June 10, at the cost of at least $1 million.
Our city is known to have low voter turnout for special elections. If residents love their library and their freedom to read freely, they need to vote in favor of the library petitions. This is just the beginning of the chipping away of residents' rights. If our council is allowed to continue their censorship of library materials and is given the freedom to outsource library management to a private company without resident approval, what will come next? Residents need to get out and vote. If you are upset now about a MAGA library plaque, wait until you have a MAGA-only library book collection.
Barbara RichardsonHuntington Beach
H.B. City Council's claims of voter fraud nonsense
The Huntington Beach City Council claims that voting is unsecured. I say such claims are unfounded and problematic, and here is why: On Jan. 1, the Orange County Grand Jury published its report, 'Is Voting Integrity Alive and Well in Orange County?' On page 19, it states: 'The Grand Jury's analysis confirmed that the 2024 election maintained the highest level of integrity for OC voters.'
The panel listed its findings:
• 'There was no evidence of fraud or election interference ascertained in the 2024 general election in Orange County; • Voting in Orange County is fair, secure, and transparent;• The ROV communications and outreach programs promote transparency and public confidence in the voting process. Orange County eligible voters can feel secure in knowing that the ROV provided an election of the highest recognized standards.'
Yet, despite these findings, the City Council continues to make unsupported allegations. Show us the data! If there is any, who published it? How many cases of voter fraud have been reported to the O.C. district attorney's office?
On May 15, 2024, I heard Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer address this issue at the office of the O.C. Registrar of Voters. He said that while many claim voter fraud has taken place, they do not provide evidence to that effect.
Clearly, this council is talking nonsense about voter fraud! Now, they want to divert taxpayer funds to run city elections?
Kathleen BungeHuntington Beach
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Associated Press
37 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Vance says Musk making a 'huge mistake' in going after Trump but also tries to downplay the attacks
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — Vice President JD Vance said Elon Musk was making a 'huge mistake' going after President Donald Trump in a storm of bitter and inflammatory social media posts after a falling out between the two men. But the vice president, in an interview released Friday after the very public blow up between the world's richest man and arguably the world's most powerful, also tried to downplay Musk's blistering attacks as an 'emotional guy' who got frustrated. 'I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that's not possible now because he's gone so nuclear,' Vance said. Vance's comments come as other Republicans in recent days have urged the two men, who months ago were close allies spending significant time together, to mend fences. Musk's torrent of social media posts attacking Trump came as the president portrayed him as disgruntled and 'CRAZY' and threatened to cut the government contracts held by his businesses. Musk, who runs electric vehicle maker Tesla, internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX, lambasted Trump's centerpiece tax cuts and spending bill but also suggested Trump should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president's association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 'Look, it happens to everybody,' Vance said in the interview. 'I've flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours.' Vance made the comments in an interview with ' manosphere' comedian Theo Von, who last month joked about snorting drugs off a mixed-race baby and the sexuality of men in the U.S. Navy when he opened for Trump at a military base in Qatar. The vice president told Von that as Musk for days was calling on social media for Congress to kill Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' the president was 'getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon, but I think has been very restrained because the president doesn't think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk.' 'I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine,' he added. Musk appeared by Saturday morning to have deleted his posts about Epstein. The interview was taped Thursday as Musk's posts were unfurling on X, the social media network the billionaire owns. During the interview, Von showed the vice president Musk's claim that Trump's administration hasn't released all the records related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is mentioned in them. Vance responded to that, saying, 'Absolutely not. Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.' 'This stuff is just not helpful,' Vance said in response to another post shared by Musk calling for Trump to be impeached and replaced with Vance. 'It's totally insane. The president is doing a good job.' Vance called Musk an 'incredible entrepreneur,' and said that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which sought to cut government spending and laid off or pushed out thousands of workers, was 'really good.' The vice president also defended the bill that has drawn Musk's ire, and said its central goal was not to cut spending but to extend the 2017 tax cuts approved in Trump's first term. The bill would slash spending but also leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance and spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Musk has warned that the bill will increase the federal deficit and called it a 'disgusting abomination.' 'It's a good bill,' Vance said. 'It's not a perfect bill.' He also said it was ridiculous for some House Republicans who voted for the bill but later found parts objectional to claim they hadn't had time to read it. Vance said the text had been available for weeks and said, 'the idea that people haven't had an opportunity to actually read it is ridiculous.' Elsewhere in the interview, Vance laughed as Von cracked jokes about famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass' sexuality. 'We're gonna talk to the Smithsonian about putting up an exhibit on that,' Vance joked. 'And Theo Von, you can be the narrator for this new understanding of the history of Frederick Douglass.' The podcaster also asked the vice president if he 'got high' on election night to celebrate Trump's victory. Vance laughed and joked that he wouldn't admit it if he did. 'I did not get high,' he then said. 'I did have a fair amount to drink that night.' The interview was taped in Nashville at a restaurant owned by musician Kid Rock, a Trump ally.
