Feb.18

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Today's Crazypants Roundup

There are some machinations by the current administration that are so egregious they merit their own items. But there's also an unbelievable wave of lesser machinations that deserve at least some attention, even if it's not practical to give them the full treatment. We very much look forward to a week when there aren't enough of those under-the-radar stories to justify a roundup like this. But that week is not this week, that is for sure. Here's (some of) the latest:

• You're Fired, Part I: This is the latest object lesson showing that Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Trump administration have no idea what they are doing as they fire federal employees willy-nilly in the name of "efficiency" or "cost savings" or whatever. As we mentioned in passing yesterday, roughly 300 staffers of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were given their walking papers on Thursday of last week. Somehow, none of the people who approved the firings (which, let's be honest, was probably just one junior tech bro and one senior tech bro) knew what the NNSA does, despite it being right there in the name. As it turns out, it's probably best to have experts keeping an eye on the nation's nukes, to make sure they're all properly maintained, still stable, still there, etc. That lesson is underscored when, just an hour or so after you fire the NNSA folks, Russia bombs Chernobyl.
  
  So, DOGE tried to reverse the terminations. However, because many of the employees had been cut off from their government e-mail accounts, and because they weren't exactly keeping an eye out for a "Ha! Just kidding! You're not fired!" message, the administration had trouble reaching many of the NNSA folks. Reportedly, enough of them are back on the job now to keep NNSA running. However, they have been given very clear notice that their jobs aren't really safe, especially once Co-President Musk figures out a way for AI to keep an eye on the nuclear arms. So, quite a few of the re-hired staffers told reporters (off the record) that they are putting résumés out there, and will be departing as soon as they land a non-government job.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part II: On Friday, Trump ordered the firing of 18 immigration judges. Thirteen of them had not even been sworn in yet. Immigration judges are not Article III judges, who have lifetime tenure. They are civil servants who are appointed by the AG and serve at her pleasure.
  
  The immigration courts currently have a backlog of 3.7 million pending cases. Firing immigration judges will not speed up processing all the cases, but it is possible that Trump will appoint new judges who promise to reject every applicant and take no more than 1 minute per case. That way, in an 8-hour work day, a judge could reject 480 asylum seekers (or 2,400 per week). That works out to 120,000 per judge-year. If 31 judges could keep up the pace of one rejection per minute, the whole docket could be cleared by March 2026, well before the midterms.
  
  Of course, Trump may have reasons other than immigration ones for the mass firing. It could be to send judges across the spectrum a message that they could be next. After all, the Constitution is just a musty old piece of paper stored in the National Archives somewhere. This could make some of them afraid to issue rulings he won't like and he could try to fire them, just to see what will happen. Constitution or no Constitution, Trump can order Elon Musk to find their entry in the OPM database and just hit the DEL key. Poof! Gone! Alternatively, Trump could try to have lackeys in Congress impeach one or more "unfriendly" judges (see below for more). Such efforts won't succeed, since there's no way that 14 Democrats will vote for a politically motivated impeachment. But it would still drag a judge's name through the mud, and would also be useful for fundraising.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part III: And here is yet another entry for the "It's a sh**show" file. Also on Friday, around the same time the immigration judges were fired, the Trump administration sent termination notices to 950 employees of the Indian Health Service (IHS). Because if there's anyone who's had it too good, too long, at the hands of the U.S. government, it's the Native Americans.
  
  The IHS was already understaffed, and Native Americans already have the lowest life expectancy of any ethnic group in the United States. So, firing a bunch of IHS employees is inherently pretty cruel. But beyond that, the administration completely botched the terminations, sending out a bunch of notices, and then announcing that nurses and doctors are exempt. So, there are multiple hundreds of people who don't quite know if they are fired or not (especially since there are several different kinds of nurses in the medical profession).
  
  
• Speaking of Quid Pro Quos (Quids Pro Quo?): You could make a pretty good argument that this story is about as corrupt as what's happening with Eric Adams. However, it almost entirely escaped everyone's attention, because there's just so much crazypantsery going on (yes, it's gotten so bad that we just coined a brand new word).
  
  As we reminded readers on Friday, Donald Trump is a WWE Hall of Famer. He was chosen for that "honor," and inducted, by former WWE CEO Vince McMahon. The reason that McMahon is the former CEO is that he was the target of a federal investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. Like former senator Bob Menendez, this was the second go-round for McMahon, which is why he became too radioactive for the WWE to tolerate anymore.
  
  However, McMahon is not the target of a federal investigation anymore, as the investigation has been dropped. McMahon's attorney says that decision was made months ago, and it just so happened to become official after Donald Trump became president. If you believe that... well, you also probably believe that professional wrestling is real. In any event, Trump and the McMahon family have had a cozy relationship for a very long time, as the McMahons like his politics and his showmanship and he likes the McMahons' money.
  
