The New York Times has called the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the candidate endorsed by Democrats

 Elon Musk had invested heavily in electing the candidate endorsed by Republicans in the race.

 

Elon Musk hasn't saved the taxpayers anything, year-to-date spending is actually 7.4% higher in 2025 than in 2024

 Reported here:

... The Hamilton Project, an economic policy think tank, tracks federal spending using daily treasury statements published by the government.

These data show that the federal government had spent $1.893 trillion in 2025 as of March 26, compared to $1.763 trillion at the same date last year. In other words, federal spending in on pace to come in 7.4% higher this year than last. ...

 

Andrew Sullivan today: The GOP Congress has long since become the equivalent of Putin’s Duma — a rubber-stamp body designed solely to support the executive branch

 Here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(shadow banned by Elon Musk)

Headlines to remain illiterate as before

 Wather forecasts may be less accurate due to govt cuts...

As with the Biden administration after the Kabul debacle, there won't be any accountability for people at the top in Signalgate while tens of thousands lose their gubmint jobs

 "One law for me, another for thee."

Signed, The UniParty.

But look on the brightside. You just lost your job working for Uncle Sam, you didn't get killed or left behind in a hellhole to rot.

 

 

The incompetence of Signalgate comes on the heels last month of a Tass News Agency journalist gaining access to the Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy

It's all part of a pattern of incompetence which includes Elon Musk firing people indiscriminately and then having to scurry and rehire people in critical positions who never should have been fired in the first place.

 Amateur Hour 2.0

 

US Postal Service will not count Saturday as a transit day for packages starting April 1, adding an extra day, and some first class mail will experience delays

 More here.

... Despite generating $79 billion in revenue in 2023, the USPS lost $6.5 billion. ...

In conjunction with DOGE, the USPS announced it would be cutting around 10,000 jobs by using an early retirement program. Select employees would be offered $15,000 for taking their retirement early - a move that’s expected to save the agency billions. ...

Trump and Musk are crashing Social Security and its elderly customers are panicking

 

 The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. ...

The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems. ...

Leland Dudek — the accidental leader elevated to acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk’s team behind his bosses’ backs — has issued rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems. Others have left in disgust. ...

Alarmed lawmakers are straining to answer questions from angry constituents in their districts. Calls have flooded into congressional offices. The AARP announced on Monday that more than 2,000 retirees per week have called the organization since early February — double the usual number — with concerns about whether benefits they paid for during their working careers will continue. Social Security is the primary source of income for about 40 percent of older Americans. 

Trump has said repeatedly that the administration “won’t touch” Social Security, a promise that aides say applies to benefit levels that can only be adjusted by Congress. But in just six weeks, the cuts to staffing and offices have already taken a toll on access to benefits, officials and advocates say. ...

More.

This should be good for election turnout in November 2026.

Greg gets it

 

Stupid Republicans who work for the IRS in Ogden, Utah voted for their own firings

 Republican politicians face mounting anger over Doge cuts

... In a county Donald Trump won by more than 20 percentage points last November, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) seemed to be “actively working to destroy our lives and the livelihood of our local economy”, said IRS employee Torrie, whose mother and grandmother also worked at the agency, and who asked for her full name not to be published for fear of reprisals. ...

Republicans under Trump lay the groundwork for the police state which Democrats could only wish for: AG Pam Bondi threatens US House Representative Crockett (TX-30) with terrorism charge

 

 In the future, everything wrong will be deemed "domestic terror" and suffer the draconian punishments for domestic terror.

 

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has nothing better to do than appear everyday on Fox News, has the temerity to threaten a Congresswoman. Wait until it's your free speech which is threatened.

 

On second thought, don't wait. It already is.

 

Pam Bondi warns Jasmine Crockett to ‘tread very carefully’ in what she says about Elon Musk

... “She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country,” Bondi said during an appearance on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” ...     

If AG Merrick Garland had done this to a Republican, you would have never heard the end of it from the likes of Mark Levin and his ilk.

But hey, when Republicans do it it's OK!

 

Methinks 'twas lefty Elon who did the turning

But of course the turncoat liberal poofter would miss that.

  

Tesla Attacks Are Proof That the Left Is Turning on Itself

Chadwick Moore, NY Post

Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek is a lying sack of shit typical of the Trump administration who should be fired immediately

Dudek's reasoning below is the same level of ridiculous we saw when Trump said he wouldn't recall the deportation flights ordered by Judge Boasberg because they were already in international airspace and were therefore not subject to the order. Trump ordered the flights in the dead of a Friday night/Saturday morning a week ago to avoid detection and court intervention.

