Musk Demoted — Not Leadership Material, on Probationary Status
Trump's re-org puts Musk beneath other utterly unqualified appointees
Mar. 7: Bored of wholesale layoff chaos, Trump says secretaries can keep who they want for now maybe … House Dems get “come to Jesus” talking-to for meek Trump-speech protests … Ten Dems join GOP to censure Rep. Al Green … Jeffries gets real with Republican threatening to boot Dems from committees …
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Newly appointed head of the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk was demoted yesterday, stripped of his power to do anything at agencies of the federal government and relegated to nothing more than making suggestions.
His status, in terms of the tech world from which he comes, was effectively changed from admin to commenter. Having worked for the federal government less than one year, Musk would be considered on probationary status.
Pres. Donald Trump summoned Musk to meet yesterday with some of the cabinet and delivered the bad news to Musk in front of the attending cabinet secretaries so that they could see Musk’s whole ass for themselves. Humiliating Musk was a bonus, like the $50 billion Tesla bonus Musk still hasn’t convinced a judge to let him have.
Yesterday’s meeting turned into a performance review, with Musk acknowledging that there are areas where his performance could improve, such as not breaking America.
As Trump explained later, he told his cabinet secretaries that they can “keep all the people you want.” If they’re unable to make cuts, then Musk may get a second chance to show that he’s improved.
TFN has exclusively obtained a new federal org chart clarifying the new decision-making workflow:
The demotion comes after Trump first said Musk was in charge of DOGE’s cuts to government headcount and regulations, then promoted Amy Gleason as head of DOGE instead, then on Tuesday said that Musk was the head of DOGE, and then yesterday changed his mind again.
Also, historians note that Vivek Ramaswamy used to be involved 6,000 years ago when God created humanity and then waited 4,000 years to save them.
Musk yesterday told members of Congress that he’s never fired anyone in the government, especially not the obviously stupid firings that were quickly undone. So, some congressional Republicans blamed Trump’s new teams for screwing up the firings.
“[T]he agencies had implemented it improperly through either incompetence or in a handful of cases actual malicious efforts to sabotage and create a public relations problem for DOGE,” said Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), as if Trump appointees might be incompetent or malicious.
Most of America had been under the impression that Musk’s primary activity for the past six weeks was firing federal workers. If Musk hasn’t been doing that, it would seem he should explain what he has been doing by emailing a list of five bullet points to HR@OPM.gov.
As for Trump’s leadership through this leadership vacuum, denying DOGE any power means that he’s now created an entire government office of highly paid, inexperienced workers to produce suggestions that the Government Accountability Office could make, thus rendering DOGE the most inefficient government department in history.
Politico reports that Musk was demoted after members of Congress reminded Trump that he and Musk can’t keep pulling this fucking shit because it’s fucking exhausting.
The decision is also expected to screw up the government’s many legal cases in which fired workers have hauled the administration into court. Justice Department lawyers have lied their faces off about who’s running DOGE after initially claiming, possibly truthfully, that they didn’t know.
Anyway, the point is, this is businessmen running the government.
Democratic Leadership Is Finally Unified in Opposition … to Democrats
House Democratic leadership yesterday finally agreed on a strategy to oppose fellow Democrats who are pissed off about the lack of a strategy to oppose Pres. Donald Trump.
Congressional Democratic leadership could have agreed on some effective strategy, by which I mean any strategy, prior to Trump’s speech Tuesday.
They could have laughed as one at his most egregious lies or most fanciful lie-iest lies. They could have all vocally defended Medicaid recipients the way Rep. Al Green (D-TX) did — instead of criticizing his outburst’s alleged ineffectiveness, which was their fault for not joining him, and which we’re still talking about so it was ineffective how exactly?
In the absence of a collective plan — other than be polite but don’t clap too much, thanks, Gen. Patton — some Democrats protested with goofy signs. Some exercised their constitutional right to assembly by leaving the assembly.
And for those outrageous transgressions, they were summoned yesterday to a meeting with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA).
