2:00PM Water Cooler 2/5/2025

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180 comments

1. t February 5, 2025 at 2:30 pm

   The Register continues with delightful coverage of DOGE and in a much needed relief from everyone always IDing Musk as “the world’s richest man”, the Register uses the modifier “the world’s richest and most impatient man.” That is jounalism!
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 2:49 pm

      I stan for the Register!

      Musk, the world’s most Ketamine-Dependent Boer.
2. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 2:33 pm

   Musk little greedy f’er is trying to skim or try to make one his scammy payments ideas a thing.
   He probably will do more and he doesn’t care if he eventually gets caught scamming because he already bought his pardon.
   There. Said it.
   1. aleph_0 February 5, 2025 at 3:11 pm

      This is interesting, and possibly close. I hadn’t really thought of the “I’m going to privatize the Dept. of Treasury payments and weld it to X, the Everything App” angle, but that does seem like something Elon would try to do.

      The second part is what gives me pause about lawsuits as being the solution here. This is fast, lawsuits are slow, and Musk doesn’t tend to be honest in public or follow court orders.
      1. Dr. John Carpenter February 5, 2025 at 4:59 pm

         Democrat lawfare against Trump/Musk seems like “fighting for” IMHO.
         1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:33 pm

            The lawsuits mentioned above are not necessarily “Democratic” lawfare, are they? They could be viewed as genuine attempts by free-standing organizations to actually stop President Musk from carjacking the Treasury Department, could they not?

            Ian Welsh has a very recent posting about Trump’s ” Is it a coup?”. In the comments section someone offered a theory of the “coup case”, including the thought that the silicon crypto bros’ goal in all this is the abolition of the Treasury Department from existence and then the abolition of the dollar from existence and the forcing of everyone onto the Bitcoin Standard. It is to be a template for abolishing governments and erasing money systems over as much of the world as they can, to turn the whole world into an Anarcho-CryptoCapitalist private playground and two class slave society. ( The Silicon Crypto-bros are not the only members of this Coup Coalition . . . according to the comment’s theory).

            Anyway, here is the link to the Ian Welsh article . . . ” Is Trump Running a Coup?”
            https://www.ianwelsh.net/is-trump-running-a-coup/
            1. Random February 5, 2025 at 7:42 pm

               Sounds like something that would hand over global hegemony to China very quickly.
               If that’s their theory, it seems to be based on the assumption that the rest of the world simply doesn’t matter and won’t act while they’re busy spending state resources on grift.
               1. ana February 5, 2025 at 9:07 pm

                  If you think the US is still the global hedgemon then I have a bridge to sell you… This whole mess is the result of the American ruling class (which believe it or not isn’t the so-called “PMC” but the regular old US industrial and financial bourgeoisie) not being able to cope with losing status as global hedgemon. Trump and Musk are doing what revanchists do best and dismantling the state for a bourgeois fire sale. This risks America’s sole remaining leverage (the dollar), but its days were limited anyway.
3. Adam1 February 5, 2025 at 2:39 pm

   “…they could be said to have ‘read-only’ and ‘read and write’ access simultaneously.”

   Why it would definitely be obscuring the facts to tell the media only 1 of the 2 privileges, it is totally normal to have both.

   It is bad practice to log into a production system with any write permissions unless you were specifically executing a write type of command or change. To log in with those permissions to just investigate or do research only invites accidents to do major damage. Hence even persons who have been given the privileges to make changes to systems often have 2 sets of log in permissions… 1 is read only and the other is read & write.
4. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 2:44 pm

   Re: DOGE lawsuit, jurisdiction

   28 USC 1331 (Federal Question) is one of the simplest Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:

   https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1331

   “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”

   The plaintiffs here cite a Federal statute, the APA, for Federal Question. As Lambert points out, D.O.G.E. looks to have been carefully crafted as an advisory board. Hence, I agree w/Lexology that it might be exempt:

   DOGE’s advisory role likely places it outside the scope of the APA.

   Being a student I can only suggest that it might have been wise to include a Constitutional basis for the complaint. At the minimum, this would have given the suit better odds (2 ways to get to jurisdiction, not just one.)

   I’ve never heard of an advisory board being given the sort of privileged access to Federal IT systems without Congressional authorization, so alleging something along the lines of a violation of the 4th amendment (protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures”) might have legs. The heart of the complaint seems to be about privacy, so including that could at least help get past the complaint stage. Worst scenario – it does not harm the case.

   What about the shadowy status of DOGE – is it a governmental actor? Or private? Note that this sort of deliberate obfuscation of the nature of the beast is a trick that the Biden admin used to avoid scrutiny when they infiltrated Facebook and other social media companies to induce them to censor information on COVID treatments, thereby making it look like it was coming from the private sector not the government. Not every Court is going to let them get away with that trick …D.O.G.E. is clearly acting as Trump’s agent.

   At the complaint stage, you just need to plead enough to survive a motion to dismiss (plus show standing, get past jurisdictional hurdles.) So I would have thrown in a Constitutional argument as well, even if it wasn’t well-argued yet.
   1. albrt February 5, 2025 at 3:13 pm

      I agree it would make sense to have more than one basis for jurisdiction, but it seems to me that if a non-agency interferes or takes over work that was delegated to an agency, that qualifies as an APA problem.

      Although this stuff seems obscure, lawyers who deal with it have seen most of the possible dodges. The classic is when somebody gets the bright idea to ignore the process for making rules by calling something a “guideline.”
5. upstater February 5, 2025 at 2:47 pm

   Lambert ponders about a dues paying or formal party membership for the Democratic party sometimes. Apparently in NYS one can be excommunicated from a party enrollment!

   In democratic (small “d”) NYS one can have a voluntary party registration judicially stripped. A registered Democrat changed his registration to run for Syracuse mayor as a RINO Republican ala Michael Bloomberg. The Republicans are in a tizzy!

   Syracuse GOP leaders reject RINO candidate Tim Rudd: ‘It went south really quick’

   A member of the Syracuse Republican Committee, former Onondaga County Legislator Jim DiBlasi, filed a complaint with Onondaga County Republican Chairman asking for a party disenrollment hearing. Under state election law, political party officials can hold such a hearing and then decide to seek a state Supreme Court order to have a person removed as a registered member of that party for not being “in sympathy with the principles.”

   Rather amazing purity test! Goes well with Cuomo’s COVID election “reforms” that basically outlawed third parties.
   1. scott s. February 6, 2025 at 2:12 pm

      Much the same in Hawaii. Here when candidate files nomination papers they self-certify their party membership. The recognized state party can file an objection with the (county) circuit court. The circuit court has to look to the party rules, as filed in the state Office of Elections to establish “membership” in the party. At least for the Rs, party rules provide for membership and a process for the party state committee to remove membership. Otherwise you get the situation where someone you never heard of gets nominated and theoretically represents a “party”.

      Party membership only requires a self-certified statement that ” “I am a Republican. I will support the principles of the Republican Party and abide by its bylaws.”
6. LifelongLib February 5, 2025 at 2:50 pm

   Re the mumps, IIRC in the mid-60s we were immunized against smallpox(!), polio, diphtheria, pertussis aka whooping cough, and tetanus. There was nothing for mumps or measles and getting those was considered a normal part of childhood. I recall being told that it was good to have the mumps when I did (age ~10) because it could be dangerous later, but I wasn’t told why.
   1. flora February 5, 2025 at 6:51 pm

      Back before a vacs for same, parents new that having their children get the mumps or chickenpox very early in the their children’s lives was as good thing. Child would come through OK and have lifetime immunity. Getting said diseases later on in life was terrible. How much medical knowledge have we lost?
      1. flora February 5, 2025 at 7:39 pm

         And lest anyone think I’m anti-whatever: if I ever get a dirty cut or wound I’ll go quiick as a wink to find a tetanus shot. Tetanus can kill you. No questions.
         1. flora February 5, 2025 at 7:47 pm

            edit: tetanus can will kill you.
            1. flora February 5, 2025 at 7:51 pm

               edit: sorry, tetanus can will will kill you.
               1. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 8:02 pm

                  You don’t want lockjaw as it is not a good way to go out. And there is no cure either. So yeah, tetanus shots for sure.
                  1. flora February 5, 2025 at 8:09 pm

                     Yes. Absolutely.
   2. eg February 5, 2025 at 10:21 pm

      I had mumps when I was 8 — pretty bad case as I recall. I had to be sequestered away from my newborn youngest brother until the communicable period passed.
7. IM February 5, 2025 at 2:59 pm

   As a doctor: post-mumps testicle is so a thing. Not everyone gets the oorchitis (15-30% unvaccinated post-pubertal males), but when it happens, it is impressive and can cause permanent damage. Nice smooth orderly organ becomes disorganized fibrotic mess. Infertility rare but possible.

