Chris @CLKenn

I appreciate the direct response, Congressman @RoKhanna. You've raised a real question, so let me answer it seriously. You're partly right, and I'll grant it fully: the Founders who established a government to protect individual rights performed an achievement no inventor can match, because they built the precondition for every other achievement. Jefferson and the framers created the framework of liberty. Lincoln preserved it and extended its promise to those wrongly denied it. On that we agree. The statesman who secures freedom is a hero of the highest order. But notice the distinction that matters. Those men are great precisely to the degree they protected liberty, not to the degree they exercised power. The Founders' greatness was in handing power back. Lincoln's was in ending a violation of rights, slavery, the gravest in our history. That is why FDR doesn't belong with them. He did the opposite. He expanded the state at the expense of the freedom the Founders secured: seizing gold under threat of prison, attempting to pack the Court, building the apparatus that treats your earnings as the government's to allocate. He used power; he didn't restrain it. And here is the deeper point. You frame it as Rockefeller and Musk versus the statesmen, as if they compete. They don't. The statesman's whole purpose is to protect the conditions, namely individual rights, in which the producer can create. The Founders, along with Locke and Aristotle, built the house. Musk, Rockefeller, Bezos, and Vanderbilt are examples of what free men do inside it. If you fully understood the principle of individual rights, you would be fighting against men and women like Warren, AOC, Sanders, and the rest of these collectivist statists in both parties, instead of advocating ideas that deprive individuals of the very rights you claim to honor.

Ro Khanna @RoKhanna

a day ago

The greatest builders were the architects and perfectors of our democracy. The leaders who shaped the laws of the nation created the conditions for liberty and our economic success. Rockefeller or Musk do not rival a Lincoln, FDR or Washington.

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Hello Senator.... This November it will be 50 years since you were first elected to Congress, so we want to be the first to say . "Happy 50th Anniversary of drawing a taxpayer funded salary." That is quite an achievement. In fact - you are 2nd longest-still serving member in Congress. It has been a long time since you held a private sector job. AND yes 50 years ago - in 1976 (it was America's Bicentennial that year) - people still punched clocks back then. The world has changed a lot. During your 50 years in Congress - you watched as the creators and inventors and producers changed the world, creating trillions in new wealth, millions of new jobs and dramatically raising living standards for everyone rich and poor alike. And for 50 years you have voted to raise taxes and regulate and oversee every move of the private sector. You have never created or invented or produced. Just taxed and regulated and outraged. But thank you for using the platform the "TRILLIONAIRE class" has provided to the entire world for free to tell us all how disgusted you are. We would never know otherwise.

Ed Markey @EdMarkey

6 days ago

Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire. While working people struggle to get by, the billionaire class is becoming the TRILLIONAIRE class. It's disgusting. I'm fighting to tax the rich so we stop rewarding trading stocks over punching clocks.

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'This Is A Both Sides Issue,' Says Side That Shot President Trump, Assassinated Charlie Kirk, Tried To Assassinate Kavanaugh, Tried To Shoot Trump Again, Shot Steve Scalise, Firebombed Governor Shapiro, Tried To Shoot Trump A Third Time, (cont'd) buff.ly/XUsOvZl

Keep Virginia fair. Keep Virginia honest. To find out where to vote, go to VoteNowVA.com It is up to you to save Virginia. VOTE NO! 🗳️

I just voted against Barack Hussein Obama’s (@BarackObama) scheme to rig the midterm elections. Obama has flooded Virginia with nonstop ads falsely claiming Trump will “rig the midterms” unless his amendment passes. If Obama and the Democrats succeed today, nearly every congressional district in Virginia will be handed to a Democrat. Who wants an entire state run by House Democrats (@HouseDemocrats)? Absolutely no one. GOTV!

Democrats think gerrymandering Virginia into this, is a vote to “restore fairness.” If that’s true, let me ask a question. Why don’t Democrats want pictures of the new map shown at polling locations? Why not show voters exectky what your version of “fairness” looks like?

Today is the day in Virginia. Vote NO on the referendum.

How do you rig an election? You rig the question. Look at this ballot asking Virginians to flip a 6D-5R congressional map to 10D-1R, breaking up every region of the Commonwealth. Yet the ballot says “to restore fairness.” Rigged. VOTE NO.

