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As some day it may happen that a victim must be found

The word has gone forth that “corrupt judges” be impeached. “Corrupt” is unofficially defined among MAGA drones as any federal magistrate who impedes Musk-Trump’s rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) of the U.S. government.

Kase Wickman outlines for Vanity Fair the precipitating event behind Rep. Mike Lee’s outburst on Tuesday. It seems Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly believes this whole “DOGE” thing may be unconstitutional:

“Based on the limited record I have before me, I have some concerns about the constitutionality of U.S.D.S.’s structure and operations,” Kollar-Kotelly said Monday in a Washington Federal District Court hearing, invoking the initials of DOGE’s rarely-used government name, the U.S. DOGE Service and sidestepping the group’s legendarily dumbass meme-inspired acronym. Leaders of government agencies—which, given the power and access that DOGE has, it would appear to be—must be nominated by the president and confirmed by Congress. Musk, who has gotten access to a kajillion personnel files and other sensitive information between sending his never-ending stream of jackass tweets and ghosting on (some of) the mothers of his various offspring, did not go through this process.

To put it in terms that memelords like Musk might more easily understand: much overstep. fascist wow. many illegal. what boss. lol.

Confusion reigns among federal employees about whom to heed when the unelected, possibly unconstitutional Musk sends out jerkish directives contradicted by superiors, reaffirmed by the nominal president, and then not.

On top of Kollar-Kotelly, another judge put the brakes on DOGE on Monday (Associated Press):

A judge agreed Monday to temporarily bar two federal agencies from disclosing records containing sensitive personal information to representatives of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled that the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing people’s personal information to DOGE without their consent.

Boardman issued a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys for unions and groups representing current and former federal employees.

How dare she. Musk needs access to that information to feed into the program he’s building to automate the firing of government employees! Off with her head! And Kollar-Kotelly’s too!

They’re going after the judges

— Molly Jong-Fast (@mollyjongfast.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T12:26:38.999Z

Then there are the mass resignations plaguing the RUD (VF again):

On Tuesday, 21 DOGE employees resigned en masse, writing in an open letter addressed to Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles that they objected to being asked to “compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the letter continued. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE Service.”

In the immortal words of the Muppets, even the vegetables don’t like him.

Who installed all these women judges?

“Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator,” Joshua Fisher of the Trump White House told U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan. But the White House has been evasive about who is.

The White House needs someone to blame for Musk’s increasing bad press and growing hostility from constituents, especially in Republican districts.

Clearly, Musk gets protected by virtue of his magnificent brain and prodigious net worth. The administration needs a fall guy. Um, make that fall gal. Ta-da!

After repeatedly refusing to identify the administrator of the new Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration on Tuesday pointed to Amy Gleason, a former U.S. Digital Service official, as the operation’s acting administrator.

A White House official granted anonymity to speak openly confirmed to POLITICO that Gleason — who, according to her LinkedIn, served as a digital services expert at U.S. Digital Service during Trump’s first term and most recently worked as chief product officer at Nashville health care firm Russell Street Ventures — is helming the operation.

The White House has avoided naming the DOGE administrator for weeks. Earlier Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dodged multiple questions on the matter, saying: “I’m not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium.”

Ms. Gleason is about to discover the truth of Rick Wilson’s maxim, Everything Trump Touches Dies.

* * * * *

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In the middle of delicate negotiations, he posts this:

Complete batshit lunacy on the president's Truth Social account. Yes, he really posted this. pic.twitter.com/MaFIqUH1r0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 26, 2025

Tell me he isn’t suffering from extreme delusions of grandeur.

Between the gutting of the Intelligence community and the FBI and the crude, dismissive way he’s dealing with the Palestinians, it will be a miracle if we don’t have a catastrophic terrorist attack.

Jesus H. Christ:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday floated the idea of replacing a visa program for foreign investors with a so-called “gold card” that could be bought for $5 million as a route to American citizenship.

Trump told reporters he will replace the “EB-5” immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors of large sums of money that create or preserve U.S. jobs to become permanent residents, with a so-called “gold card.”

“We are going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said. “We are going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million,” he added.

