Yesterday Elon began sending emails to 2.3 million federal employees asking them to respond by Monday, 11:59 pm, with a five-bullet-point list of what they had accomplished in the past week. And then on X social media he said that failure to respond would be interpreted as a resignation.
The strong implication is that federal employees are being challenged to justify their employment. Who the bleep is expecting to review 2.3 million emails? Oh, I guess AI is supposed to take care of this. Is AI also expected to make snap judgments about future employment based on a five-bullet-point list? Let’s just say it — this is colossally stupid, and if this was Elon Musk’s idea, then Elon Musk is colossally stupid.
The heads of several agencies/departments and other sections of government are telling their people to ignore the email. Josh Marshall:
Over the course of the evening top leadership at the FBI, the State Department, the VA, the Department of the Navy (to its civilian employees) and other parts of the government have explicitly instructed employees in their departments and agencies to ignore the email. Meanwhile the DOJ seems to be instructing its employees to follow it. (And yes, FBI is sort of under DOJ and that’s kind of weird but that’s where we are.)
According to the AP, RFK the Lesser told HHS employees to comply with the email, but “That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to.”
Wired is running a headline saying Elon Musk Threatens FBI Agents and Air Traffic Controllers With Forced Resignation if They Don’t Respond to an Email. To his credit, Kash Patel told his people at the FBI to not respond. Trump’s acting head of the FAA, Chris Rocheleau, has not made any comment on the email that I can find. But what would an air traffic controller write in a five-point bullet list?
- Controlled air traffic.
- Controlled air traffic
- Controlled air traffic.
- Controlled air traffic.
- Controlled air traffic.
And is Musk seriously dumb enough to even think of laying off air traffic controllers right now? As Josh Marshall wrote, “This is all a bit comical and also manages to be a certain degree of state disintegration we’re watching in real time. But it also seems clear that Musk has gotten a bit over his skis finally.” I think he’s been over his skis for awhile. See, for example, DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes at the New York Times. In brief, Musk’s “receipts” for how much money he’s saved are a mess. He fires people, realizes they are essential, then tries to hire them back. (See Jen Psaki on this.) He and the Lost Boys misread data and publicly announce that the U.S. sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza, which it didn’t, and that a large number of people aged 150 and older are getting Social Security benefits, which they aren’t. These are mistakes. An intelligent person would have double-checked the facts before going public. Not Musk
Of course, he’s relying on the MAGA base to simply accept this crap as fact, and they are unlikely to learn otherwise. But most of us are not part of the MAGA base. Based on his recent behavior, I wouldn’t trust Musk to organize a children’s birthday party and not screw it up. And Trump wouldn’t know where to start. He’d just order someone else to do it.
In other news: Trump is getting his talking points on Ukraine word for word from Putin. As we thought.
So, on the organizational chart is Putin on top? Is Musk over or under Bannon? And, of course, Who's on first, What's is on second, and…
Douglas Hughes
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To:[email protected]?
Sun 2/23/2025 6:54 PM
Dear Elon:
As a former federal employee, I was inspired to respond to your directive. I'm sure you are busier than Santa in December. Imagine reading two and a half million emails in one weekend. But you do resemble the Grinch more than Santa since you are taking from some and striking fear into all.
On to the bullets, bullet points that is…
I'm sure we'll all have a busy four years, if the liar-in-chief isn't removed from office by Congress before that. Popularity is dropping like a rock and the Trump depression has barely started to form.
You and your co-president made a fatal mistake by presuming the members of the US military and the average US citizen live by the same low moral standards as you two money-grubbers. When citizens realize you will sweep away basic liberties and the rule of law, they will reject you. When your antics are a liability to the GOP members of the Senate, they will convict Trump in the next impeachment to try to save their spineless selves.
Doug Hughes
PS – I hope you got your pardon in advance. When things go bad, Trump is inclined to throw people under the bus.
I realized later that I did not include a PS that I didn't really spray paint a dick on a Tesla Truck. I saw a video of it. Personally, I will not participate in vandalism or violence. If the concern of vandalism discourages someone from buying aTesla vehicle… oh, well! If I get thrown into a dark hole for defacing a Tesla, I didn't do it.
