Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

is there a historical analog for Musk's meddling in the U.S. gov't? I mean, we've had advisors who were foreign-born obviously, but they tended to hold actual cabinet posts (Weinberger, Brzeziński, Albright ) and I guess John Maynard Keynes was a kind of advisor to FDR... but Musk is like a straight-up Rasputin! (tho at least Rasputin was an actual Russian)

Kissinger

xp My husband got his, thank goodness. I was worried about it since we need it for the rent this month.

Our divisions share point site was down this morning g due to not complying with whatever EO about gender. Our ftp site that is used by the public is also down

wonder how Musk feels about all these new gender-oriented regulations?

Actually I don't really give a shit what he thinks

xxp I thought of Kissinger as well but he was primarily a foreign policy dude not involved in domestic shit

he still made a huge impression on US inter/national politics for someone who wasn't born here

absolutely, especially with China policy

Trayce ilu and you know that but please (for me?) stop invoking the gun stuff

Fair point. I'm extremely anti gun as it happens. I just find this all flabbergasting :(

So the tariffs were rolled back and Rubio said many of USAID’s programs will continue under the state department. (Which ones? Does this mean people in Africa will not be denied the medical and food assistance they’ve come to rely on?)

It seems like they are jerking us around a lot.

They’re doing horrible things, no doubt, but it’s not exactly clear what is really happening.

So the tariffs were rolled back

apparently this had more to do with the Dow Jones plunge than any assurances from our border neighbors

The fuck did he expect would happen to the dow jones

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

i submit that the issue with Elon's role is that he's an unelected fascist barging around government offices where he has no business being, issuing orders and doing untold damage to all kinds of systems and people's lives. really not sure why his foreign birth should enter into it tbh.

it’s like a bunch of 13 year olds decide to trick out their dad’s car and just unscrew parts of the engine that look dumb or ugly but have no idea what they’re for or how an engine works
“this part is weird, it looks stupid”
CLANG
“uhh thats the alternator? you need that for electricity?”
“this is a CAR not an electric vehicle NERD”
etc

the important nuance: the car is actually a bus loaded with people and is traveling at top speed

Musk and Trump are definitely fans of Speedspeed.

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

You should stop trying, then. He's stupid, ignorant (of politics, history, and economics), and sliding into dementia. You could spend your time trying to figure out how to break down the correct percentages of each of those elements as factors in any one thing he does, but it all adds up to a combination of the three, so who gives a fuck?

Not going to link it because it is too annoying, but the lead story at the NYT right now is about Musk and his “blitz,” and how it is “shaking” Washington. It barely quotes any critics at all, and doesn’t even allow that there may be some legal and constitutional issues around all of this until about the 40th paragraph. I know that complaining about the New York Times is pretty much pointless, but it is still a little jaw-dropping how quiescent the coverage is.

Just read it. Idk. It described what he is doing and why it is illegal and destructivr.

You have to go deep into the story to get to this paragraph, which has almost no follow-up or quotes from the critics:

Mr. Musk’s actions have astounded and alarmed Democrats and government watchdog groups. They question if Mr. Musk is breaching federal laws that give Congress the final power to create or eliminate federal agencies and set their budgets, require public disclosure of government actions and prohibit individuals from taking actions that might benefit themselves personally.

It would be much better reporting if they bothered to actually document how and why he could be breaching specific laws. Instead it's just, "some people have questions."

susan collins supporting gabbard. idk if she has concerns tho

gabbard gabbard hey
gabbard we accept you

it’s not exactly clear what is really happening

There's a man with a doge over there

Rich people speakin their minds/
Getting so much resistance from the woke mind virus

Everybody look who's bowing down

Who let the doge out?

lol

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/americas/el-salvador-migrant-deal-marco-rubio-intl-hnk/index.html

In addition, Bukele “has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of US citizenship and legal residents,” Rubio said.

Bukele confirmed the agreement on X, saying in a post, “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”

President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within, according to three people briefed on its contents.

The draft order acknowledges that only Congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal issues.

That work is underway already. The new administration has been trying to reduce the workforce by putting scores of employees on administrative leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit.

And roughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post.

At least some DOGE staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, the people said, including a financial aid dataset that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.

many xposts to raymond - i apologize for being snappy earlier today! i was feeling very agitated about....well, you know. but i'm sorry to have acted in that way

Ugh, I know someone at the Department of Education and someone at USAid, so folks just proclaiming how stupid Musk and Trump are doesn't exactly help folks at those agencies with bills to pay and families to feed. I get your points, but despite those guys flaws they are causing serious real woes.

Yeah I don't think Musk got to where he is by being a total idiot, his public proclamations notwithstanding.

I think he's just absorbed a Trumpian "All publicity is good publicity" mindset. Both of them have zero qualms about saying objectively stupid things because they know they will 1. get covered, and 2. piss off people they dislike. What else is there?

I'm trying to make some kind of analogy where the media is a railroad track, and Elon Musk is a train, and every day people are tied up and left on the tracks, and every day the locomotive shows up wrapped in a different groyper meme. There's a lot to dislike about the situation, even before you realize that the Musk meme train is filled with stormtroopers commuting to work on the Death Star.

many xposts to raymond - i apologize for being snappy earlier today! i was feeling very agitated about....well, you know. but i'm sorry to have acted in that way

― z_tbd, Tuesday, February 4, 2025 12:06 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

All good! This is a supremely stressful time for everyone.

Doge is the Wagner Group of the administration and Musk is its Prigozhin. Hopefully he has a similar fate in his timeline.

Apologies if this has already been shared here

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-legal-challenges-trump-administration-actions/

Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and a physician who has been on the fence about Mr. Kennedy, cast the deciding vote, after days of publicly agonizing over what to do. The final tally was split along party lines: 14 Republicans voted yes, and all 13 Democrats opposed him.

So full senate vote coming soon after committee vote. "publicly agonizing"...

i hope there aren't any national health problems during the next 4+ years

Cassidy got assurances there wouldn't be.

the purpose of any government, when you strip it all the way down to the essentials, is to protect the people from harm and provide a system of "justice".

just thought i'd throw that out there. sometimes i completely forget because it seems like their purpose is the exact opposite

so...anyone have any good resources on how to protect my own and my baby's health with an empowered rfk?

I'm getting every vaccination available to me over the next 1-2 months (Pneumococcal, Shingles, TDAP, and MMR). Also stocking up on the usual COVID supplies... quality KN95 masks, latex gloves, hand sanitizer. If bird flu hits, I don't want to be scrambling for that stuff.

The assistant commissioner of a division of the General Services Administration told staff early this week that layoffs across the federal government are “likely” after the deferred resignation offer expires Thursday, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post — the sharpest move yet toward forcibly removing many of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/04/federal-government-layoffs-likely-memo/

Vodoo get a good pediatrician if you don’t have one already

Best year EVER

The "LOL nothing matters" bravado and preening obliviousness it takes to have a White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2025 is leaving me literally breathless. But hey, Amber Ruffin's gonna tell jokes! She's funny.

Is Trump going to be there though? He didn’t go to any during his first term.

Vodoo get a good pediatrician if you don’t have one already

― Heez, Tuesday, February 4, 2025 1:05 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i have a good one. i wonder if they will have any resources

Is Trump going to be there though? He didn’t go to any during his first term.

Whether he shows up or not (he won't, but I bet Musk will), the fact that these bootlicking pieces of shit think a banquet to celebrate the fantastic work they do is the right move as the entire US government is being privatized and demolished by the people they follow around like Entertainment Tonight reporters is...well...it says quite a lot.