Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Mini-Post: Quid Pro Quo

Friday, March 14, 2025

Mini-Post: Quid Pro Quo

Did Trump just get paid for doing an ad in front of the White House for Musk?

Hours after Trump promises to buy a Tesla, reports of Elon Musk’s plans to donate $100M to MAGA super PACs emerge
Trump says that the world’s richest man is being treated ‘very unfairly’ amid Tesla’s sales and share price slump
Independent
By James Liddell
Wednesday 12 March 2025

Hours after Donald Trump announced that he was planning to purchase a Tesla, reports emerged that Elon Musk was considering a $100 million donation to a super PAC associated with the president.

Federal filings show that the MAGA megadonor-turned-White House advisor spent more than $290 million supporting the president and his Republican allies during the 2024 election cycle. Musk gave over a quarter of a billion dollars through his super political action committee, America PAC.

In an unprecedented move for a “special government employee,” who has been tasked with leading the Trump administration's aggressive efforts to shrink the federal government through his Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has signaled in recent days his plans to donate the eight-figure sum to an entity controlled by the president, three sources told the New York Times.

Is this quid pro quo? Was this Trump payment for hawking Musk's cars?

Mini-Posts are short reads of a couple of paragraphs from one source that I want to highlight.

Update: 3/15 @ 8:30AM

I think that this says what we all are thinking...

Democrats push investigation into Trump, Musk White House Tesla event
The Hill
By by Elizabeth Crisp
March 13, 2025

Senate Democrats are pushing for an investigation into President Trump and adviser Elon Musk’s Tesla pitch at the White House this week, alleging the media event touting the Musk-owned automaker violates federal ethics laws.

Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) wrote in a joint letter to the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) that they believe “Musk — in conjunction with President Trump — is using his official role and the public resources of the White House to promote his car company.”

“Ethics laws on the misuse of government positions serve a practical purpose,” they wrote in the letter Thursday, questioning the use of time and resources to promote Musk’s business interests. “Enforcement of these laws is of the utmost importance.”

Federal ethics laws prohibit White House employees from using their government roles to endorse or promote private companies. The regulation does not apply to the president, though.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

“A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.”
― Booker T. Washington

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Friday, March 14, 2025

Mini-Post: Quid Pro Quo

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