No tariff on Russia

No tariff for Trump's pal

Is Trump a Russian agent?

Mike Luckovich

Is Trump a Russian agent? #2

Is Trump a Russian Agen? #1

Appeasement uber alles

Trump rolls over for Putin

No Trump tariff on Russia!

I like this one. It captures his utter fatuity

Youtube

There are more than 1,700 comments. Life is too short to read them all, but dip into them when you need a laugh. He's surely the most mockable president in US history---and the most deserving of every bit of it, particularly because he has no sense of humor.

Former ambassador: Vance's trip to Greenland a 'mistake'

Vances' planned trip to Greenland is stoking Arctic anti-Americanism

Tesla trashed in Canada

Trashing Tesla

Latest JFK document dump

See also: Yhe Assassination of JFK: Case Not Closed

Israeli attack kills hundreds

Israel murders hundreds in Gaza

Joel Engardio and the Great Highway

Open Letter to Supervisor Joel Engardio

Sunset Beacon

February 14, 2025

By Patricia Arack

Dear Joel Engardio:

Recall over a single issue?

You have repeatedly said that you should not be recalled over a single issue, i.e., the Prop. K vote closing the Upper Great Highway (UGH). Yes, the recall is for a single issue, but the issue is not the UGH. The issue is YOU, and your behavior, lack of response and a sense of duty to those who put you in office.

The devious and secret way you put this on the ballot, thereby evading any community input except for Lucas Lux and his followers, was a betrayal of all those who voted for you.

You actually removed our right for community input into your revision of the Pilot Project, which you used as a template for your Prop. K ordinance. You deleted the section that mandated community input. Gordon Mar at least provided the Pilot Project with a section providing community input. You removed it.

We have lost respect and faith in you because you have repeatedly ignored our needs and patronize us, saying you are doing what is “best for us.” That’s not your job. Your job is to represent us, and you have failed.

I think that is clear when you see that every precinct in D4 voted No on K, 20-30 points higher than Yes. If you had allowed community input before you sneaked Prop. K on the ballot, you would have known the vast majority did not want the highway closed. You ignored the reasonable compromise, which is the obvious FAIR solution to this problem for D4 residents and commuters and recreation users.

Any political price you pay for the “single issue,” i.e., your behavior, is on you.

There will be no Homeless Issue on the Great Hwy once closed?

Regarding your comments at the Jan. 15 LaPlaya Village Zoom meeting about the coming UGH closure: You said there is no homeless problem in SF parks. Therefore, there will be no problem at the Upper Great Highway when closed. That’s it. End of discussion.

I could not believe you could express such a lack of concern and knowledge about a real problem that will affect the quality of life, health and safety of your constituents. You have no idea what will happen once highway is closed. Word is out that the homeless are just waiting to move in.

Your answer at the LaPlaya Village interview was shocking in its brevity and lack of knowledge about SF parks, and that, accordingly to you, there would be no homeless problem at the UGH because there are no homeless problems in other parks.

GG Park dedicated outreach rangers have struggled for years to remove homeless encampments and help the homeless find permanent housing. The facts do not align with your opinion that there will be no problem with homeless encampments on the UGH and, as a consequence, in the Avenues.

You displayed a callous and simplistic assessment of the situation at that meeting. Do you realize when the Park Police rout the homeless campers out of the UGH area, they will just move into the neighborhood into people’s yards, homes and driveways, defecating wherever?

I have already had unpleasant experiences with homeless people around my house. You expressed absolutely no consideration for your constituents in your answer to the moderator. Why do you always put your constituents last? You fail in your number one responsibility, which is to represent D4 voters. Instead, you betray us.

The homeless issue is already a problem.

Just in the small area around my house on the Lower Great Highway (LGH), homeless encounters have been very disturbing. Do you care? You live far from the Outer Sunset and will never have people defecating in YOUR driveway.

Both of my neighbors on the LGH have had homeless people break into their homes. One neighbor is disabled. In both cases, the interlopers, desperate for a place out of the elements to sleep, entered into the garage area and made themselves comfortable, one in a car and the other in a downstairs bedroom for several days. They did not attack the owners and left when confronted, but they could have been mentally unhinged or on drugs, and my neighbors could have been injured or even killed by these trespassers.

