A key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.
....“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the Journal’s review of archived posts. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September.
Well, mistakes happen, amirite? But this dude is gone now because obviously Donald Trump doesn't put up with—
President Trump has nominated Anthony J. Tata, a retired brigadier general with a history of Islamophobic and other inflammatory comments, to a senior Pentagon post in charge of jobs and deployments.
This is the second time Mr. Trump has nominated Mr. Tata, who once called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader,” to a senior job in the Defense Department that requires Senate approval.
Maybe Trump just really likes white people after all. Still, a guy who's exterminating DEI, trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and cutting off funds to South Africa for being mean to whites, should take a wee bit more care about who he pals around with.
Trump's racism seems to be serving him just fine. The rest of the politicians in the GOP see no reason to complain and the media feels no need to call out the racism for what it is. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump advocated a return to slavery and headlines simply announced a "return to a historic and peculiar institution."
Naw, Fox News would claim he is eliminating black poverty.
It certainly has worked for him and he has enablers in government, the judiciary and the media who help clear the rough patches. No reason to think he won't charge forward.
I was surprised by the DOGE guy’s resignation based in the recent hiring of Darren Beattie for a top State Department job. who tweeted this last October:
“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and
minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
Narrator: "Someone claiming to be a 'competent white man' is almost always an incompetent con-artist and huge asshole. Much like the president they admire."
I like to think I'm a competent white man. However, I also work with competent black people, competent Japanese, Chinese and Indian descended people, competent native people, and competent women, not to mention the occasional competent gay person. I would note for the sake of completeness that I also know incompetent people from all those groups.
No one group has a monopoly on either competence or incompetence.
Yeah, the only shocking thing to me is that they didn't just keep him on. This is who they are and they aren't ashamed of it.
The President's racist white supemecist Best Friend wants him back.
He also said didn't care if Israel got wiped off the map.
He also said “Normalize Indian Hate.”
JD Vance, who has an Indian wife and children said he thought the guy should get his job back. And, apparently, he’s back!
Can there be any doubt that Vance would shine the guy’s shoes if Musk told him too?
Good thing he wasn't a student at Columbia.
It's a good bet that Elez resigned right away so the reporters wouldn't keep digging into his social media and uncover the *really* vile stuff that he tried a little harder to keep separate from his other tracks.
Gotta say, he seems like truly exemplary material for the Musk Jugend.
Completely OT, but for some reason seeing pics of Bondi and trump and remembering Noem in her Border Cowgirl costume and Hegseth in his manicured and tenderly coifed splendor made me think of nothing so much as WWE.
Elez and the other nazi youth are young enough that their own parents or relatives might’ve called them up and said “what’s this in the news I heard about you doing X?” Not all kids grow up to become copies of their parents, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these nazi youth hid their naziing from their relatives.
Could be. Silicon Valley e-culture is built around focusing obsessively on the immediate task as given, and not worrying about any social or contextual questions as long as you're breaking things, sort of updated Tracy Kidder-type stuff. So an upside-the-head from family or somebody isn't hard to imagine. OTOH, some part of every generation just flat-out rebels against the parents. And others follow in the parents' footsteps. I hope we'll eventually find out more about this guy, out of morbid curiosity if nothing less.
This it totally WWE, all of it. The bluffing, the buffoonery.
Trump has switched from Heel to Face, Musk is now the Heel.
"Face and Heel are two contrasting characters in professional wrestling. The Face, also known as the babyface, is the hero of the story who is cheered on by the audience for their virtuous qualities and fighting spirit. On the other hand, the Heel is the villain of the story who is booed by the audience for their deceitful tactics and arrogance. While the Face is typically portrayed as the underdog who overcomes obstacles to achieve victory, the Heel is often seen as the antagonist who will stop at nothing to win. Despite their differences, both Face and Heel play crucial roles in creating drama and excitement in the world of wrestling."
For a laugh, watch the CNN video about Arab-American voters in Dearborn, MI who voted for Trump or Jill Stein, and if they have any regrets now. Spoiler alert. None of them do because people are just that good at rationalizing.
