Five Things TFN Accomplished Last Week
Elon Musk thinks telling people to list their accomplishments is a good way of finding out who doesn't exist
Feb. 24: Musk does another stupid thing and advertises it … Trump’s cabinet rebels against Trump’s Musk … GOP bill would end voting rights for millions of women … Dan Bongino to be number-two at FBI, yes Dan Bongino, yes that Dan Bongino, no I’m not kidding, yes, really, that Dan fucking Bongino, yes to be second in charge of course I’m sure …
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Free-floating presidential advisor Elon Musk set a deadline of midnight tonight for every single federal employee to email “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.”1
For some indefensible reason, your normally laser-focused TFN has fixated on Musk’s decision to request “approx. five.” So, four is okay? But probably not three? Definitely not seven? Why not just say “at least four”?
This is, of course, the least baffling aspect of Musk’s weekend email, which apparently went to every single person who receives a federal paycheck. Musk said online that “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Because smart management entails emailing requests to employees and then warning of consequences in a social-media post. Six Sigma!
And here Democrats thought that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could only be removed via impeachment! But maybe he won’t check his email today!
Hilariously, workers were ordered to respond to hr@opm.gov, an email address at the Office of Professional Management (OPM). Why hilariously? Because OPM appears to be covered by the Freedom of Information Act, meaning hundreds of women could file public-record requests to find out what Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did last week.
Musk yesterday “explained” (or do we say Xplained now? Americaplained?) the alleged method behind his confirmed madness. According to him, “a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!”
Got that? Musk’s very-smart-brained plan to ferret out unproductive workers was not to ask agencies to have managers report them. Instead, he implemented Project: I’m No Smarter Than Elon Musk, which will:
Fail to catch unproductive workers who did check their emails — because Musk posted about his genius plan to trap them on social media, and
Jeopardize productive workers who were (a) on vacation, (b) off for the weekend and won’t finish catching up on their emails on Monday, and/or (c) too fucking busy doing actual shit to jump through Musk’s hoops.
Keep in mind, Musk has refused to respond to subpoenas, let alone emails. In short, this is a sixth-grader’s solution to a problem that hasn’t even been substantiated. Typically, if one knew, as Musk claims to, of a “significant” number of non-working workers, one would identify said fictional people by backtracking the alleged reason you knew they existed in the first place.
Who told Musk this claim? How do they know? A brain-having non-billionaire would use that empirical bread-crumb to follow the trail back to find these non-working workers or, just Jesuscrunchingmaybe find out that they don’t exist.
Still, in the spirit of Musk’s request for proof of existence, here are TFN’s approx. five things we newsfucked last week:
Revealed that the Department of Justice dropped a case against Musk’s SpaceX that was not the jump-ball portrayed in media but was, in fact, a slam dunk, allowing TFN to successfully use two metaphors from the same sport accurately.
Highlighted Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) standing up to Pres. Donald Trump.
Collected all the Republican congressional town halls — in which people screamed at them for what they’re doing to the government — before corporate media did their own roundups. (Bonus: Here’s a new one! Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) got obernicked by his constituents on Saturday.)
Actually figured out how to use Canva well enough to make this graphic mocking Trump for rehiring people he just fired, even though I didn’t know how to make the image a circle like a real LinkedIn profile picture:
Shat out a whole-ass article hemorrhaging butt jokes.
Successfully connected Musk deploying SpaceX workers to upgrade federal aviation safety with SpaceX’s safety record of blowing shit up and amputating limbs from people.
Musk is so stupid that he didn’t even address the fact that the new “administration” has ordered entire federal offices to accomplish approx. zero work accomplishments.
Musk is so stupid that some federal employees are prohibited by law from complying with his order, if only because what they do is classified.
Musk is so so stupid that he said yesterday that people who had responded to his email by Sunday morning “are the people who should be considered for promotion.” Because that’s good criteria for deciding who’ll oversee a toxic-spill cleanup, detect the next outbreak of bird flu measles, and inspect your plane’s wing-stay-on technology.
This Cabinet Is Revolting
Apparently, even some of the terriblest people now “running” federal agencies were capable of recognizing Elon Musk’s flagrant stupidity and incompetence.
Multiple cabinet secretaries appointed by Pres. Donald Trump told their teams to ignore Musk’s “approx. five bullets” email or at least stand by for guidance from a real also-fake manager, but one who’s at least on the org chart.
Here’s FBI Director Kash Patel: "FBI personnel may have received an [insane] email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes. …For now, please pause any responses.”
The FBI: FIRED!
Here’s the State Department’s Acting Under Secretary for Management Tibor P. Nagy: “You may have received an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management requiring you [to] submit [approx.] five work-related accomplishments. The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command.”
State Department: FIRED!
Here’s the United States military posting its counterattack against Musk on his own social-media platform, quoting acting Under Secretary Darin Selnick: “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures. … For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled ‘What did you do last week.’”
United States military: FIRED!
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned its employees about the email, writing that “the new message sent outside normal business hours [possibly] was sent in error and/or is a phishing attempt.” Wait till Musk tries to replace NOAA’s administrator with a Nigerian prince!
Water people and air people: FIRED!
