Musk Invents Self-Driving Government Agency
The White House says Elon Musk has never even been inside a DOGE, let alone driven one
Feb. 18: DOGE is not only rudderless, it’s leaderless, White House says … Trump’s Social Security commissioner quits … FAA lays off hundreds … Hochul weighs removing NYC Mayor Adams due to him now working for Trump or Musk or whoever …
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The White House last night unveiled a stunning new technological breakthrough. A legal filing revealed that the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has not actually been driven by Elon Musk all along, as Pres. Donald Trump initially said.
In a court filing related to the many many legal challenges against DOGE, White House Office of Administration Director Joshua Fisher revealed that “Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.”
In fact, DOGE is so autonomous, Fisher said, that Musk has never even been inside it. “He is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization,” Fisher wrote. In fact, Musk is entirely impotent as a government employee, Fisher said. “Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.”
For weeks now, the lamestream media has simply asserted that Musk had to be behind the wheel of DOGE. This was apparently based on rampant speculation about vague, off-handed Trump remarks like this full-blown press release:
Multiple states are asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to rein in Musk and DOGE, to reverse the terminations of thousands of government employees and block access to sensitive records. Democratic attorneys general are arguing that Musk holds so much power his position should have been subject to Senate confirmation.
Thanks to last night’s legal filings, however, we’re now learning that DOGE hasn’t done a thing. Justice Department attorney Joshua Gardner told Chutkan in a filing yesterday that every single firing has been carried out by personnel of the respective agencies, not by DOGE. Of course, DOGE told the agencies who to let go, so even if DOGE isn’t really driving anything, it does seem to at least be the GPS here.
Some news outlets responded to the filings by buying into conspiracy theories, assuming without any evidence that someone had to be running the self-driving agency. Here’s Scripps News, for instance, not too subtly implying that DOGE might have someone in charge:
Scripps News has asked officials to clarify who, then, is administering DOGE. The White House has so far not issued a response.
This kind of wild-eyed paranoia shouldn’t be dignified with a response. And, of course, none of the legal filings claim that anyone’s in charge of DOGE. They just rule out Musk. Here’s Politico’s succinct headline:
Theoretically, it’s physically possible that someone is in charge of DOGE. Ruling out Musk still leaves billions of potential suspects, including millions of 150-year-old Social Security recipients.
What’s really going on here, of course, isn’t just amateur hour or a clown show. It’s amateur clowns doing a clown show for amateur hour.
But by making themselves a Schrödinger's cat of government, Musk and DOGE have sought to be treated like amateurs when it’s helpful, but then claim they’re just clowns when that benefits them more.
As U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote, “This appears to come from a desire to escape the obligations that accompany agencyhood — such as being subject to the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act — while reaping only its benefits."
So, more like DODGE.
Musk Helps Trump Appointee Retire Early
Pres. Donald Trump’s acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King has nabbed the great America dream. She’s retiring early — after less than a month on the job!
King was appointed by Trump on his second very first day on the job. She quit over the weekend due to the unmitigated shitshow Trump has unleashed on the country.
Specifically, members of someone other than Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DODGY) reportedly attempted to access … something. The Social Security Administration, of course, has deeply private information about pretty much everyone.
As a result of the clash with DODGY, King resigned. It’s not clear whether she failed or succeeded at blocking DODGY’s access. “DOGE wanted access to SSA’s sensitive files — the same way they’re trying to do at Labor and Treasury — and the acting commissioner wouldn’t give it, and she was replaced,” Nancy Altman, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Social Security Works, told the Washington Post.
King had been with the Social Security Administration for 30 years, rising through the ranks as a non-political public servant. Her not-yet-memory-holed bio says, “Michelle is passionate about the work the agency does and is honored to serve as its Acting Commissioner.”
Republicans Rescue Your Freedom to Enjoy Exorbitant Overdraft Fees
Yielding to the overwhelming pressure of the voters who elected them, two Republicans are leading the way to make sure Americans remain free to receive exorbitant fees for bouncing checks.
Under Pres. Joe Biden, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had sought to deny Americans the freedom of getting hit with overdraft fees of more than five dollars. But no more.
As The American Prospect’s Emma Janssen writes, Republicans are trumpeting their latest march for freedom, which began with what’s called a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution last week.
Basically, the CRA lets a new Congress sweep away new and pending regulations that were only finalized in the last days of the previous Congress. That includes a proposed CFPB rule that would have given big banks limited options for charging overdraft fees, most notably simply capping them at five dollars.