Republicans playing chicken with the lifeline for over 73 million Americans wasn't what people voted for last November, but that's what they are getting.

 

... Dudek said the court order [from Judge Hollander] is so broad that it could apply to any Social Security employee, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek told Bloomberg. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”

However, in a March 18 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Dudek said there are only 11 DOGE-affiliated individuals at the Social Security Administration. ...

Dudek assumed the role of acting commissioner in February when then acting commissioner Michelle King stepped down due to DOGE privacy concerns. ...

Reported here.

Absolutely stunning: Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatens to shut down Social Security last night, takes it all back this afternoon

 

What a shit show. This guy needs to be fired stat.

This is America under Mad King Ludwig.

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.”...

“[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.”...

Dudek first made his threat to close down the agency during a Bloomberg News interview Thursday night. ...

Such a dramatic move to effectively shut down the agency would have been unprecedented in the agency’s history and would immediately begin halting benefit payments for millions of Americans.

“For almost 90 years, Social Security has never missed a paycheck — but 60 days into this administration, Social Security is now on the brink,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement. “Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has proven again that he is in way over his head, compromising the privacy of millions of Americans, shutting down services that senior citizens rely on and planning debilitating layoffs, all in service to Elon Musk’s lies.”     

More.

Like Trump, Musk arrogantly dismisses limits on executive power and belittles Congress' power of the purse, Congress wallows in servitude to his seizure of power

 

 ... Asked later that day whether Congress should weigh in on his widespread cuts, Musk responded, “Well, they do have a vote.” ... the administration has privately reassured GOP lawmakers, particularly House Republicans, that DOGE will continue to unilaterally rescind congressionally approved funding whether lawmakers are given the chance to weigh in or not. ...

Here.

I'm sensing a theme building at CNBC this morning

 

Danny Moses of ‘The Big Short’ says market is underestimating DOGE’s negative impact on the economy

 

Accenture is DOGE’s first corporate casualty as shares dive on warning that contracts will be cut

 

Nike expects sales will plunge in current quarter as it faces tariffs, sliding consumer confidence

 

DOGE cuts and tariffs hit Accenture and Nike hard

 

Tesla owners are trading in their EVs at record levels, Edmunds says

 

Loop Capital downgrades FedEx, says it’s a ‘really bad recession stock’

 

Damage from tariffs and DOGE cuts is growing visible  

Tariff fears raising construction costs by up to 20%, says Related Group CEO

Esla sucks

 

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander rebukes DOGE for hiding their own identities while scouring Social Security for ours, stops Elon Musk's fishing expedition for immigrants

Judge bars Musk’s DOGE team from Social Security records in scathing ruling

A federal judge Thursday issued a temporary restraining order barring Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency team from having access to personally identifiable information from the Social Security Administration.

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander in a scathing ruling accused DOGE of launching a “fishing expedition” at the Social Security agency and failing to provide any reason why it needed to access vast swaths of Americans’ personal and private data. ...

The judge also ordered the DOGE team members and affiliates to delete all non-anonymized personally identifiable information in their possession or control that they have accessed “directly or indirectly” since Jan. 20. ...

Hollander, noting the affiliates of DOGE have kept their identities hidden, wrote, “ironically, the identity of these DOGE affiliates has been concealed because defendants are concerned that the disclosure of even  their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy.”

“The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent,” the judge wrote. ...

 

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland rules Elon Musk violated the Constitution in dismantling USAID

 

 The ruling is significant because the dopes in the Republican Party just rammed through a continuing spending resolution which fully funds the now severely diminished USAID.

The money must be spent as allocated by Congress.

 

 Judge rules DOGE’s USAID dismantling likely violates the Constitution

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution, a federal judge ruled Tuesday as he indefinitely blocked DOGE from making further cuts to the agency. ...

In one of the first DOGE lawsuits against Musk himself, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland rejected the Trump administration’s position that Musk is merely President Donald Trump’s adviser.

Musk’s public statements and social media posts demonstrate that he has “firm control over DOGE,” the judge found pointing to an online post where Musk said he had “fed USAID into the wood chipper.” ...

The judge said it’s likely that USAID is no longer capable of performing some of its statutorily required functions. ...

Chuang said DOGE’s and Musk’s fast-moving destruction of USAID likely harmed the public interest by depriving elected lawmakers of their “constitutional authority to decide whether, when and how to close down an agency created by Congress.” ...

 

IRS turmoil into thrown

 

IRS into thrown turmoil at height of tax season...

... two IRS employees who spoke to CNN said that some of the actions taken by DOGE inside IRS appear to be aimed at finding ways to use the agency’s protected data to find undocumented immigrants. ...