Ask Me Anything
Three-headed hydra...
Good morning readers. I’ll take member questions in comments and during this afternoon’s live chat. Subscribers can expect an invitation later today.
Some chicken scratch for the week: It seems to me as though Elon Musk and his eldritch little dork squad are operating lawlessly in three dimensions: Capricious abrogation of federal funding commitments, indiscriminate civil-service firings, and opaque manipulation of various government computer systems. Future efforts to undo the damage might benefit from compartmenting “DOGE” activities this way.
That’s all conceptually distinct from the many corrupt ways Musk seems to be profiting personally from his role as the government’s chief thug—though there is of course overlap, and the whole scene is trashy as hell.
(Speaking of which, if we absolutely must use the term DOGE to be comprehensible at this point, we should at least cook up an alternate acronym. Degenerate Order of Geek Edgelords? Not mean enough. Feel free to workshop this in the comments.)
Then, in no particular order:
The treacherous betrayal and scapegoating of Ukraine.
The trafficking of immigrants to Panama and perhaps other places Donald Trump has the power to extort.
Eric Adams, Emil Bove, Dale Ho, Kathy Hochul, and the future of New York.
Trump’s toxic “king” rhetoric, and the consultant-poisoned Democrats who can’t imagine exploiting it.
Kash Patel’s confirmation vote, with FBI independence on the line.
I’ll swing back through here in a few hours.