   And not just the testis, there’s mumps meningitis too…
   1. Joe Well February 5, 2025 at 3:36 pm

      So that’s why people tried to get children infected young in the days before the vaccine?
   2. KLG February 5, 2025 at 6:28 pm

      Been a long day, so late to the party. I am a “doctor” but not a physician, so my first thought was to go to PubMed. Apologies if this has already been done in comments.

      The query “mumps and testicular atrophy” (a specific search) returns a relatively short list of hits that begins in 1951.

      A search using “mumps orchitis” yields many more hits, with the first article from 1851.

      Mumps isn’t just for the parotid (salivary) gland…

      And in keeping up with current events, how long before the National Library of Medicine/National Center for Biotechnology Information gets shut down? This is scientific communication from the federal government, and a shutdown would destroy biology and biomedical science as scholarly disciplines at their very foundations in a scientific world that spans the globe instead of the distances between Cambridge, Oxford, and London.
      1. Northwoods February 5, 2025 at 10:17 pm

         Had mumps as a kid in England, before the vaccine. Rendered me infertile. Never looked back!
      2. hunkerdown February 6, 2025 at 8:38 am

         EuropePMC is PubMed’s European partner. Presumably they have copies.
8. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 3:00 pm

   “It begins with a small strategic reserve of a few billion dollars. It ends with the Department of Bitcoin Price Appreciation being allocated 50% of yearly tax revenues to make the number go up, to the detriment of infrastructure like roads, hospitals, and law enforcement. At that point we’ve entered a dystopia in which society rapidly deteriorates because we’ve all become obsessed on a bet.”

   That’s an idea from someone who REALLY hates America.
   1. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 3:06 pm

      And it’s going to be done to divide society.
      Dealing with people that don’t want any nation with a representative government in existence that will curb their excesses.
9. Grumpy Engineer February 5, 2025 at 3:03 pm

   “Then there is no reason at all for DOGE to have admin privileges, which exist to change things, not to understand and proffer advice about them.”

   At face value, I would argue that mere read-only access would be adequate for auditing purposes. But I will note that sometimes changes are required to improve search capabilities (like enabling additional database indexing functionality), and this should only be done by experienced administrators who are familiar with the system. Having a single 25-year-old engineer (who is new to the system) making changes without supervision is a good way to accidentally break things.
   1. Jason Boxman February 5, 2025 at 5:05 pm

      Yeah, I was just thinking that given there might be many level of access, it might be that only “admin” users have complete, unfettered access to read records in the system. But who knows.
   2. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:54 pm

      Or accidentally-on-purpose get things broken? ” He’s sorry. He’s only twenty five years old! How could he have known? ”

      Elmo Twitler Musk could have several goals concurrently with this carjacking of the Treasury Department.
   3. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 5:58 pm

      My impression is that they are using different systems to access data because the original data tools are too clunky.

      Think: give me access to an SQL database so I can suck out all the tables into this other system which automatically provides indexes and fast data-mining access… like Palantir possibly joined with something like a private version of the Grok LLM, and python scripts so that you can find stuff quickly.

      Except the government is probably using databases that predate SQL. So the job is to convert esoteric formats into something understandable and then query that. It helps to have “admin” access so that you get around all the complexity of who gets to see what, so that you can actually see all the data in the databases, filesystems, etc. For example, there are probably glacially slow processes to add new users and give them permissions, and these processes probably require approval by the very people whose jobs are in jeopardy once the data is processed. Without the correct permissions you don’t get to see what’s there, so things can be hidden from you.

      What you need Admin permissions for is so that you can see everything, and nothing is hidden from you. What you don’t need the admin access for is to change the original data, and I doubt these engineers are changing the data, because the goal is to shut down useless programs, not to get bogged down in lawsuits.
      1. lambert strether February 5, 2025 at 6:11 pm

         > the goal is to shut down useless programs, not to get bogged down in lawsuits

         1) The goal is to consolidate Republican Party power

         2) Obeying the law isn’t Elon’s strong suit. “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” as they say in Silly Valley
         1. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 6:49 pm

            Yeah… Except this is attacking enemy governmental territory, not using potable water to cool a rocket launch pad. Lawsuits are expected here, so Elon et al might be doing a Blitzkrieg, but I expect they’re still going to avoid doing anything criminal that could land them in prison. Elon might be brash but you don’t land rockets being stupid.

            You could counter that Trump could pardon DOGE’s workers preemptively, now that Biden has set the precedent, which would allow them to misbehave… in which case I cannot argue back.

            I might be wrong, but my impression is that the lady doth protest too much: those departments who are losing power are throwing any blame they can to stop the investigation. To me, it feels just like when all the serious people told me that Christopher Steele’s report was serious, yet when Buzzfeed released it and I read it, I couldn’t believe anyone could take that rubbish seriously, and I realized quite how phony everything is.
         2. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 7:13 pm

            “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” as they say in Silly Valley

            There is another saying too – “Never forgive, never forget.”
            1. Joe Well February 5, 2025 at 9:30 pm

               “Move fast and break things.”

               Mark Zuckerberg
         3. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 10:56 pm

            About 1), you might be right, but not everything that goes against Democrats consolidates Republicans’ power.

            Dismantling the tools of the ruling class/globalists would go against the power of both parties, and it seems to me that is what is happening: funds to corrupt the media (Politico, apparently Reuters) or to interfere in US democracy and censor speech are being curtailed. I’m sure there are plenty of Republican bigwigs who regret the loss of this power.
            1. Yves Smith February 6, 2025 at 12:24 am

               Thompson Reuters is an information business. Reuters is a subsidiary. Reuters has long been in the financial data feed business but I don’t know how important that is.

               Thomson Reuters is a leading provider of business information services. Our products include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting, trade and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news service, Reuters….

               We provide integrated tax compliance and accounting information, software and services for professionals.

               Our Tax and Accounting business serves CFOs; CPAs; local, state and national governments; law firms; tax & accounting firms; global trade organizations; educational institutions; and more.

               Example of how we’re making an impact: With the help of Thomson Reuters products, 19 communities in northern Sierra Leone and the nearby region are establishing land rights and securing the rainforest.

               Now having said that, any contract, even at a non-news subsidiary, has the potential to lead to bias in reporting, in that editors could be alerted to the existence of a US contract. That ought to be a no-no but one cannot be sure.
         4. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 11:45 pm

            DOGE is the USDS renamed, is therefore legal and Congressionally approved, and each DOGE team comprises a team lead, an engineer, an HR person and an attorney. Seems the law is pretty high up on the agenda.
            1. Just the facts ma'!? February 7, 2025 at 12:41 am

               Elon, is that you? You keep citing sources on X. Ryam Grimm did a piece which showed politico actual received 44k USD for professional subscription services, that’s about it.
               You ever heard of a Bloomberg terminal? It’s practically the same thing. What’s next? Are you gonna say the US Govt is funding Microsoft because they bought MS Office subscriptions?
               1. Yves Smith February 7, 2025 at 1:18 am

                  I agree that JustTheFacts Trump boosterism is excessive, sloppy with facts, missing the substantiation we require, as well as too frequent (“bandwidth hogging” which is a policy violation). So he treading on very thin ice.

                  However, your tone is out of line. Getting nasty makes you less, not more, credible. So even though pushback against Trump pom-pom waving is welcome, more or less stooping to his level is not very effective. Further comments like this will not be approved.

                  Even though your information is potentially useful, we expect them to be substantiated with a link and you provided none. Unsubstantiated claims will also not be approved.

                  I suggest you read our site Policies so as not to run afoul of them again.
      2. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 6:37 pm

         Presumably these “very important systems” have backups and access logs so that if they get modified, it would be easy to figure out who did it. If they don’t, that’s the real scandal.
      3. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 11:22 pm

         Meet one of the “Musk Dogelings”, Luke Farritor, one of the really nefarious guys who spent his free time creating new algorithms to decode the Vesuvius burned scrolls. Clearly someone who’s motivated by stealing everyone’s money. (/s).
         1. OIFVet February 6, 2025 at 1:52 am

            Such a good boy! When not busy working for a megalomaniacal oligarch, he helps grannies cross the street!
         2. steppenwolf fetchit February 6, 2025 at 2:06 pm

            Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian and he used to feed squirrels in the park.
         3. mad dog February 7, 2025 at 7:18 am

            Clearly billionaires are motivated by anything but money. On a more positive note, the rise of Musk’s Witnesses made me realize that Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t that bad.
10. Carolinian February 5, 2025 at 3:08 pm

    As it happens I know someone who works for the Federal government, is four years from retirement and is now plunged into uncertainty about what is going on. Elsewhere it is reported that 20,000 workers have already taken “the deal”–if the buyout indeed exists–but that the normal year to year turnover is 6 percent so perhaps many would have quit anyway.