Somehow everyone who supports convicted felon Trump thinks that when he says or does something they don't like that he doesn't really mean it. I am about done with stupid people.
I saw that. They weren't pleased with Trump, but said there was no one to blame because they didn't have any good choices on Election Day.
I was thinking they were to blame for voting for Trump, but what do I know?
It was either vote for this or vote for a sincere and competent black woman or stay home and not vote at all.
Really, what choice did they have, after Johnny Perfectineveryway chose not to run?
Narrator: Thankfully, elections were cancelled after the Incident of 2026 happened, so these sad voters who lack adequate choices or agency over their own decisions would never again be burdened with making any choices.
+1, he tapped disconsolately …
For a laugh, watch the CNN video about Arab-American voters in Dearborn, MI who voted for Trump or Jill Stein, and if they have any regrets now. Spoiler alert. None of them do because people are just that good at rationalizing.
Like anyone who strongly preference Democratic Party governance, I find the party's cross-pressured situation with respect to the Palestine-Israel to be vexing and problematic.
But the "let's vote for the GOP" stance taken by some pro-Palestinian Americans, while maddening from my perspective—and seemingly irrational—really isn't all that irrational. I wish folks would engage in a more sophisticated or at least honest acknowledgment of the calculus that's at play.
The complete and utter depravity of MAGA's position on Palestine-Gaza suggests they're simply not "gettable." They're irredeemably, hopelessly in the pocket of Netanyahuism. Which is not good from the perspective of those who care about the lives of Palestinians.
Which suggests that, if a change in US policy is going come about, it'll have to arrive courtesy of Democrats. Which in turn suggests try to get *them* to change, because trying to change the GOP is a waste of time; hence the strategy of "punishing" the Democratic Party by voting Republican or third party (or staying home) in swing states. It's obviously an attempt to change the policy position of the Democratic Party vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine by making them pay a steep political price for *not* changing. And in fairness to single issue* pro-Palestinian voters, there's not much obvious upside to helping to keep Democrats in power: Biden barely lifted a finger to temper the Israeli response to the Hamas attack.
Maybe that calculus is wrong or will prove ineffective. But there actually is some rationality behind it. It's not simple, angry nihilism.
*To me the problematic aspect of all this isn't their view on the Palestine-Israel-Gaza situation and how it relates to our two parties. They're not wrong about this. To me the problematic aspect is subordinating all else to this one issue—that is, being willing to help a massively corrupt, dangerous and incompetent faction come to power—and gravely harm your own country in the bargain—because you think punishing the sanity party might advance your top policy goal. THAT is the fucked up part in all this.
For me there are multiple problematic aspects to the ‘Uncommitted’ voters who became third-party or write-in or R voters. One, I agree that single-issue voting was wrong in 2024 because of the unique threat of electing the Felon. In fact, single-issue voting is generally indefensible except in cases of existential threat. Second, there was a failure to reckon with worst-case potential, that the second Trump administration could inflict irreversible damage on the Palestinian people, such as forcibly and permanently depopulating Gaza, and/or countenancing the annexation of the West Bank. Third, there was no recognition of the political reality, that the Democratic Party has the support of a large majority of Jewish Americans, and won’t risk losing that.
Adding to my prior comment - a significant part of that decision tree needs to be the magnitude and odds of people in the Democratic coalition concluding exactly the opposite of what you hypothesize: That these are not people worth pursuing at the expense of losing Jewish votes, because they still will decide that we didn't do enough (which inevitably will be true, in the abstract), and not vote Democratic.
This is not a repeat game that occurs at weekly intervals - its four (or at least two) years per play. And for anyone who isn't brain dead who constructed the mental equivalent of a decision tree with probabilities and magnitudes of outcomes - yes, irrational is the kindest thing to be said for these people.
Trump Sr. proudly attended Klan rallies back in the day and got sued by the feds for refusing to rent his apartments to non-Whites. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I believe that Donald was working in that office at the time.
