Aug.06

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

...But the DOGE E-mail Reports Are

Another day, and another signature "accomplishment" of Elon Musk erased. Remember the rule that every federal employee had to send an e-mail to their supervisor each week listing five things they had accomplished? Well, compliance wasn't great, even from the beginning. It's gotten much worse over time, since most departments did not see the value in the exercise. And now, it's officially over, per an announcement from Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor.

We wonder if the full story of DOGE will ever be known. We would certainly be interested to know answers to these questions (among many others):

• To what extent was Musk "hired" to do an actual job, and to what extent was DOGE just a reward for his nine-figure donations to the Republican Party and Trump's super PACs?
  
  
• How much energy was expended on bringing Musk's plan for DOGE, and Trump's plan for DOGE, into alignment? Did they discuss their visions in depth? A little bit? Not at all?
  
  
• Did either of them even HAVE a vision, beyond "break things"?
  
  
• To what extent were Musk's decisions coordinated with/vetted by the White House? For example, with this e-mail thing, did Trump and his team know about the new policy in advance? Or did they first learn about it when they saw the story on Fox?
  
  
• Did Musk and his team make any decisions that the White House opposed, but where there was no reversal/rebuke from the administration? And if so, did the administration stay silent because it did not want to alienate Musk, or because it did not want the embarrassment of appearing to have lost control?
  
  
• Was Musk basically a useful idiot? Was the plan all along to fire as many federal employees as possible, with Musk inadvertently putting himself forward as the mustachioed villain who would take most of the heat?

In any case, it's clear that the relationship between former bros Musk and Trump remains chilly. It's also clear that DOGE was a train wreck; that conclusion will become even sounder once improperly terminated employees begin winning lawsuits—and judgments—by the bushel. (Z)