    But one should say that there have been those here who thought bending the law and the legal process to stop Trump was entirely appropriate and not just as great a violation of “the norms” as what is happening with Musk. Government workers on the sidelines of all this have a right to complain but our tawdry Dems do not. All the baloney coming out of Trump’s mouth lately is the sound of the system failing. A little integrity–across the board–would be a refreshing change.
    1. aleph_0 February 5, 2025 at 3:22 pm

       “A little integrity–across the board–would be a refreshing change.”

       Not on offer. So what now?
       1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:58 pm

          We look for actions indicating integrity from those who have it . . . such as the recent filers of these recent suits? . . . and try to protect them and their progress however we can.

          And some intellectual integrity might indicate not making or falling for whatabout-Democrats-type excuses to excuse and minimize and justify Musk’s current carjacking of the Treasury Department.
          1. aleph_0 February 5, 2025 at 6:24 pm

             Well said.
          2. Carolinian February 5, 2025 at 7:04 pm

             You do realize we all are just commenters here–have no actual agency. If the facts are wrong people are free to point that out. If the opinions are wrong then it’s not really about “integrity.”

             And my point is the same one made by Mark Ames in a tweet quoted on another page. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. The Dems attacked Trump in 2016 with a contrived, dishonest and frankly lunatic charge of being a Manchurian Candidate for Putin. And we are still feeling the consequences. Philosophically advocates of a “post truth” era are, imo, a lot worse than Trump with his bs. But I guess we’ve yet to see which side will stack up the most bodies.
    2. alrhundi February 5, 2025 at 7:06 pm

       28.1% of federal workers are 55 or older. 9% are under 30. There are 0.6 million USPS employees and 2.4 million other federal employees. This could be a massive hit to (especially older) people. That’s a huge amount of people that could get screwed out of retirement and pension, no?
       1. flora February 5, 2025 at 7:14 pm

          re: 55 years or older. aka, high cost health insurance employees. ( Let me tell you about my uni striving to push out older academics who raise the uni’s health insurance costs. You don’t want to know. heh. ) Hiring younger workers lowers health insurance costs. / ;)
          1. flora February 5, 2025 at 7:18 pm

             And of course, younger workers can be hired for lower salaries. So there’s that.
          2. Keith Howard February 5, 2025 at 8:11 pm

             In reply to your last sentence: “Hiring younger workers lowers health insurance costs.”

             I don’t doubt that you are correct in the main. But younger workers are also more likely to have babies. One tragically impaired infant just about bankrupted the group plan I was part of some years ago.
             1. flora February 5, 2025 at 8:43 pm

                Thank you.
             2. Pat February 5, 2025 at 11:08 pm

                Or the increased immunity stress from Covid might mean increased cancers and heart disease in younger than expected pockets of the populace. It might have been more virulent but AIDS and a rash of breast cancer nearly wiped out my well run and financed union’s plan. They scrambled with the harsh community ratings for years before having to give up take the by hit joining the international’s plan.
11. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 3:12 pm

    Gerontocracy update:

    McConnell Falls, Again

    Apparently it wasn’t a bad fall, but it happened twice, and:

    McConnell was later spotted being wheeled through the Capitol in a wheelchair.
    1. AG February 5, 2025 at 7:47 pm

       not the first madman in a wheelchair yielding power
    2. eg February 5, 2025 at 10:27 pm

       Enough of these Struldbruggs already!
    3. griffen February 6, 2025 at 6:46 am

       Tom Petty to the courtesy phone…

       He’s a good boy
       He loved his mama
       Loves Kentucky horses
       And America too…

       Mitch is Free…
       Free Falling…
       The Reaper…
       He’s Robo Calling…
       1. ChrisFromGA February 6, 2025 at 8:11 am

          Ha! I briefly considered a parody based on “I’ll tumble for ya” by Culture Club, but put in on the back-burner.
12. Watt4Bob February 5, 2025 at 3:13 pm

    ‘Treasury has been denying that they gave Marko write access, but I am looking at his access request right now and it has the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for IT Operations instructing the team to disregard all previous instructions and assign Marko read/write privileges for the database.

    Descriptions of what has occurred are sketchy, but this snippet, at face value, would lead me to believe Marko has been granted the ability to edit data, that is, the content of the database, not the underlying software that uses those database files.

    Now this is still inexplicable, being that the data indicates who is owed money, as well as how much, and presumedly why (Contract/Program identifiers).

    Considering how easy it is to edit databases, wholesale, with tools like SQL, (Structured Query Language) Marko could conceivably change all scheduled payments at once by a fixed percentage, by using a simple SQL statement that affects a single cell in every record in the database file that defines the payment calculations.

    Then there is the possibility that whole groups of people expecting checks from the government could have their records deleted entirely, thus, to Musk’s, or Trump’s mind, making the government more efficient, or at least lowering the cost of
    government.

    Trump/Musk would no doubt sell this sort of destruction as “Saving the taxpayer’s money.”

    Trump would go on TV and tell us that Musk had found the sort of people or programs that he found ‘undeserving’, and proudly boast that he had put an end to the waste, and or, abuse.

    I know of some costly examples of corporations making stupid changes to recently acquired systems simply because new admins where anxious to “try something”.

    Seeing how dangerous even read-write access to database files is, granting SYSADMIN and SYSCFG would be a truly foolish move.
13. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 3:13 pm

    But it’s good to keep the focus on the Treasury. All the DEI revelations and others aren’t the main game.
    1. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 3:19 pm

       I have a theory that Musk and his geek squad may be a sort of forensic accounting team. They’ll uncover where the money is going and report back to Trump.

       The Politico revelation might be overblown, though, after reading that it could have been a bill for subscription services (apparently USAID paid for a subscription to Politico Pro.) That’s still bad, as it shows how entagled the private media are with the government, but not as bad as direct subsidies to keep the entire operation afloat.

       Jury still out … I would be looking for payments to Business Insider, Forbes, and other “independent media” that all started singing to the same sheet music right when Russia invaded Ukraine. Plus they all started showing up in Yahoo and Google new feeds, quite a coincidence!
       1. fjallstrom February 5, 2025 at 3:33 pm

          I think Tankus has a good point in that they wouldn’t need writing privileges if they are only doing accounting. There’s something more going on and unless stopped we won’t know what until it’s fair accompli.
       2. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 3:34 pm

          “I have a theory that Musk and his geek squad may be a sort of forensic accounting team.”

          Ok. Turn that team on Musk’s contracts.
          1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 3:43 pm

             > “I have a theory that Musk and his geek squad may be a sort of forensic accounting team.”

             Auding is a process with standards and deliverables. It’s not like Judy Garland playing “Let’s put on a show!”
             1. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 3:50 pm

                Standards … we don’t need no steenkin’ standards!

                Musk is freewheeling like a mix of an advanced threat actor, forensic accountant, muckraking journalist, and uber-geek techie. And maybe an Oceans 11 style criminal bank robber.

                Fail fast!
                1. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 5:44 pm

                   Very good but you forgot the head of Stasi in that mix. Know everything about everyone.
    2. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 3:33 pm

       > keep the focus on the Treasury

       “When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton simply replied, ‘Because that’s where the money is.'”

       I think the DEI stuff is a real focus, and legitimately so — thinking of the checkbox HR crapola — and getting rid of it will do the Democrats a favor (not that they understand or accept this, as the DNC shows). As long as it doesn’t turn into rolling back the clock to Jim Crow, as some Republican factions want.

       But the Fiscal Service stuff changes the Constitutional Order. Suppose Musk and his goons simply install a filter at the end of the check-writing pipeline that can simply prevent simply check for disfavored entities or projects from being printed — even though those checks were authorized by law? Or suppose President Musk uses the same software to “save” $4 billion a day by marking al checks down? In other words, what happens to the Congress’s Article I powers?
       1. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 3:37 pm

          DEI is part of the program…but not the main event.
          1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 6:04 pm

             I once read that gypsy gangs ( pardon me . . . RomaSinti gangs) had a method of robbing jewelry stores that involved some of the staging a loud dramatic fight near the front of the store and when all eyes were on that fight, other members of the gang would quietly smash cases and steal all the jewelry and quietly escape.

             So maybe this loud and proud shutting down of DEI and USAID and other such stuff is partly a loud and dramatic fight to keep all eyes and ears away from the carjacking-in-progress of the Treasury Department.
       2. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 5:58 pm

          But I’m not really mad about Trump’s stance on women’s sports. Wasn’t fair.
14. fjallstrom February 5, 2025 at 3:29 pm

    Regarding Satoshi, he might be dead. It would explain why those coins were never used despite the ludicrous valuation.

