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A Useless Waste Of Space

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

Mike Johnson has long been a Ukraine supporter. But he loves Trumpy more. Here he is spinning like a top:

In a stunning exchange on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Johnson took umbrage with the notion that President Donald Trump and others on the Right are “on Putin’s side” in the wake of the chaotic Oval Office meeting with Zelensky on Friday

“It’s pretty absurd for anyone in the media or Democrats to somehow proclaim that President Trump, the White House, or Republicans in Congress are on Putin’s side,” Johnson said. “It’s a joke. We understand that he is a dangerous adversary and he is the one that provoked the war.”

Of course, Trump expressed the exact opposite sentiment in a Feb. 18 statement — making clear he believes Ukraine, not Russia, was the aggressor which sparked the war.

“You should’ve never started it,” Trump said of Ukraine.

Welker promptly referenced Trump’s comment.

“But Mr. Speaker, you’re saying that we all know that Putin provoked the war,” Welker said. “Actually, President Trump said that President Zelensky provoked the war. The week started with the U.S. siding with Russia and North Korea at the UN, refusing to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine. It ended with this Oval Office confrontation with Zelensky. Is President Trump realigning the United States with Russia here?”

“No,” Johnson said. “President Trump is trying to get these two parties to a point of peace. And it takes certain maneuvers and certain strategies to do that. You have two parties who, to this point, have not shown any interest apparently in getting to peace. What President Zelensky did in the White House was effectively signal to us that he’s not ready for that yet. And I think that’s a great disappointment. We have to get this settled. And we stand with our allies, we always do. But they have to be reasonable.”

Trump called Zelensky a dictator, said that Ukraine has no cards (and he’s sick of it) that Russia will get to keep the territory it’s taken, no chance for it to join NATO and that there will be no security guarantee after a cease fire and peace deal with a man who has broken every cease fire agreement it’s signed.

WHAT DEAL IS UKRAINE SUPPOSED TO BE SIGNING ON TO???? Thank you sir, may I have another?

No mention of the fact that Russia has been asked to give up NOTHING and that Trump iwent on and on incoherently about how he’s bonded to Putin and trusts him implicitly because of the Russia investigation — started in Hunter Biden’s bathroom. Why would Zelensky trust a lunatic like that?

Johnson also told Welker that he and Musk have been spending late nights with the DOGE algorithm which is finding massive amounts of “waste, fraud and abuse” in Social Security. That sounds just great.

Johnson is evil.

Protests!

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

They are happening all over the country along with town halls full of angry constituents. Yesterday people lined the streets near the Sugarbush ski resort to protest JD Vance on his way to a ski weekend. People reportedly yelled at him on the mountain as well and he ended up leaving early:

Of course the MAGA cultists, including Mike Johnson, say these are all George Soros paid protesters but that’s a lie. The Vance protest was completely organic, coordinated on Reddit and Facebook. People don’t need to be paid. They are trying to save the country. And the protests are about everything, Musk and DOGE, veterans, Medicaid, Ukraine, federal workers, Tesla all of it.

I don’t know how long it will take people who aren’t tuned in to politics to fully grasp what’s going on but this is the important first step.

Here are just a few moments I happened to bookmark over the last couple of days:

Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas QUITS and LEAVES town hall early — after being criticized about Elon Musk and Donald Trump firing VETERANS. And the crowd booed Marshall — one woman yelling “we’re gonna vote you out.”

Protesters occupying the Tesla Dealership in lower Manhattan. Security is trying to keep more people from entering.

Boston too..

The crowd didn’t care for Tennessee Rep. Harshbarger’s answer about the J6 pardons.

Angry Republicans at Texas town hall for Rep. Keith Self.

Massive applause Rep. Tom Suozzi, N.Y., received in a +5 Trump district after he called out Trump’s antics in the White House with Zelensky.

Stand With Ukraine in Beverly Hills, California …

Times Square…

Those are just a few examples of what’s going on around the country. There are many more.

Somebody’s Fuming

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

Remember this?

It was the middle of Donald Trump’s presidency, and he was—yet again—mad at Saturday Night Live. And he wanted the federal government to help him settle the score.

In March 2019, the then-president of the United States had just watched an episode of the long-running, liberal-leaning NBC sketch comedy series (it wasn’t even a new episode, it was a rerun), and grew immediately incensed that the show was gently mocking him.

“It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side,’” Trump tweeted, long before he was banned from Twitter for inspiring a violent mob. “Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows. Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?”

Don’t be surprised to see Trump’s new stooge at the FCC, Brendan Carr, actually “look into” it. I can’t imagine how anything could be done but with the way things are going I won’t be surprised.

