Tuesday Tabs
- Via Reuters: Senior U.S. prosecutor resigns, citing demands to open probe into Biden-era contract.
- Via Reuters: Exclusive: FDA staff reviewing Musk’s Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say.
- Via Politico: Ukraine balks at signing Trump deal to hand over its mineral wealth.
- Via Wired: No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits.
- Via Axios: Musk is not a DOGE employee and “has no actual or formal authority,” WH says. Nonetheless, he is a special advisor to Trump and is clearly being given wide latitude to act. (To me the headline and the contents of the piece are kind of at odds with one another).
- Quite a bit more context and explanation from emptywheel: Why Elon Musk Can’t Run DOGE [sic] Anymore. Kudos for the sic.
- Even more from Politico: Who’s in charge of DOGE? Not Elon Musk, White House says.
That explanation, provided to a federal court by Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House’s Office of Administration, seems to directly contradict the way President Donald Trump and Musk have spoken publicly about the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, widely seen as a Musk-driven project to shrink and dismantle key aspects of the federal government.
The sworn statement instead deepens the questions surrounding DOGE. Fisher confirmed that Musk is not the official administrator of the office, which was established by Trump as an office in the Executive Office of the President. But Fisher did not indicate who the administrator actually is.
The technical designation does not mean Musk is not, for all practical purposes, the key decision-maker for DOGE, which has been staffed full of his allies and may still ultimately be fueled by his influence in the White House. Musk has eagerly touted DOGE’s work, described his influence over its operations and appeared alongside Trump to talk about its mission.
Trump himself has credited Musk with leading DOGE.
- Via Politico: GOP flinches at Musk cuts. Cool. Cool cool. But how about more than “warnings” and private expressions of concern?
- Amanda Marcotte in Salon: “Hitler actually had some decent points”: Musk’s covert coup is guided by internet trolls. The piece really does a good job of running down the degree to which Musk is very much driven by meme and Twitter-based cheerleaders. And she makes a great point about the youth angle:
Their youth is alarming not because they lack experience — which will thankfully make it harder for them to figure out how to execute Musk’s supervillain-style plans — but because of what it suggests about Musk’s strategy. Young people tend to be more naive and are probably starstruck by their celebrity boss. Such people are easier to lure into committing direct crimes, so they incur legal liability instead of Musk. It’s easy to see how young men, drunk on memeified far-right politics and the cloak-and-dagger excitement of hacking into government offices, might not see how they’re taking serious risks with their futures by playing illegal games.
There’s a Simpsons ep where Mr. Burns has a canary registered as the legal owner of the plant. Homer lets it fly off, and has Burns name him as legal owner, as a patsy when the authorities come.
It’s come to adopting the school of management of a satirical TV show…
I wonder (and hope) all these resigning prosecutors have downloaded all kinds of documentation to protect themselves. They would be naive to believe that their resignations are the end of the retributions.
@Scott: Certainly possible. It’s also possible that the Trumpists think “what a loser, we don’t need to worry about her any more”.
I think many writers, including Marcotte are missing the forest by being obsessed with trees.
The complaint that Musk wasn’t elected does not matter to voters. “He’s doing what Trump said! He’s clearing out waste and fraud and illegal payments! He’s draining the swamp! Who cares about the details, thats what I voted for!” is their thought process.
This argument goes nowhere politically. Thing is, it’s all a damned lie.
All of it probably adds up to maybe 1 percent of spending. But We’re Doing Things! They are things that don’t help, and hurt a lot of people while not helping cut the budget.
They aren’t ending fraud. As one of the fired IG’s said, “If there were fraud at that level, we’d know about it.” Of course, they are slandered as criminals and participants.
They aren’t slowing down the flow of illegal immigrants.
They aren’t doing shit. It’s all theater. I say put Musk front and center. The more people see of him, the less they will probably like him. Musk wants them to suffer. Musk wants them to work 120 hours a week. He thinks that’s virtuous.
@Kathy: I cannot imagine that the Judge is entertained by an affidavit that carefully explains that Musk is not in charge and even more carefully fails to answer the most obvious next question – who is? I would not want to be the lawyer presenting this. Especially when the Judge asks the lawyer point blank, who is? And the lawyer can’t answer the question.
@Joe:
I suppose the worst possible answer if/when the judge asks who’s in charge, would be “I don’t know. I ‘ll have to ask.”
But I suppose they’ll come equipped with an obscure name, like Homer Canary Burns.