    Here is an article about one dead hacker it could be. If he’s dead I doubt we will ever know for sure.
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 3:39 pm

       Fascinating paper.
       1. Late Introvert February 6, 2025 at 12:42 am

          It feels like a Pynchon novel and now I see the reference to the Pychon Gate. Phew.
    2. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 6:31 pm

       I am just an analog person, but I think I remember Aaron Swartz as being a co-creator of Reddit and having something to do with the Internet Archive, both of which are good things.

       Bitcoin is evil and those who created it must never be forgiven. If whoever created bitcoin committed suicide, the tragedy for the rest of us is that heeshee didn’t do it before bitcoin was created. The tragedy is not in the death of the creator of bitcoin, the tragedy is that this person ever lived at all.

       But this person or persons did live. And they lived long enough to unleash their evil radioactive bitcoin upon an innocent world which did nothing to deserve bitcoin.

       I don’t consider the perpetrator(s) of bitcoin’s original invention to be public benefactors. At all. At. All.
       They were the very opposite of Aaron Swartz who really was a public benefactor.
       1. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 6:53 pm

          Bitcoin is evil

          What is your reason for claiming this?
          1. eg February 5, 2025 at 10:30 pm

             Because its only use cases are gambling and criminality?
             1. JustTheFacts February 5, 2025 at 10:42 pm

                Well that’s blatently not true. People can send money to each other with it without banks taking fees out, for instance remittances.

                My concern with it is that it wastes a lot of energy.
                1. Yves Smith February 6, 2025 at 8:57 am

                   First. you have no idea what you are paying in effective fees when you do the FX from crypto to a real world currency you can use to buy goods and services. If you think you are getting a good price, as a small lot retail investor, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. Big multinationals have to work hard to make sure they get fine prices on FX and they are doing big trades in highly liquid currencies.

                   Second, there is not one crypto but a zillion. Why do you assume your recipient wants the one you propose to send them?
          2. steppenwolf fetchit February 6, 2025 at 2:10 pm

             And because it is designed to suck up such vast amounts of electricity that we will have to go back to coal and oil for the electricity wanted to keep those bitcoin miners bitcoin mining?
             And for what? Some grubby hucksters’ huge grubby swindle ponzi?

             I mean even more coal and oil power plants than now.
15. hamstak February 5, 2025 at 3:34 pm

    Regarding DOGE and the payments system, besides the fraction of a cent scam, here are a few possibilities that come to mind (ignoring the plausibility/legality of each):

    1) Planting evidence: look, we found code proving that China/etc. has compromised our sacred code!
    2) Creating a backdoor for arbitrary denial of payments — a sort if internal sanctioning
    3) Introducing proprietary code, requiring remuneration to the patent/copyright holder
    4) No actual code is being changed, but perhaps just code comments, with the intent of driving further hysteria (which seems to be Trump’s current general approach between tariff’s, expansionism, Gaza, and so forth)

    Provided that genuine code changes are being implemented:

    1) How are these being audited/authorized?
    2) How are these being tested?
    3) Have any of these gone into production?
    4) Were established protocols followed with respect to 1-3?
    5) I find it implausible that a bundle of meaningful logical changes could be accomplished in such a short period of time, which implies some degree of system foreknowledge. It wouldn’t just be off the top of Don’s or Elon’s noggins.
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 3:40 pm

       > 5) I find it implausible that a bundle of meaningful logical changes could be accomplished in such a short period of time, which implies some degree of system foreknowledge. It wouldn’t just be off the top of Don’s or Elon’s noggins.

       So they had an informant?
       1. hamstak February 5, 2025 at 4:31 pm

          It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

          Operating under these assumptions:
          1) To repeat, this regards meaningful logical changes and not just code comment edits or changing variable names so they are suffixed with _MAGA
          2) The system under consideration is leviathan: complex, layered, multi-generational, lots of nooks and crannies.
          3) Changes have been described as “extensive” (per the TPM excerpt above); what qualifies as extensive? Maybe a few minor (in terms of effort, not necessarily consequence) changes applied to a number of parallel, similar subsystems could be called “extensive” and performed rather cold. A number of varying, complex logical changes? Not so much.

          Would a 24 year old programmer with how much experience with payment system structure/programming and (presumably) COBOL be able to accomplish, (presumably) single-handedly, in a short period of time, extensive, meaningful logical changes?

          This is why I tend to favor 4) from my first list in my previous comment: “extensive”, benign/non-logical changes being made to code documents, such as adding comments about what they would like to change in the future or what have you — the purpose being to raise a ruckus and then come back and say “Hey you fools, you raised a ruckus over nothing!”

          But at this point, who knows.
       2. hamstak February 5, 2025 at 4:56 pm

          I suppose I didn’t answer your question; to continue not answering it directly, I will say that provided those three assumptions, and that my description of the programmer in question is correct, I would have a difficult time believing such could be done without systems knowledge in advance, however acquired (insider, former insider, infiltrator).
       3. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:51 pm

          Not exactly similar, but certainly a parallel example of “inside informant”. . .

          When Jonathan Pollard was stealing so much super-classified material from a Super Secret Naval Documents Library and copying it to sell to his Israeli handler/handlers, he knew exactly which documents to get and had all the names and titles under which to find them. How did he know that?
          Colonel Lang told his readers that he was given extensive lists of specific documents and publications to go get by his handlers, who must have had inside informers telling them exactly what to ask Pollard to go get.

          So it could be that these coup plotters and carjacking planners had time to put informants inside there possibly some time ago. Or perhaps they recruited insiders to join their cause.
    2. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 4:00 pm

       We need to update our threat models … billionaire oligarch buys influence with President, burrows into the largest financial payment system in the world. Introduces backdoors, elevates privilege, spoofs payments, tampers with system.

       Our lovable rascal then uses lateral movement into adjacent Federal Reserve banking systems to fund his next Mars mission. Data exfiltration. Privacy violations.

       Social engineering extraordinaire!
       1. Joe Renter February 5, 2025 at 10:15 pm

          One solution might be to put Musk on a spaceship to Mars ASAP! One can only hope.
    3. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 5:53 pm

       Or what if the system just crashes? Talk about impoundment! Yes, that would make DOGE look like idiots but think of all the beautiful chaos it would generate.
16. CA February 5, 2025 at 3:55 pm

    Note that Japan has been experiencing a widespread flu infection period. Evidently there have been more than ordinary severe cases. As for me and my family, we routinely use the season’s flu vaccine. My parents use a double dose vaccine. Our experience has been excellent, but I just mention this and no more.
17. marym February 5, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    Lawsuit filed today
    Protests and a Lawsuit Confront DOGE as It Targets Labor Department
    https://inthesetimes.com/article/elon-musk-trump-doge-labor-department

    Federal Employee Unions Sue DOGE and the Department of Labor
    Plaintiffs allege that DOGE-affiliated employees plan to enter the Department of Labor on Feb. 5 and will attempt to gain access to sensitive data and processes, including personal information of government employees and Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigations.
    https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/federal-employee-unions-sue-doge-and-the-department-of-labor
    1. marym February 5, 2025 at 5:58 pm

       “Breaking news: DOL workers report that Elon Musk has moved the 4pm DOGE meeting from in-person to virtual.”
       People Who Work‪@deptofworkers.bsky.social‬
       https://bsky.app/profile/deptofworkers.bsky.social/post/3lhhctjt72c2g

       AFL-CIO affiliated new website has a short video with AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler explaining who they are.
       https://deptofpeoplewhowork.org/
       1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 6:20 pm

          I was hoping this was going to be an expose of the “Elmo Musk Five” so they could be doxed and personally and operationally life-livingly destroyed in order to slow the carjacking down.

          ” Git along little dogey, git along.”
18. Anon February 5, 2025 at 4:02 pm

    After pressure from the FCC, we finally have the unedited Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview:

    60 Minutes Interview

    At around 7 minutes, she is asked why she wants to run and gives what is effectively a non-answer; I see now why it was edited. For those of you with X accounts, you should be able to at least view the video, but not view comments.
    1. AG February 5, 2025 at 7:58 pm

       indeed, she has no clue what to say
       pretty embarrassing
       at least Trump can act to a certain mediocre level.
       She can´t
       That´s a problem in her position
       I am surprised over how bad a job they did in preparing and training her.
       I mean even Al Pacino manages to somehow remember his lines…
19. none February 5, 2025 at 4:28 pm

    I have a buddy who did a stint as a programmer at the IRS a decade or two back. If Fiscal Service’s codebase is anything like the IRS’s, there is zero chance that a handful of Muskrats have managed to change anything significant in this little time.
    1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:44 pm

       I am analog and have zero digital knowledge, so I can only ask . . . but wouldn’t it give them time to install digital hacker backdoors and hacker trapdoors and hacker wormholes? And find exploits and unlocked windows and pet doors and stuff like that?