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
The Ideological Schism Fueling the Trump-Musk Fight
Amid the fallout of the messy public feud between Doland Trump and Elon Musk, it is instructive to think back to Dec. 26, 2024. That day marked the start of another intra-GOP skirmish that nearly fractured the elite core of the MAGA coalition. The December brawl — which, like the latest one, unfolded primarily online — pitted two high-profile factions of the Trumpian right against one another over the issue of high-skilled immigration. The nationalist-populist right, led by MAGA strategist Steve Bannon, urged the incoming administration to end the H-1B visa program as part of a broader crackdown on immigration. The so-called tech right, led by Musk, wanted Trump to defend the program on the grounds that high-skilled immigration is integral to spurring economic growth and fueling 'American dynamism.' Ultimately, the tech right carried the day, with Trump intervening in the online spat to defend the H-1B program. After the feud, the two sides struck a tentative peace, and the contretemps quieted down as Trump reentered office. But the renewal of hostilities between Trump and Musk this week shows that the underlying ideological disagreement between the two factions was never really resolved. And despite all the current bluster about the 'big, beautiful' spending bill, the Epstein files, the ballooning national debt and Musk and Trump's overlarge egos, that divide still runs straight through the same issue that carved up the factions back in December: immigration. That may seem counterintuitive, given that the latest blow-up between Trump and Musk is ostensibly over the fiscal consequences of Trump's megabill — and specifically Musk's contention, supported by independent analyses but rejected by the Trump administration, that the bill would add significantly to the federal debt. But when you strip away all the salacious controversies swirling around the 'BBB,' the fight over the legislation ultimately boils down to the question of whether cracking down on immigration should stand alone as the Trump administration's guiding priority. In the eyes of the MAGA populists, the $155 billion that the BBB appropriates for immigration enforcement and Trump's mass deportation efforts more than justify its passage, whatever its fiscal shortcomings might be. As Stephen Miller, the populist right's go-to immigration hawk, recently put it, the bill includes 'the most significant border security and deportation effort in history' — a fact which 'alone makes this the most important legislation for the conservative project in the history of the nation.' That immigration is at the center of the administration's pitch for the bill should come as no surprise. Since 2016, the issue has been the ideological keystone around which Trump has built his protean and sometimes unwieldy coalition. During the 2024 campaign, Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, proposed solving practically every issue that was thrown their way — from the housing shortage to inflation to 'wokeness' — by tying it back to their promised immigration crackdown. Once in office, the president's first acts included claiming unprecedented emergency authority to carry out his plan for mass deportations. But the centrality of immigration created tension as Musk and his fellow travelers on the tech right began to enter MAGA fold in the leadup to the 2024 election. The tech right threw its weight behind Trump's proposed agenda on immigration, but it was never the group's top priority. Much more important for MAGA's tech faction was taming the federal deficit, which Musk and others moguls — notably Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel — continue to view as an existential threat to the country's future. Their anxiety about the federal debt is rooted as much in their libertarianism as it is in their self-interest: every dollar the federal government spends servicing the federal debt is a dollar that it does not invest in the supposedly revolutionary technologies — backed by their firms — that they believe will lead to true 'American dynamism.' The misalignment between the priorities of the populist right and the tech right was clear from the start. It was apparent to Miller, who just this week raged that 'you will never live a day in your life where a libertarian cares as much about immigration and sovereignty as they do about the Congressional Budget Office.' It was also apparent to Vance — a perceptive observer of the coalitional dynamics within the MAGA movement — who dedicated an entire speech earlier this spring to arguing that immigration restriction and technological innovation could be mutually-reinforcing goals. 'This idea that tech-forward people and the populists are somehow inevitably going to come to a loggerhead is wrong,' said Vance, identifying himself as 'a proud member of both tribes.' Vance, it turns out, was wrong. To the contrary, the Trump-Musk schism is proof that MAGA loyalists can't have their cake and eat it too. They must choose — a maximalist immigration crackdown, or something else. The vengeance with which the populist right has turned on Musk since his spat with Trump is proof of what happens when a Trump ally — even the richest man on Planet Earth — chooses something else. That the fight really hinged on immigration became clear from the commentary coming out of the populist right. 