  
• Profiles in Brownnosing, Part I: Recognizing that Donald Trump would like to fire a few shots across the bows of various federal judges, and seeing an opportunity to get in good with the Dear Leader, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) filed articles of impeachment against Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who ordered the White House to lift its federal spending freeze. This caused Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) to kick himself for not thinking of this idea first; he is going to make up for lost time by filing articles of impeachment against Judge Paul Engelmayer, who blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department's secure computers. Crane says more such articles are coming, as soon as he can figure out which judges to target.
  
  As we note above, there is zero chance these efforts go anywhere. Senate Democrats aren't going to impeach a judge for doing his job, and Mike Johnson is not likely to want the embarrassment of tilting at stupid windmills. So, the Clyde and Crane bills are just political theater, for benefit of an audience of two—i.e., the Co-Presidents.
  
  
• Profiles in Brownnosing, Part II: Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) calls the phony impeachments of Clyde and Crane, and raises them a phony federal holiday. Yes, she has just introduced a bill to make Donald Trump's birthday a national holiday, "recognizing him as the founder of America's Golden Age." Just remember, it's not a cult.
  
  
• Newspeak, Part I: Stonewall is a national monument. That means it has a webpage run by the National Park Service. Until last week, that webpage recognized June 28, 1969, as an important day in the quest for LGBTQ civil rights. Now, the webpage advises that it was an important day in the quest for LGB civil rights. On the orders of someone in the Trump White House, transgender and queer people have been scrubbed from the story. Presumably, the next update will rechristen it as the Stonewall Jackson national monument. Though note, that's the Stonewall Jackson who served in Patton's Third Army as a janitor, not any other Stonewall Jackson you might have heard of.
  
  
• Newspeak, Part II: The White House is also hard at work on lists of banned books. The administration can't quite reach into schools run by the states, but it can dictate rules for federal schools (e.g., those on military bases). Among the recent bans are No Truth Without Ruth, Becoming Nicole, and Freckleface Strawberry.
  
  No Truth Without Ruth is about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, while Becoming Nicole is about trans actress and activist Nicole Maines, so it's easy enough to figure out how those ended up in the crosshairs. However, Freckleface Strawberry, written by actress Julianne Moore, is about a 7-year-old girl who doesn't like her freckles, but then... learns to be happy about them. Very subversive stuff. Of course, her hair IS red, and we know what the message is there. Just wait until someone in the White House realizes that the book Robin Hood is about a fellow who takes from the rich and gives to the poor.
  
  
• Adventures in Stupidity, Part I: We're not sure who the dumb one is here—Trump, or his audience. However, apparently in service of his Canada annexation plans, the President has been obsessing over the 1908 treaty between Canada and the U.S. Well, actually, it was between the U.K. and the U.S., since the Brits handled diplomacy for the 'Nades back then.
  
  It's possible readers are not familiar with the Canada-U.S. treaty of 1908. If so, then they have something in common with 99.99999% of the population. Heck, when Trump started prattling on about it, even the Canadian government didn't quite know what he was talking about. It turns out it's one of several diplomatic agreements that clarified relatively small matters related to the U.S.-Canada border. There were seven other treaties on that subject negotiated in the 19th century, and two others in the 20th century, in 1910 and 1925.
  
  At the moment, nobody knows exactly why Trump has decided this particular treaty is so important. Maybe he just read the title (or had someone read it to him)—Concerning the Boundary Between the United States and the Dominion of Canada From the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean—and did not move beyond that, enough to realize it's a relatively trivial document. Maybe someone actually convinced Trump there's some deeply meaningful dimension to this very obscure agreement. Maybe Trump thinks that by waving it around, he can scare the Canadians (unlikely) or impress the Fox crowd (more plausible). You never know with him.
  
  
• Adventures in Stupidity, Part II: Ok, sometimes you do know with him. Several times this week, Trump has sent out fundraising e-mails imploring his supporters to send him money, so he can... fight off Democratic efforts to impeach him. That's right, if you don't send your money RIGHT NOW, he warns, "Democrats could be impeaching me tomorrow."
  
  Obviously, that won't be happening, as the Democrats do not have a majority in the House. We are certain Trump knows that—he's got extensive experience in being impeached, after all. But he's hoping the rubes are not as knowledgeable.

And there you have it, at least for now. The damnable thing is that we actually had so many stories that might appear in this space that we simply could not include them all. Not only because of time and length constraints, but also because we just can't dump that much stuff on readers all at once. So, look for another crazypants item later this week—maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday. (Z)