Yeah, I think it was the Nixon DOJ in the early 70s that sued them and the son was becoming a major public face for the family by then. Still early days of the Civil Rights Act, which is wild to think about. Senior's fortune was largely built on the kind of middle-brow apartment complexes that the convicted felon has stayed away from, and the family went pretty far to keep them white. IIRC there was New Deal money in a lot of what senior did, but I don't remember any details now. Anyway, it isn't like the government has only ever screwed them over.
Trump working hard as always to lower the price of eggs and gasoline.
Hmm - Waffle House announced a 50 cent surcharge PER EGG (from Daily Kos). Wonder what I'll find when I look at the local breakfast chains around Bellingham (WA).
The egg cases at the local markets look pretty bleak. All I saw at Fred Meyer and Safeway was small supplies of one local brand - presumably they are small and isolated enough to have minimized their exposure risks.
L.O.L.
That's all I have to say to the concept that "Trump should keep better company if he really wants to do XYZ."
I for one am shocked to discover that the Donald Trump I have gotten to know so well over the last ten years might be biased towards white people.
A twit was all it took?! That's what caused a "resignation?!"
Meanwhile the heist continues...
Bigotry has long been the glue that holds the GOP together as a party. The delicates don't like it when this is pointed out.
Well, if by "long" you mean "the 1950's", yes. They actually used to be better on race than the Dixiecrats who ran the party until FDR.
Long as in the lifetime of nearly everyone on earth. This isn't really a new development is all.
Thanks for the history lesson. Irrelevant to anyone born after the 1950s, which is basically everyone at this point. But, still true I guess, so you get a cookie today!
I demand two cookies, I was born before the 1950’s.
Austin: "Math is hard."
@jdubs
Exactly right. Race has been the dominant dividing line in American politics forever and today's GOP is where the bigots go to thrive.
Republicans have won the white vote in every presidential election after LBJ, even with the Democrats winning the overall popular vote seven of the last nine times. A Republican acquaintance was happy to tell me once, "Without the minorities, the Democrats would be nothing." He clearly was implying minorities shouldn't count. His implicit assumption, a guiding principle (even if unspoken) in Republican politics, is that the white is better than the nonwhite. The truth is, without racism, the Republicans would be nothing.
"I was racist before it was cool." All Republican presidents since LBJ could have said the same thing. Some were racist to the core, some just played the politics of race to win power.
When you believe the color of your skin makes you better than the Black guy, the election of a man like Obama begets a total freak-out. Not only is he Black, but he's intelligent and highly capable, and successful in ways you are not. Obama could have been a moment for Republicans to say, Hey, maybe it's time to get my shit together. Instead, Republicans rallied behind Trump. Trump is a different breed, a throwback, who's making it "cool" to be racist again. Even if it takes the destruction of American democracy to achieve that, that's the driving force of Republicans today, the pols and the voters. They've all fallen in line.
The surprise when a Republican pol or operative is revealed to be racist is not that the person is racist. The surprise is that anyone is surprised.
Yup.
should take a wee bit more care about who he pals around with
Seriously, Kevin? They’re winning. They’re finally restoring what they consider the proper natural order. I saw a headline about one office literally covering up pictures of distinguished women and PoCs, and had to check out for the day.
When do you all admit that democrats lost and there is not a majority constituency for our cultural views and policy preferences? Sure, these trump people are freaks and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near them. But it seems like they prefer this nonsense to whatever democrats advocate. It’s worth opposing them on constitutional grounds, but otherwise democrats have nothing to offer that enough people want.
The damage done is well and truly deserved. Heck, plenty of people are quite happy with it. Let it go. Take care of your own friends and like minded family. Give to the local charity of your choice. The federal government is not your friend. Good luck.
The thing is, people do want Democratic policies. They enjoy them when implemented. They protest when they're taken away. They express this opinion in poll after poll after poll. They just don't realize they are Democratic policies or that Republicans have been fighting relentlessly since Nixon to take them away or prevent their enactment.
The problem isn't Democratic policies; it's tribalism and ignorance. Also the belief that the dog will never catch the car.
