To hear President Donald Trump and his unhinged hatchet man Elon Musk tell it, the Department of Government Efficiency is hard at work, successfully rooting out waste, fraud and corruption in federal agencies.

To hear federal judges tell it – DOGE has repeatedly violated the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws and regulations that govern how employees can be fired from their jobs and how their agencies can be dismantled.

Trump and Musk rattle off plenty of claims about DOGE but turn hostile when asked for specifics. The judges go a different route, establishing long legal paper trails with orders and rulings that clearly spell out the law and their logic.

That leaves Trump and Musk looking like grifters in a frenetic con job designed to bewilder us with unprecedented dismemberment of our government. A prime tactic in that grift – melt down in tantrums each time a judge stymies the action.

Fired federal employees are being ordered back onto the payroll. Discriminatory exclusions for transgender members of the military have been put on hold. Canceled contracts are being restored.

In just the past week, judges have blocked DOGE from

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