“It’s going to give you green card privileges plus its going to be a route to (American) citizenship, and wealthy people would be coming into our country by buying this card,” Trump said, adding that details about the scheme will come out in two weeks.

I honestly have no words except Jesus H. Christ.

Trump added it is possible Russian oligarchs could qualify for the gold cards, when asked by a journalist if those people would be eligible. “Yeah, possibly. Hey. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people,” he said.

I’ll bet he does.

I’m sorry. It’s time for a shot.

The real impact of DOGE isn't going to be seen in macroeconomic variables because pretending you've made massive savings is not the same thing as actually making massive savings.

But a microeconomic lens yields the more important insight… (1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/Ap7o8Wc92y

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) February 25, 2025

Let's use that microeconomic lens and look line-by-line at what DOGE is doing. In each case, the key issue is whether the benefit exceeds the cost. And in dozens of cases Elon is creating huge costs for very little benefit. pic.twitter.com/1MXlBFwibN

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) February 25, 2025

I thought that was a nice succinct rundown of the actual economics of Musk’s trainwreck. Unsurprisingly, they will not end up benefiting Americans in either the short or the long term. He didn’t even mention the cutting off of scientific and medical research funds which will actively cause suffering and death. And I won’t be surprised to see them get rid of any kind of credible data collection and analysis by the government, including the economic data the markets rely upon, which means the world will end up flying blind.

They are not doing this to save money or create efficiency. Why would Musk care about that? They are doing it to create openings for people like him (and Trump) to privatize the government and personally profit. They may actually believe that they are better at everything and that it might end up benefiting the peasants in the long run. (It won’t.) But never think that’s their primary motivation. They want to get rid of regulations, cut taxes and take over the necessary functions of the government at a profit.

Michelle Goldberg on the appointment of the internet troll Dan Bongino to be the second in command of the FBI. Oh boy:

In writing about our country’s rapid self-immolation, I try to ration Hannah Arendt references, lest every column be about the ways “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951, foreshadows the waking nightmare that is this government. But contemplating Bongino’s ascension, it’s hard to avoid the famous Arendt quote, “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” Trump could have found a smoother and more sophisticated ideologue to help him transform the F.B.I. into a tool of his will, perhaps someone from the Claremont Institute ready to put an erudite spin on authoritarianism. He wanted the jacked-up hothead.

This administration professes a devotion to merit-based hiring, blaming diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for fostering mediocrity. It should go without saying, however, that excellence is of little interest to the Trumpists, who delight in scandalizing a meritocracy that spurned them. Writing of the conditions in which both Hitler and Stalin arose, Arendt described a spirit of deep, corrosive cynicism and nihilistic glee at the inversion of old standards. “It seemed revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity upon which the existing society seemed to rest,” she wrote. Sound familiar?

Does it ever.

She describes our current moment as an interregnum where “Trump and his coterie are laying the foundation for autocracy but have yet to fully consolidate their power” and I think that’s right. The problem is that while we can see what’s happening, there’s still a part of us that believes it’s unthinkable. It’s thinkable. The appointment of Patel and Bongino to run America’s powerful national police force shows just how fragile the system that’s keeping us from finally tipping over really is.

Today’s newsletter by Dan Pfeiffer on how to make the GOP pay for this insanity:

I have seen this movie before, beat for beat.

In August of 2010, in the middle of the effort to pass the Affordable Care Act, Congress went home for a month-long recess. At every townhall and interaction with their constituents, they were bombarded with complaints from voters angry about the pending health care bill. Democrats were shaken. The process slowed as the party brainstormed a response to this backlash. More importantly, a media narrative was born. The Affordable Care Act became polarizing — something to fear. Previously, most Americans paid little attention to the arcane efforts towards health care reform. They learned about it from news coverage of people angrily screaming about the dangers of the bill.

We’ve since learned that much of that energy was “astro-turfed” by Republican groups funded by Right Wing billionaires like the Kochs and the Tea Party Movement. It was as much about the election of a Black president as it was the size and scope of government.

The angry townhalls are back. This time, voters are furious about the chaotic, clumsy, and counter-productive cuts from Elon Musk’s DOGE Commission.