@gunrights #nokings amiright?

Virginians don’t like being lied to. We don’t like gerrymandering. And we certainly don’t like partisan power grabs that silence the voices of millions. Virginia, join me in voting NO on the Spanberger gerrymander by April 21.

With respect, I don’t believe @elonmusk lacks empathy. He has such a high bar for what he believes humans should be living and striving for, that he reserves his empathy only for those that truly deserve it. One only needs to recall this moment to see what I mean. youtu.be/gEnG2a4dc7c?si…

Literally your first week in office was to place a HALF BILLION dollar carbon tax on every Virginian’s electric bill. Don’t paint a horse and call it a zebra.

Abigail Spanberger @SpanbergerForVA

2 months ago

The President and his allies are talking about taxes that our state legislature never even voted on and I certainly didn't sign. Why? Because if they don't flood the zone with fake news about fake taxes, people might hear about the bills I am signing to lower energy costs,

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Grok groks

Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith

2 months ago

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We're all in this pic (except for those four astronauts)

I want to apologize for not responding to any of the 22 thousand comments my last post inspired. I’ve been filming all week and just noticed my observations about Jimmy Kimmel and a former plumber named Markwayne Mullin have gone viral. I've also noticed that many of the comments are from people who genuinely seem to believe that Jimmy wasn’t belittling plumbers at all, but was instead, simply trying to point out that Mullin is not qualified to lead the DHS. Here's a small smattering... Roger Bicknell... Mikey stop. Kimmel wasn't making fun of plumbers he was making fun of Mullin. Rebecca Piatt Gonzalez... Dearest Mike, it's not anything to do with his being a plumber. It's him NOT being skilled in Homeland Security. Patrick Wise... Being a plumber qualifies you to be a plumber. Period. The issue Jimmy and the rest of us at the adult table recognize is that jobs require certain training and experience and being a plumber does not qualify you to be Sec of DHS. Had Roger, Rebecca, Patrick and all the others who rushed to Jimmy’s Kimmel’s defense actually read what I had written, they would see that I did not suggest - even remotely - that a plumber was inherently qualified to hold a cabinet position. What I said was that being a plumber should not disqualify a person from holding such a position. Big difference. Doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, fireman, and university professors are no more or less qualified to run the DHS than plumbers, electricians, or carpenters – but should they all be dismissed as “unqualified” simply because they made a living in some other vocation? As I wrote in my original post, credentials and diplomas are great ways to bolster a person’s credibility, especially if we’re talking about mastering a specific skill. I think we can all agree that plumbers, accountants, mechanics, and surgeons should all have to prove themselves competent before hanging out a shingle. But what do their credentials and diplomas have to do with their actual competency? Are we not already surrounded by a legion of perfectly qualified experts who don't know what the hell they're doing? Moreover, what do credentials and experience have to do with wisdom, honesty, common sense, integrity, courage, the ability to lead, or any other virtue we’d like to have in our elected officials? There are plenty of legitimate reasons to question Mullin’s suitability for this role. But there’s no legitimate reason to disqualify him simply because he used to be a plumber. Just as there was no legitimate reason to dismiss AOC because she used to tend bar. As for the joke itself, here’s an honest question. If Senator Mullin was a retired doctor instead of a retired plumber, do you believe he would have would made the same joke? Roger, Rebecca, Patrick...be honest. Do you really think Jimmy would have said to his audience, "So, now we have a DOCTOR in charge of protecting us from terrorism? Hey – it worked for Dr. Suess – maybe it’ll work for Markwayne!" Personally, I don't. Not in a million years. Why? Because no one would have found it funny, that’s why. Even though doctors are no more “qualified” to protect us from terrorists than plumbers are, Jimmy knows that doctors are widely respected in society, and that plumbers are not. He knows that medical degrees and doctorates are aspirational credentials, whereas plumbing certificates are not. The entire premise of his joke was based on a personal bias that he knew his audience shared – a bias that presupposes plumbers are uneducated, one-dimensional workers who never made it to college, and are therefore "unqualified" to do anything but plumb. Jimmy is entitled to his opinion, along with anyone else who believes that Mullin is unqualified to lead the DHS. The Constitution, however, says otherwise, and so does the Senate. Likewise, reasonable people can disagree as to what is funny and what isn’t. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. What I do care about, is the extraordinary shortage of plumbers and electricians our country is facing, and the longstanding stigmas and stereotypes that continue to discourage people from considering a lucrative career in the skilled trades. Jimmy’s joke – and his audience’s reaction to it – is proof positive that those stigmas and stereotypes are alive and well. PS. We have a lot of money set aside to help train the next generation of plumbers. Apply for a scholarship at mikeroweworks.org Who knows? Could be the first step on your road to President..

