I’m illustrating this post with relaxing paintings today, because I desperately needed a break from current events.
It seems I may have been wrong about Elon Musk’s departure from the White House. On Saturday, I wrote that I thought he would continue to work with and influence Trump and DOGE. But then Musk began attacking Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Actually, it seems as if Trump has fired Musk, and Musk is not happy about it. Lawrence O’Donnell discussed it on his show last night. Here’s what Lawrence had to say:
Musk has been slamming Trump’s budget bill since their last meeting in the Oval Office, and Trump has not responded so far. Here’s the latest:
Elon Musk continued his rampage against Donald Trump’s spending bill on Tuesday night, setting the stage for an ugly showdown with the president’s faithful.
“Mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America!” he wrote, sharing a graphic depicting rising national debt over the past three decades. “ENOUGH,” he added.
He also responded with a “100″ emoji to an X user who wrote that Musk had “reminded everyone: It’s not about Right vs. Left. It’s about the Establishment vs the People.”
He then posted an American flag emoji under a post from conservative satire site The Babylon Bee, highlighting a story titled, “The Lord Strengthens Elon One Last Time To Push Pillars Of Congress Over And Bring Government Crashing Down.”
Earlier Tuesday, the billionaire unleashed hellfire on Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill, lambasting the president’s flagship legislative package as “outrageous,” “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination.”
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he wrote of the package, which scraped through the House last month solely on Republican votes.
Elon Musk’s full-throttle assault on Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is less about fiscal policy and more about bruised ego, insiders say, claiming the billionaire is “b-tthurt.”
A path in the woods, by Vincent Van Gogh
The drama reportedly began when Musk’s pick for a top federal post, billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman, was rejected by Trump’s inner circle. Sources said it was Sergio Gor, Trump’s longtime aide and current personnel chief, who blocked the nomination.
“This was Sergio’s out-the-door ‘f–k you’ to Musk,” a White House source told Axios.
This triggered a rift which started with the Tesla CEO soft-launching his dissent last week, hours after his time as a “special government employee” had elapsed.
In a sit-down with CBS News’s Sunday Morning, the Department of Government Efficiency architect said he was “disappointed” with the bill, which he said “increases the budget deficit” and undoes his cost-cutting task force’s work.
Not that Musk actually did any real cost-cutting.
He soon went nuclear against the bill in a series of public posts that culminated in him labeling Trump’s economic legislation “outrageous,” “pork-filled,” and a “disgusting abomination.”
“Elon was b-tthurt,” one source said.
Insiders have now told Axios that his dissent has spiraled into a full-blown meltdown. Musk is reportedly rattled because the bill slashes the electric vehicle tax credit—a key benefit for automakers like Musk’s Tesla….
White House officials also reportedly hurt Musk’s feelings by blocking him from staying on in some capacity after his “special government employee” status was up after 130 days of service.
He was similarly annoyed, sources said, when the Federal Aviation Administration decided against using his Starlink satellite system for national air traffic control.
The White House overlooking his ally, Isaacman, served as the final straw on Saturday night, Axios reported.
Donald Trump has so far kept silent on former special government employee Elon Musk’s criticism of his “big, beautiful” spending bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell suggested why the typically “explosively rageful” president has not yet said a thing.
By David Hockney
“That is how you know who Donald Trump fears in this world,” he said. “If you attack Donald Trump and Donald Trump says nothing, Donald Trump’s silence is the biggest expression of fear that he has.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, pumped a fortune into Trump’s 2024 election campaign. Trump rewarded him with the top role at the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, which was tasked with slashing public spending. Musk left last week.
The president likely now fears Musk may use his cash against Trump-backed candidates in GOP primaries, said O’Donnell.
Trump “fears the richest person in the world convincing Republican members of the Senate and the House not to vote for Donald Trump’s budget bill that Elon Musk now calls a ‘disgusting abomination,’” he added.