@Jay L Gischer:
It’s going to take time for people to catch on. Many never will, because they believe whatever trumpshit comes out of the felon’s orifice.
the damage to the functioning of the various agencies will take time to manifest itself. First there will be stories about excessive use of overtime, probably with disputes about overtime pay. Then we’ll have to wait and see.
@Jay L Gischer:
Except for all the firings, cancelled contracts, and such.
Or am I misunderstanding you?
Josh Marshall has a good opinion post over at TPM about the whiz kids musk is using. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-this-why-musk-keeps-using-the-same-dozen-tech-micro-bros-for-each-takeover
@Steven L. Taylor: I took that as meaning they are not actually saving anyone any money, nor are they “finding fraud.”
They are enacting huge amounts of pain and destroying entire departments, yes–but are not accomplishing any of their “goals”.
@Jen:
Sorry to disagree, but I think “huge amounts of pain and destroying entire departments” are, in fact, the goals of the exercise.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Fair.
How about “publicly stated goals”?
@Jen: I appreciate you putting goals in quotes. good to point out that, as always with Republicans, their stated goals have little to do with their actual goals.
ETA – I typed while you posted. Now I remember why timestamps on comments were handy.
@Jay L Gischer:
Many espoused this strategy with regard to Trump. It didn’t pan out as successfully as they had hoped. Obviously.
The amusing thing, when you look at MAGA rejoicing on Xitter and elsewhere, is their cnviction that the DOGE-ery is fully justified by the deficit and debt, by Deep State/elite corruption, and by vast fraud by a welfare claimants. With Musk as disinterested instrument of Trump in remedying these things.
And that it shall be vindicated by massive budget savings that will enable a balanced budget, a strong defence (that no longer “pays for NATO”), the end of the “oppressive woke state”, the purging of the corruption of Washington, the protection of their benefits while the “undeserving” are punished, lower taxes, low inflation, high paying jobs for the “worthy”, protection of “traditional values”, etc.
And cheap eggs.
Ana pony!
Given that so far even the Muskolytes nonsense have found virtually no actual fraud, and minimal savings, I wonder what the reaction will be when Father Christmas, in fact, fails to turn up?
Doubtless a Republican Congress will continue to be fiscally irresponsible.
But sooner or later the bond markets are going to turn nasty.
Sooner if Trump f@cks about with the Fed, and protectionism reduces the global ability to earn dollars and therefore park them in US assets,including Treasury bonds.
Getting high on power is all very well.
But the hangover tends to be an utter bastard.
@Steven L. Taylor: Yeah, you are misunderstanding me. The things you say are real. They just don’t address the problems that he says they are addressing. That’s what makes it all theater.
Actors in a theater or a movie do real things. They say things. They do things. Sometimes there are explosions. Every once in a while, they derail a whole train. AND, it’s all lies, meant to entertain, and in that case, it’s expected that everyone understands that its fake.
So “theater” involves real things and it involves lies. That’s what I’m getting at.
And the kind of language I’m using to describe it is the kind of language I would use with the people who I grew up with who would understand that I wasn’t saying that the firings were a lie, and so on. I do this as an example of the kind of rhetoric that I think would be effective.
And if they are confused, you can clarify that the harm done is real, but it is done for very little effect, which I think is a great punch line.
@DeD: Do you think, given what you have seen, that Musk is even one tenth as good a communicator/liar/con-man as Trump?
I don’t.
@JohnSF: Exactly. All this drama won’t do beans about balancing the budget. Nor will backing out of NATO. It’s budget-cutting porn. You know, it’s like how porn is usually sex without any of the other human qualities that are usually associated with sex.
@Jay L Gischer:
One driving purpose of Trumpism is to soothe the wounded egos of mediocre white men.
So symbolic acts of cruelty and insult are important to them, even when they seem inexplicable to ordinary people.
@Chip Daniels: I wouldn’t say you are wrong. That is definitely a way to motivate certain people.
AND, I would not be surprised that when we get to the point where we are staring the debt limit in the face, Trump will declare that he has eliminated all the waste and fraud that exists in the government, and that they will just have to raise the debt limit.
I mean, he’s going to declare victory at some point, right? While leaving himself wiggle room to threaten to chop people’s funding if they don’t play ball. And, you know, vote to raise the debt limit.
Trump is not a team player, we know that by now. He wanted the elimination of the debt limit last December and didn’t get it. Do you think he forgot about that?