As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable? Is it my belief that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms? That women should retain female-only rape crisis centres? That men don’t belong in women’s sport? That female prisoners shouldn’t be incarcerated with violent men and male sex offenders? That women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues? That language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context? That women shouldn’t be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex? That women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights? That freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society? That troubled minors, especially those who are gay, autistic and trauma-experienced, should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit? That gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t? That cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren’t actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology? That said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left’s credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century? Let me have your thoughts.

In the boundless dark of the cosmos, where silence engulfs entire worlds, a single fragile flame persists… the light of human consciousness. 
So tiny, so solitary… So far as we know. A candle wavering on one delicate blue world, vulnerable to asteroid, plague, war, or the quiet decay of a single planet. @elonmusk saw it clearly. Felt the peril deeply. And refused to look away. 
His singular, unbreakable purpose: to preserve that light, to protect it from extinction by carrying it outward. Making life multiplanetary. Ensuring consciousness survives beyond Earth’s fragile cradle, no matter the storms ahead. Every pursuit flows from this one luminous imperative, like streams converging into a mighty current. SpaceX builds the starships to ferry the flame to Mars and beyond. Not for dominance, but for survival, because one world is too precarious for something so irreplaceable. Tesla harnesses the sun’s endless fire, forging sustainable energy and motion to sustain a civilization with the endurance and power to reach the stars. Neuralink weaves mind and machine to expand the light itself, allowing consciousness to grow broader, stronger, more capable of embracing the universe it yearns to inhabit. xAI pursues raw truth, the steady compass guiding us wisely toward that distant future. X defends the open arena of ideas, the fertile soil where audacious visions spark and humanity’s shared will rises to meet them. The Boring Company lays quiet foundations beneath. Essential tunnels that will shield life on new moons and planets, protecting fragile habitats from cosmic hazards where surface existence is unforgiving. On Earth, a start; across the solar system, a necessity. Yet so many still do not grasp it.
They see only the wealth, the unyielding direction, the refusal to disperse it in familiar ways. “Give it away,” they insist—channel the billions into conventional charity, quick fixes, the comfort of applause. They overlook the greater gift.
What seems like retention is profound stewardship. What appears ambitious is quiet sacrifice. 
Elon directs his resources not to fleeting aid, but to the grand engine that could save us: the relentless push to become multiplanetary, safeguarding consciousness against every catastrophe that might extinguish it on one lone world. And beyond mere survival, this quest bestows something rarer… a unifying North Star. Friends and foes, every background and belief, pulled (willingly or not) into the same eternal question: Will we endure? Will we expand? 
He reminds us, without compromise, that we are infinitesimally small - a speck adrift in cosmic vastness - yet capable of igniting fires across worlds. That humbling truth could bridge divides, revive awe, and align us toward something lasting rather than momentary. Critics seek the expected philanthropist.
He answers with the harder role: architect of the ark, keeper of the flame. @elonmusk, in a time that prizes appearance over substance, thank you for choosing reality. 
For wagering everything on the long horizon. 
For showing that true generosity is not scattering, but multiplying… Multiplying hope, possibility, and consciousness itself. Because of you, the candle burns steadier, reaches farther, yearns toward the stars. 
May the future vindicate your vision, and may the light endure forever.

@NickJFreitas Stay safe

Every member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. I’m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that. Empty sloganeering vs. commitment to global security — which is it?

@nicksortor Is it just me, or does that laugh resemble every movie villain’s laugh when their respective “diabolical plans” are put into action?