Tesla (TSLA) stock slumped Wednesday in the immediate fallout of the very public policy blowout between President Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The one-time leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) whined angrily on Tuesday, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” adding, “Shame on those” in the House who voted for it.
Musk added early Wednesday morning, “If the massive deficit spending continues, there will only be money for interest payments and nothing else!”
Musk’s rhetoric on Trump and the Republican-backed “big, beautiful bill” was ramping up recently with Musk’s comments to “CBS News Sunday Morning” and hit detonation levels with Tuesday’s post….
Musk’s closeness to the Trump administration had been seen as a boon for Tesla, given its range of business with SpaceX and NASA and the regulatory levers NHTSA could pull with getting autonomous driving rules in place for Tesla’s robotaxi testing.
But demand weakness in the EU and recent protests at US Tesla showrooms have followed Musk’s controversial foray into politics, causing some Tesla owners to become alienated by Musk, specifically by his right-leaning tendencies, DOGE, and outward support of President Trump.
Tesla’s big robotaxi test is slated for June 12 in Austin. Much of the company’s value is tied to whether it can fully unlock autonomous driving for robotaxi purposes and individual owners.
Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper released its full score Wednesday of the tax and spending package House Republicans passed along party lines last month, predicting that the measure would grow the federal deficit by $2.4 trillion….
Path in the field, Tatiana Karchevskaya, Indonesian artist
And while top Republican lawmakers are expected to downplay the significance of the complete price tag from the Congressional Budget Office, the numbers will influence what lawmakers are able to include in the final package they are endeavoring to send to President Donald Trump’s desk this summer.
The scorekeeper’s analysis will also be used to determine whether the bill follows the strict rules of the reconciliation process Republicans are using to skirt the Senate filibuster and pass the measure along party lines.
Because Republicans in the Senate are now making changes to the package the House passed two weeks ago, the budget office will need to score the cost of each piece of the new version senators are assembling, followed by another full price tag for the whole package.
Unlike the earlier scores CBO released of the separate chunks of the House bill, the analysis released Wednesday takes into account how policies in one part of the package might influence the budget and economic impacts of others. It also shows that the House-passed legislation would lead to nearly 11 million people going uninsured, with more than 7.8 million of those individuals getting kicked off of Medicaid and millions more losing coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Yesterday, the Yale School of Public Health sent a letter to Senate Democratic leaders with a new analysis showing that the One Big Beautiful Bill’s changes to federal health care programs would kill more than 51,000 Americans annually. Nearly 15 million are liable to lose health coverage as a result of the bill, due to enrollment changes on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, Medicaid cuts that are the largest in U.S. history, and the end of support for the Medicare Savings Program, which grants access to subsidized prescriptions. Those cuts would cost about 29,500 people their lives, the Yale researchers estimate. Another 13,000 largely poor nursing home residents would die from the repeal of the Biden administration’s safe staffing rule, which would remove the minimum number of nurses on call in those facilities. And close to 9,000 would die from the government’s failing to extend enhanced premium support for the ACA that expires at the end of the year, making health coverage unaffordable for another five million Americans.
It’s not easy to wring a compelling message out of legislation that will cause 51,000 deaths. You can lie that the cuts aren’t cuts, but that only gets you so far. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), for example, was clearly flummoxed when confronted at a town hall in Butler, Iowa, last Friday with the fact that people will die because of the bill. So she went philosophical.
“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst said, in one of the most misguided attempts to quiet constituent fears I’ve seen in my political lifetime.
The reaction was immediate both in the room and on social media. And instead of walking back the comments, Ernst doubled down with a creepy “apology” video of her walking through a cemetery. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” she said, before snarking about the tooth fairy and making a pitch for embracing Jesus Christ as a personal savior who guarantees life in the hereafter.