@Jay L Gischer:
Not to mention the teensy detail that the debt limit ultimately depends on the debt markets.
And said markets are international.
And Trump is taking an axe to the basis of the post-1945 (or possibly post-1971, depending on p.o.v.) international trading system, and thus, ultimately, the financial system.
The 1920’s and the 2020’s?.
“First as tragedy, then as farce” as someone once said.
@JohnSF:
Based on what I’ve seen from Jack and others, denial that he didn’t show. You’re just lying about it.
@JohnSF:
I can totally imagine the rapist sending ships to Japan to force them to buy US treasuries.
China’s been selling theirs for a while, though not dumping them, to finance belt and road initiatives. It would be ironic if they dumped the few hundred billions they still hold to finance the aid to low income countries the US no longer wants to provide.
Mad Vlad won’t be able to afford much. The Saudis could buy lots, but why should they? Unless they can use them as leverage on the felon, they won’t sink money on securities that are neither good nor safe.
Then there are lots and lots of treasuries held by institutional investors (brokerages and banks and pension funds), and individuals. Imagine a large portion of them selling off before yields fall off a cliff. This didn’t happen even during the first trump pandemic.
A run on a bank might not be catastrophic, because deposits are backstopped by federal deposit insurance. Who insures against a run on the Treasury?
@Jay L Gischer:
Indeed, he is not; however, you’re focusing on Musk’s… impalability, if you will, and not on the electorate and enablers in the House and Senate who cheer on this fuckery. He’ll continue to be popular as long as Trump says he’s popular.
@Kathy:
He might try.
The Japanese Navy may not be what it was in the 1930’s, but it could still inflict a nasty bite.
Not to mention doing so would make the US a full-on rogue state.
Japan-China alliance?
AUKCH?
@JohnSF:
Yeah, MAGA seems to have no idea that US economic success is largely attributed to its population, geographical size, and stability. The first two do not matter much without the third. Indiscriminately wielding a chainsaw inside the central government is bad for stability. Especially when those wielding the chainsaws are adolescents who think they are playing Doom, being supervised by a guy who appears to spend a good bit of his work day scrolling Twitter.
They do have a legitimate gripe, because they have not shared in the prosperity that economic success out to bring for a hegemon. Or, I should say, they would have a legitimate gripe if they did not consistently vote against their own economic interests.
Now, let me be clear. I am not arguing that their voting pattern is necessarily irrational. If they chose to take an ethical stand on abortion, or religious commitments, or guns or whatever, fine. However, to then blame the Dems for their economic plight is the point where rationality ends.
First, then they attempt to insulate themselves from the economic consequences from their moral stand, it cheapens the stand itself.
Second, they made those electoral decisions while claiming they are also standing for personal responsibility. That is a bit too much hypocrisy for me to swallow.
The sense of entitlement they display and then claim exclusively for themselves is astounding. Moreover, it is in direct contradiction with their sacred religious texts. (Oh, and the rights model that forms the basis for the founding documents. But they are patriotic. See? They hang a flag on their porch.)
Third, they simultaneously claim that America is no longer great and that woke Leftists are denigrating their history. And that is after spending the last 70 years getting angry at anyone who dares point out that America has failed to live up to its stated ideals.
No moral compass. No reasoning skills. No consistency. Willing docility via media diet, but they blame fluoridated water.
Madness.
@gVOR10:..ETA – I typed while you posted. Now I remember why timestamps on comments were handy.
I have tried to note the time on posts that I make. Not always successful.
I’m sure that the moderators had good reason to eliminate timestamps.
Comment posted Tue. Feb. 18 2025 8:03pm cst
@JohnSF:
We know how the rapist loves the worst XIX Century methods and practices.
Japan has several attack submarines, all of them diesel electric, or plain electric. Form what little I know, these are really quiet and very hard to detect with passive sonar.
@Kurtz:
One big selling point for strongman rule is stability. History argues otherwise. The only thing you can count on is who’s going to be at the top. everything else is secondary to that.
BTW for an example of the disasters that are possible when rule by misinformation, ideology, and ignorance takes hold, I refer to the ironically named Great Leap Forward in Mao’s China. While Mao was boasting of record harvests, which didn’t exist, per Wikipedia “The shortage of supply clashed with an explosion in demand, leading to millions of deaths from severe famine.”
That little experiment in misrule lasted four years, too.