Everything's Computer

Plus: "Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?" and more...

Everything's computer! But not at the IRS.

"The upheaval at the IRS is already having real impacts," reports The Washington Post, referring to plans (already underway) to reduce the workforce by half. "Sources familiar with the agency report that its level of phone service is falling, in part because employees are spending their time waiting to use shared computers to respond to [the Department of Government Efficiency's] requests for weekly emails detailing their work. (Not all IRS employees are issued their own computers.) And they report that taxpayer behavior is already adjusting to the reality of a diminished IRS workforce: IRS receipts—taxes paid already and taxes the agency is scheduled to receive from those who have already filed—are significantly lower than they were at this point last filing season."

Wait, back up. They don't have their own computers? And they're sitting in a queue like schoolchildren in the library, waiting to use a single shared computer to respond to Musk's five-things-you-did-last-week emails? How long does it take to write those emails? And why don't they have computers?

Look, I'm worried by the slapdash approach Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has taken. But the continued federal employee freakout over being asked to justify their jobs by detailing what they've done at work makes no sense to me.

I know a girl from college who is a "Work-Life Specialist and Mindfulness Facilitator" at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She leads yoga sessions and "meditation made simple" workshops for federal employees, per her LinkedIn. This is a job I don't want my taxpayer dollars funding. For Musk to apply scrutiny to this type of thing is a huge win for the American people.

There are lots of legitimate criticisms to make about whether cuts in staffing will actually lead to a better IRS. Taxpayer services will surely suffer if there are fewer people available to answer phone calls and emails; refunds might be delayed, which comes at a real cost to people. Worse tax collection means less revenue for the government, and it's not like spending is under control—expect the fiscal hole we're in to get worse if this continues. But "we just can't figure out how to ration computer use in the year 2025 to craft a bullet-pointed email" is an absurd line that elicits no sympathy, and just leaves me confused about what the hell they've been doing all this time. Everything's not, in fact, computer in the federal government.

"Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?" asks NPR's Michel Martin to Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar regarding Mahmoud Khalil.

"What is the specific conduct the government alleges that Mr. Khalil engaged in that merits removal from the United States?" asks Martin, to non-answers and equivocating from Edgar. "He has been promoting this anti-semitism activity at the university," Edgar responds, noting that Khalil's been supporting terrorist activity. "What specifically constitutes terrorist activity that he was supporting? What exactly do you say he did?" presses Martin. "I think you can see it on TV," says Edgar. "He is a legal permanent resident. So what is the standard [for deportation]?" asks Martin. "Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?" she follows up, over and over. This is a really good example of a journalist actually doing their job and trying to get legitimate answers from the administration.

Five-year anniversary of COVID-19 national emergency being declared: A dark day in our nation's history. How is Gavin Newsom commemorating it?

When Charlie Kirk brings up the French Laundry incident, you can see Newsom's animal instinct for comms kick in

1) Jokes: "I can't help you with a reservation"

2) Concedes: "We couldn't have this conversation without that conversation"

3) Disarms: "Dumbest bonehead move of my… pic.twitter.com/lRFlnmx1wO

— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) March 12, 2025

Look, his political reflexes may be smooth—and there's a lot of speculating about whether he's aiming to step into the Democratic Party breach and run for president—but the little weasel must be put in his place (and a more adept, ferocious interviewer than Charlie Kirk could have done so; I volunteer as tribute). His hypocrisy is no small matter—and I say is because I'm not over it, and I don't think you should be either, and he's still actively in a position of power and probably seeking more of it. From a political standpoint, I don't think Newsom's shtick will play well—cities in his state have descended into crime and disorder; his COVID-19 record is abysmal; his taxes are insane—for the rest of the country. But, ugh, I guess, "watch this space," as they say. He's trying to transform himself into just a likable guy with a podcast. He's running.

Anyway, if you want to go down the COVID remembrance rabbit hole, I highly recommend this National Review article by Jeffrey Blehar: "I cannot summon memories of that era without becoming furious at what I suffered through, without reliving the sense of utter betrayal from all authority we experienced during that period. I have never felt more despairingly abandoned, and in fact actively oppressed, by every level of government than in those dark years."

---

Scenes from New York: How did pot legalization in New York go so terribly wrong? New documentary out, from me.

---

QUICK HITS

• "Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said his party would block a Republican spending bill to avert a government shutdown on Saturday and urged the GOP to accept a Democratic plan to provide funding through April 11 instead," reports Bloomberg. "Schumer's declaration Wednesday raised the stakes in an ongoing game of chicken between congressional Republicans and Democrats and appeared to heighten the risk of a shutdown at a time financial markets are hyper-sensitive to new disruption."
• "A majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump is being too 'erratic' in his moves to shake up the U.S. economy, as his imposition of tariffs against some of the nation's top trading partners hammers stock markets," finds a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
• "In last year's campaign Donald Trump and J.D. Vance rightly ran against the speech excesses of the Democratic Party, with Vance saying views on censorship constituted the "biggest difference" between Trump and Kamala Harris, and Trump upon inauguration naming censored figures like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to high office. The administration initially acted like it understood the gravity of the situation, with Vance confronting Europe over its civil liberties crackdowns. They seemed to know what they wanted to achieve on this issue," writes Matt Taibbi. "That operation is now hanging by a thread. Trump is suddenly blowing it on the speech in a big way, with two big categories of screw-ups: pandering to Israel, and reaching into the same emergency-power cookie jar that foreign counterpart-jackasses like Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz and Thierry Breton have recently raided, in efforts to suppress populist movements like Trump's own. Once he jumps on this bandwagon, we're all screwed, because there's nowhere left to run." Full thing is worth a read.
• "The US Federal Trade Commission is moving ahead with a sprawling antitrust probe of Microsoft Corp. that was opened in the waning days of the Biden Administration, signaling that Donald Trump's new FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson is going to prioritize scrutiny of tech giants," reports Bloomberg.
• True:

Catastrophic population collapse https://t.co/5d4R3noeHV

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2025