Now, Ernst may have a challenger for her Senate Seat. From the David Dayen post above:
About 200 miles from Butler, in Sioux City, state representative J.D. Scholten was getting ready for the funeral of a local Democratic activist named Gary Lipshutz. Former Sen. Tom Harkin, whose seat Ernst now holds, was at the memorial service. “What she said was going viral as I walked in,” Scholten told me in an interview. “I thought about all the work Gary was doing, and at a funeral you question your life and your purpose. When she doubled down, which was very disrespectful, I was like, game on.”
Scholten, 45, who nearly beat anti-immigrant nationalist Steve King in a northwest Iowa congressional seat Donald Trump won by 27 points in 2018, had been mentioned on short lists of potential challengers to Ernst. But his timeline was set to later in the year, in part due to his summer gig as a pitcher on the minor league Sioux City Explorers. Then Ernst implanted her foot directly in her mouth. “She was not wrong in that we all are going to die, but we don’t have to die so billionaires can have a bigger tax cut,” Scholten said.
He decided to immediately announce a campaign for Senate, thereby making clear it was a direct response to the choices Republicans are making to skyrocket inequality and harm millions of vulnerable Americans.
The Iowan who became part of a viral moment by recently shouting at U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst that “people will die” because of proposed Medicaid cuts is a Democrat who is using the moment to launch a campaign for the Iowa House.
India May, a 33-year-old from Charles City, drove to Parkersburg on May 30 to attend Ernst’s town hall. As Ernst was answering a question about Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill, May said she “got a little worked up.”
The cost of electricity is rising across the country, forcing Americans to pay more on their monthly bills and squeezing manufacturers and small businesses that rely on cheap power.
And some of President Trump’s policies risk making things worse, despite his promises to slash energy prices, companies and researchers say.
This week, the Senate is taking up Mr. Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill, which has already passed the House. In its current form, that bill would abruptly end most of the Biden-era federal tax credits for low-carbon sources of electricity like wind, solar, batteries and geothermal power.
Repealing those credits could increase the average family’s energy bill by as much as $400 per year within a decade, according to severalstudiespublished this year.
The studies rely on similar reasoning: Electricity demand is surging for the first time in decades, partly because of data centers needed for artificial intelligence, and power companies are already struggling to keep up. Ending tax breaks for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries would make them more expensive and less plentiful, increasing demand for energy from power plants that burn natural gas.
That could push up the price of gas, which currently generates 43 percent of America’s electricity.
On top of that, the Trump administration’s efforts to sell more gas overseas could further hike prices, while Mr. Trump’s new tariffs on steel, aluminum and other materials would raise the cost of transmission lines and other electrical equipment.
These cascading events could lead to further painful increases in electric bills.
The US has doubled tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum imports to 50%, pressing ahead in the face of criticism from key trading partners with a measure that Donald Trump says is intended to revive the American industry.
After imposing and rapidly lifting tariffs on much of the world, only to reduce them, Trump last week refocused on the global steel and aluminum markets – and the dominance of China.
Trump signed an executive order formalizing the move on Tuesday. Higher tariffs “will more effectively counter foreign countries that continue to offload low-priced, excess steel and aluminum in the United States market and thereby undercut the competitiveness of the United States steel and aluminum industries”, the order said.
The increase applies to all trading partners except Britain, the only country so far that has struck a preliminary trade agreement with the US during a 90-day pause on a wider array of Trump tariffs. The rate for steel and aluminum imports from the UK – which does not rank among the top exporters of either metal to the US – will remain at 25% until at least 9 July.
About a quarter of all steel used in the US is imported and data shows the increased levies will hit the closest US trading partners – Canada and Mexico – especially hard. They rank first and third respectively in steel shipment volumes to the US.
Tariffs on steel and aluminum are doubling to 50 percent Wednesday, adding higher costs and new uncertainty for businesses across the country that rely on metal imports for machinery, construction and manufacturing.