I have had homeless strung-out people in my driveway and entryway. One young man, completely high on drugs, passed out in my driveway and was almost run over by my housemate on her way to work at 6:30 a.m. EMTs came and refused to take this man to detox, but put him on THE BUS!

This person was so inebriated that he could not walk. But the EMT put him on the bus for the driver and passengers to deal with. Nice call, Mr. EMT. He could have taken the young man to a detox center to help him. Another person, a woman working her way half down a bottle of wine, planted herself on the sidewalk right in front of my entryway, so my caregiver could not get past her.

She tried to defecate in my flower pot, but I told her to stop and move on. After screaming at me, she moved down the block. Someone else kicked in my fence trying to get into my back yard, and I had to pay a contractor to fix the fence before someone could break into my yard and have access to my house. During the summer months homeless tents have popped up on the UGH pedestrian walkway several times.

Probably the most disturbing event was a young man, on Ortega Street across from the terminal of the #7 bus, in the middle of the block, took off every stitch of clothing, including shoes and socks, squatted down in middle of sidewalk, defecated, got dressed and sauntered off, leaving his feces in the middle of the sidewalk. This happened in the early afternoon Also, I have had to clean human feces off my driveway.

This is just a harbinger of what will happen when the highway is closed, and you just dismissed the homeless issue as if it weren’t going to be a problem. It’s already a problem.

What are your plans, as supervisor for D4, to deal with this dangerous influx of homeless campers, and the trash, human waste, and drugs they will bring, that your constituents will be facing when it occurs, as it surely will?

Patricia Arack

Concerned Residents of the Sunset

Retired Faculty, CCSF

It only takes two

Daily Kos

Sell your swasticar

Daily Kos

‘Sell your swasticar’: Bay Area Tesla owners urged to sell vehicle

Remembering Kevin Drum

Sorry to learn that Kevin Drum died. I don't know of anyone who can take his place.

Paul Glastris in The Washington Monthly:

....Born and raised in Southern California but with family roots in Missouri, Kevin had a Midwesterner’s plainness of manner and Show-Me State unwillingness to accept things at face value. As a young man, he was smart, gaining admission to Cal Tech, but after two years, he transferred to Cal State Long Beach, where he majored in journalism. 

Like many people who graduated in the recession of 1981, he had trouble landing work in his chosen field, so he took a job at Radio Shack. He became store manager and then was hired to write user manuals for a local tech company. 

For the next two decades, he rose through the ranks of the software industry on the marketing side and lived a comfortable life with his wife and their cat, Inkblot, in Orange County, which was then predominantly Republican.

Yet Kevin retained his journalistic urges, and in 2001, he started blogging in his spare time. Over the next few years, he built a sizeable following, partly by introducing “Friday Cat Blogging”—essentially, photos of Inkblot doing typical cat things (hunting bugs in the backyard) that presaged the coming explosion of pet-centric internet content.

When he came to the Monthly in 2004, Kevin brought his audience with him and grew it on the strength of his work ethic. Every day, he would scan the papers and other blogs and write a dozen posts on whatever subjects caught his eye. Some were tightly argued mini-essays, others a few sentences with a link. 

Some were reactions to breaking news, others analyses of news-relevant research papers on, say, healthcare economics or the history of counterinsurgency. Kevin had a gift for pithy, accurate, and entertaining summation of complicated material, a product of a scientific mind honed by a career in technical marketing. He loved numbers and was an early adopter of chart-making software.

Kevin identified as center-left but called himself a moderate—a word that described his politics and disposition. Much blogging back then—like social media commentary today—was driven by the writers’ emotions, suffused with hyperbole, and aimed to rile readers up. 

Kevin was almost exactly the opposite. Curiosity rather than outrage fueled his writing. Judiciousness and skepticism rather than self-assured know-it-all-ness characterized his prose. He had virtually no patience with the Bush administration and its combination of hubris and incompetence....

In 2022, he emailed saying he would be in Washington, and I invited him to come by the office and join a crew of current and former editors for lunch. He seemed okay, a little weak, but talkative and full of well-considered opinions as always. It was a chance for the younger editors to meet a legend and for me to reconnect—for the last time, it turned out—with a dear colleague. 