Five Bullet Points:
Go Fuck Yourself
Go Fuck Yourself
Go Fuck Yourself
Go Fuck Yourself
Go Fuck Yourself
At the rate the Musk/Trump admin is going, people with a capacity for being honest with themselves will, sooner rather than later, look back on Biden's presidency as golden years, if for no other reason than the stability we had and didn't appreciate then, but was something we should have celebrated. We’re only a month in, and there's already a lot of teeth gnashing. Things weren't perfect, but you didn't have to worry about whether you'd receive your health care, social security and other benefits. Federal employment was a low paying but stable job. Farmers didn't have to worry about whether the government would honor its end of the contracts they agreed to. Inflation was on the way down, the stock market was good, and even though everything wasn't perfect, economically things were trending in the right direction. But "we" felt so comfortable we thought we had the luxury of pissing on the president who brought us all that to play with the bread and circuses of culture wars while funning with the King of Hate doing the fist dance and everything would just hum along as usual. So much that even the prospect of a convicted felon getting elected wasn't enough for 90 million voters to even bother getting up off their asses to vote.
I have never been as dissapointed in American voters as I am now. Trump is turning out to be every bit of the monster he and many of us said he'd be. The republicans level of cowardice have exceeded predictions. We're after just one month and already Trump has introduced a level of instability in our political system and government to an extent where it will be difficult for any nation to ever trust us again. I shudder to think what four years of this will bring.
How does a political party devolve from the dignity and compassion of Lincoln to the incompetence and buffoonery of Trump?
Somebody needs reminding that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Most of us remember that the whole wide world is watching.
"buffoonery of Trump"
The buffoonery started well before Stump, seems like Reagan started the whole "lets appeal to lowest common denominator attitude in the GQP. Nixon was a cheat but not really a complete buffoon? According to my Mom who's been around 25 years longer than I have the last real republican was Dwight Eisenhower (the first time she could vote and the last time she voted for a republican)!
The buffoonery started well before Stump, seems like Reagan started the lets appeal to lowest common denominator attitude in the GQP. Nixon was a cheat but not really a complete buffoon? According to my Mom who has been around 25 years longer than I have the last real republican was Dwight Eisenhower (the first time she could vote and the last time she voted for a republican)!
I think you still all underestimate Agent Krasnov. Him and his handlers' goals were to de-fang the only organization that stopped them from committing crimes and to let the Matt Gatez' of the country get off in more ways than one. They are doing the damage right now that they need to in order to commit oligarchic gang warfare against anyone that thinks they are clowns. They dumbly weaponize bathroom politics so they can open up the West for Big Boss Putin. The 50-year ideological operation is in fruition and the moral and intellectual giants over at the Supreme boot-licking department have already ruled on laws that ensure kingship. The "opposition" party strategery seems to be to wait it out and to be meek and expect them implode from bickering while the damage is done and the goods are stolen. We will see how that works out because I don't see any of the "smart" leader people showing up with any ideas. Sheesh, since Smedley Butler and Chuck Lindburgh the goal of dictatorship has been the target of the American Fascists, so is the path forward waiting for the little people who pay taxes to turn on the bumbling ownership class and wait for the inevitable workers' paradise to arrive? I suspect that the idiots will steal everything that is not nailed down before we hear a whimper from the free-rider syndrome folks.
OMG! Have I underestimated a psychopath? Oh silly me.
No, overestimated the sleepwalkers (perhaps me?). The results are in: Mafia 1, average citizen nothing. Psychopaths or not, damage done is damage done and show me a path to un-do the damage.
From Huffpost:
The mass firings of probationary government workers roiling the federal government are likely illegal, a federal government oversight agency said on Monday.
The decision comes from the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that oversees illegal actions taken against federal workers, in a case involving six probationary government workers who were fired from their positions at six separate agencies.
That decision, issued on Friday but not disclosed until Monday, determined that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that agencies engaged in prohibited personnel practices … by terminating the employees in violation of federal laws and regulations governing probationary terminations and reductions in force.”
From Politico:
You better stock up food, both because of inflation, but because because Doofus was tasked with keeping the food supply safe.
With bird flu and various other pandemics waiting in the wings, I'm wondering how many more are going to die, in a reprise of Trump's handling of COVID-19.