In the order doubling the tariffs, which said it would take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time, President Donald Trump wrote that the higher levies “will provide greater support to these industries and reduce or eliminate the national security threat posed by imports of steel and aluminum articles and their derivative articles.”
But for American companies that rely on specialized metals that aren’t available domestically, the order set off a fresh scramble to raise prices and rethink hiring and investment.
“It’s a big, eye-catching tariff: 50 percent is a high number,” said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Aluminum goes into all kinds of products — aircrafts, autos, construction — and steel is used throughout the economy, so you’re talking higher prices and lost jobs across the U.S. manufacturing industry.” [….]
U.S. manufacturers say the sudden onslaught of tariffs is making it harder to operate. Many rely on foreign sources of steel and aluminum to make their products and say it’s been tough to find domestic suppliers.
Pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos of the U.S. CDC resigned on Tuesday as co-leader of a working group that advises outside experts on COVID-19 vaccines and is leaving the agency, two sources familiar with the move told Reuters.
Panagiotakopoulos said in an email to work group colleagues that her decision to step down was based on the belief she is “no longer able to help the most vulnerable members” of the U.S. population.
In her role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s working group of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, she co-led the gathering of information on topics for presentation.
Her resignation comes one week after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic who oversees the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, said the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women had been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule.
The move was a departure from the process in which ACIP experts meet and vote on changes to the immunization schedule or recommendations on who should get vaccines before the agency’s director made a final call. The committee had not voted on the changes announced by Kennedy and the CDC does not yet have a permanent director.
Senior US immigration officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file officers to “turn the creative knob up to 11” when it comes to enforcement, including by interviewing and potentially arresting people they called “collaterals”, according to internal agency emails viewed by the Guardian.
Officers were also urged to increase apprehensions and think up tactics to “push the envelope” one email said, with staff encouraged to come up with new ways of increasing arrests and suggesting them to superiors.
“If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said.
The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.
The emails, sent by two top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials this past Saturday, instructed officers around the country to increase arrest numbers over the weekend. This followed the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, pressing immigration officials last month to jack up immigration-related arrests to at least 3,000 people per day.
One of the emails, written by Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director of Ice’s enforcement and removal operations, instructs Ice officials to go after people they may coincidentally encounter.
“All collaterals encounters [sic] need to be interviewed and anyone that is found to be amenable to removal needs to be arrested,” Charles wrote, also saying: “We need to turn up the creative knob up to 11 and push the envelope.”
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.
That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.
The Biden administration had argued that hospitals — including ones in states with near-total bans — needed to provide emergency abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. That law requires emergency rooms that receive Medicare dollars to provide an exam and stabilizing treatment for all patients. Nearly all emergency rooms in the U.S. rely on Medicare funds.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would no longer enforce that policy.
The move prompted concerns from some doctors and abortion rights advocates that women will not get emergency abortions in states with strict bans.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show.
Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy — the official who holds the power to name Navy ships — that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.
A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John Phelan was ordered to do so by Hegseth. The official also said that the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride month — was intentional.
Military.com reached out to Hegseth’s office for comment on the move but did not immediately receive a response.
However, the memo reviewed by Military.com noted that the renaming was being done so that there is “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture,” apparently referencing President Donald Trump, Hegseth and Phelan.
The U.S. Navy plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler named after the slain gay rights leader and Navy veteran, and is considering renaming multiple naval ships named after civil rights leaders and prominent American voices, CBS News has learned.
U.S. Navy documents obtained by CBS News and used to brief the secretary of the Navy and his chief of staff show proposed timelines for rolling out the name change of the USNS Harvey Milk to the public. While the documents do not say what the ship’s new name would be, the proposal comes during Pride Month, the monthlong observance of the LGBTQ+ community that also coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising of 1969. WorldPride celebrations are being held in Washington, D.C., this year.
The documents obtained by CBS News also show other vessels named after prominent leaders are also on the Navy’s renaming “recommended list.”
Among them are the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez and USNS Medgar Evers.
