Today in Politics, Bulletin 78. 2/24/25

… An arrest warrant for Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) was sent by DC police to the US Attorney’s Office for a domestic violence incident allegedly involving a 27 year old woman who was not Mills’ wife, according to a report by AP.

… News4 Washington obtained a copy of the police report: “Her significant other for over a year grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door.” The officer observed “bruises on her arm which appeared fresh. She let officers hear Subject 1 [now identified by MPD as Mills] instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises. Eventually, Subject 1 made contact with police and admitted that the situation escalated from verbal to physical, but it was severe enough to create bruising.”

… The report went on to say that when officers saw the woman, she was “physically shaking and scared.”

… Maine Gov. Janet Mills told Politico that she wasn’t done with Trump after their heated exchange over his executive order: “Mills said she held her hand up during the question-and-answer session with the president. ‘I wanted to find out how Canada had offended us, what is the emergency on the Canadian border. For some reason, I didn’t get called on.’”

… Trump backed down from Elon Musk’s threat to fire every federal employee who failed to respond to his email by midnight tonight, listing 5 things they accomplished this week. Politico broke the story that the admin is leaving it up to the discretion of each agency to determine whether their employees have to respond. Most have waived the requirement, but Commerce, Education, Transportation, and GSA have instructed employees to comply.

… The Hill reported that fed employee unions who have a pending lawsuit against DOGE for mass firings of probationary employees have amended their lawsuit to include this latest insanity. The updated lawsuit says that OPM, at Musk’s direction, “has not complied with any procedural requirements” under the Administrative Procedure Act: “No notice was published, in the Federal Register or anywhere else, regarding any OPM program, rule, policy, or regulation requiring all federal employees to provide a report regarding their work to OPM.”

… I don’t think Musk has heard of the Administrative Procedure Act.

… There are now already over 90 pending lawsuits against the Trump administration.

… After posting this threat on X, “Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk was then forced to backpeddle on it. However, he vowed revenge on the recalcitrant non-conformists: “This was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email. This mess will get sorted out in a week. Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don’t get it yet, but they will.”

… Sen. Lisa Murkowski: “If Musk truly wants to understand what federal workers accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency, and learn about the jobs he's trying to cut. Our public servants work hard to ensure that our national security is protected; that planes land safely; that forest fires do not spread to our homes; that Social Security checks arrive on time; that research for the breakthroughs needed to cure diseases like cancer and ALS continues; and much more. Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform. The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”

… Transportation Sec Sean Duffy said eventually federal workers are going to come around and learn to love Musk: "This whole movement is potentially gonna make people go, 'I'm gonna come to work earlier. I'm gonna stay later. I'm gonna look at what Donald Trump wants me to accomplish because he won the election, and I'm gonna fight and work to make sure I help him accomplish that.’”

… Trump hired a cheerleader to lead the Transportation Department.

… CNN: “The CIA is conducting a formal review to assess any potential damage from an unclassified email sent to the WH in early February that identified for possible layoffs some officers by first name and last initial and could’ve exposed the roles of people working undercover. A senior career Treasury official delivered a memo warning Sec Scott Bessent that granting a 25-year-old with Musk’s DOGE access to the government’s ultra-sensitive payments system risked exposing highly classified CIA payments that flow through it.”

… Former Treasury officials told CNN that access granted to individuals without training or experience in the systems gave foreign intelligence services the potential to see who is receiving funds, in what amounts, and for what purposes. This especially endangers undercover agents and assets in foreign countries.

… Speaker Mike Johnson at a forum: "Elon Musk has cracked the code. He's now inside the agencies. He's created these algorithms that are constantly crawling through the data. We're gonna be able to transform the way the federal government works."

… Lovely.

… Hackers ran an AI video this morning on all the TV screens in the HUD building, which showed Trump kissing Musk’s feet with the caption, ‘Long Live The Real King’. HUD officials could not figure out how to stop the video from playing, so they ran around the building unplugging all the screens.

… The video was created last month by satirist ‘PaulleyTicks’. I posted a screen shot of it in this column at the time, which some of you may recall.

… Rep. Jasmine Crockett posted a clip of the video playing at HUD: “This made my day! Whoever pulled this off is a true American hero!”

… AP reported recently that Musk intends to cut at least 50% of the total workforce at HUD, specifically targeting parts of the agency relating to disaster recovery, first-time homebuyers, discrimination, and rental subsidies. Obviously, some employees were not happy about that as people continue to find their own unique ways to protest against what is happening.

… Republican members of Congress continued to get hammered across the country by angry constituents in their districts - with most of the venom directed at Elon Musk.

… Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) was booed, heckled and harassed repeatedly during a town hall in his district today. The crowd erupted when he said this: “Elon Musk has contracts with the federal government, but he is also, I think, doing an effective job at weeding out the waste, abuse, and fraud in the government.” His constituents: “BOOO!!! SHOW ME!!! CONFLICT OF INTEREST!!! HE IS THE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE!!!”

… Then when attempting to answer a question about immigration, Alford said: “Do you know who Stephen Miller is?” His constituents: BOOOOOO!!!!!

… But NY Post columnist Paul Sperry claims that none of this is organic and it is all part of an Antifa plot: “Obama-trained agitators - following same playbook as 2017. Manufacture anti-Trump sentiment, attack House Republicans town halls during recess as part of strategy to wipe out GOP majority.”

… Sperry also claimed that these “Obama-trained agitators” are going to target Tesla: “Organized by radical group INDIVISIBLE, they are planning to mob Tesla dealerships, showrooms, factories to protest ‘how Elon Musk’s DOGE coup is harming working families.’ SpaceX and X HQ are also targeted for chants and signs: ‘FIRE ELON MUSK,’ ‘TRAITOR.’”

… I think his first take on what is happening in the districts is BS. On his second claim, I could definitely believe activists are organizing protests at Tesla dealerships. Just sounds like a good time and an excellent use of the 1st Amendment to me though.

… VA Gov Glenn Youngkin called a press conference to address people irate over the mass firings, since his state has 145,000 federal employees and huge numbers of federal contractors. “I understand and I actually have extraordinary empathy for the fact that there are many workers in VA today from our fed workforce who are experiencing real concerns. We have a fed govt that is inefficient and we have an admin that is taking on that challenge of rooting our waste, fraud, and abuse.”

… “Extraordinary empathy” isn’t going to feed the kids, Gov.

… Rep. Clay Higgins: “I’m a compassionate man. So, to the thousands of FedGov employees who are facing unemployment because your elected officials have, for decades, grown the Federal bureaucracies into corrupt, bloated, weaponized devourers of America’s treasure and oppressors of American freedom. I say to you that I feel your pain and I wish you well.”

… Ned Stark said in Game of Thrones, "Nothing someone says before the word 'but' really counts.” Let’s test out that theory with Clay …

… Higgins continued: “BUT, your job was no more important than the carpenter, the machinist, the welder, the cop, the trucker, the warehouse worker, the salesman, the waitress, the heavy equipment operator -every American who lives down the street from you whose job has not been insulated from the real world. MAGA Republicans are going to bring our fed govt back into sustainability. If you’ve lost your job, pick yourself up, all of us will give you a hand. We’re all Americans, join us in saving our beloved Republic.”

… House Republicans continue to work hard for the American people. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna today: “My Oversight Task Force's first hearing will be held on March 26 and will examine the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We will also visit the site of the assassination in Dallas, TX, and speak with first-hand witnesses. Stay tuned!”

… Not to be outdone by Luna, House DOGE Committee Chair Marge Greene posted that she has big plans as well for the people: “I will be calling the Treasury and arranging for the DOGE Committee to go and inspect the gold at Fort Knox.”

… Politico reports Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was expected to cruise to an easy victory a month ago in Canada’s upcoming election, but that has all changed recently because of his alliance with Trump. Trump’s anti-Canada rhetoric is not helping his friend Poilievre at all. Ontario PM Doug Ford: “Every time Trump goes after Trudeau, the Liberals’ numbers go up. It was going to be a landslide for Pierre Poilievre, now it’s literally neck and neck. How does that happen? From almost a 20 point lead down to neck and neck.”

If you missed yesterday’s Weekend Bulletin, you can read it here.

… The US voted today with Russia and a handful of Russian-allied countries against a resolution in the UN General Assembly that condemned Russian aggression and demanded that that they withdraw from territory it occupies in Ukraine. The resolution passed easily with 93 countries voting for it.

… Trump was asked today if he could explain his rationale for the US voting against the UN Resolution with Russia: “I would rather not explain it now, I think it is self-