+1
I don’t think the relative popularity of some idea has any relation to electoral politics these days. We can console ourselves saying that things we advocate are popular but it’s really not how things work.
And we get punished for implementing them. Obamacare is the best example. No one probably won an election saying they support it.
I’m just trying to have a practical view of where we are. And we’re nowhere.
What's the matter with Kansas?
Democrats gave up the racist vote and the misogynist vote last election, and still came within a few percent at the top of the ticket, gained a few seats in the House, lost only a handful of Senate seats against a very unfavorable map. I’m not saying that Democrats only need little tweaks to their platform to tip the balance. But obviously our extreme, Marxist indoctrination through the education system has failed /s. Seriously, civics education ought to be tracked like math and reading.
That is an excellent idea, why isn't it tracked?
Is it even required?
Assuming that "tribalism" includes racism/white supremacy.
Barrabas Barrabas We want Barrabas!
Weeeeee!
America's original sin is hard to overcome. Half or more of Americans like white preference. It's served them well.
"I see white people"
I'm of the opinion that Mr Elez (pronounced "eels"?) resigned because he;s been the one hacking the Treasury funds disbursement code and adding his own apps to tap into the Treasury's big database ... and he doesn't want to be around when the payment system breaks down. Coding is cool; tracking down and fixing bugs is just drudgery.
Also, the right wingers don't recognize this "shame" thing, and definitely not where racism is involved.
. . . and fixing "bugs" that are the chewing gum and baling wire that hold the entire rickety system together, that's priceless
Musk's kids at treasury don't matter much. Firing this one is just deflection, or maybe he wasn't refactoring fast enough. Either way, it's hardly a headline story.
The fact that it is happening at multiple organizations does matter quite a bit. FAA has its mole - who wants to go flying if he gets to muck around in their systems (and does he even know how to code for those old computers)?
USAID seems to have been effectively shut down - and they buy lots of US farm produce to send to countries in trouble. If they stay shut down a lot of US farmers/farm companies are in for a bumpy ride.
Department of Energy has another mole - and nobody is sure whether he's been vetted worth a damn. Etc.
On topic: this Leopards Eating Faces party article by the AP is my favorite so far from this cycle. https://apnews.com/article/latino-evangelical-churches-florida-trump-immigration-45c423716ca30f77598657f1c4952933
Money quote: Agustin Quiles, a spokesperson for the Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Councils and Evangelical Institutions, said community members, including many who supported Donald Trump in the last election cycle, now feel devastated and abandoned. “The messaging appears to be that anyone who is undocumented is a criminal,” he said. “Latino evangelicals for the most part voted Republican and hold conservative views on issues like abortion. We want to ask the president to reconsider because these actions are causing pain and trauma to so many families in and beyond our churches.
Hey guys if you support the racist maybe don't be so friggin surprised when the racist is exactly as racist toward you and yours as he has always claimed to be!
"We want to ask the president to reconsider because these actions are causing pain and trauma to so many families in and beyond our churches."
Yeah, that should do it.
Not my face!!
Every time a Republican becomes president within a few months there will be some percentage of people who voted for them complaining but this isn't what I voted for! Yet, every time, this is exactly what they voted for because, every time, this is exactly what Republicans do, and yet a large part of the people who vote for them remain incapable of knowing this.
This specific case is simply the most extreme example. It is not possible that anyone paying even trivial attention did not know that racism and scapegoating immigrants was his whole deal. How could you not know this? If someone actually did not know that that really says they should be found legally incompetent because someone operating with that scale of demonstrated self-delusion cannot have any serious grasp of anything else, either.
It's quite something, isn't it? Conservatives usually have to at least lie a bit about the unpopular parts. This time they were 100% honest and people just refused to believe it!
My impression is it's not so much refusal as a physical incapacity to accept it because to do so would blow up their anxiety to the point where they would be completely flipped out all the time. So much of conservatism is nothing but a security blanket.
To take a serious interest would be to know things and finding out things they can know only reveals how much they don't know about anything and how limited their ability is to either absorb things or understand them.