You would think knowing about his disease and its progression would lessen the shock and sadness—and it does to some extent, but less than I would have guessed. 

Then again, not many of us leave this life with an audience of devoted followers and a sure place in the history of our profession. Kevin did, and that makes me smile.

Katie Porter for governor

RFK Jr. pushes bogus medical cures

The New Republic:

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been advising a holistic medical clinic in West Texas that has been distributing unproven alternative medicines during the deadly measles outbreak, Mother Jones reported Monday.

Local historian Tina Siemens and Dr. Ben Edwards of Veritas Wellness in Lubbock, Texas, have been working to distribute alternative medicines such as Vitamin C, cod liver oil, and inhaled steroid budesonide amid the growing outbreak. 

Siemens said they spoke with Kennedy last week to discuss the culture of a Mennonite community who have found themselves at the epicenter of the outbreak due to their low rates of measles vaccinations....

Trump rolls over for Putin

From The Bulwark:

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk explained the situation succinctly: “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians. More bombs, more aggression, more victims.”

But Tusk was being diplomatic. He was maintaining the pretense that Trump was merely foolishly or wishfully appeasing Putin. 

Trump isn’t acting foolishly or wishfully. He wants to help Putin:

Is Trump a traitor? A Russian agent?

Appeasing Russia is US policy

Posted on the Marina

Reddit

Selling Teslas in San Francisco

Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco

See also Elon Musk: Scientist

Anti-Tesla, anti-Musk

Anger at Elon Musk turns violent: Molotov cocktails, gunfire at Tesla lots

....Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, more than a dozen violent or destructive acts have been directed at Tesla facilities, according to court documents, surveillance photographs, police records and local media reports reviewed by The Washington Post. 

The incidents come as Elon Musk has rocketed to prominence as Trump’s best-known backer and as a conservative provocateur in his own right. 

The ire directed at the tech billionaire online has increasingly spilled into real life, with vandalism directed at Tesla storefronts, charging stations and vehicles.

In March several Tesla superchargers at a shopping center in Littleton, Massachusetts, were set ablaze. Vandals in Maryland also spray-painted “No Musk” on a Tesla building, alongside a swastika-like symbol. 

In February, a man brandishing an AR-style semiautomatic weapon fired at a Tesla storefront in Salem, Oregon. 

Just a few weeks earlier, investigators say, the same man attacked the same dealership by throwing molotov cocktails at Tesla vehicles and through the store window. He caused an estimated $500,000 in damage, according to court documents....

See also Elon Musk: Scientist and Hot Tesla market: Burn baby burn

Why Trump is who he is

From The Contrarian:

....Why does he needlessly make such objectively self-destructive moves? His tariffs certainly cannot be justified economically, and the predictable results are so severe they make even less political sense. 

We know that Trump—who reads nothing, lacks the least bit of curiosity, and surrounds himself with thick-headed sycophants—often gets fixated on a wrongheaded idea (e.g., NATO is ripping us off). 

When challenged by numerous informed people, he digs deeper into his ignorant stances. Agreement with him (or at the very least silent acquiescence) becomes a sign of MAGA loyalty. 

Trump delights in playing the schoolyard bully. He is entirely uninterested in whether Americans get hurt or not. 

Similarly, he seems thrilled with his ability to threaten loyal allies (e.g. Denmark), as he did in his speech to Congress, simply because he can....

Rob's comment:

Yes, morally and intellectually Trump is a boob and a rube. And of course he's a bully.

He's also a know-it-all, hates animals---he tried to overturn the Endangered Species Act in his first term---and he's a crybaby who apparently sees himself as a victim. 

Poor little rich boy whose mommy didn't love him. A barely functional and profoundly neurotic guy, but he's our president, thanks to our proto-fascist Republican Party!

Don't play dead

In yesterday's NY Times:

Why Democrats shouldn't play dead

Letter to the Editor:

Democrats who argue for adopting the political version of Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy really do not understand the depth of the political nihilism we face.

This administration is not concerned with losing power as long as it can dismantle the bureaucracy of the federal government before it happens. In the face of such a relentless foe, Democrats will have to stop relying on clever political strategies and show the people they are willing to fight.