Meanwhile, just look at that little man-baby Trump whining about people making fun of him. I think it says it all.

Arming The Border

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

For no apparent reason

The pro-war crimes Sec. Def. is apparently preparing for war on the Southern border:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered about 3,000 active-duty troops to the southern U.S. border, including soldiers from a motorized brigade equipped with 20-ton armored Stryker combat vehicles, defense officials familiar with the effort said.

The defense secretary approved the orders Friday, said two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal Defense Department planning. The soldiers are primarily from the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Carson, Colorado, and will be joined by soldiers specializing in engineering, intelligence and public affairs, the officials said.

The Pentagon announced the deployment in a statement Saturday afternoon after the news was first reported by The Washington Post. Hegseth has ordered the deployment of the Stryker unit and a helicopter battalion to “reinforce and expand current border security operations to seal the border and protect the territorial integrity of the United States,” the statement said.

The troops will arrive in coming weeks, underscoring the Defense Department’s “unwavering dedication to working alongside the Department of Homeland Security to secure our southern border and maintain the sovereignty, territory integrity, and security of the United States under President Trump’s leadership,” the statement added.

About 2,400 soldiers will deploy with the Stryker brigade combat team and an additional 550 will go with the aviation unit, said another defense official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. A handful of others will join them.

After news of the deployment, Hegseth said in a post on X that the administration is “dead serious about 100% OPERATIONAL CONTROL of the southern border.”

And then there’s this:

The mission had been in planning since January and comes despite a sharp drop in border crossings since the Trump administration took office. Hegseth said during a trip to the border in February that all options are on the table to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop illegal migration.

I’m sure it will make great television. So is war. Super great.

Will Trump Let Him Do It?

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

Musk has his eyes on Social Security

Trump says that he won’t touch benefits. But he’s all for Elon eliminating waste. fraud and abuse in the program, all of which is defined by Elon.

Here’s what he thinks of the program:

The billionaire argued Friday on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that the United States government is “one big pyramid scheme” before blasting Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

When asked to clarify, Musk said, “Well, people pay into Social Security and the money goes out of Social Security immediately, but the obligation for Social Security is your entire retirement career. If you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue.”

Musk, who oversees Trump’s cost-cutting initiative for federal spending, the Department of Government Efficiency, added that “people are living way longer than expected” and thus the government’s obligation to pay the debt “will be much worse in the future.”

After seeing the Republicans all cozy up to Putin and allow Musk to eviscerate the federal workforce I’m sure they’ll let him do whatever he wants with Social Security too. They are completely gone. So I’m not sure what can stop him if he decides it’s got to be severely slashed. Trump? Because he “promised?” Lol.

By the way, there’s already trouble on the way:

Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago. But the recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.

“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Ahead of any interruption in benefits, “people should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

The Social Security Administration uses multiple systems and technologies that Elon Musk has criticized for leading to errors. As commissioner, O’Malley told Congress the agency needed more funding for IT modernization.  

O’Malley said DOGE leaders are now making changes at the agency, and significant staff cuts have already led to system outages. Those intermittent IT outages may happen more frequently and for more extended periods of time until there is a “system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” he said.

Feature not bug I’m afraid.

That will just be from Elon and Big Balls and the boys messing around with the technology. The problem will be exacerbated by laying off the 50% of the workforce Social Security as they’ve already announced. If you don’t get your check, good luck getting anyone on the phone to report it.

Once they start finding “fraud” the fun really starts.

Update– oops, looks like he’s already on it. We’re fucked.



Middle School Dynamic

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 2, 2025

Speak up, speak out. Loudly.

Kevin Kruse offers perhaps the best summary of the Trump-Vance ambush of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week:

It’s nice how they’ve replicated the middle school dynamic of the insecure bully and his sniveling sidekick picking on someone surrounded by a circle of scared little boys who also try to talk shit so the bully doesn’t come after them.

Or as the right calls it, “masculinity.”

And on Brian Glenn, the Real America’s Voice reporter(?) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) boyfriend, Kruse adds:

And I mean that literally — he’s [Zelensky] there pleading for funds to save lives and this sniggling manchild mocks his fucking outfit

Zelenskyy's character can be judge more directly by how he treats others and whether you think he's protected his country. From what I've seen, he has treated Americans with respect. His attire is to remind people he's at war, not unlike Churchill wearing a siren suit to the White House in 1942.

— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T01:00:41.320Z

“It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war,” as the Kyiv Independent opinion page sees it. But, “The American people have not, and they should speak up.”

Please do.