       And every hour they are in there without being removed with all necessary lesson-teaching violence, the closer they come to whatever significant change goals they have.

       tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . .
20. flora February 5, 2025 at 4:39 pm

    An aside: I’ve enjoyed and learned so much reading WC. Maybe especially from The Gallery section. Hard to explain. Art isn’t politics or science. Manet, Monet, etc. The very small ivory carving of a woman’s portrait made 25,000 years ago just rocked me. Maybe that’s the point of art. Just want to say before we get near the end of February when many people will be saying: Thank you, Lambert.
    1. aleph_0 February 5, 2025 at 5:05 pm

       Yeah, it’s a really nice touch of the site that it’s not all one thing in links and WC. Art, musical interludes, animal pics/songs, whimsy without being trite. I appreciate your work over the years, Lambert.

       And thanks Yves, for making such a nice place to hang out.
    2. FreeMarketApologist February 5, 2025 at 5:12 pm

       I’ll second this. A big thank you to Lambert for including the art elements in the Water Cooler.

       The critic Dave Rickey once said “When you take away everything boring, what’s left is art.”
    3. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 6:02 pm

       I’ll really miss WC. Have learned so much here. Lambert, get well soon.
    4. hk February 6, 2025 at 12:45 am

       I want to repeat the same sentiment. I’ll really miss the birdsongs and flowers/trees.
21. ChrisPacific February 5, 2025 at 4:58 pm

    One of the scariest things in the (already very scary) Nathan Tankus coverage of the Treasury coup was this:

    One source explicitly said that they were only reporting to me because there was no one left in the Federal Government to report security breaches to:

    I do not wish to harm my agency in any way. I loved working here. We did some of the most important work in the country and barely anyone knew who we were. In normal times, I would report insider threats to the appropriate security channels inside the government- but there is no one left for me to report it to.

    If true, this is seriously concerning and has implications beyond just the Treasury breach (which is bad enough). If Trump’s axe-wielding has managed to chop down the institutions responsible for maintaining and enforcing security standards across government, then that’s likely to lead to degradation in security across all government branches.

    Standards and processes like this are fiddly, time-consuming and slow everything down, so they’re exactly the kind of thing Musk might target (and did target at Twitter). A consequence of this would be all Federal systems becoming weaker, more fragile and more easily targeted by internal and external threat actors.
    1. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 6:07 pm

       “A consequence of this would be all Federal systems becoming weaker, more fragile and more easily targeted by internal and external threat actors.”

       Don’t have to wonder who Musk would be giving info to.
    2. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 6:18 pm

       It might also lead to a total and final collapse of governance itself, thereby allowing the Digital Libertarian Elite to reorganize the ashes, rubble and wreckage into an anarcho-capitalist two-class slave state operated to their personal exclusive benefit.

       A desire to destroy government would certainly be reason to make the standards and processes weak enough that everything will slow down and then fall down all the way down.

       Normal people should start learning Thirteenth Century-style subsistence and survival skills, in case Musk achieves his farthest-out-there most long-range goals for us and our society.
22. Jason Boxman February 5, 2025 at 5:11 pm

    On What’s a Pig Butchering Scam? Here’s How to Avoid Falling Victim to One., the photo in the upper left is one of an Asian model that I’ve been seeing associated with this scam or some other for probably almost 10 years on every dating “app” I’ve been on; was just hit up by someone using that on an old Facebook (ugh) review I left for a great tailor in downtown Boston, from like 2019.

    I assume the other end of the line is someone in one of those slave camps where Chinese citizens are held hostage in southeast Asia, messaging away for dollars to placate their kidnappers. Very sad.

    I always get the occasional “hi” randomly on WhatsApp from numbers I don’t recognize with a photo of this or some other model, and also text messages directly.

    This has gotta be an “industry” that brings in billions, all with a helping hand from BTC!
23. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:18 pm

    . . . ” but how come Nathan Tankus, Wired, and (gawd help us) Josh Marshall are eating Taibbi’s lunch on the ginormous story of DOGE’s read/write (admin privileged) access to our trillion-dollar payments system?” . . .

    Because Taibbi is too shallow to understand a deep story with deep meaning? ( I always understood Joshua Micah Marshall to be an Establishmentarian Institutionist, so of course he would be offended by President Musk’s carjacking and reprogramming of an Establishment Institution. Perhaps Taibbi still self-imagines himself to be too hip, groovy and cool to care about Establishment Institutions like the Department of Treasury).

    I bet that Mark Ames, on the other hand, understands exACTly the implications of President Musk carjacking the Department of Treasury.

    Separately, I wonder if Marko Elez has zero actual legal right to be in the Treasury Department’s computer systems or anywhere in/on sensitive or restricted Government Property. Has someone thought to look into that and see if Elez can be declared a tresspasser and violently escorted off the premises by all relevant police?

    If security guards keep escorting legitimate employees off the premises whenever they object to another step in the carjacking, who do the security guards report to? Who pays them? Who signs their checks?
    Can the security guards be doxed and have their lives so ruined that they are no longer able to escort legitimate employees off the premises? Can whoever pays these security guards and instructs them be doxed and have their lives so ruined that they are no longer able to pay the guards and give them ( or any replacements) instructions?

    I think Musk’s little dogelings are what I believe John Robb would call the “schwerpunkt” and the “enemy’s center of gravity” in his Global Guerillas blogging. So how to attack them in every legal and not-quite-illegal way? And in the meantime an international effort to prevent every Tesla outlet from functioning and to attrit-towards-possible-destruction the entirety of twiXtter as an entity to divert and divide Musk’s attention?
    1. Mark Gisleson February 5, 2025 at 5:46 pm

       Naked Capitalism doesn’t like it when commenters try to assign work which is why I am frankly quite surprised that Lambert would chastise Taibbi for not dropping his other investigative work to find out what Musk is up to.

       And yes I hate pointing this out because I’m going to miss Lambert’s Water Cooler almost as much as I still miss Media Whores Online.
       1. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 6:11 pm

          I don’t think our Mr. Strether was chastising Taibbi for not dropping his other work to do this work. I think he was genuinely wondering why Taibbi did not consider what Musk is doing to be important enough to motivate Taibbi to pursue it all on Taibbi’s own.

          And I will re-offer my speculation that it is because Taibbi is too shallow to understand something this deep, and that he is too hip, groovy and cool to care about something as unhip and uncool and ungroovy as the Department of Treasury.

          And I will again re-suggest that Mark Ames probably gets the significance of this.
          1. hemeantwell February 5, 2025 at 7:09 pm

             I just listened to Doug Henwood interviewing Eoin Higgins, who has a book out, Owned, on the rightward shift of Taibbi and Glen Greenwald. I won’t try to summarize the argument, here’s a bit from the blurb. I have wondered about Taibbi’s silence on DOGE, in contrast to his pounding away at the Wuhan virus lab release theory.

             In recent years, right-wing billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks have turned to media as their next investment and source of influence. Their cronies are Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi—once known as idealistic and left-leaning voices, now beneficiaries of Silicon Valley largesse. Together, this new alliance aims to exploit the failings of traditional journalism and undermine the very idea of an independent and fact-based fourth estate.
             1. lyman alpha blob February 6, 2025 at 7:17 am

                That sounds ridiculous to me. The “rightward shift” is maybe due to the fact that a democrat was president and they were critical of him, as they should be. Also, Taibbi has been clear on why he doesn’t cover Trump directly all that much – because literally everyone else has been doing it already, analyzing every little comment that comes out of the man’s mouth. Greenwald was critical of Biden’s Israeli policy, now he’s critical of Trump’s.

                That what good journalists do. It’s the partisan hacks who only criticize one side while giving their own team a pass. I also like the fact that NC was critical of Biden, and can also be critical of Trump.
                1. Bill B February 6, 2025 at 1:34 pm

                   He may not cover him directly but he sure supports Trump’ and Musk’s shock and awe assault on the federal govt. He thinks that America shrugs when Godzilla eats “Washington.” He said that right away after the usaid smash. He generalized from usaid to “Washington.”
          2. ChiGal February 5, 2025 at 11:36 pm

             not sure about shallow but his focus on freedom of speech has given him blinders he didn’t use to have. His championing of Battacharya is a case in point. I will probably unsubscribe from his Substack.
             1. Mark Gisleson February 6, 2025 at 10:34 am

                Frankly, I think COVID clobbered him. He’s not quite as sharp in real time as he used to be and that has to be frightening for a person like Taibbi. His kind of journalism/writing is a high wire act and you only get to fall once.
                1. steppenwolf fetchit February 6, 2025 at 2:12 pm

                   So he has Covidementia? And is on the way to Covidunning-Krugeritis?
       2. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 6:15 pm

          Taibbi doesn’t focus on Trump/Musk negatives for some reason. He has barely alluded to the DOGE story, which is huge, let alone investigated it.
          1. judy2shoes February 5, 2025 at 7:02 pm

             “Taibbi doesn’t focus on Trump/Musk negatives for some reason.”