I can guarantee that there has been no astroturfing of these. They are 100% organic grassroots.

Pfeiffer has some ideas about the growing alarm among average citizens:

Democrats need to channel and communicate this dissatisfaction. Back in 2017 when Trump was trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, there were several efforts to organize attendance at GOP townhalls — oftentimes this meant simply publicizing the details of when and where the townhalls were being held. I have no doubt that many of the same Democratic groups that did this in 2017 are doing it again, but this is priority number one. We need support from the highest echelons of the Democratic Party as well as media personalities with platforms.

He points out that Republicans eventually stopped having town halls at all and that means the Democrats have to start having them. He writes:

Democratic presidential hopefuls (of which there are many) should go to places where the DOGE cuts are most impactful like Atlanta, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina and hold townhalls. They should be real townhalls. Open invitation. Don’t pack the crowd with supporters. Prepare for uncomfortable conversations and protestors. The drama will draw coverage and conversation. Lean into the risk.

Yes! Lean into the risk! Get attention and have some faith that if you are in the right people will see that.

He also makes the point that it’s important to be specific about what’s happening. Some of us are moved by paeans to “democracy” but most people need to see what these freaks are doing in detail and often how it affects real people. Using that list in the graph above can help people focus on specific issues. But he warns that people (including politicians) should concentrate on the issues they feel most passionately about and not sound like they’re parroting polling,

He also makes the case that we should center Musk, who people like even less than Trump. (People have heard the complaints about Trump for a decade already.) Musk is an attention magnet and attention is now the currency of the political realm, for better or worse.

All of this sounds reasonable to me but I suspect there has not yet been enough carnage to really get people’s full attention. But it’s coming. And we should be prepared for it.

On the heels of Musk’s inane email to all federal workers over the weekend, telling them to respond with 5 bullet points justifying their work week or get fired, there’s this. It should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”

The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.

[…]

All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service.

This is just creepy:

The day after Trump’s inauguration, the staffers wrote, they were called into a series of interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of Musk’s’ Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors’ badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving government technology.

“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the staffers wrote in their letter. “This process created significant security risks.”

Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off. The firings dealt a devastating blow to the government’s ability to administer and safeguard its own technological footprint, they wrote.

“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.” Those who remained, about 65 staffers, were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort. About a third of them quit Tuesday.

“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”

What’s up with those who are left, I wonder? Are they dedicated to being “guardrails” or are they on board with the dumpster fire? I guess it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that we are very vulnerable right now to a catastrophic failure at the hands of Musk and his little DOGE bros. Look at them in the picture above. Those are the people handling the private data of every American.

Trust ’em?

These people clearly don’t and I suspect they know what they’re talking about. Musk thinks he’s running one of his own companies.

Just FYI: Tesla has about 125,000 employees worldwide, X has about 2800 and Space X has about 13,000. (By contrast, Amazon employs about 1.6 million, Walmart employs over 2.1 million.) Does running those companies give Musk any special insight into how to run the most complex institution in the world– the U.S. Government?

No. The man is a rich megalomaniac and the moron who has empowered him thinks that he is a genius because his uncle taught at MIT. People like that are the reason why legal roadblocks have been constructed to keep this much power out of the hands of such individuals. Sadly, nobody ever contemplated that a president would be so criminally reckless that he would simply ignore the law and put the whole country at risk.

I had no idea how much people loathed the elderly until recently when I saw a lot of comments like that during the pandemic. Even now, you’ll hear echoes of it when people point out that at least a third of Medicaid spending is for people in nursing homes. (I won’t even mention the way even decent, liberal minded people casually and crudely insult old people in regular conversation.) Let’s just say there isn’t much respect, much less simple human empathy, for people over 65 in America.

I hope every American will be lucky enough to be a billionaire when they get old, (or are lucky enough to die young) because being dependent on people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk to uphold programs you depend on is no way to live. And I’m not honestly not sure anymore that a majority of this country would object all that strenuously to ending them.

"Ruh roh", to quote Scooby Doo, on how Americans view the economy.

-Just 20% view it as excellent or good. Worse than at any pt during Trump's 1st term.

-"Yikes": 59% say the economy is getting worse… Worse than at any pre-covid pt during Trump's 1st term.