Also reportedly joining in this treasonous uprising and telling their employees to pay no attention to the man behind the hurtin’:
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (an entire branch of government)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Energy Department
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Internal Revenue Service
Here’s the sneaky, talking-into-your-lapel way that the Secret Service instructed its secret servicers to secretly service Musk’s email without revealing any secrets about their service:
Secret Service: Promoted!
In the aggregate, this isn’t just a rebellion against Musk, it’s an indication that the Trump White House no longer is or never was riding herd to ensure that the new cabinet complies with Musk’s ketamine-fueled impulse storms.
And it’s not just the agencies themselves telling the whole world to ignore the man behind the hurtin’. Here’s American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President Everett Kelley, whose union represents 800,000 government workers:
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life.
“AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”
I’m increasingly uncomfortable with peeling off veterans to constitute a distinct, protected class of federal workers, but otherwise, Yeah, man!
On the other hand, approx. one (1) cabinet secretary is known to have told his people that they should do what Musk tells them. Who is this secretary who lacks the rest of the cabinet’s herd immunity to Musk? Robert Fuckin’ Kennedy, Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
HHS helpfully notified its (remaining) employees that the OPM email “is a legitimate email.” And to do what Musk says.
(Note that two of Kennedy’s divisions, CDC and NIH, told their workers the opposite of what Kennedy said.)
ANOTHER REBEL Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) is again breaking with the Trump administration. Bacon yesterday criticized Trump for firing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown. Even more treasonously, Bacon did so on CNN.
As is so often the case when these people do the right thing, it’s because they have a personal connection. “I was a colonel and a one star with C.Q. Brown, he did not deserve to be fired,” Bacon said.
He also told CNN that he’s “worried about the lack of decency and class” displayed in Brown’s firing. Lack of decency and class from Trump, you say? Pish tosh, my good man! Heaven forfend! Etc.
REHEATED BACON Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was helping to call attention to swing-district Bacon this weekend, putting Bacon’s fat in the fire and/or leaning on Bacon, depending on which terrible bacon pun you wanna go with.
Sanders held a town hall in Bacon’s district Friday night, to an overflow crowd. He did a similar event in a similarly swingy district won by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA).
And Sanders adviser Faiz Shakir posted on Saturday: “More to come!”
Important Quickie So I’m Doing It Up High and Just Because It’s Short Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Huge
A Republican “voter fraud [sic]” bill would require everyone to provide ID with their name matching their birth records. Common sense, right? Well, for future reference, common sense is terrible, which is why we have schools. As Sarah Stankorb writes for The New Republic, 69 million American women have names different from their birth names. That’s because they all are transgender got married and changed their names just like Jesus Christ (née of Nazareth) said to. The ACLU has a site up for telling members of Congress where they can file this bill.
FBI Did Not See This Threat Coming
Pres. Donald Trump last night appointed a podcaster as the second-in-command at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Let’s sit with that one for a minute together, shall we?
Dan Bongino is a former cop and a former Secret Service agent who’s never been in charge of or second-in-charge of or third-in-charge of anything outside his house, fantasies, and “The Dan Bongino Show.”
Bongino will be the first person ever to serve as deputy FBI director without experience in the BI part. As the FBI Agents Association said, before Bongino’s appointment:
“The FBI Deputy Director should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent — as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons, including operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.”
Bongino’s investigative experience includes failing to capture whoever stole the 2020 presidential election. The position does not require Senate confirmation and its jurisdiction includes the entire country except YouTube, where Bongino is banned.
Just before the announcement, new FBI Director Kash Patel — who also lacks relevant experience and was opposed even by some Republican senators — had told the FBI Agents Association that the incoming deputy should come from the ranks of the bureau’s agents, which turned out to be a FIB.
Bongino will serve as the lead person running the FBI’s investigations and operations for Patel. As the New York Times put it, “The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the bureau’s history.”
Basically, this is the real-life equivalent of every time you heard someone refer to a pair of goofballs and you blurted out “Together they fight crime!”
This is, of course, the best possible scenario for those worried about the bureau’s future. As the FBI Agents Association warned, these two clowns won’t have the expertise to make the bureau do what they want, and they won’t have the trust or respect of the bureau’s people to help them.
Taking Action
Some dates/details unconfirmed! For pencil-planning purposes only…
Upcoming Actions
Feb. 28: “Hit Them In their Profits” — a day not to buy things.
March 7-14: Amazon — A week of buying nothing from Amazon. We can do this!
March 14: National Strike — If you can, and if you need an excuse to skip work, this is the day.
Resources
TCB
SUPPORTING TFN I heard from a new paying subscriber yesterday, who referred to their past, free-subscribing newsfucking self as a freeloader. They were being tongue-in-cheek, but I want to be super clear: No one here is a freeloader. Full stop.
My hope is that people upgrade to paid (or donate) because it makes them feel good to do so, to be part of TFN that way. Full stop. Whatever self-conscious navel-gazing I do in the future about paid subscriptions, that’s the upshot. Everyone’s on the team.
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Go get ‘em, kids!
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Young Turks.
Apparently tech genius boy sent multiple versions, because I’ve also seen quotes of “bullet points” rather than “bullets.” Perhaps someone suggested to the genius that telling two million people to send bullets to the United States government would be like telling a violent mob to attack the Capitol.
Seeing The Fucking News in my inbox is the best part of my day. You make me laugh and feel like the world might not, in fact, end. Thank you so much for what you do!
I wish to deliver my five bullets in person.