'Debt is BAD. The migrant crisis is orders of magnitude worse,' posted the activist Charlie Kirk in the midst of the blowup. 'I've never seen debt hold an apartment building hostage,' added another conservative commentator, referring to reports of gang-occupied apartment buildings in Colorado. Then there was Bannon himself, who responded to the feud by suggesting — what else? — that Trump should deport Musk. The near-term consequences of the Trump-Musk schism remain to be seen. Whispers of peace talks between Trump and Musk flitted around Washington on Friday, and Trump has publicly downplayed the significance of the skirmish. At this point, no other big names on the tech right have followed Musk in breaking from Trump. And even if Musk were to actively challenge Trump's GOP — by funding primary challenges to Republican incumbents or even trying to start his own party, as he hinted at on Thursday — the consequences would likely be less dire for the future of the MAGA movement than he might think. Vance, the presumptive heir to the MAGA throne, has been building his own independent fundraising network since 2022, which could insulate him from any Musk-related financial aftershocks. Vance 2028 would certainly like to have access to Musk's campaign dollars, but it's not reliant on them. In the long run, though, the Trump-Musk feud will cement immigration as the critical litmus test for membership in Trump's GOP. The critical ideological fault line within the MAGA movement runs between people who view immigration restriction as a means to an end and those who see it as an end in themselves. The thrashing of Elon Musk is a warning to anyone who finds themselves on the wrong side of that divide.
News24
an hour ago
- News24
Elon Musk deletes post claiming Trump 'in the Epstein files'
Elon Musk accused Donald Trump of being linked to Jeffrey Epstein through secret government files, but provided no evidence to back up his claims and later deleted the posts. The ongoing feud between Musk and Trump escalated rapidly after Musk criticised a spending bill. Trump and Epstein were known to have socialised in the past, though Trump has denied involvement in Epstein's alleged crimes, which remain a controversial topic among conspiracy theories. Tech billionaire Elon Musk has deleted an explosive allegation linking Donald Trump with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that he posted on social media during a vicious public fallout with the US president this week. Musk -- who exited his role as a top White House advisor just last week -- alleged on Thursday that the Republican leader is featured in secret government files on former associates of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while he faced sex trafficking charges. The Trump administration has acknowledged it is reviewing tens of thousands of documents, videos and investigative material that his "MAGA" movement says will unmask public figures complicit in Epstein's crimes. "Time to drop the really big bomb: (Trump) is in the Epstein files," Musk posted on his social media platform, X as his growing feud with the president boiled over into a spectacularly public row on Thursday. "That is the real reason they have not been made public." Musk did not reveal which files he was talking about and offered no evidence for his claim. He initially doubled down on the claim, writing in a follow-up message: "Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out." However, he appeared to have deleted both tweets by Saturday morning. Supporters on the conspiratorial end of Trump's "Make America Great Again" base allege that Epstein's associates had their roles in his crimes covered up by government officials and others. They point the finger at Democrats and Hollywood celebrities, although not at Trump himself. No official source has ever confirmed that the president appears in any of the material. Trump knew and socialised with Epstein but has denied spending time on Little Saint James, the private redoubt in the US Virgin Islands where prosecutors alleged Epstein trafficked underage girls for sex. "Terrific guy," Trump, who was Epstein's neighbour in both Florida and New York, said in an early 2000s profile of the financier. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Just last week Trump gave Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But their relationship imploded within days as Musk described as an "abomination" a spending bill that, if passed by Congress, could define Trump's second term in office. Trump hit back in an Oval Office diatribe and from there the row detonated, leaving Washington and riveted social media users alike stunned by the blistering break-up between the world's richest person and the world's most powerful. With real political and economic risks to their row, both men appeared to inch back from the brink on Friday, but the White House denied reports they would talk.