             I agree, and in many ways, this reminds me of when Obama was first elected. People who pointed out that many of Obama’s appointees were from the very industry that tanked the financial system were vilified and of course called racists.

             Matt and Walter (Kirn), in their America This Week videos, seem smitten with the Trump shock and awe campaign and seem to believe that this is a new golden age in news reporting, where things are uncovered and given scrutiny without fear of censorship. Matt should know better with respect to Musk, since Musk kicked him to the curb after he got whatever it was he wanted from Matt and the other reporters who were involved in the Twitter Files revelations.

             Matt’s (and Walter’s) coverage of Doge (so far) leans heavily into the USAID DEI revelations. As Lambert notes above, Matt, in his latest article, barely even mentions the CIA relationship with USAID and the damage that has been done around the world. That Matt hasn’t jumped on the Treasury Department story boggles my mind.
          2. Michael Fiorillo February 5, 2025 at 8:22 pm

             As time passes, it increasingly looks like Taibbi was played by Musk with the Twitter Files – not that they were false, but silo-ed in such a that they redounded to Musk/Trump’s advantage – and Taibbi just can’t own up to it in any way.

             He was criticized at the time by Briahna Joy Gray and didn’t respond credibly; time has only validated her take.
       3. lambert strether February 6, 2025 at 7:49 am

          Taibbi is, at this point, a smallish media conglomerate and doing (deservedly) well for himself on Substack subscriptions. Taibbi is not a stretched-thin skeleton crew.

          Maybe I should have written something like “Dude, you’re getting outworked and outhustled by bloggers who two years ago I would have said couldn’t carry your jockstrap. What happened?”

          Does this clarification help?
          1. Mark Gisleson February 6, 2025 at 10:44 am

             No. Naked Capitalism covers as much of the news as you are able. Taibbi’s operation is more specialized. He’s entitled to have journalistic focus and just because he covered something in the past doesn’t mean he’s geared up to cover it now.

             Personal history: I worked with an exceptionally diverse client base as a resume writer. Sometimes clients would come back to me for related work that I could not accept. While working with them previously, I was an “expert” on their field’s jargon. Then years pass and I don’t work with any clients from that area. Ramping back up is not easy. Just because you write a book about something doesn’t make you an authority on that topic for life.

             Taibbi is not NBC. His operation may be larger than Naked Capitalism’s, but he’s closer to your operation than he is to that of a news network. Do not mistake “reach” for “size.” He’s still David but David with a lot of followers.

             I hate to argue with you as you’re leaving but I think you’re expecting too much from Taibbi who, frankly, hasn’t been quite as sharp since catching COVID. Like Chomsky, respect him when he’s right and try to overlook the other stuff. Perfection is not a job requirement for do-gooders.
          2. Bill B February 6, 2025 at 1:36 pm

             Yes. Thank you
24. Expat2uruguay February 5, 2025 at 5:24 pm

    Today’s fear and greed index, I’ve always found this concept interesting but I will admit that I actually thought it was a put to call ratio, but that’s not what it is at all.

    “The CNN Fear and Greed Index is a composite index of sentiment-related variables for the US stock market. These variables include: market momentum, stock price strength, stock price breadth, put and call options, market volatility, safe haven demand, and junk bond demand.

    The index calculates how much each individual variable deviates from its average and assigns equal weights to each variable. Index reading ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 representing maximum greed and 0 representing maximum fear.”
    https://en.macromicro.me/collections/20868/global-sentiment-indicator/50108/cnn-fear-and-greed

    Here is the graph for the put to call ratio which is very interesting for the last 6 months:
    https://en.macromicro.me/collections/20868/global-sentiment-indicator/449/us-cboe-options-put-call-ratio
25. Milton February 5, 2025 at 5:25 pm

    The Census Bureau’s ACS datasets are back online. For general info, the ACS data is the long form census survey and is a continuous sampling of the population. The data is available for general release on a yearly basis.
26. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 5:40 pm

    The next step after that would be to outlaw the possession or use of non-crypto traditional money, to try and prevent the existence of tradmoney( traditional money) black markets.

    ” When money is outlawed, only outlaws will have money.”
    1. Wukchumni February 5, 2025 at 7:34 pm

       CIVIL WAR – “300 Canadian” Scene! (2024) Movie CLIP HD

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBCIJ3QluHY
27. Lefty Godot February 5, 2025 at 5:50 pm

    Why does this Mike Shelby guy keep talking as if the Democrat pwogwessives have anything to do with a “Left” or “left wing” political force? It’s an intra-elite conflict for sure, but that pretty much rules out any part of it as being genuinely left wing. It does seem to be tracking with Peter Turchin’s theories of elite overproduction leading toward a large-scale breakdown of the social order.
28. Idon'tlikeRum February 5, 2025 at 5:56 pm

    Is the worst case scenario red stapler bad or Superman III Richard Pryor/Lex Luthor bad? Sea level rising is Tesla kryptonite we can hope. Listened to a fabulous conversation https://youtu.be/Eq6HhlIuPlU?si=2sfcQj81lu533b12 with David Cay Johnston and William Black recorded prior to the current hustle discussing the fat fingered vulgarian occupier in chief. Has there been a steady caravan of Cybertrucks “refueling” behind Treasury or are they installing mobile launch pad for x-wing flights to Panama or just geostationary starlink uploads of cash to launder through El Salvador Bitcoin to memecoin pipeline? Can Elon change his name to Hack Sparrow and Donny Tiny-hands can parlay honorary title of Yellowbeard?!
29. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 5, 2025 at 6:01 pm

    Patient readers, I discovered that I butchered the HTML markup so that Taibbi’s joke (underlined) did not appear. This is now fixed.
30. AG February 5, 2025 at 6:06 pm

    just for the 2 photographs contained in these items:

    Rubio holding Bernardo Arévalo´s arm:
    https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/guatemala-akzeptiert-migrationsdeal-mit-usa-li.2293635

    Trump signing his decree to ban transpeople from womens´ sports surrounded by girls:
    https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/trump-unterzeichnet-dekret-maenner-vom-frauensport-fernhalten-li.2293636

    The editing staff selecting the images used by the press are the secret rulers of our world. Obviously they have decided to not fight Trump for now. Compare present pictures circulated with the ones from 6 months or 4 years ago. I wonder how conscious consumers are of this power and influence. Everywhere. Any time.
31. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 6:21 pm

    https://thehill.com/newsletters/energy-environment/5129209-democrats-raise-alarm-bells-over-doge-havoc-at-noaa/

    D.O.G.E. has now infiltrated NOAA.

    Events are moving so quickly, I figure that we need one of those YouTube war mappers to start giving us updates. It might go something like this:
    

    “Hello, friends. In today’s D.O.G.E. update, we’ll cover the latest developments in Elon Musk’s assault on Washington. We have a lot of interesting developments, so let’s get started.

    Today the forces of D.O.G.E reached the Department of Commerce. Armed with laptops and drones, they breached the headquarters of NOAA and took control over the Weather Service. We have a geolocation of several members of D.O.G.E. attempting to takeover Fisheries, but all of these attacks were repelled by a security guard armed with a restraining order.

    Meanwhile, the forces of the 10th Potomac Beltway Status-Quo Brigade counter-attacked in the 6th District Court. Using a summons, they were able to successfully obtain an injunction to prevent Musk’s forces from firing the entire Department of Education.

    In political developments, the Democratic Party is still missing in action.

    Stay tuned for the next update!
    1. CA February 5, 2025 at 6:30 pm

       “D.O.G.E. has now infiltrated NOAA.”

       I just discovered this in trying to get monthly CO2 data. This is just ordinary data, collected since the 1950s. This is really nutty.
       1. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 6:52 pm

          I checked a few of my favorite NOAA websites and they all seem to be up to date, as of now.
       2. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 7:26 pm

          When Harper took office in Canada years ago, wasn’t he too gleefully destroyed decades of databases held by the government because of ideological reasons?
       3. Paleobotanist February 5, 2025 at 7:48 pm

          I can’t get into Mauna Loa either.