That is beyond sickening.
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Yesterday the realization that Elon Musk and his DOGE bandits are dead set on stealing our Social Security hit home for millions of Americans. Perhaps some of the MAGA cultists are still lying to themselves, but plenty of Trump voters now know they made a huge mistake.
Two days ago, Maryland District Judge Ellen Hollander ordered the acting head of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek to stop DOGE bandits from accessing recipients’ personal information. Dudek responded by threatening to shut down the agency entirely.
March 20 (Reuters) – A federal judge said on Thursday the Social Security Administration likely violated privacy laws by giving tech billionaire Elon Musk‘s aides “unbridled access” to the data of millions of Americans, and ordered a halt to further record sharing.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of Maryland said Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was intruding into “the personal affairs of millions of Americans” as part of its hunt for fraud and waste under President Donald Trump.
“Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency,” he said….
Earlier on Thursday, Judge Hollander, in her ruling, said: “To be sure, rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But, that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so.”
The case has shed light for the first time on the amount of personal information DOGE staffers have been given access to in the databases, which hold vast amounts of sensitive data on most Americans.
The SSA administers benefits for tens of millions of older Americans and people with disabilities, and is just one of at least 20 agencies DOGE has accessed since January.
Hollander said at the heart of the case was a decision by new leadership at the SSA to give 10 DOGE staffers unfettered access to the records of millions of Americans. She said lawyers for SSA had acknowledged that agency leaders had given DOGE access to a “massive amount” of records.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Hollander said….
One of the systems DOGE accessed is called Numident, or Numerical Identification, known inside the agency as the “crown jewels,” three former and current SSA staffers told Reuters. Numident contains personal information of everyone who has applied for or been given a social security number.
After a new order from Judge Hollander, Dudek has backed down on his threat to shut down the Social Security Administration.
Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatened Thursday evening to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge’s order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data.
Less than 24 hours later — after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened — Dudek is saying he was “out of line.”
Lucy Almey Bird, A good book
Dudek initially told news outlets, including in a Friday interview with The Washington Post, that the judge’s decision to bar sensitive data access to “DOGE affiliates” was overly broad and that to comply, he might have to block virtually all SSA employees from accessing the agency’s computer systems. But Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who issued the order, said in a letter that Dudek’s assertions “were inaccurate.”
“Employees of SSA who are not involved with the DOGE Team or in the work of the DOGE Team are not subject to the Order,” Hollander wrote in the letter on Friday sent to lawyers involved in the case. “ … Moreover, any suggestion that the Order may require the delay or suspension of benefit payments is incorrect.”
In response to Hollander’s letter, Dudek said in a statement that the court clarified its guidance and “therefore, I am not shutting down the agency.”
Dudek, in a follow-up interview Friday afternoon with The Post, thanked Hollander for the clarification, adding, “The president is committed to keeping the Social Security offices open to serve the public.” He then acknowledged that this was an about-face from his stance in an interview with The Post earlier in the day.
“[The White House] called me and let me know it’s important to reaffirm to the public that we’re open for business,” he said. “The White House did remind me that I was out of line and so did the judge. And I appreciate that.”
Yeah, right. I’m sure King Trump is very concerned about us peons who need Social Security to live.
Hollander issued a two-week temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits Social Security officials from sharing personally identifiable information with Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which has been empowered to carry out cost-cutting across the government.
Hollander, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote that DOGE “essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion” and “never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems.”
To top all that, yesterday a video surfaced of Trump’s Commerce Secretary, billionaire Howard Lutnick, claiming that seniors who missed a social security check wouldn’t miss it and anyone who complained was a “fraudster” “stealing” from the government. I don’t think Lutnick understands that Social Security is funded by the payments made by recipients all of their working lives.
Rachel Maddow spent much of her show last night talking about Lutnick’s clueless statement.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t be worried if she didn’t receive her Social Security check one month.
