Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials....
The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.
"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said.
Musk's goons are sleeping in the offices, or at least they want workers to believe they are.
A team including current and former employees of Musk assumed command of OPM [the Office of Personnel Management] on Jan. 20, the day Trump took office. They have moved sofa beds onto the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which contains the director's office and can only be accessed with a security badge or a security escort, one of the OPM employees said.Musk has also forced the retirement of a career civil servant who, among other duties, oversaw payments to ordinary citizens.
The sofa beds have been installed so the team can work around the clock, the employee said.
Musk ... installed beds at X for employees to enable them to work longer when in 2022 he took over the social media platform....
The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department left the agency after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems....What should Democrats do? I think Josh Marshall is a little off base:
David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues.... Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year...
Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems.... Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.
... Democrats’ job is to make the case every day what a disaster Trump governance is and ask voters whether they’ve decided yet that they’d like to make a change. In a way any opposition must almost exalt it’s powerlessness. We’d love to stop these horrible things for you, voters. But you have to put us in power to do it.No, no, no. This is not the time to talk about future elections, or to acknowledge Democrats' powerlessness as long as Republicans control the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Most voters don't understand why Democrats can't stop this. Also, when Republicans are shut out of power, they don't go on Fox News and say, "We'd love to stop this, but we're helpless." They just make noise. They get angry. They try to make their voters angry. They do what they can to create a groundswell of outrage. During the Biden years, they did it on immigration, on inflation, on trans people, on the (nonexistent) crime wave, and on many other real and imaginary issues (critical race theory! wokeness!).
So what can Democrats do? Here's a thought:
Congressional Democrats should march to the White House and demand a meeting with Co-President Musk. They should march to the buildings where Musk's goons have committed their pirate raid on government computers and demand to be admitted, especially Democrats who are members of congressional committees that oversee the relevant agencies.
And they should start asking questions. What's the plan here? Is it to fire every government employee who's a registered Democrat? Is it to deny Social Security payments or Medicare reimbursements or student loans to anyone who voted for Kamala Harris or Joe Biden? Is that the plan?
(I know Democrats aren't very popular right now, but I think most non-Republicans in America have a sense of fairness and don't believe there should be ideological litmus tests for government programs, or for non-political government jobs.)
Also, who are these people? Who vetted them? What personnel process did they go through? Does the U.S. government now have an HR office of one, and that one is Elon Musk? Who elected him?
Don't forget the recent poll numbers from Quinnipiac:
In the survey from Quinnipiac University, 53 percent of respondents said they are not in favor “of Elon Musk playing a prominent role in the Trump administration,” while 39 percent said they are in favor of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO playing a prominent role in the Trump administration.If the Democrats aren't allowed to speak to anyone, that's fine. That's good theater. They should loudly declare a cover-up. They should stand outside the buildings and ask the questions that they would have addressed to the people who are now in charge, and they should ask why those people are afraid to answer the questions.
In short: Make some noise. Create some drama. Give the media something compelling to cover. Don't just issue another damn press release.