The CRA resolution is being pushed by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and House Financial Service Chair French Hill (R-AR). As Janssen notes, Scott and Hill bragged about how liberating your right to get overcharged is super popular with banks.
The advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, however, says that the rule would save people $5 billion annually in overdraft fees, which hit poor and non-white people disproportionately and contribute to the ranks of people who have no bank.
Consumer Reports last week asked members of Congress to block the CRA resolution, which is not subject to the filibuster and can be passed with simple majorities in each chamber.
Scott and Hill argue that capping overdraft fees will make banks stop offering overdraft protection, hurting customers. And yet, only banks agree with them. (And some banks have already ditched or lowered their fees.)
According to Consumer Reports, “Large banks typically charge $35 for an overdraft today, even though the majority of consumers’ debit overdrafts are for less than $26 and are repaid in three days.”
MEANWHILE The CFPB won a judicial reprieve Friday from Musk’s Trump’s indiscriminate layoffs.
The National Treasury Employees Union won a 17-day hold on mass layoffs at the bureau. Trump but definitely not Musk had already ordered all probationary CFPB hires fired.
The union claimed the White House was planning to lay off all but five percent of the CFPB staff, so the judge has set a hearing for March 3 to determine whether to continue blocking Trump’s unlawful defiance of congressional allocations.
Israeli Tourists Targeted by Antisemitic Gunman
Two Israeli tourists were shot in Miami on Saturday, police say. The two men, a father and son, survived the shooting and revealed that it was antisemitic in a social media post with a short postscript and adorable praying-hands emoji:
Helpfully, they even posted their alleged assailant’s mugshot and name.
That’s right, their alleged attacker has the super-trendy Arab name “Mordechai Brafman.” According to police, Brafman told them, “[H]e saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both.”
They were, in fact, neither killed nor Palestinians. As your irony-mentioning TFN mentioned, they were, like Brafman, Jewish. Meaning we now have three Jewish dudes involved in antisemitic violence and hate speech against each other, perpetuating the tragic cycle of antisemitic antisemitism. (h/t)
Council on American-Islamic Relations Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote, “It is deeply ironic and telling that both the alleged pro-Israel perpetrator and the pro-Israel victim in the Miami Beach shooting reportedly hold racist anti-Palestinian views.”
Enjoy Your Self-Landing Planes, America
The Trump administration is laying off several hundred employees of the Federal Aviation Administration, the federal agency that runs civilian air navigation.
The layoff efforts are being led by Elon Musk, perhaps best known until now for killing people with self-piloting vehicles on land. The layoffs reportedly began Friday night.
Until joining the government last month, Musk had focused on cars that allegedly didn’t need anyone steering them. But he’s now poised to achieve far greater efficiency across the entire spectrum of transportation-related deaths.
The Trump administration scored America’s first passenger-jet crash in more than 20 years back on Jan. 29. Other crashes since then have left seven people dead in Philadelphia, ten in Alaska, and one fatality killed by a Mötley Crüe plane.
Yesterday, Musk’s own mötley crëw showed up at a key FAA nerve center in Virginia. Their goal, Politico reports, was to make “rapid safety upgrades.” Because who doesn’t want safety upgrades done rapidly?
(You can read the rest of this TFN Bonus Story here.)
Three Quickies
Know what’s really flooding the zone? Stories of people being hurt by Pres. Donald Trump. Check out this local New York station’s report on Trump freezing research funds for a drug to treat Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Stay for the video of 12-year-old Emma Larson — who once lacked the muscle strength to hold her head up — discussing her anger that other children are being denied access to the drug she got. (h/t)
Even the womb isn’t a safe haven from Trump’s spending cuts. A USAID worker and the American Foreign Service Association are suing Trump for endangering his pregnant wife and their unborn child. The job-related stresses of Trump’s government-fucking caused potentially life-threatening complications with the already perilous pregnancy, so her doctors told her to go back to the U.S. while we still have hospitals. But the Trump administration refused, informing the couple that “there is no USAID funding for medivacs." An unnamed senator finally won approval for it, but by then she’d begun hemorrhaging and couldn’t be transported. As of Monday, she remained hospitalized in the unidentified country where they were stationed. (h/t)
Pres. Donald Trump’s trumple-down corruption has already blowed up real good in New York City. After the Trump Justice Department suspended corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams so long as Adams limits his corruption to Trump’s requests, some New York leaders have decided they’re not super comfy with a mayor on permanent extortion retainer. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is holding meetings today to weigh possibly removing Adams. Four deputy mayors quit yesterday.
TCB
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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.
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