Lutnick argued that the only people upset about DOGE head Elon Musk targeting Social Security are fraudsters abusing the system.
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, wouldn’t call and complain,” he said during a Thursday appearance on the All-In podcast. “She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up and she’ll get it next month.”
Public records suggest that his mother-in-law, Geri Lambert, lives with Lutnick and his wife Allison, at his Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan. If that is the case, she is unlikely to be relying on Social Security for rent or mortgage payments.
Lutnick, who was nominated to the role by President Donald Trump, amassed a fortune worth around $1.5 billion over more than 30 years as the CEO of the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. He stepped down from the position in February when he was confirmed as commerce secretary.
“A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining,” the commerce secretary continued. “Elon knows this by heart… The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing.”
It isn’t the first eyebrow-raising statement Lutnick has made in support of Musk—even this week.
On Wednesday, Lutnick appeared on Fox News and urged viewers to “buy Tesla” stock, which has been plummeting amid protests against Musk’s efforts to reshape the federal government. Musk is the CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer.
He called Musk “probably the best person to bet on I’ve ever met,” saying: “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap.”
Advocates warn these sweeping moves could lead to seniors and people with disabilities having a harder time getting help with their crucial benefits.
Already, getting assistance can be burdensome.
“My first phone call that I made to Social Security, I was on hold for 3 hours and 15 minutes before I spoke to somebody,” Aaron Woods, who’s been trying for months to help his mother sort out her Social Security and Medicare benefits, told NPR.
Read more about Woods’ case at the link. These problems existed before DOGE got involved.
For years, advocates say the Social Security Administration has struggled to keep up with its growing workload. Besides retirement services, the agency runs programs that provide survivor benefits and disability benefits and supplemental income for the very poor.
“There simply have not been enough workers to administer the benefits timely,” said Kristen Dama, a managing attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which helps people navigate the benefits process. “To make sure that mistakes aren’t made. And then when people get disconnected, whether it’s for financial reasons or for mistakes, there’s just not enough people … to allow recipients to get reconnected easily.”
And problem-solving could get harder as the agency plans to cut 7,000 jobs — though its current staffing of about 57,000 is already at a 50-year low….
The agency also announced it would undergo a massive restructuring by eliminating six out of its 10 regional offices, which Dama said would significantly affect her organization’s ability to sort out problems for her clients.
“For legal aid advocates, both at my organization and across the country, the regional offices are really the fixers, are the quality control, and they play that role also for constituent service staff, social services organizations,” she said. “They are really the place where problems that can’t be solved get escalated.”
There’s much more information at the link. This is a great article.
Veronica Taylor doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use the internet.
The 73-year-old can’t drive and is mostly housebound in her mountainous and remote West Virginia community, where a simple trip to the grocery store can take an hour by car.
New requirements that Social Security recipients access key benefits online or in person at a field office, rather than on the phone, would be nearly impossible to meet without help.
“If that’s the only way I had to do it, how would I do it?” Taylor said, talking about the changes while eating a plate of green beans, mac and cheese and fried fish with a group of retirees at the McDowell County Senior Center. “I would never get nothing done.”
The requirements, set to go into effect March 31, are intended to streamline processes and combat widespread fraud within the system, according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration.
Time to Oneself, Marcella Cooper
Bullshit.
They say that’s why it’s vital for people to verify their identity online or in person when signing up for benefits, or making a change like where the money is deposited.
But advocates say the changes will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Americans. It will be harder to visit field offices in rural areas with high poverty rates. Often these are the same areas that lack widespread internet service.
Many Social Security field offices are also being shut down, part of the federal government’s cost-cutting efforts. That could mean seniors have to travel even farther to visit, including in parts of rural West Virginia.
At least now the efforts to kill Social Security are out in the open. I guarantee you if there is a missed payment the public reaction will shock self-satisfied billionaires like Howard Lutnick, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Musk is throwing a tantrum about judges who are simply interpreting U.S. laws.
