Tracking DOGE

[fabulouslyghetto]

So Trump just admitted that Musk is the head of DOGE after admin lawyers lied in court last week and said is was someone else.

It took only minutes to file a motion in the relevant court case.

As George Conway noted...it is more than New Evidence. It is a Confession of Judgement.

It could open up all the documents from DOGE to the defendants.

So I was right that our best hope was to wait for their stupidity to cause an implosion? Somebody owes me a Pepsi.

 

[KaraBulut]

Alina Habba, Trump's advisor, on DOGE's cuts to thousands of Federal workers who are veterans:

""...we have a responsibility to pay people who actually work... Perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment or are not willing to come to work..."

View attachment Alina Habba highlights Trump’s accomplishments before his address to Congress-480p.mp4

 

[MARMITE]

Sanctuary cities in blue states are attempting to hide from DOGE:

 

[KaraBulut]

Sanctuary cities in blue states are attempting to hide from DOGE:

DOGE doesn't have any immigration enforcement capabilities, unless they're laying off people from immigration enforcement, too?

 

[rareboy]

 

[KaraBulut]

From former Georgia Congressperson Doug Collins [R-GA], the new VA Secretary, talking about layoffs of large numbers of VA employees, including a large number of military veterans who work at the VA.

"The Federal Government does not exist to employ people".

"So get used to it!"

 

[KaraBulut]

More winning...

Layoffs are higher than they have been... since the last time Trump was President! Compared to previous Feb numbers, the last time Feb was this bad was 2009 when the worldwide economy crashed.

Layoffs across the U.S. soar to highest level since 2020, led by DOGE cuts

Job cuts spiked in February, marking their highest point since July 2020, due to firings of government workers directed by DOGE.

www.cbsnews.com

Layoffs across the U.S. spiked in February, reaching their highest levels since July 2020, led by widespread firings of government workers ordered by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers cut 172,017 jobs last month, a 245% increase from January and double the number that was announced during the same month a year ago, the company said. That marks the highest monthly number of layoffs since July 2020, when 262,649 cuts were announced, the firm added.

The job cuts were led by losses in federal jobs, largely directed by DOGE, which says it is dedicated to rooting out government waste and fraud. DOGE-related job losses have cut a wide swath across federal government agencies by targeting newly hired workers, regardless of their job performance or whether their jobs are essential.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Just in case you want to reach out directly to the DOGE bros. who are stealing your data and trashing the government....these are apparently some of the email addresses.

 

[KaraBulut]

There's a recurring theme that is developing from DOGE: they are children who know nothing, think they know everything and are under pressure to create an illusion that they're accomplishing something... anything.

The actual experts, people who understand contracts either as government contracting experts or as vendors who have spent years negotiating these contracts with the government are responding in unison that the DOGEbags lack a fundamental understanding of the "data" that they're scraping out of Federal databases.

The other comment that is becoming a common theme: there are actual government employees who provide public databases availabel on Federal websites that have more information than the "receipts" DOGE is posting on their website. And most of what DOGE is "uncovering" was previously reported upon in Inspector General reports. Of course, the DOGEbags aren't reading those reports and if they did, it's unlikely that they would understand the reports or the subject matter.

Some examples from Trump's State of the Union Address claims about Social Security:

1. DOGE claims, and Trump boasts, that there are people on Social Security who are 150 years old. It's already been determined that the policy of the SSA is to enter a fictious date of birth of May-1875 until the actual date of birth can be determined. DOGE has produced no evidence that any of those people are receiving checks.
2. DOGE makes claims that "millions of Americans over age 100 are receiving SSI payments". An inspector general report a few years back looked at this and found that there were about 89,000 Americans over age 100 who are receiving benefit checks. This is consistent with the census findings of 86,000 people over age 100. The inspector general estimated the only 0.84% of SSI payments were fraudulent. https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf
3. DOGE seems to have confused the SSA and SSDI NUMIDENT databases. SSDI is the list of dead Americans. The SSA maintains a separate database that is the list of all active SSN numbers- numbers that employers use to submit data on payroll withholding, as well as the SSA's out payments for retirees. A 2023 Inspector General report noted that there were millions of people over age 100 in the SSA database who were not registered in the SSDI as dead. It also noted that those people were not receiving checks and that it would cost the agency millions of dollars to research the missing dates of death; the agency chose not to waste taxpayer money on updating databases when there were no payments going to those people.
4. DOGE seems completely ignorant that there is a small number of disabled people on the SSI rolls who are unable to work and claim benefits under their parent's SSN. An example would be a child who was born with profound mental deficits and who has been institutionalized for life.
5. The Inspector General report also noted that there are some duplicate and false SSNs out there and that employers submitted records indicating that 139,211 people over age 100 had SSI payments withheld from their paychecks. This is likely because of data entry errors by employers, identity theft by people using another person's SSN or duplicate SSNs issued from the SSA office.
6. In the event that a death date is never entered on a recipient, the SSA automatically stops payments when the recipient reaches a certain age (~112 years old).

The New York Times has detailed that the five biggest "savings" posted on the DOGE website had been removed after the media found serious inaccuracies in the entries.