To win, they must do what all oppressed people have done when searching for the means of liberation: Develop a new philosophy of resistance that provides a vision and plan for organizing people and motivating them to make the sacrifices necessary to mount a full and committed defense of our democracy.

To do anything less would be the political equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Michael Scott

San Francisco

Rob's comment:

Wrong! Here's a cliche to match Scott's Titanic cliche: No need to reinvent the wheel. Traditional ways of protesting in the US are still legal: demonstrate, call your congress members, write letters, civil disobedience where/when appropriate, etc.

Hot Tesla market: Burn baby, burn!

Torched Teslas

12 Teslas burn in arson attack in France

Authorities are investigating a suspected arson attack that torched a dozen Tesla vehicles outside a dealership in Plaisance-du-Touch, a suburb near Toulouse, France, late Sunday night.

The blaze destroyed eight cars and severely damaged four others. The prosecutor’s office informed the AFP that evidence suggests the fire was “not at all accidental,” pointing to a deliberate act.

Firefighters swiftly identified the blaze as criminal in origin, as per Philippe Guyot, mayor of Plaisance-du-Touch, though he noted the Tesla location itself was spared. 

The incident, reported on March 2, 2025, shuttered the Tesla site Monday as police launched an investigation into the fire.

A police release noted that the charging stations were “charging stations had been “engulfed in flames and heavy, dark smoke.” Authorities quickly contacted the Littleton Electric Light & Water Department, requesting an immediate power shutdown to the affected stations. No injuries were reported.

The attack follows a wave of anti-Tesla actions across Europe, fueled by CEO Elon Musk’s growing political footprint. 

Since aligning with U.S. President Donald Trump and endorsing far-right parties in Europe, Musk has faced backlash, including “Tesla Takedown” protests in the U.S. and boycott calls abroad.

The incident in Toulouse, France comes amidst other anti-Tesla incidents in the United States. Just recently, multiple Tesla Superchargers were allegedly set on fire in Massachusetts. 

The Littleton Police Department, which responded to the incident, noted that the fire appeared to be “intentionally set.”

See also Elon Musk: Scientist

Political censorship

Anti-Semitic?

He Ran the Cartoon above, and Gannett Fired Him

Criticizing the government of Israel for essentially destroying Gaza. 

Is criticism of Israel by definition anti-semitic? No self-respecting editor would think so.

Rob Rogers was fired by a Pittsburgh paper during the first Trump administration for his editorial cartoons criticizing Trump. 

Example:

Rogers is still at it!

Elon Musk: Scientist

A 2023 story:

Elon Musk’s brain chip experiments have killed 1,500 animals

The problems don’t seem to be ending for Elon Musk. A group of doctors has called for an investigation into Neuralink, the biotechnology startup founded by the magnate, for the suspicious deaths of a group of monkeys. According to the accusations, these monkeys were allegedly used for experiments involving brain implants.

It was the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) that filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that the primates had died due to complications with the neural implants developed by Neuralink.

Elon Musk confirmed that a group of monkeys had died from a series of terminal illnesses. The South African entrepreneur clarified in an interview that for the initial implants, the primates used were already “near death.” 

He emphatically denied that the deaths were related to Neuralink’s implants. In fact, Musk stated last fall that they were being “extremely careful” with these trials.

However, the group of doctors claims that these comments are “false.” The PCRM obtained a series of reports demonstrating that the monkeys had undergone “extreme suffering.” 

WIRED also reported on these records, confirming the animals’ horrific ordeals.

The Committee also clarifies that Musk’s statements about the monkeys’ condition do not represent the truth. While some of the animals had physical traumas and had suffered the aftermath of other experiments, “there is no evidence that they were near death”....

Appeasement uber alles

Nick Anderson

 

US capitulation to Putin

Trump: Appeasing Russia is US policy

Andrew Harnik (Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin has had Donald Trump's number since Helsinki: Putin understood right away that Trump was a windbag and a hollow man he could dominate. Even as a businessman, he wasn't very good, to put it mildly.

Trump has always posed as a strong leader, but in reality, as Putin immediately understood, he's a weakling. That's increasingly obvious to everyone except those delusional souls in the Republican Party's political base. 