In the days after a federal judge ruled Elon Musk’s dismantling of USAID likely violated the constitution, the world’s richest person issued a series of online attacks against the American judiciary, offered money to voters to sign a petition opposing “activist judges”, and called on Congress to remove his newfound legal opponents from office.
“This is a judicial coup,” Musk wrote on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to “impeach the judges”.
Musk, who serves as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, posted about judges who ruled in opposition to the administration more than 20 times within 48 hours this week on X, the social network he owns, repeatedly framing them as radical leftist activists and seeking to undermine their authority. His denunciations came as his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) faces sweeping and numerous legal challenges to its gutting overhaul of the government, which has involved firing thousands of workers and gaining access to sensitive government data.
Doge is the subject of nearly two dozen lawsuits, which in some cases have already resulted in judges imposing more transparency on Musk’s initiative or reversing parts of its rapid-fire cuts at federal agencies. The legal pushback poses one of the most significant challenges to Musk’s plans, which for weeks after inauguration day involved operating with expansive powers and little evident oversight.
While Musk posts online, he is also directing some of his immense wealth towards those who support his cause. Musk donated funds to seven Republican members of Congress who called for impeaching judges, the New York Times reported, giving the maximum allowable donation of $6,600 to their campaigns.
Musk also launched a petition on Thursday against “activist judges” via his political action group America Pac, which offered registered voters in Wisconsin $100 if they signed. Musk’s Pac has funneled millions of dollars into the state’s 1 April supreme court race, in which he is backing a former Republican attorney general in another attempt to reshape the country’s courts.
How is that legal? But he got away with it in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election when he offered 1 million prizes for people who signed a petition.
By Laura El
Musk is also furious about “leakers” who have talked to the press about his DOGE meddling.
The pervasive fear and anger that have been rippling through federal agencies over Elon Musk’s slashing approach to shrinking government deepened even further on Friday over the billionaire tech mogul’s threat to root out and punish anyone who is leaking to the media.
They’ve already taken every precaution they can for fear of retaliation: setting Signal messages to automatically disappear, taking photos of documents they share instead of screenshotting, using non-government devices to communicate. But disclosing the chaos caused by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, for many, outweighs the risks that come with leaking.
Following Thursday’s New York Times report that Musk was set to receive a Pentagon briefing about a confidential contingency plan for a war with China, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO posted on his social media platform X that leakers “will be found” and, he intimated, punished.
“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” Musk wrote in his post.
Oooooh! How scary!
But Musk’s post is not having the chilling effect on leakers he’d intended, according to conversations with more than half a dozen government employees who had previously spoken to POLITICO. If anything, it might be the other way around.
“We are public servants, not Elon’s servants,” said one Food and Drug Administration employee who, like all people interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics. “The public deserves to know how dysfunctional, destructive, and deceptive all of this has been and continues to be.”
“Leakers are patriots,” said one Agriculture Department employee. Helping the media report on problems or concerns inside agencies, the USDA employee added, is motivated by a desire for greater transparency — the same goal Musk has said undergirds his own work through DOGE….
Musk’s comments may not have caused a major shift in how federal workers view sharing information with reporters, one federal employee at a health agency said, citing group chats with other employees.
But even before Musk’s comments this week, the prevailing atmosphere inside many federal agencies — from constant threats of firing and being labeled enemies of the public to ousting them for following orders from previous administrations — have left employees feeling vulnerable, increasingly incensed and concerned about their physical safety.
There’s quite a bit more at the Politico link.
By Rakhmeet Redzhepov
Musk is also paying a price in attitudes toward his EV company Tesla. He and his rich buddies think attacks on Tesla locations and individual cars is a conspiracy, but it is really organic. Let me say up front that I don’t condone violence or vandalism.