DOGE Quietly Deletes the 5 Biggest Spending Cuts It Celebrated Last Week

The cuts, highlighted on an earlier version of the “wall of receipts” posted by Elon Musk’s team, contained mistakes that vastly inflated the amount of money saved.

www.nytimes.com

This included:

1. A contract listed as $8 billion. The media found that the contract was actually for $8 million. This was particularly dumb because the entire annual budget for ICE is less than $8 billion.
2. A consulting contract with Leidos was reported as a $232 million at the Social Security Security Administration. In fact, only $560,000 was cut and this piece of the contract was to update databases and programs to support gender "X" which Trump had signed an executive order to eliminate.
3. DOGE listed a $655 million USAID contract three times. The contract was partially complete, and the remaining portion that DOGE canceled was about $18 million.
4. DOGE doesn't seem to understand "line of credit" contracts. Federal contracts are often approved for a maximum amount because the actual value is not known. DOGE counted the maximum as cost savings, even though the actual value of the contract is much less.

Somehow, information from US government databases and information infrastructure is showing up on the dark web. This coincided with DOGE's involvement in accessing these systems:

DOGE Exposes Once-Secret Government Networks, Making Cyber-Espionage Easier than Ever

A new investigation shows nuclear secrets and government servers are dangerously exposed to nation-state hackers.

cyberintel.substack.com

 

[rareboy]

I am not going to say that a bunch of Coders...guided by Musk...might be the most dumb fucking ignorant day care hires in the world.

But I will say that their unbelievable incompetence and arrogance makes me shake my head.

But we also know, their stupidity is a perfect cover for the fire hose of lies spraying from Trump's mouth. The people writing his speeches don't care how false the information is. They are just throwing their feces at a wall and seeing what sticks.

 

[rareboy]

Just one fuck-up after another in order to let Musk keep blowing up rockets so that his sperm can get to MARS.

 

[rareboy]

 

[KaraBulut]

...But we also know, their stupidity is a perfect cover for the fire hose of lies spraying from Trump's mouth. The people writing his speeches don't care how false the information is. They are just throwing their feces at a wall and seeing what sticks.

The average person doesn't do a deep dive into facts. That has always been a problem and something that Trump and his minions exploit. While I was watching excerpts from Trump's 90 minute spew-fest on Monday, I heard those SSA lies and I watched the Speaker of the House and VP shakes their heads in mindless, cult-like agreement. The Moonie-like standing ovations on the Republican side of the aisle to what was a campaign speech was also disturbing.

It's really up to the Democrats and independents on how to figure out how to undo these lies and get the truth out there. That's going to be a challenge when the attention span of the average American is close to the time that it takes to microwave a frozen TV dinner. So far, the Democrats aren't succeeding in getting the message out there that the incompetence and waste in government originates in the Oval Office and most of what Trump says is just flat out lies.

Just one fuck-up after another in order to let Musk keep blowing up rockets so that his sperm can get to MARS.

Let's pull that thread a little bit.

The leadership of the SSA was one of the government agencies that refused to allow the DOGEbags to access protected personal information of the American public.

There was a midlevel manager at the SSA named Leeland "Lee" Dudek who leaked information about those databases to DOGE. The SSA fired him for violating privacy laws.

Trump and DOGE then fired or forced out all of the management of the SSA who refused to break the law. Trump then rehired Dudek and put him in charge of the SSA. Dudek has been fucking it up right and left ever since. He's a useful idiot who is in over his head.

Comedy Central should revive "The Office" and set it in the White House. They should name comically incompetent mid-level manager, "Lee Dudek". Sean Duffy would make another great character - the pretty boy sycophant with a dozen children trailing behind him while planes fall out of the sky and he goes from one crisis to another.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/politics/leland-dudek-acting-social-security-head-doge/index.html

Last week, Leland Dudek, a mid-level career employee at the Social Security Administration, posted on LinkedIn that he was placed on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and asked for help finding another job.

Days later, courtesy of President Donald Trump, he had one: Social Security’s acting commissioner.

He replaced Michelle King, an agency staffer with decades of experience who resigned last weekend after tussling with DOGE representatives over access to Social Security’s sensitive records. She is one of several high-ranking career officials across the federal government who have departed over concerns about DOGE staffers’ potential access to federal databases with Americans’ private information, which has also sparked lawsuits.

 

[rareboy]

The British were so good at this with 'Yes Minister' and similar shows...but they still existed in a realm of relative normalcy.

Excepting of course, Margaret Thatcher's devastating chainsaw attacks on Britain, all funded by a short lived North Sea Oil bonanza.

 

[Dargelos]

Nobody who was there at the time will ever forget that voice squawking;
"Unemployment is a price worth paying"
Which is only true for those few who will never have to pay that price.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The president today tongue-lashed a reporter in the Oval Office who asked if Secretary Rubio and another cabinet member had clashed witih Musk.

Trump denied it and then chided the reporter with "and you're not supposed to be asking that question," and instructed him that he was SUPPOSED to be there for some other story.

What a cry-baby.

 

[rareboy]

So the NPS generated 55 billion dollars in returns on less than 4 billion in costs.

But TrumpCo. and MuskCo. are slashing and burning the Parks Service so recklessly that we can smell the smoke up here.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Ok then.

So now agencies have to rehire thousands of probationary workers illegally sacked by MuskCo.

MSN

That seems less than efficient.