Trying to get it right only proves to them they never can, so they vote for the security blanket.
The most frustrating part of all of it isn't even that they do this. It's that telling them that this was all very dumb is the worst possible strategy to get them to do something else next time. I don't want to use kid gloves with this stupidity, I want to scream.
Once upon a time, people voted for candidates they viewed as the best on the actual issues. Those days are gone. Republicans can't win on issues, so they've succeeded in converting a large fraction of the electorate to culture warriors. You undoubtedly know people like that. They're completely impervious to facts and logic.
They will consistently vote against their own interests for reasons no more rational than "stick it to the libs". This wouldn't be so bad, since these voters comprise a minority, but combined with low-information voters, Republicans can occasionally just squeak by with a narrow majority.
What drives low-information voters? They're really fickle. It takes very little to sway them. They're always unhappy with something or other, which, I believe, is why it's become almost impossible for either party to string together successive election wins.
+1
The people in these targeted groups who went for trump always have an unspoken Me And Everybody I Know exemption that they're convinced will be automagically observed by ICE or the FBI or the DOJ or the IRS or whatever. Or maybe it's the We're Not the Droids You're Looking For exemption. Like marking their doorposts, but invisible.
+1
The messaging "appears to be"? Does this person not read? The messaging is 100% that they are criminals. The hypocrisy is that entering the country to create a better life for your family is criminal and results in chains, but gunning down unarmed citizens is just a day's work, white collar crime is just honest folks trying to get ahead, and domestic abuse is just boys being boys.
This worm will turn on people who aren't expecting it at some point.
Apparently they didn't pay attention to a single word Donald ever said.
I know this may rub some people the wrong way, but I don't believe Trump's core bias is "racism" as most people understand it. It's broader than that, a hatred of any group of people that don't worship him. Note that he is fine with Black or other non-white people that suck up to him, like Kanye West (and other uber-wealthy rappers), not to mention Candace Owens. And don't forget the top dog of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio. I agree that he APPEALS to hardcore racists, but he himself (as well as Musk) are motivated personally by the Ayn Rand philosophy that certain individuals are genetically superior. The indicator is not race, but wealth and power.
I think he's a racist/misogynist AND a narcissist. He doesn't have to be just one. All of his relationships are transactional, but that doesn't negate an underling racial animus.
That is pretty accurate. There is some level of racism, but it is very minor compared to his narcissism and desire to dominate.
Most of his racist acts are "transactual", i.e. he feels he will gain something, that is support by racists, by doing them, and he feels it is easier for him to get this support than to get support of non-racists.
Racism need not involve refusal to associate; enslavers had ‘house slaves’ to cook their meals, clean, do the laundry, etc. It was just a matter of ‘everyone knowing their place’. It’s always front-of-mind with Donnie Two Scoops.
It's all part of their Diversity Exclusion Initiative. These are folks that think the late 1800's were the peak of American civilization because white men ruled and blacks and women knew their place.
The late 1800s were a time of repeated economic crisis, unemployment and rampant drunkenness, so, yes, that does sound like the conservative ideal.
+10
Not to mention a time of Presidential assassinations. One every 20 years, in fact.
And people got so angry about living that way that they started the Progressive Era. Things got even more intense in Russia.
"Still, a guy who's exterminating DEI, trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and cutting off funds to South Africa for being mean to whites, should take a wee bit more care about who he pals around with."
Why? People might think he's racist? He's racist. He's clearly racist. From his own statements he's racist. There's not a question. This isn't about microaggressions or wokeness or white privilege. Look at his actions. Look at his rhetoric, against Blacks, immigrants, "shithole countries", inner cities. He's not subtle. Sure, some of it might be opportunistic, playing to xenophobia and anti-DEI sentiment, but it's pretty clear that his entire worldview is straight up racist. He may deny it, but he's not hiding it.
Nope. Dude is back. His resignation made Elon cry.
That didn't last long. The guy who was racist before racism was cool is the least racist man in the room.