Last week, Elon Musk—rearing up to fire federal employees he deems wasteful en masse as the head of the Trump administration’s planned DOGE commission—put a number of workaday government employees on blast to millions of users on X.

At the time, The New Republic reported that his behavior was not “just cruel, it’s dangerous.” Indeed, CNN reported Wednesday that those Musk singled out have been inundated with hate, leading others to fear that they too will have Musk devotees sicced on them.

Several federal employees told CNN that “they’re afraid their lives will be forever changed—including physically threatened—as Musk makes behind-the-scenes bureaucrats into personal targets.” Others said the specter of being targeted by Musk “might even drive them from their jobs entirely.”

One target of Musk’s posting spree last week was a woman who works at the International Development Finance Corporation. Her role, an official told The Wall Street Journal, involves “identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.” She had her job deemed “fake” by Musk—seemingly because her title, “Director of Climate Diversification,” contains words that tend to raise right-wing culture-warrior hackles.

Facing a barrage of negative attention, she “has since gone dark on social media, shutting down her accounts,” reported CNN.

Others whom Musk and his fans went after include senior advisers for climate and environmental justice at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a chief climate officer at the Department of Energy.

Last month, CNN reported that Musk “promised a gentle touch” as the head of DOGE—a commission TNR’s Matt Ford described this month as itself a symbol of “inefficiency and waste in government” that “cannot achieve its stated ambitions for legal, constitutional, or practical reasons”—but his insatiable itch to post apparently takes precedence over his word.

With its newfound electoral mandate, Donald Trump’s team is debating on whether to attack or invade Mexico, as the president-elect promised on the campaign trail.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” one senior Trump transition member told Rolling Stone. “That is the question.”

Trump has reportedly been gathering “battle plans” to attack drug cartels in Mexico since early 2023, with or without Mexico’s permission. Now he is president-elect, and even mainstream Republicans are on board with the idea. His nominees for secretary of defense and secretary of state, Pete Hegseth and Senator Marco Rubio, respectively, have spoken favorably of U.S. military action against Mexico, as has his “border czar,” Tom Homan.

One source close to Trump told Rolling Stone about a plan for a “soft” invasion of the country, in which U.S. special forces would assassinate cartel leaders covertly, an idea Trump was in favor of earlier this year. The magazine spoke to six Republicans in all who have privately discussed Mexico with the president-elect and briefed him on different proposals.

These actions vary in their level of force, including drone strikes and airstrikes against cartel targets such as drug labs, sending military advisers and trainers to Mexico, sending “kill teams” to the country, using cyberwarfare against drug lords and their organizations, and the assassination plan.

Trump has told Republicans privately that he plans to tell Mexico to stop the transport of fentanyl into the U.S. within months otherwise he’ll deploy the military. This would seem to fit into the tariff threat he made against Mexico, Canada, and China on Monday, when he warned the three countries to stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum didn’t take Trump’s words well, and she probably won’t like U.S. forces deploying in the country either.

In his first term, Trump proposed to “bomb the drugs” in Mexico, according to his former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Thankfully, nothing came of it. Now, in addition to the presidency, Trump has captured the Republican Party, much of the judiciary, and both chambers of Congress. His Cabinet and staff appointments are made up of sycophants and people much less likely to confront or correct him. In the next four years, there won’t be much standing in the way of Trump’s violent “solutions.”

The Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representatives is looking meager.

Three House races remain outstanding as of Wednesday—two toss-up races in California’s 13th and 45th districts and one in Iowa’s 1st district that’s leaning Republican, according to CBS.

But if current results hold, the GOP will have a record-small majority—220 seats to Democrats’ 215—CNN data journalist Harry Enten reported Wednesday morning. “You have to go all the way back since the Herbert Hoover administration to find an even smaller majority after November elections,” he observed.

And the majority could grow even narrower with the resignation of one Republican representative and the likely resignations of two more.........

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