Bondi demands Crockett apologize for aggravated mean to Elon
Hurting Musk's feefees is not a crime no matter how many Fox hits the AG does.
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What does the attorney general of the United States do all day? What is her actual job?
Prior attorneys general dealt with serious national security issues. They managed the Justice Department and its 115,000 employees. They took pains to convey to the public that the DOJ was an independent, apolitical agency, dispensing justice without fear or favor.
This one goes on Fox and yells about Tesla.
Specifically, Attorney General Pam Bondi is threatening Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett for participating in protests of Elon Musk’s efforts to burn down the federal government.
The “Tesla Takedown” movement is an attempt to grab the world’s most famous ketamine user by the wallet and make fascism rude again.
“Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines,” the website urges. “Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk. Stopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy.”
The site also contains helpful instructions on how to divest from Tesla, which depresses the share price and pressures investment funds to dump the stock — a two-fer!
It’s the same playbook that the right ran recently against Bud Light after Anheuser-Busch was nice to a trans lady that one time: Express disapproval of a company’s social policy by boycotting it and heckling its place of business. They’re running it now to punish Target for selling Pride gear. That’s classic First Amendment protected speech, which is why AG Bondi is forced to grossly mischaracterize it.
“You have this Congresswoman Crockett who is calling for attacks on Elon Musk on her birthday. ‘Let’s take him out on my birthday,’ she says. Yet she turns and says ‘Oh, I’m not calling for violence,’” Bondi huffed to Maria Bartiromo. “Well she is an elected public official, and so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country.”
Prior AGs might have characterized their job as protecting everyone, not just owners of a specific brand of car. But prior presidents didn’t turn the White House lawn into a car dealership, so YMMV.
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The current AG is working overtime to blur the distinction between a peaceful protest movement and the handful of acts of vandalism against Tesla dealerships. In fact, Rep. Crockett took great pains to say that she does not support violence against the poor, beleaguered Tesla owners or anyone else.
“We’re fighting for our country. We’re fighting for democracy. We’re fighting for our freedoms,” the congresswoman said on the March 19 #TeslaTakedown livestream. “And when I say ‘fighting,’ I’m saying that figuratively. Obviously everything that I am promoting is nonviolent.'“ (Watch below.)
It’s a perfect inversion of conservatives’ relentless effort to turn everything from Dr. Suess to Mr. Potato Head into a culture war. Except that Nike never intended to express “snide disdain for the American flag,” as Ted Cruz put it, and Elon Musk absolutely does mean to use his billions of dollars as a crowbar to break the US government.
And it’s working! Tesla’s share price was at $424 when Trump was sworn in. Two months later, it’s at roughly $280, with sales down 49 percent in Europe and the market for used “Swasticars” tanking. Even a Fox News infomercial for Tesla starring Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick failed to move the needle.
And so AG Bondi is frantically trying to wrest the dialogue back to familiar ground by branding the protests as criminal.
“The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” she blustered in an official DOJ communique. “We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”
As if George Soros is secretly subsidizing Molotov cocktails and bricks.
Won’t somebody think of the Teslas?
The FBI and the ATF are partnering for a task force to protect the DOGE Dauphin’s empire.
"As always, Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino have been adamant about responsiveness to agents on the ground and providing them the resources they need to serve Americans," FBI spox Ben Williamson hyped in a statement Fox News Digital. "This Task Force is just the latest move in coordinating our efforts to ensure those who violently attack Tesla will be pursued and brought to justice."
They made no mention of the man who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of peaceful protesters outside a Tesla dealership in Florida. That’s apparently not domestic terrorism that can be attributed to the speech of a random Democrat.
And on Monday night the AG was back on air with Sean Hannity, attempting to tie Rep. Crockett to “explosive devices” found at a Tesla dealership in Austin.
“She needs to unequivocally denounce the violence,” Bondi fumed. “She must apologize immediately, not only to all Texans, but to our country, to the American shareholders of Tesla, because she is promoting violence."
Bondi predicted that Crockett would be censured, as if apologies and congressional procedures were somehow in the attorney general’s wheelhouse. What she did not do was cite any actual law that the congresswoman might have broken, because there is none.
Rep. Crockett took pains to say that she was not advocating violence. But even if she had been, it would not have been illegal. Incitement is an appeal that is likely to produce “imminent lawless action,” not random, unconnected violence several days later. Nor was the politician soliciting a crime of violence or interfering with commerce by threatening violence. And that’s why the AG is making ominous warnings and indignantly demanding an apology on television, rather than impaneling a grand jury.
But if the AG is looking for people to prosecute, Rep. Crocket has suggestions, starting with the thousands of people who stormed the Capitol and were pardoned by her boss.
“Tesla’s tanking right now, and I’m okay with that,” Crockett laughed in an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Witt. “So, just in case the slow people listening try to clip this later, I just want to say that I have never promoted violence whatsoever.”
Crockett, a former public defender, accused the Trump administration of mass lawbreaking.
“This entire administration is rogue,” she said, adding “they are trying to get rid of all voices of dissent.”
Rep. Crockett’s birthday is March 29, and so is the Global Day of Action for Tesla Takedown. And for the moment, protest is still legal.
That’s it for today
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“Prior attorneys general dealt with serious national security issues.” Like investigating how and why classified info was disclosed to a journalist in a Signal chat. But I’m sure she’ll show zero interest in investigating that.
Amazing, these Republican billionaires—so thin skinned, whiny … *needy* … petulant. Trump demands loud loyalty, Musk demands apologies; neither command respect.