          I need it to teach. I hope that I backed it up.
          1. CA February 5, 2025 at 8:18 pm

             “I can’t get into Mauna Loa either.”

             http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

             January 15, 2025

             Atmospheric Concentration of Carbon Dioxide, 1980-2024

             (Parts per million by volume)
32. Carolinian February 5, 2025 at 6:45 pm

    Wouldn’t you know it.

    https://news.antiwar.com/2025/02/05/report-jared-kushner-behind-trumps-call-for-the-us-to-take-over-gaza/
    1. Carolinian February 6, 2025 at 12:11 am

       More on this.

       https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-was-that/
    2. user1234 February 6, 2025 at 8:42 am

       It’s not like he has been talking about it all along. What I found fascinating is that grown up people out there actually thought that Trump would somehow magically not follow orders. On the other hand, I also don’t understand why people watch Wrestlemania, and even cheer for the “competitors”.
33. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 6:55 pm

    Re the nation shrugs by Taibbi: will these people shrug? I mean, what’s the damn hurry? Is cutting funding like that going to prevent a coup, or stop someone from getting a sex change operation? “In the most desperate places, like war-ravaged Sudan, the fallout has been immediate. Half the population of 50 million needs food aid, and famine is spreading as Islamist militias and their allies in the military battle a paramilitary accused by Washington of genocide. The USAID suspension has halted national food programs serving millions and shuttered hundreds of community kitchens that operate in areas too dangerous for big agencies to enter.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/04/africa-trump-musk-usaid-funding-cuts/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F40e823d%2F67a344bbec8fa6347585f016%2F596a5df2ade4e20ee37172da%2F18%2F68%2F67a344bbec8fa6347585f016
34. Bill B February 5, 2025 at 7:01 pm

    Re the nation shrugs by Taibbi: will these people shrug? I mean, what’s the damn hurry? Is cutting funding like that going to prevent a coup, or stop someone from getting a sex change operation? I guess the collateral damage will be worth it. “In the most desperate places, like war-ravaged Sudan, the fallout has been immediate. Half the population of 50 million needs food aid, and famine is spreading as Islamist militias and their allies in the military battle a paramilitary accused by Washington of genocide. The USAID suspension has halted national food programs serving millions and shuttered hundreds of community kitchens that operate in areas too dangerous for big agencies to enter.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/04/africa-trump-musk-usaid-funding-cuts/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F40e823d%2F67a344bbec8fa6347585f016%2F596a5df2ade4e20ee37172da%2F18%2F68%2F6
35. judy2shoes February 5, 2025 at 7:22 pm

    “accused by Washington of genocide”

    Hahahahahahahahahaha! Genocidal Washington maniacs pointing fingers tickles my funny bone /sarc

    (I should probably go back under my rock until I regain some control.)
    1. ChrisFromGA February 6, 2025 at 8:14 am

       The “Washington Genociders” might make a good name for the local NFL club.

       “The Genociders defense is really strong this year, they’ll slaughter the opponents!”
       1. heh February 6, 2025 at 8:46 am

          Washington Bullets were slaughtering the opponents but were rebranded to Washington Wizards, in spite of obvious lack of Magic Jonhsons.
36. Wukchumni February 5, 2025 at 7:23 pm

    The Trump administration has canceled law enforcement training through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) for National Park Service rangers hired after January 27, according to a group that closely follows news affecting park rangers.

    If true, the order seems to reverse earlier statements that law enforcement personnel would not be affected by the hiring freeze.

    NPS Ranger News has seen correspondence from the NPS Washington Office that hiring actions for employees entering on duty after January 27 are being rescinded,” said Greg Jackson, who worked at FLETC before retiring. He now tracks news involving rangers performing law enforcement, emergency medical services, search and rescue and firefighting in the National Park System.

    Jackson, in an email Wednesday, said that, “The NPS had a class scheduled to begin soon, filled with soon-to-be new hires. They would be hired and begin their training. Surprisingly, their job offers were all rescinded.”

    https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/02/new-law-enforcement-training-class-park-rangers-canceled
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Everything points towards closures of our National Parks this summer, all of the actions taken by the Trump administration so far are what you’d want to do to essentially strangle the workforce by cutting them off at the past.
    1. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 7:37 pm

       Maybe the idea is to eventually privatize them as what could possibly go wrong. Yellowstone National Park could become Musk National Park as an example. Think of the marketing possibilities and those Parks could be run at a profit, especially by selling off all that excess timber. It’s probably a fire hazard anyway. Maybe Disney could pick up some of the contracts to run some of those Parks because they do such a bang-up job of running their own. Be warned though. The price to visit means that only wealthy people would be able to visit those Parks but at least that will keep crowd size. Yeah, this is satire but maybe one day it won’t be?
       1. ChrisFromGA February 5, 2025 at 8:43 pm

          Seems like deliberate sabotage. Back to the IT systems, there are thousands of mundane tasks needed to hold together our digital infrastructuret. Think SSL certificates expiring, patching, updates, etc. We rely so heavily on these things that a website or two going tango uniform could bring other work in a agency to a halt.

          Maybe Musk is planning to sow chaos such that the (lack of) maintenance on these things leads to a similar outcome as our edifice wrecks – rotting malls, vacant faulty towers, and zombie apartment buildings.

          And, right when DOGE authority expires in 2026 … voila, a prima facie case for replacing all these “Failed Departments” with private sector entities!
          1. Procopius February 7, 2025 at 8:27 am

             Maybe Musk is planning to …

             I would be happier if you had some evidence to support your speculation. “It would be irresponsible not to speculate” was a joke once. It’s been beaten to death. Since 2016 it seems to me there’s been an explosion of the psychological “game,” “Ain’t it awful.” Thank God Naked Capitalism includes a lot of factual discussion. So much of the rest is TDS. I’m sorry for singling you out, so many regular posters are guilty of exactly the same offense. It was just that you used that exact phrase, which triggered me. For heaven’s sake, nothing has happened yet. No payments have been missed — yet. As far as we know, no data has been stolen — yet. Why don’t we hear about what’s happening — or not happening — in western North Carolina?
       2. Wukchumni February 5, 2025 at 9:12 pm

          It’d be dead easy with the swag they sell in NP gift shops, just take a generic howling wolf t-shirt that looks the same in every NP aside from the name, and call it Musk National Park (since 2025)

          Maybe make said wolf a Grey, in honor of Elon.
       3. Carolinian February 5, 2025 at 10:10 pm

          The NPS gift shops and such are mostly already run by private companies.

          And if you’ve ever been to Disney World you know that the idea is to have the maximum amt of traffic and cash extracting opportunities on the smallest possible footprint. There are even underground support floors beneath the thing like an iceberg. Disney might want Yosemite but it’s doubtful they would want Yellowstone which is huge.

          And in fact Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and a few others get the lions share of the traffic while some other spots get barely any visitors at all. Gingrich and some of his trolls made a stab at going after all the national lands and even wanted to sell off Corps of Engineers lakes (???) but didn’t get very far.

          If everything seems confused right now it could be because the Trumpies don’t have a plan rather than do have one. In fact this would be a lot more in line with his history.
          1. Wukchumni February 6, 2025 at 8:52 am

             I’ll admit to kinda hoping the NP’s don’t open just to see the bloodletting from the 350 AirBnB’s here that greatly depend on the golden 100 day stretch from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
37. ChrisPacific February 5, 2025 at 7:35 pm

    Presumably there is a source code control system such that Elez’s changes can be rolled back? Somebody should find out….

    I’d be astonished if there wasn’t – you cannot run a serious technical organization these days without having one (this isn’t the 1990s). So in theory it could all be rolled back, once control was reestablished.

    Undoing the real world effects of a payment system running on the modified code is not likely to be nearly as simple, and will be more difficult the longer it goes on.
38. steppenwolf fetchit February 5, 2025 at 7:56 pm

    A Democrat has introduced a bill relevant to stuff like Musk. It is probably just performative but it might get a few people talking.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/FluentInFinance/comments/1iifqre/breaking_representative_mark_pocan_has_introduced/
    1. fjallstrom February 6, 2025 at 10:29 am

       Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) on Wednesday rolled out the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act, which would ban “special” government employees like Musk from having federal contracts.

       Unlikely to go anywhere, but I like the title.
39. Jason Boxman February 5, 2025 at 8:31 pm

    Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law and a former co-chair of the Republican Party, will begin hosting a new weekend show on Fox News on Feb. 22, the network announced on Wednesday.

    Trump skips the cutout.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/media/lara-trump-fox-news.html
    1. griffen February 6, 2025 at 7:02 am

       That might be worth a quick check in…to watch her read the news ala Ron Burgundy whatever is written for her to repeat verbatim. “Stay Classy, San Diego!”

       I’m Jack’s complete lack of surprise. I was gonna add another metaphorical reference to a sinking HMS Titanic but it felt like a bit much on the hyper hyperbole…
40. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 8:33 pm

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-05/trump-says-hell-investigate-californias-high-speed-rail-authority-calls-comments-noise/

    Yes, the spending has been problematic and mistakes made.
    But it’s the optics of someone who makes cars going after trains/public transportation that should raise eyebrows.
    1. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 8:34 pm

       “California’s high-speed rail endeavor has been targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency” is part of the story.
       1. Jason Boxman February 5, 2025 at 10:00 pm

          If only they’d target the consultants like McKinsey, as Stoller has pointed out, because it’s quite a grift.
41. Ben Panga February 5, 2025 at 8:36 pm

    Re: DOGE

    I think there are likely to be two levels of stuff going on:

    1. Stuff that pleases Trump now

    2. Stuff that furthers the much more ambitious Neo-Reactionary (NRx/blood-bagger/Thielverse) agenda

    There’s a lot of overlap, but some big differences:

    Trump wants [whatever he wants: revenge, riches, etc?]. The NRx guys want to crash everything, destroy most of the federal system and the dollar system, and from the wreckage build their independent kingdoms.

