Category: DOGE

The Trump 2.0 Butcher’s Bill . . . Thus Far

Michael Matheron1 Comment

Courtesy of today’s Talking Points Memo, this list is but a partial list of the Trumpskrieg we have witnessed after but two months of his term:

“Breaking New Ground In Lawlessness

President Trump late Sunday night purported to invalidate Joe Biden’s pardons of members of the House Jan. 6 committee.

Trump Targets Yet Another Major Law Firm

On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked as wildly unconstitutional President Trump’s executive order targeting the Perkins Coie law firm. On Saturday, the president issued a similar executive order targeting Paul Weiss, a major NYC-based law firm.

Appeals Court Allows Trump To Enforce DEI EOs

In a case out of Maryland, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling that blocked two of President Trump’s executive orders banning DEI while the case was on appeal. Under the ruling, the executive orders will remain in place as the appeal proceeds.

Trump Purports To Shutter VOA

NPR’s David Folkenflik on the carnage at Voice of America and other government broadcasters as President Trump’s Friday night executive order began to take effect.

The Destruction

  • President Trump’s executive order targeting VOA also purported to dismantle six other federal agencies:
    • Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
    • Woodrow Wilson Center
    • Institute of Museum and Library Services
    • United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
    • Community Development Financial Institutions Fund
    • Minority Business Development Agency
  • WaPo: “Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website, part of a broader effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its online presence.”
  • KFF Health News: “National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications, two researchers said, in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research.”
  • NIH has taken down a portrait of Anthony Fauci.

The Purges

  • NNSA: DOGE cuts hit nuclear scientists, bomb engineers and safety experts
  • Bureau of Reclamation: Nearly 400 agency workers have been cut by the Trump administration.

Doge Watch

  • ProPublica: Who’s Running the DOGE Wrecking Machine: The World’s Richest Man or a Little-Known Bureaucrat?
  • Wired: Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’
  • NYT: Antonio Gracias, a private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants, has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration.

Trump II Abroad: The March Of Folly

  • Ukraine: U.S. withdraws from multinational group investigating responsibility for Russia’s invasion.
  • South Africa: Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, persona non grata, forcing the him to be recalled the day after Breitbart reported comments the envoy had made about Trump, MAGA, and white supremacism.
  • Gaza: The U.S. and Israel have contacted officials from Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somaliland to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for Palestinians forcibly expelled from Gaza under a possible Trump administration plan.”

We Told You So, No. 002

Michael Matheron1 Comment

This is the second in what will be a regular feature (see our first post here). It’s based upon what is known as the original position fallacy:

A situation in which a character promotes an action, revolution or social system that harms or will harm other people, under the assumption that it will not harm them. They will invariably discover that they were wrong, with the double whammy of knowing they supported the measure that caused their suffering when they thought it would happen to ‘somebody else’

This, of course, was predictable for the average MAGA voter, they were warned many times that Trump & Company had no true regard for their own supporters (except their mega wealthy cabal). Cheering on all of Trump’s plans the MAGA crowd were looking forward to the firing huge swathes of our federal workforce according to the Project 2025 playbook. And without thought of consequences these MAGAs failed to take notice that there are many MAGA adherents in that federal workforce. Thinking things through is not one of the characteristics of the entire MAGA movement, from top to bottom.

So, now, just seven weeks into the Re-Trumping of America, thousands of federal workers have been summarily laid off and RIFed. Those MAGAs who have been directly or indirectly harmed by this have learned the lesson of the original position fallacy. And more lessons will be forthcoming to MAGAs who disproportionately rely on programs being axed by the GOP/MAGA, for instance, Medicaid, administration interference with Social Security and Medicare, and the decimation of the Veterans Administration.

So, here’s is today’s example of buyer’s regret, courtesy of Twitter/X poster Tim Hannon’s retweet of a February 6th cris de coeur from MAGA town:

Rumors of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Death are Premature

Michael Matheron1 Comment

Edgar Rice Burroughs, acclaimed author of 26 Tarzan books, is apparently still collecting social security benefits. Or so said Elon Musk, megamind leader of DOGE, during a joint presser with Trump. Burroughs was born 1875 which puts him at the very ripe age of 175. Explaining that DOGE discovered many 175-year-olds are also receiving monthly checks, he informed:

“There’s crazy things, like, just a cursory examination of Social Security and we’ve got people in there that are about 150 years old . . . Now, do you know anyone that’s 150? I don’t. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, they’re missing out.”

Here’s the true story, however, that Musk and his twenty-something mini megaminds did not know because they have done, it seems, zero research about the SSA database. As reported by Daily Kos:

“Reports say that his group at DOGE is made up of fairly young people.  What those kids don’t realize is that Social Security uses VERY OLD computers.  They’re programmed with an old version of the programming language COBOL.

A bit of history.  On May 20, 1875 a bunch of countries got together to create the International Bureau of Weight and Measures which established uniform standards of mass and length.  Later on, the Bureau established rules for dates as well.  The dates standard used a starting date of May 20 1875 to honor the creation of the Bureau. Old versions of COBOL use that date as a baseline.  Social Security’s computers use that old version. Dates are stored as the number of days AFTER May 20 1875.

So what happens if Social Security doesn’t know a birthdate?  That field is empty in its records.  Thus that person appears to have a birthday of May 20 1875—about 150 years ago. That’s why the crack team of youngsters Musk uses found 150-year-old people in Social Security getting benefits.  It’s all really as simple—and as stupid—as that.

You’d think that those bright MAGAheads would notice that ALL those 150 year olds have THE SAME BIRTHDAY:  May 20, 1875. But they didn’t.  Genius Elon Musk didn’t.  And, of course, STABLE GENIUS Donald Trump didn’t either.”

Mr. Burroughs could not be reached for comment.

MUSK EMAIL

Michael Matheron1 Comment

DOGE-Master Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to federal employees on February 25th saying in a post on his social media platform X that federal employees – untold millions of them – must respond to an email justifying the work they completed this week or resign.

Being the good sport that he is Musk submitted his own list as an example of a “good week'”:

Five things I did this week to justify my federal job to myself:

Installed invisible puppet strings on Trump
Introduced neurolink biochips into Trump’s Diet Cokes
Ignored two of my children’s health crises because…..well….I was busy working
Cut myself shaving with my CPAC honorary gold chainsaw
Declared Trump a Non Player Character in my new video game