The Kyiv Independent:

Let this sink in. The president of a battered Ukraine, an ally of the U.S., became the first world leader in history to be kicked out of the White House. Not a dictator, not a disgraced politician — the president of Ukraine, a country suffering from the worst invasion in the 21st century. The country that the U.S. administration swore to bring peace to.

In an ugly exchange, the president and vice president joined forces to admonish Zelensky for “not being grateful” enough for the help Ukraine was getting.

To that, Zelensky reminded them that he had thanked the American people multiple times, including earlier that day. But it appears that gratitude to the American people isn’t what Trump and Vance were looking for — they wanted him to grovel and prostrate himself in front of Trump. Kiss the ring.

For sure, Zelensky could have done a better job composing himself and restraining his reactions, but it’s fair to say that he was put in a situation he couldn’t win. If he let Trump and Vance — and apparently, it takes two of them to win a verbal argument against one non-native English speaker — continue their line of attack on Ukraine, unchecked, he would be seen as weak both at home and abroad. Weakness is something a country at war can’t afford to project

Trump did not get into a pissing match with French President Emmanuel Macron or U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the editorial notes, when they publicly corrected both Trump and Vance “on their provocative and false statements about Europe.” Macron and Starmer may be shorter than Trump but they, like North Korea’s even-shorter Kim Jong Un, possess nuclear weapons. Zelensky does not. Every interaction is a dick-measuring contest for Trump, so Zelensky is the smaller kid Trump and Vance would have picked in the schoolyard to bully.

Except underlying Trump’s and Vance’s bullying performances is this: they are the scared little boys talking shit so a bigger bully, Vladimir Putin, doesn’t come after them.

NEW: A searing editorial in the The Kyiv Independent.“It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.“A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelensky.”@kyivindependent.com

— News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T22:45:17.978Z

The Independent continues:

Trump and his government are now making sure Ukraine will lose this war. They are also choking their other allies in the process. But most importantly, they are betraying the interests of America, and making it weaker.

The tragedy is that Trump is doing it all in the name of millions of Americans who completely disagree with that and are disgusted with Trump’s line.

[…]

Americans should stand up and send their political leadership a clear message: We don’t support what you’re doing, so stop doing it in our name. We don’t want an alliance with Russia, and we don’t want a betrayal of Ukraine. And frankly, we are embarrassed.

I’ve said as much in messages to my congressman and senators (all G.O.P.). My hand is raised in protest. My flag is out.

* * * * *

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18F: Sabotage And Showboating

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 2, 2025

Musk is a dangerous phony

I created this graphic when Ramaswamy was still a part of Doge.

White House tech veteran, Waldo Jaquith, posted a Bluesky thread about what Elon Musk’s DOGE saboteurs did on Friday to a federal technology group where Jaquith once worked. We know by now (and as you read on Saturday) that Musk’s “waste, fraud, and abuse” pitch for the cameras and is as phony as Trump University.

Musk possesses “scant interest in constitutional law” and considers oversight of his operations the “dictatorship of the bureaucracy.” His goal is not to improve government or even to shrink it (the Goldilocks question) but to hobble it. So under the pretext of cutting “waste,” he is in fact destroying the government’s ability prevent his becoming … emperor, or something more like Eldon Tyrell or Peter Weyland. Musk would enjoy the comparison.

Pay attention:

18F, the federal government’s technology shop, was demolished by Musk’s team shortly after midnight. It was a cost-recoverable org, charging agencies for their expertise, using a consulting model. Its cost to government was negligible, its benefits huge. My team there once saved DoD $500 billion.

18F is *precisely* what Musk and team claim should exist within government. But when his team found it, they destroyed it, because it is evidence that government works well (can’t have that!), and because like Zelensky, 18F didn’t bend the knee.

Trump and Musk are eliminating any part of government that works well, because that undermines their thesis that government doesn’t work. GSA (which houses 18F) turns a profit as an agency. Naturally it has to be destroyed. 18F’s healthy revenue stream also means it must go.

To anybody in leadership at the state or municipal level: 18F’s destruction makes this *the perfect time* to hire experienced technologists, which you all need very badly. Most 18Fers would love to stay in public service. They are spread throughout the country. Go go go!

For any devs wondering what 18F does (did), here’s its GitHub org page, with 1,210 repos. A few were mine! All the work they did for all their agency partners was open source. Public money should produce public software, for public inspection. Those days are over, starting today.

18F

github.com

18F did two things, both for agencies that hired them to help with projects: it built software and it taught agencies how to hire & oversee vendors to build software. The former raised the bar by showing agencies what “good” looks like, the latter allowed those practices to expand sustainably.