Law enforcement officials and domestic extremism experts say they have found no evidence that a series of attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships are coordinated despite such claims from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump.
At least 10 Tesla dealerships, charging stations and facilities have been hit by vandals, many of whom have lit cars on fire, while a growing collection of videos posted to social media have shown people defacing and damaging Tesla vehicles. One website appeared to encourage people to target Tesla vehicles, publishing a map with the information of dozens of Tesla owners and Tesla facilities. It’s unknown who started the site.
The attacks have come as Musk has emerged as one of the brightest flashpoints of an already tumultuous second Trump administration, leading a sweeping effort to cut large swaths of the federal government. Musk has decried the attacks on Teslas, and on Thursday claimed on his social media platform X that the attacks were “coordinated.” He did not provide evidence….
Trump has also claimed the attacks have been coordinated. In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, he said without evidence that “people that are very highly political on the left” are paying the vandals.
Trump has called the destruction of Tesla property domestic terrorism, and Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges on Thursday against three people accused of vandalizing Tesla properties in Oregon, South Carolina and Washington state.
Publicly available court documents for the three people make no mention of coordination, an NBC News review found.
Experts and law enforcement officials nationwide from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the two federal agencies investigating the attacks, all told NBC News they have found no evidence of any coordination around the attacks.
More details at NBC News.
I’m just heartened by the rising public anger over Trump and Musk working to destroy our democratic form of government and turn our country into a dictatorship.
Entering the magnificent great hall of the US Department of Justice, Donald Trump stopped for a moment to admire his portrait then took to a specially constructed stage where two art deco statues, depicting the “Spirit of Justice” and “Majesty of Justice”, had been carefully concealed behind a blue velvet curtain.
The president, who since last year is also a convicted criminal, proceeded to air grievances, utter a profanity and accuse the news media of doing “totally illegal” things, without offering evidence. “I just hope you can all watch for it,” he told justice department employees, “but it’s totally illegal.”
Cat Lady on a Couch, by Sharon Bursic
Trump’s breach of the justice department’s traditional independence last week was neither shocking nor surprising. His speech quickly faded from the fast and furious news cycle. But future historians may regard it as a milestone on a road leading the world’s oldest continuousdemocracy to a once unthinkable destination.
Eviscerating the federal government and subjugating Congress; defying court orders and delegitimising judges; deporting immigrants and arresting protesters without due process; chilling free speech at universities and cultural institutions; cowing news outlets with divide-and-rule. Add a rightwing media ecosystem manufacturing consent and obeyance in advance, along with a weak and divided opposition offering feeble resistance. Join all the dots, critics say, and America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism.
“These are flashing red lights here,” Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director turned Trump critic. “We are approaching Defcon 1 for our democracy and a lot of people in the media and the opposition leadership don’t seem to be communicating that to the American people. That is the biggest danger of the moment we’re in now: the normalisation of it.”
Much was said and written by journalists and Democrats during last year’s election campaign arguing that Trump, who instigated a coup against the US government on January 6, 2021, could endanger America’s 240-year experiment with democracy if he returned to power. In a TV interview he had promised to be “dictator” but only on “day one”. Sixty days in, the only question is whether the warnings went far enough.
The 45th and 47th president has wasted no time in launching a concerted effort to consolidate executive power, undermine checks and balances and challenge established legal and institutional norms. And he is making no secret of his strongman ambitions.
Trump, 78, has declared “We are the federal law” and posted a social media image of himself wearing a crown with the words “Long live the king”. He also channeled Napoleon with the words: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” And JD Vance has stated that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”.
Trump quickly pardoned those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, placed loyalists in key positions within the FBI and military and purged the justice department, which also suffered resignations in response to the dismissal of corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams after his cooperation on hardline immigration measures.
The president now has the courts in his sights. Last weekend the White House defied a judge’s verbal order blocking it from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime, to justify the deportation of 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador, where they will be held in a 40,000-person megaprison.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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