I suspect even many of those "deplorables," as Hillary accurately described them in days of yore, will abandon Trump as he ruins the US economy and alienates our traditional allies around the world.

Meanwhile, for the next four years, we're fucked. 

The only question now: How much permanent damage will he and his contemptible political party do to the country?

Today: US eyes easing Russia sanctions

Vermont welcomes the vice president

Vermont welcomes Vance

Vote for Republicans, you get this

Rob's comment:

What did you expect? Vote for assholes, you get shit. Trump is the biggest asshole in American history, and Republicans make him president. We need to make the Repugnant Party pay for this disaster in every election---local, state, national---from now on.

Trump represemts Russia, not Ukraine or the American people

Is Trump a Russian asset?

From Daily Kos:

Putin likes it!

Trump's overture to Putin sets off appeasement alarm in Europe

Is Trump a Russian agent? #1

Susan Glasser today in The New Yorker:

With today’s extraordinary televised fight in the Oval Office between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky, we all saw clearly something that has been unfolding over the past couple of weeks: the United States of America has switched sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The country is no longer on the side of Ukraine.

This is a momentous shift by Trump, one that has implications not only for Ukraine’s very survival but for the survival of America’s partnership with its European allies. 

Last week, I wrote my column about what I called Trump’s Putinization of America, both in a foreign-policy sense—as in, actually pivoting toward Russia—and also in the sense of deploying an array of Putin-like tactics at home. 

This week, we see that shift even more clearly. On the third anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Donald Trump—even before he fought with Zelensky today—directed the United States to vote with Russia, Belarus, and North Korea at the United Nations....

Axios: The free world needs a new leader

Is Trump literally a Russian agent?

Trump shames the US by bullying Zelensky

Are we the bad guys now?

Our president tried to bully the leader of Ukraine in the White House today. Zelensky wasn't having it, which of course made both our bullying president---and our vice president bully---mad. 

What gall this leader of that small country has! Doesn't he understand that Trump and Putin want him to shut up about how Russia invaded his country and is still occupying it?

Liz Cheney tries to salvage what little honor our country has left:

“Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine,” Cheney wrote in a post on the social platform X. “History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”

Recall how in his first term Trump betrayed and denigrated the Kurds. 

Putin is pleased with Trump

See also Donald Trump: Chickenhawk.

Trump's Russian ties

Trump and Putin

What is the real story of Donald Trump and Russia? The answer is still unclear, and Democrats in Congress want to get to the bottom of it with an investigation. 

But there’s no doubt that a spider web of connections—some public, some private, some clear, some murky—exists between Trump, his associates and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

These charts illustrate dozens of those links, including meetings between Russian officials and members of Trump’s campaign and administration; his daughter’s ties to Putin’s friends; Trump’s 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant; and his short-lived mixed martial arts venture with one of Putin’s favorite athletes. 

The solid lines mark established facts, while dotted ones represent speculative or unproven connections.

There’s nothing inherently damning about most of the ties illustrated below. But they do reveal the vast and mysteriously complex web behind a story that has vexed Trump’s young presidency from its start—and is certain to shake the White House for months to come....

Rob's comment:

This story is from 2017, Trump's first term. No shaking detected, just a national/international shrug. But hunker down. Trump's second term is just starting. He should be tried for treason.

A question

Driftglass

Charles Johnson

Trump's toxic Gaza fantasy

Trump's fantasy

Truthout:

President Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated video on social media depicting a version of Gaza that has been colonized by the U.S. and made into a beach resort for the rich — a disturbing show of his desire to forcibly displace Palestinians from the region and create a billionaires’ playground on the rubble of Israel’s genocide.

The 33-second video shows what appears to be the enactment of Trump’s “Riviera” plan — a plan for the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza. 

At the beginning, the video shows the words “Gaza 2025” and “What’s next?” overlaid on AI-generated video of Palestinians walking through rubble and being pursued by armed soldiers.

It then shows artificial footage of a white sandy beach resort with a sprawling skyline, bustling streets and buildings like Dubai’s Burj Al Arab. 

The scene is chilling and surreal, depicting a genocidal fantasy of a U.S.-owned Gaza where Palestinians have been erased and rich people vacation on the rubble of their homes, cultural sites and graveyards.