Danger territory. pic.twitter.com/MF38TDpAm8

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) February 24, 2025

I don’t know exactly why people are saying this but it may validate my hypothesis that the “bad economy” vibe is actually a proxy for simple bad vibes. In other words when the country feels unstable people attribute it to a bad economy, even when their own finances are pretty good.

People are right to be nervous about the economy right now. Inflation is up and Trump’s tariffs and mass layoffs of federal workers/contractors are looming threats. But these results suggest something more I think. And I think it’s the same thing that doomed Harris in November: bad vibes about the rise of chaos, instability and violence in our political culture. And some of the people voted for Trump because of them simply didn’t understand where those bad vibes were actually coming from. It wasn’t the price of eggs.

What did you do to fight fascism, Nana?

No one is coming to save you.

Certainly not Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). The House minority leader appeared Monday night on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show. Maddow noted that people are desperate for Democrats to “fight harder, to not be nice, to break protocol,” get arrested even. To lead the resistance. She tried but couldn’t draw a flicker of passion from the technocratic Jeffries. Quizzed on what Democrats are doing to fight the Musk-Trump cabal, Jeffries presented as if guest-hosting “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

“It’s all hands on deck in the Congress. It’s all hands on deck in the courts. And it’s certainly all hands on deck in communities across the country,” Jeffries, 54, insisted in a tone that was anything but insistent.

Like many older Democrats in his caucus who learned their politics decades ago (and stopped learning), Jeffries brings the wrong skill set to the job of fighting Musk-Trump’s efforts to cut up the republic like a stolen car in a chop-shop.

The growing resistance is very grassroots, Maddow observed, very organic and bottom-up.

“But what they are trying to push up and push forward is you and your colleagues,” she prodded, “to try to further empower you and further inspire you … to find new tactics, to find new avenues, to find new leverage.” Jeffries’s reply was flatter than Peter Cook’s homily on “Mawwage.”

Jeffries posted the video to YouTube as though proud of it.

“Democrats in Congress are growing rattled by the historic flood of calls from their grassroots supporters demanding they do more to combat the Trump administration,” Axios reports:

What we’re hearing: At a closed-door meeting of House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee on Monday, members voiced frustration with activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible that have facilitated thousands of calls to members’ offices, according to several lawmakers who were present.

• “There were a lot of people who were like, ‘We’ve got to stop the groups from doing this’ … people are concerned that they’re saying we’re not doing enough, but we’re not in the majority,” said one member.
• “People are pissed,” said a senior House Democrat who was also at the meeting, adding that Jeffries himself is “very frustrated.”
• A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday

No one is coming to save you.

Common Cause writes this morning that if you couldn’t get through to your representatives in Congress recently, it’s because the phone lines are jammed (that’s why my fallback is an efax). Common Cause has this ask:

Together, we’re asking our leaders: What are you going to do to stop Elon Musk and Donald Trump from stripping our government for parts?

Republicans are, unsurprisingly, going along with their heist – though if you ask them what they think when a camera isn’t rolling, many aren’t 100% bought in. But unfortunately, Democrats aren’t doing enough either – and while some are waking up, we’re in a full-blown crisis, and it’s time they started acting like it.

That’s why Common Cause has launched our Fire Elon Musk campaign – because every day lawmakers wait to act is another day these billionaires get closer to putting a “Going Out of Business” sign on our democracy so they can sell it off to the highest bidder.

And our pressure is clearly working. Earlier this month, you helped force the Trump Administration to walk back their draconian freeze on federal aid – Trump’s first major political defeat of his second term.

Make no mistake, Tom: Elon Musk failed. Donald Trump failed. And you won. Their tyrannical playbook is no match for YOU, and for the people powered movement we’re building together.

[…]

The first and most important thing to remember is that no matter how our opponents want to pretend they are kings, or corporate executives whose only duty is to increase their profits – we’re still a democracy, end of story.

So, we won’t accept Congress rubber stamping Trump’s nominees and his divisive agenda while he lets Elon Musk turn our federal government into his personal playground.

You can join the fight or be political roadkill.

No one is coming to save you.

* * * * *

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