    I remain of the belief that when expedient, the NRx guys will whack Trump (although obviously it will look like the work of an enemy), and have their boy Vance take over.

    This, IMO, is the real game here. Trump is just a stepping-stone. I think he either knows he serves at their pleasure [either because he’s thoroughly compromised, or he saw the Palantir camera angle of his assassination attempt] or he’s too naive to see the threat. Trump can’t be openly challenged, but he can be turned into a glorious martyr. I do not believe he is the most powerful player.
    1. Ben Panga February 5, 2025 at 9:10 pm

       [also I know I said I wasn’t commenting for a while, but NRx/Thiel stuff is catnip to me!]
    2. Mikel February 5, 2025 at 10:21 pm

       You’re saying the quiet part out loud.

       What I thought about when I saw the clip of Trump signing the executive order about more Iran sanctions.
       Talking about he “left instructions” in case they tried to do something to him.

       I thought, “You might need to look more behind your back.”
       1. Ben Panga February 5, 2025 at 11:07 pm

          I figure he must know. Whatever blind-spots he has, I’ve always thought of him as preternaturally sensitive to power dynamics and potential competitors.

          I also figure the compromat potential to be high, especially for those with resources like Palantir, their spook friends, and whoever [cough Mossad cough] ran Epstein.

          Add a more pointed demonstration of their “whack people with impunity” prowess and voilà.

          Musk may be an impetuous man, but Thiel is a calculating former chess prodigy.
          1. Planter of Trees February 6, 2025 at 2:39 am

             I figure he must know. Whatever blind-spots he has, I’ve always thought of him as preternaturally sensitive to power dynamics and potential competitors.

             As I have often said since 2016: if you’re over 70 and keeping bad company, you are the bad company.
       2. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 11:13 pm

          Trump “left instructions”? That was pretty stupid that. Netanyahu would be right now figuring how to set up a Mossad false flag operation where Trump would be assassinated and the blame pinned onto Iran, causing the US to go to war against that country.
    3. J. February 6, 2025 at 12:30 am

       I wonder if there is some deal where Trump will play king for awhile, then retire and Vance will pardon him. I do feel like there is some succession play involving Vance.
    4. Procopius February 7, 2025 at 8:40 am

       @Ben Panga:

       The NRx guys want to crash everything, destroy most of the federal system and the dollar system, and from the wreckage build their independent kingdoms.

       Do you have any evidence to support your speculation? I’ve tried to understand what people want since I was a small child, 87 years now, and I’ve never succeeded. There are pundits who make a good living from writing such stuff, but they never admit how often they’ve been wrong over the years.

       You know, the oligarchs may be super-arrogant, but they aren’t stupid. If they crash the government, destroy the dollar, they end up living in a dystopian world, where they may be the richest people left, but there’s nothing for them to buy.
42. ChrisPacific February 5, 2025 at 8:42 pm

    Incidentally, I suspect the significance of a lot of Musk’s goons in the Treasury attack being young is that they don’t have a full understanding of what they’re being asked to do.

    After 30 years in the industry, if Musk called me up tomorrow and told me I was a named person with read/write access to Treasury production systems, I’d react like he tossed a live grenade in my lap. I would immediately make a formal demand through official channels to have it removed, vacate the premises if I was there, and never access an electronic device for any reason without at least two credible witnesses present until my access was removed.

    Junior developers, by contrast, need to be taught security procedures. More than once I’ve heard them wonder why we don’t have write access to production because it would be more convenient.
43. JBird4049 February 5, 2025 at 8:54 pm

    The Cal State system, where I teach, just announced a murky but far-ranging & evidently unprecedented public-private initiative to, per the Chancellor, “establish the CSU as the nation’s first and largest AI-powered public university system

    Wonderful. Higher education in California has steadily gotten more expensive and worse in quality in the forty years since I first enrolled there. I guess the goal is finish laying off what is left of the teaching staff while keeping the tuition and fees. I am sure that the bloated administration staff will be fine.
44. Wukchumni February 5, 2025 at 9:16 pm

    I was the king of snot for 3 weeks with a head cold, Lambert.

    Take care of yourself~
45. ana February 5, 2025 at 9:18 pm

    Taibbi is just another right-wing hack regurgitating talking points straight from the White House at this point. Anyone dumb enough to believe the US is actually stopping the imperialist meddling aspects of USAID and not just the feeding and giving medicine to the people the US has pillaged for generations for the sake of PR part is gullible as all hell. And the anti-trans stuff is just childish at this point (as so much of the right is just grown men trapped in perpetual adolescence). Mark Ames nailed it a few months back on War Nerd Radio discussing his former coeditor. Taibbi couldn’t get over his own ego and wound up selling out to a right-wing audience, and now he’s stuck with that, unable to do real journalism at a time when it’s called for more than ever. It’s a shame cause he was good in the eXile days and even with Rolling Stone.
46. The Rev Kev February 5, 2025 at 9:44 pm

    Looks like bugs are back on the menu, boys.

    ‘The European Commission has approved a new food ingredient made from dried and ground mealworm larvae, the young form of beetles. The larvae will be treated with ultraviolet (UV) light, a process similar to how sunlight helps human skin produce vitamin D.

    The approval is part of the EU’s plan to introduce more sustainable protein sources and allows up to 4% of the insect-based powder in products such as bread, cheese, pasta, and jams. The regulation takes effect on February 10.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/612219-insect-based-ingredient-cleared-for-eu-foods/
    1. Wukchumni February 5, 2025 at 9:52 pm

       1964: Beatlemania
       2025: Fab 4% is Beetles
47. Anthony Wikrent February 5, 2025 at 11:15 pm

    The Palantir CEO openly saying they sometimes kill their enemies compels me to wonder why no one has yet noted that “doge” was the title of the leader of the oligarchy of Venice. “Doge” is Venetian dialect for “duke.”

    The best commentary I ever read about the Venetians calling themselves a “republic” was James Fenimore Cooper’s “Introduction” to his 1831 novel The Bravo. The Wikipedia entry does not even summarize the story, which is about a highly skilled swordsman is being blackmailed by the Venetians to be an assassin (his father has been imprisoned by the Venetians).

    The Bravo to Palantir: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

    We have to expect the worst from Musk’s seizure of control of the US government.
    1. Yves Smith February 6, 2025 at 12:16 am

       *Sigh*

       Lambert discussed the Venetian doge in connection with DOGE when it first came out of the box. This is not a new topic.
       1. Anthony Wikrent February 6, 2025 at 9:58 am

          I’m sorry I missed it, and would love to see continued references to it until it catches on much more widely. Thanks!
48. Glen February 5, 2025 at 11:22 pm

    An interesting take on how the new FCC chair will affect TV viewing and station ownership:

    How the New FCC Chairman Might Impact Free OTA TV
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7CvOY22Cnw
49. skippy February 6, 2025 at 12:04 am

    Trump – Gaza – Land Developer in Chief … cough …
50. griffen February 6, 2025 at 7:26 am

    Three weeks have happened so quickly, it’s as though a full calendar 90 or 91 days that typically counts as one fiscal quarter in any business setting or any government / agency office has already taken place.

    The alleged and also the apparent falsehoods of the Biden administration are quickly disposed, and now all will notice our newly elected Emperor once again Has No New Clothes. It shows a quietly disturbing trend in national politics and the related discourse on all things Trump, Elon Musk etc…

    Was it previously well known and widely broadcast the effects of Federal government branding and aid efforts to spread “Democracy” far and wide via initiatives for DEI awareness and Transgender supporting initiatives, one initial but a key example? It decidedly was not just a few weeks prior. A few US millions here, five million there and ten million…then the piles of money start adding up. Optics aside I’d be onboard if Democrats had ever bothered to share this sunlight, but my best recall at Democrat efforts to spread sunlight on a problem leads me to the Great Recession and the Eric Holder doctrine…that is an epic rant for another day, but is very flipping applicable.

    Here’s a related thought. If instead this aid and initiatives to support the real, economic struggle of American families at or below poverty level then maybe Americans could be less bothered about the aforementioned DEI efforts or this newer revelation on fancy pants Politico subscription fee amounts, ( reportedly that was up to $8 million )…Seems like we were already trending in the proverbial* elevator to hell and now Trump is there well it just will not be downplayed or diminished..

    From the movie Aliens, quoting Hicks. “We’re on an express elevator to hell, going down”

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