The work that I led at 18F I naturally feel was really important (I hope all 18Fers felt the same way about their work): codifying the procurement principals that we’d all identified there over the years. I thought this would have a tiny audience. Instead it became a foundational text.

Introduction | 18F De-risking Guide

guides.18f.gov

The work I do today at @usdigitalresponse.org is simply what I did at 18F (software procurement, budgeting, and oversight), except I’m a team of one, dependent on grant funding. I have sent many an agency to 18F when they need large-scale support. But no more—I have nowhere to send them now.

Republican myth-making

I wish we could hire a bunch of 18Fers at U.S. Digital Response, but we’re a small organization, reliant on grants for funding. Heck, my position is only 3/4-time. Instead we’ll work with our state and local partners to create positions appropriation for these folks, and help to make those matches.

18F faced a lot of threats over the years. In the beginning it was mostly from within, frankly. It’s the way of digital services that they break a bunch of rules to get started. Then the threats were external. But I never thought a threat was being too effective for Republican myth-making.

I see folks asking about forking all the 18F GitHub repos so there are copies. Don’t worry, that was done at scale by multiple organizations, weeks ago, anticipating this.

“It’s chaotic, and it feels like it’s chaotic on purpose,” says a former 18F worker describing the demolition of 18F to The Atlantic (gift link). “Move fast and break things” comes to Washington like January 6 without the riot.

Matteo Wong writes:

DOGE’s actions have been widely compared to the playbook that Musk used to decimate and remake Twitter into X: The inefficiency is the point. Asking workers to resign and justify their work through scrambled, aggressive messages almost inevitably prompts exodus and collapse, voluntary or not. But another useful comparison might be to the playbook Musk follows from space programs for his company, SpaceX. Government teams, their staff, and the citizens they serve are like test launches of rocket prototypes: try a new ship design uncrewed, knowing it could well explode, and repeat. But in this case, there are people aboard.

And like everything in Trump’s career, there is a lot of myth-making involved. The gaming community seems ahead of the press in spotting the bullshit behind Musk, suggests one Bluesky poster.

So far the gaming community is really the first to comprehensively debunk the central musk myth that “what’s incredibly difficult and time-consuming for normal people is trivially easy for me” and I assume that’s partly because the consequences for that imploding elsewhere are too high

Btw even when musk talks about working around the clock it’s part of this myth, he’s just saying “oh it’s hard for you to do, but for me it’s second nature.” But like, he doesn’t work. He never learns any new skills or has breakthroughs, he just stays up all night dming rw influencers & doing drugs

Like oh you’re such a “hardcore” worker and singular genius that every tech problem is trivial? And these legacy govt computer systems are giving you fits? Why not simply become a COBOL expert faster than anyone ever has? Oh what’s that, you can’t, because you’re a charlatan & a moron

So far the gaming community is really the first to comprehensively debunk the central musk myth that "what's incredibly difficult and time-consuming for normal people is trivially easy for me" and I assume that's partly because the consequences for that imploding elsewhere are too high

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T16:29:28.416Z

Musk had been paying someone else to play Path of Exile for him to achieve the alleged high scores he bragged about. It was a lie.

“The man has more money and power than you could ever want,” says Karl Jobst in the video above, “yet he still felt compelled to lie about something so trivial.”

No wonder he gets along so well with Donald Trump. He’s an uber-rich super villain out of a Bond film.

Where’s 007 when you really need him?

* * * * *

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Elon’s Plot

Published by digby on March 1, 2025

Here is a gift link to a major new NY Times article about how Elon Musk took over the federal government. It is a doozy and I highly urge that you read it.

An excerpt:

On the last Friday of September 2023, Elon Musk dropped in about an hour late to a dinner party at the Silicon Valley mansion of the technology investor Chamath Palihapitiya.

[…]

As the night wore on, Mr. Musk held forth on the patio on a variety of topics, according to four people with knowledge of the conversation: his visit that week to the U.S.-Mexico border; the war in Ukraine; his frustrations with government regulations hindering his rocket company, SpaceX; and Mr. Ramaswamy’s highest priority, the dismantling of the federal bureaucracy.

Mr. Musk made clear that he saw the gutting of that bureaucracy as primarily a technology challenge. He told the party of around 20 that when he overhauled Twitter, the social media company that he bought in 2022 and later renamed X, the key was gaining access to the company’s servers.

Wouldn’t it be great, Mr. Musk offered, if he could have access to the computers of the federal government?

Just give him the passwords, he said jocularly, and he would make the government fit and trim.

Think about that. It was September of 2023.

Read the whole thing. I’ll have more to say about this later. Let’s just say that I’m not sure that making the government fit and trim was Elon’s real motive.