The resort appears to be called “Trump Gaza.” There are glitzy monuments to Trump scattered throughout, including a roundabout with a massive gold Trump statue in the middle and a wall displaying rows of Trump figurines. The video also depicts a child holding a large balloon of a gold Trump face.

Excessive wealth is a focal point of the video. Elon Musk is shown eating on the beach in two clips; in another, he is being showered with money at the resort. The sea is littered with yachts and the streets full of cars resembling Teslas.

The video also shows Trump himself vacationing there. It includes a scene of him dancing with a woman in a club, and ends with a clip of him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lounging in swimsuits next to a pool with drinks.

An eerie AI-generated song plays over the video, the lyrics touting “Trump Gaza.”

“No more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here,” the song lyrics say. “Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza, number one.”

The video is a show of Trump’s utter disregard for Palestinian lives and his willingness to celebrate and exploit genocide in order to bolster his own image and profits. It is just the latest example of Trump pushing his plan for the forced, permanent expulsion of over 2 million Palestinians from Gaza — a plan only feasible through military force and yet more mass brutality by occupiers.

Trump’s plan for Gaza has been roundly condemned by Palestinians and human rights experts across the globe. 

Earlier this month, a group of UN human rights experts said that Trump’s plan would constitute numerous “blatant violations” of international law. If enacted, it could plunge the world into the “dark days of colonial conquest” and threaten the very structure of international order, the experts said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has previously called out the heinous nature of the plan, noting that it would displace millions to create a “billionaire’s paradise.”

“It is grotesque. It is almost unspeakable,” Sanders said.

Palestinians in Gaza have said that Trump’s plan will fail, as they will not comply with orders to flee their homes, even if those homes have been reduced to rubble.

“America and Israel have always been doing their best to ‘clean out’ lands by force or facilities, but they also always fail as our souls are connected to the sand of this land,” Zaid Ali, from northern Gaza, told Middle East Eye last month.

Trump:

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump declared at the press conference with Netanyahu. “We’ll own it, get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area....do something different, just can’t go back, if you go back, it’s gonna end up the same way it has for 100 years.”

See also Israel destroys Gaza, Gaza: Coming soon a Trump casino.

They make a desert and call it peace

Elon Musk's empire: Billions in military contracts

Feb 11 Reuters:

Elon Musk's companies have a variety of contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, highlighting the growing relationship between the tech entrepreneur's ventures and the U.S. military.

SpaceX Provides launch services to the Department of Defense, including the launch of classified satellites and other payloads. SpaceX's CEO Gwynne Shotwell has said the company has about $22 billion in government contracts. The vast majority of that, about $15 billion, is derived from NASA.

SpaceX's biggest Pentagon contracts include the $733 million National Security Space Launch contract awarded in October to lift satellites into orbit. The company has been tapped for more Pentagon launch contracts potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Starlink, the satellite-based internet service, which falls under the SpaceX umbrella, has been used by the Pentagon to provide connectivity in remote and austere environments. 

Starlink's commercial broadband service has some 7,000 satellites in orbit.

In 2023, the Pentagon awarded SpaceX a contract worth about $23 million to use Starlink to support military operations in Ukraine through mid-2024.

Starlink has had contracts with Special Operations Command, the Air Force, Army and other parts of the Pentagon.

Starshield: Though not broken out in government contracting, this satellite unit of SpaceX is similar to its commercial Starlink business but designed for government national security programs. 

While details of the program are scarce, it is believed to have more secure communication pathways for classified information. Starshield has a contract with at least one intelligence agency believed to be worth billions of dollars, Reuters has reported.

The total value of Musk's companies' contracts with the Department of Defense is estimated to be in the billions of dollars, but the true figure cannot be determined since many of them are classified. 

The contracts demonstrate the growing importance of private sector technology companies in supporting U.S. military operations and national security initiatives.

See also: Trump bullies Zelensky to get Ukraine's minerals.

Elon Musk’s Business Empire Benefits Under Trump

Elon Musk's cruel experiments on animals.

Neo-colonialism

State capture by the radical right.

Elon Musk and Russia.

Germans know what this means