Democratic sources told Axios it was a “come to Jesus” meeting and the offending Democrats were definitely “not getting yelled at.” Those summoned to not get yelled at included Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Maxine Dexter (D-OR), not actual Jesus, and apparently not one white dude. It’s worth noting that Stansbury was technically the victim of an assault when Rep. Lance Good[sic]en (R-TX) grabbed her property from her — a sign he didn’t like.
Republicans have said nothing about Gooden’s attack on Stansbury’s rights and autonomy. Other than to laugh and cheer when it happened.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, engaged in what was called “a consultative process” with Stansbury and the others yesterday. “We understand the pressure they are under,” said one source, apparently not considering maybe they wanted to protest because they understand the pressure Medicaid recipients are under.
"They are not being talked to like they are children,” one source told Axios. “We are helping them understand why their strategy is a bad idea." And, in fairness, having Democrats who couldn’t win back the House — and still can’t figure out how to oppose an historically unpopular president — explain strategy does sound like a good first step to get everyone laughing in unison.
And whatever you might be thinking about congressional Democratic leadership right now…
Ten Democrats Voted to Censure Rep. Al Green for Defending Medicaid
On Tuesday night, Pres. Donald Trump said that voters had given him an historic mandate. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) yelled out that Trump did not have a mandate to cut Medicaid.
As your newsfucking TFN previously newsfucked, that would have been that — Green’s un-miked voice barely registered — except that Republicans began making even more noise, to prevent people from hearing Green tell the truth.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) ordered Green removed — prompting Democrats to do absolutely nothing in his defense — and promised a vote to censure Green…almost exactly one year after Johnson sat silently in the exact same cursed speaker’s chair as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) heckled Pres. Joe Biden.
On Thursday, the House censured Green for his conduct. Ten Democrats joined Republicans to censure the 77-year-old Black man for defending America’s 79 million poor and disabled Medicaid recipients. The ten Democrats were:
Ami Bera (CA)
Jim Costa (CA)
Ed Case (HI)
Laura Gillen (NY)
Jim Himes (CT)
Chrissy Houlahan (PA)
Marcy Kaptur (OH)
Jared Moskowitz (FL)
Tom Suozzi (NY)
It’s worth noting — okay, it’s worth it to me noting — that Kaptur, Gluesenkamp Perez, and Suozzi all have ties to the Christian right.
The day before, there was a vote to table the censure and it failed, but only barely, 211 to 209. Amazingly, Green, with a boss-ton worth of integrity, voted present.
Four Democrats didn’t vote: Reps. Raul Grijalva (AZ), Kevin Mullin (CA), Brittany Petterson (CO), and Mikie Sherrill (NJ).
Anyway, if Democratic “centrists” or leadership want an idea of what standing up to Republicans looks like, they might wanna check out this gu—wait, wha-huh…?!?
Jeffries Shows Jeffries How It’s Done
During the rowdy House session in which Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was censured yesterday for disrupting Pres. Donald Trump’s speech that was disrupted by Republicans trying to shout Green down, dozens of Democrats legit disrupted things with chants and by singing “We Shall Overcome.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) repeatedly failed to get them to shut up. Axios reports the singing Democrats were “primarily Black Caucus members and progressives.” Meaning white “centrists” stood silent like the protagonists in a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller.
Then, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) said that he’ll call for votes first to have the House sergeant at arms identify the Democrats who had integrity and then to remove them from their committees.
"If you want to act like a child in the Halls of Congress, you will be treated like a child," said Ogles, like an infantilizing, patronizing, privileged fuckface who believes in the same magic beings his parents did, and whose adulthood consists of not paying his own way for his own lodging, blaming plane crashes on people whose skin color and genitalia he doesn’t like, not understanding basic science, and not knowing how to lose gracefully without claiming that the other team cheated and stole the United States presidency.
Here’s the response from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):
“Andy Ogles is a complete and total fraud… You ain't throwing no one off of any single committee… These people are malignant clowns... Don't make me expose you to folks that don't know you."
Holy shit, that guy should run for minority leader!
