I remember living in a country where the president was in charge of what happened in the government, and actually knew what was going on. Now we live in this kind of country:

Trump’s own awareness of what DOGE is up to appeared to be in question after his Oval Office news conference on Tuesday.

Shortly after he suggested that the federal government should deploy the young DOGE staffers as air traffic controllers—“We should use some of them in the control towers, where we were putting people that were actually intellectually deficient,” the president said—the same senior White House official quickly dismissed the comment as a serious proposal.

Also this:

The Trump White House official said DOGE checks in with them “every day.” Yet when asked about the nature of these briefings and if they could offer any specifics as to whether they take place on a schedule or with early morning priority, a common practice for those tasked with liaising between agencies and the White House, they had none.

The DOGE briefings are “as needed,” the senior White House official said.

Oh, OK.

And why is everything so fucked up? You know the answer. This is the shit that is happening now:

FEDERAL WORKER AT A VIRGINIA TOWN HALL: “And to top it all off one of Musk’s top lieutenants and his wife and young child have shacked up on the 6th floor.” 🤔Full: http://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2r7Y3V7/

— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T23:13:31.048Z

Hey Elon:  nobody pulled your string.

And then this happened:

A number of federal employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US federal agency that monitors and models the oceans and atmosphere for the purpose of predicting changes in climate and weather, have received orders to temporarily cease communicating with foreign nationals, including those working directly with the US government, WIRED has learned.

An internal email obtained by WIRED shows that the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) received orders to pause “ALL INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENTS.” (Emphasis theirs.) The message states that the orders extend to participation in international commissions and even emails “with foreign national colleagues.”

This means no weather data can be sent to other nations (say Caribbean countries during a hurricane) or to ships transporting freight. Do you like to cruise, as we do? Well, good-bye to captains being advised about bad weather. Honestly between this and the disaster coming to the FAA, Musk is making me cancel our vacation later this year. Wonderful.

And it’s just one genius after another from DOGE:

WIRED reported Wednesday that NOAA officials had been ordered to grant Nikhil Rajpal, a former Twitter employee who appears to have no expertise in ocean and atmospheric science, the power to edit documents concerning the agency’s work hosted by Google Sites. The orders, sources said, came from acting commerce secretary Jeremy Pelter.

Hey Elon:  nobody pulled your string.

Elon is neither subtle nor clever:

I wonder why Musk is focused on the federal civilian workforce (4% of the budget) and not federal contractors, which account for 3x more annual spending and are more prone to waste, fraud, and abuse?

— Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T00:20:07.245Z

Hey Elon:  nobody pulled your string.

Privacy is a big joke to him:

Hey Elon:  nobody pulled your string.

Elvis can take it from here: