It's Only Been Two Weeks; Feels Like Two Decades

Some thoughts on the damage being done now and how to fight back.

New Yorker magazine cover, “Two’s a Crowd,” by Barry Blitt. Scroll down for the Digimentors Tech Tip from Robert S. Anthony. Want to advertise to our ~15K subscribers on LinkedIn and Substack (with a 40% open rate)? Here’s our sponsorship kit.

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TWO YEARS AGO, Elon Musk discussed his plans to offer financial services and banking on X. My immediate thoughts: This is a very, very, very bad idea—to trust Musk and his lackeys with anyone’s finances will be disastrous.

As it turns out, my worries shouldn’t have been about Musk fanboys losing their money. It should have been about ALL AMERICANS losing their money!

This has to be one of the most worrisome headlines a month filled with them: Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments System.

An unelected, unvetted billionaire and his unelected, unvetted minions having access to anything with the government is a problem, but to give them access to the sensitive systems that handle Medicare, Social Security and more is atrocious. Musk could not even get top secret security clearance and was under review by at least three different federal agencies.

Wired has been doing truly indispensable reporting on this for months now. This piece from Vittoria Elliott is one that you should send to everyone you know—and send it to your Trump-voting friends and relatives twice. This is happening right now:

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.

Already, Musk’s lackeys have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.

As you read this, Musk and his interns are executing the most robust breach of personal data ever undertaken.

Donald Trump’s two weeks back in the Oval Office have been as predicted: flood the zone, create chaos, blame everything on non-whites, immigrants and liberals, rinse, repeat—but this all feels different. The unreserved, barely-coded racism and hate is overwhelming, all-encompassing, and on full public display.

The U.S. has entered very dangerous territory, one that has eaten through civil society in countries all over the world: Oligarchy. Economic inequality in America did not start in January 2025 (I was managing editor of a publication called Inequality.org, founded by Jim Lardner, in 1999!), but it turned on the afterburners the day Trump was sworn in.

The striking image of three of the richest men in the world standing behind Trump during his swearing-in ceremony was a telling one. Behind Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, stood Trump’s cabinet picks. The message on day one was clear as day—public officials come a distant second, and the unmistakable message is that we should treat them as a rapidly depreciating asset.

Trump’s cabinet picks underline the MAGA movement’s outright hostility to the idea of public service. What’s more, the most outlandish choices—specifically RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel—are a dire message to Congressional Republicans: You are under Trump’s thumb, so get in line. There is no legitimate case for any of these four people to hold the offices for which they’ve been chosen, full stop. In each case, I can show you how they are likely absolute worst possible choice for the job at hand. The picks were a means for Trump to exert total control over Congress, and it’s becoming clear that it’s working.

What we’ve seen from Republican Senators over the last few days of confirmation hearings for Trump appointees has been nothing short of shameful. The amount of willful ignorance on display has been staggering. All of this begs the question: What if a Democrat did this?

What if Joe Biden or Barack Obama nominated someone with the record of Hegseth to run the most powerful military in the world? His transgressions were a matter of public record. Beyond that, he simply is in no way qualified for a job as complicated and difficult as this. As this very detailed Politico piece reports, it took an all-out assault by “MAGA goons” to get Hegseth through the Senate. It worked.

The answer to the hypotheticals about a Democrat doing anything like this is not even worth exploring. The right-wing media machine would be spun up into such a fervor that it would block out the sun. I won’t even get into Kash Patel because his record speaks for itself.

All of this is to say that I find it repulsive the way our elected officials are failing their constituents. Being elected to serve in the Senate is a remarkably rare and special thing—”the most exclusive club in the world,” it’s been called. Imagine the power and responsibility that comes with winning a Senate seat—it’s remarkable.

What so many Senators seem to be forgetting is that they were elected separately from Donald Trump. Their electoral wins were unique to them, and they are in the Senate to represent their respective states. Imagine again that power and responsibility, and then imagine simply rolling over and giving it all away because a bunch of MAGA trolls sent mean tweets and you face the threat of a primary. How cowardly must you be to abdicate the immense responsibility given to you by voters to sell out the American people—and the planet!—because of the threat of being primaried (and your opponent endorsed by Trump).

As a society, we’ve let this happen right under our noses. We’ve elevated industrialists and wannabe-oligarchs to such status that the threat of their millions swaying an election is rendering the peoples’ Congress neutered and supplicant to an increasingly powerful Executive Branch.

No one sees these things as clearly as Philippine-American Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa. This is from her recent interview with John Harwood at Zeteo:

Within six months of President Duterte taking office in 2016, those institutions [ed: freedom of the press and constitution-based rule of law] crumbled. We saw, as we are seeing in the United States, leaders in business genuflecting in advance because then you can cut great deals. It’s alarming to me to see the same thing happening all over again. And the first things we saw, of course, [were] journalists coming under attack. Democracy crumbles, checks and balances crumble. I am really worried that America is moving into hell, and must come out. The corruption begins in the information ecosystem.

The similarities are clear, and the effects of something similar taking hold in America would have a devastating effect well beyond our shores.

NOW WHAT? Do we just stand by helplessly? No, we don’t. Pay attention. Don’t give up. Donate to activists, rights groups, and any other organizations making a difference. Stand up for your neighbors. Stand up for those who need every ounce of support that can be mustered. Call your elected officials—ALL of them.

In December, I made the case for funding new media outlets. I am cooking up some ideas and looking for collaborators and partners. Ping me: sree.sreenivasan1@gmail.com.

For more from me on these topics, here are some past essays to check out:

• Two Experts Explain Birthright Citizenship (Jan 2025)

• Elon Musk and Right-wing Grift: A Match Made in Heaven (Dec 2022)

• Our Scorched Earth Existence (Oct 2024)

• Company Before Country (Mar 2023)

• Freedom of Speech Warriors Sure Hate Freedom of Speech (Dec 2022)

• The Trans Community and Right-wing Hate (Oct 2022)

— Sree | Twitter | Bluesky | IG | LinkedIn | FB | YouTube / Threads | Spread | TikTok

🗞️ #NYTReadalong: Sundays 8:30-10 am ET, Neil Parekh and I read a newspaper out loud on social media with a fab guest. This week we had Detria Everson, President and CEO of the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation. Watch the video here; and several years of archives here. Sponsored by MuckRack. Want to be—or suggest—a guest? neil@digimentors.group.

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TECH TIP | Not Too Ruff: Tombot’s Robotic Dog Aims to Soothe the Soul

By Robert S. Anthony
Each week, veteran tech journalist Bob Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him @newyorkbob.

Tech gadgets can be stressful if they force you to dive into instruction manuals, fidget with controls and change the way you do things. But what if a piece of tech was warm, fuzzy, had friendly looking eyes (and a tail!) and required nothing from you but a little attention?

That’s the concept behind a sensitive, soothing robot from Tombot that looks and moves like a Labrador retriever puppy and aims to help those suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease or other cognitive issues maintain contact with reality, healthy practices and other people.

“Jennie,” the friendly looking robot puppy was extremely popular at the recent CES 2025 technology showcase in Las Vegas where Tombot’s booth at the Venetian Expo Convention Center was constantly crowded with onlookers.

At a Las Vegas press event before the opening of CES 2025, Tombot CEO Thomas Stevens explained that he got the concept for a robotic comfort dog from his experiences with his mother, Nancy Stevens, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2011 and unfortunately did not live long enough to see the evolution of his company. He noted that a robotic pet designed for those who aren’t capable of managing a live pet can take the edge off loneliness and serve as a supportive partner.

Multiple sensors and microphones allow Jennie to react to touch and respond to spoken commands and “talk” back with the recorded sounds of a young puppy, according to the Tombot website. The unit can be configured with a mobile app and an overnight charge provides enough power for a day’s worth of use, according to Tombot.

Stevens noted that Jennie was designed with the aid of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, named after the creator of the Muppets family of world-famous puppets such as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. He explained that a key problem in developing Jennie was giving it the smooth moves of a real puppy, not jerky robotic motions.

That problem was solved, he said, by using motors that generate thousands of micromovements so quickly that the split-second rest periods between micromovements can’t be detected by the eye or felt. The result is a smoothly wagging tail and a head that moves elegantly, he said.

In addition to older adults, Jennie can also serve as a companion for those with autism, stress, anxiety and other issues, according to Tombot. Of course, a key advantage of a robot dog is that it doesn’t need to be fed or walked and won’t, ahem, soil a carpet or mangle a shoe like a real puppy.

The Tombot website wryly notes that “we have sold out our first litter,” but offers the opportunity to join a waitlist. Stevens noted that Jennie will continue to evolve based on the feedback of the first wave of users. Pricing for Jennie, planned to be available sometime this year, has not been announced yet.

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Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let’s collaborate! sree@sree.net and please connect w/ me: Twitter | Bluesky | IG | LinkedIn | FB | YouTube / Threads | Spread | TikTok