FUN FACTS Trump and the guy who wrote that interminable litany of bullying, preening, circle-jerk fantasy, debunked lies, and goatshit Tuesday night are so multiversally stupid that the speech included the claim that under Democrats the government spent “$8 million for making mice transgender.”
“This is real,” Trump said about the thing which was not.
In reality land, where Reading Is Fundamental, the money went to study transgenic mice, whose genomes are altered to research cancer and other diseases.
The man who tossed Trump’s word salad was his longtime lead speechwriter, Ross Worthington. He’s a former campaign official for Newt Gingrich and in high school was voted Most Punchable Name.
Four Quickies
The Social Security Administration is blocking employees from websites ranging from news sites to Fox News sites. An email informed workers they could no longer use their work computers to access “Online shopping; General News; and Sports,” according to Wired, which also can’t be accessed. The email is similar to those sent by dick bosses at soon-to-fail companies.
In addition to freezing materiel and financial aid to Ukraine, Pres. Donald Trump reportedly has stopped sharing U.S. intelligence, crucial to Ukraine tracking and targeting of Russian troop movements and aerial attacks. It’s not clear why the intelligence, too, is being frozen. Not only does it cost nothing for the U.S. to share intelligence, but Trump’s own record suggests he believes intelligence has no value at all.
Trump threw his tariffs into more-reverse yesterday. First, on Wednesday, he gave a 30-day exemption to the auto industry as if carmakers can plan, let alone announce new U.S. auto plants in a month. Then, yesterday, Trump had a phone call with Mexican Pres. Claudia Sheinbaum, after which he caved. Again. The U.S. and Canadian tariffs will no longer apply to products covered by the USMCA trade treaty that he himfuckingself signed. Sheinbaum clarified that this meant virtually all the products. And if you missed TFN’s Bonus Story yesterday, whether Trump does or doesn’t apply tariffs is far less meaningful than his mercurial threats, which will drive other nations to plan for worst-case scenarios almost as bad as the one this nation is living through.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) yesterday invited Charlie Kirk onto his inaugural podcast because if there’s one thing our media ecosystem lacks it’s far-right theocratic voices. Anyway, Newsom and Kirk had a good convo about how transgender female college athletes should be barred from playing on female teams.
Recommended Reading
Forced or otherwise, the resignations of federal employees have left a wondrous paper trail. The resignation letters by these talented, dedicated public servants span multiple genres, ranging from savage insult comedy to moving melodrama.
The Washington Post has published some excerpts. (No paywall!)
TCB
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ROAD TRIP / GRATITUDE TRIP Today’s TFN is a wee bit early today, because my son and I have a flight to catch. That’s only happening because the growth of TFN — powered by your support — means we can afford to look at colleges in California. Thank you for your literally life-changing support.
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TAKING ACTION Upcoming days listed for action/inaction:
March 7, holy shit that’s today: Stand Up for Science (list of local rallies) (h/t Steve)
March 7-14: Amazon Blackout — No Amazon, no Whole Foods, no Prime orders, and TFN is gonna throw in the Washington Post, too.
March 14: National Strike and march on Washington.
March 21-28: Nestlé Blackout (water wars, child labor)
March 28: Economic Blackout #2
April 7-13: Walmart Blackout (‘nuff said)
April 18: Economic Blackout #3
April 21-27: General Mills Blackout
Resources
CONNECTING Come say hi on Bluesky, Mastodon or Spoutible!
Go get ‘em, kids! And give yourself a good weekend, because someone’s gotta.
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 Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
Every single Dem should have walked out with Al Green, but that would have required balls.
Sometimes I chuckle to myself when I think of something that I hadn't heard anyone else say and then along comes Jonathan, who writes it later and I think "wow, that's a great idea!!" 😅😉
This time, it's the idea of laughing at the lies, in unison. I am planning on going to a town hall with our senators next weekend (if they show up) and thought what all of us should do is just laugh at whatever idiocy they come up with. Booing just seems to make them mad and shut down. But laughing at them may make them realize we just don't think they are serious people.