Tracking DOGE

[NotHardUp1]

There is a ruling in the case USIP brought against DOGE. Judge Howell ruled the takeover and dissolution to be illegal, and that the USIP is not part of the executive branch, and therefore the president had no authority to remove the board, replace it, and take the funds.

The Hill article on DOGE and USIP

Let's see how far the administration is willing to slow-roll restoring the funds taken to GSA.

 

[KaraBulut]

More from the local press in Kentucky about the impacts of DOGE on the National Weather Service offices in Kentucky.

https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article306679051.html

The National Weather Service is dealing with staffing shortages across the country after more than 600 staffers were either terminated or took early retirement since January amid federal spending cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a union that represents weather service staffers.

As a result, some offices, including the Jackson office, no longer have an overnight staff from roughly midnight to 7 a.m. The Jackson office is short seven staff members, and the other two offices in Kentucky — Paducah and Louisville — are short-staffed too.

There is no meteorologist in charge at any of the three offices. Acting meteorologists in charge, who often have other job duties, are now running those offices...

“For the first time in several decades, not all NWS Weather Forecast Offices will not be 24/7,” Fahy said.

Kentucky:

St Louis Missouri:

Just in time for tornado and hurricane season, Trump and ICE Barbie fired the acting head of FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, because he testified at a Congressional hearing that FEMA is needed and should not be eliminated.

This being the Trump Administration, they appointed a new acting head of FEMA- a guy with no experience in emergency management.

New FEMA head says he'll 'run right over' staff who resist changes

David Richardson replaced acting FEMA head Cameron Hamilton, who was fired for telling Congress the emergency response agency shouldn't be dissolved.

www.usatoday.com

New FEMA head says he'll 'run right over' staff who resist changes
David Richardson replaced acting FEMA head Cameron Hamilton, who was fired for telling Congress the emergency response agency shouldn't be dissolved.

• Richardson told FEMA staffers that all agency decisions would now go through him.
• "I, and I alone in FEMA, speak for FEMA," he said.
• Richardson warned FEMA staff not to oppose his changes. "I know all the tricks," he said.

David Richardson, the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told staff on Friday he will "run right over" anyone that resists changes and that all delegation of authority in the agency is immediately suspended.

Richardson spoke one day after he was appointed to replace acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton, who was ousted by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after telling a congressional hearing he did not support eliminating the agency.

President Donald Trump and Noem have called for the agency to be shrunk or even abolished, arguing that many of its functions can be carried out by the states, a stance that is already leading to decreased federal aid for disasters.

And amid all the Trump Administration chaos and ICE Barbie incompetency, the new FEMA head says that he and the staff got together for 90 minutes and came up with a plan for hurricane season, after an internal review found that the agency was months behind in planning for the 2025 storm season.

FEMA 'not ready' for hurricane season, internal review finds

The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told staff members on Thursday that he believes President Donald Trump is a bold man with a bold vision for the agency -- but that FEMA doesn't yet have a full plan to tackle hurricane season. "I would say we're about 80 or 85% there,"...

www.yahoo.com

In the conference call, Richardson said he and staff sat down for "about 90 minutes" and started to come up with a plan for this year's disaster season.

He said the plan would be ready soon.

"Listen closely: The intent for disaster season 2025 (is to) safeguard the American people, return primacy to the states, strengthen their capability to respond and recover, and coordinate federal assistance when deemed necessary, while transforming to the future of FEMA," Richardson said.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

 

[KaraBulut]

I mentioned this in an earlier post but I recently saw an interview with Bono, where he mentioned the connection between USAID and the faith-based charity community.

USAID was created in the 1960s as a Cold War tool to combat the promises of communism and socialism.

During the George W Bush Administration, USAID's programs were retooled to "partner" with faith-based non-governmental organization (NGOs). This was a way to divert large amounts of money to faith-based charities. There were establishment clause concerns but, for the most part, it wasn't a big battle because those same NGOs had existing networks in many of the countries receiving the aid. The religious organizations setup not-for-profits like Catholic Charities and Samarian's Purse to funnel government aid through and they maintained separate organizations that handled the evangelical aspects of the churches.

When DOGE and Trump destroyed USAID, they also cut off money that was paying the staff at those religious charities. Many of aid workers were on religious missions, like Catholic nuns, but many were being paid by the NGOs. There were also civilian workers who were funded by USAID grants. The portal where these NGOs submitted invoices has been taken down.

Trump has defunded faith-based organizations... and they are pissed.

USAID Funding Freeze: The Impact on Religious Charities - ReligiousLiberty.TV / Founders' First Freedom® - News and Updates on Religious Liberty and Freedom

USAID’s 90-day funding suspension impacts religious charities like CRS and ADRA, raising concerns about humanitarian aid stability. The debate centers on financial oversight, faith-based funding, and church-state separation.

religiousliberty.tv

For decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided billions of dollars in funding to religious charities that play a critical role in disaster relief, poverty alleviation, and healthcare around the world. Organizations such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), and Lutheran World Relief have long depended on USAID grants to sustain operations that affect millions of lives. Now, with a 90-day suspension of USAID funding under the Trump administration’s Executive Order 14169, these organizations are facing budget crises, staff layoffs, and program cuts that could have severe humanitarian consequences. The executive order was issued with the stated goal of increasing financial oversight and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently. Supporters of the measure argue that past audits have revealed inefficiencies and mismanagement in the distribution of USAID funds, and the temporary suspension is seen as an effort to reassess the allocation of resources to better align with American strategic and fiscal priorities. Additionally, concerns have been raised about USAID funds being used inefficiently by implementing partners, prompting calls for greater scrutiny over expenditures and contractor costs...

As the 90-day funding suspension continues, religious charities and secular aid organizations are lobbying for clarity on the future of USAID’s role in international assistance. If the suspension extends beyond the initial period, millions of people worldwide could face severe consequences–from famine to untreated diseases–due to the sudden withdrawal of American aid. At the same time, ongoing scrutiny over USAID’s financial management and the role of religious organizations in government-funded aid programs could shape future debates on foreign aid policy and its broader implications for American global strategy.

Is This the End of USAID? - Christianity Today

Christian partners around the world—suddenly fired, defunded, and without answers—worry that the new administration is done with the development agency.

www.christianitytoday.com

Christian partners around the world—suddenly fired, defunded, and without answers—worry that the new administration is done with the development agency.

Projects in 130 countries—from Kenya to Vietnam to Ukraine—ground to a halt. Staff on the ground, many with Christian organizations, were adapting to new information by the hour, trying to find alternatives for patients seeking help from clinics that had closed. Halted projects were addressing famine, lack of electricity in rural health facilities, and malaria outbreaks.

What initially appeared to be a temporary freeze in funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) turned out to be an effort to permanently close the 64-year-old humanitarian agency, the single biggest source of relief and development in the world. USAID became a target of Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE).

There is a big problem: Musk used USAID as his high-visibility "shredding" of what he called a "criminal organization". DOGE cut 80% of the staff, made many of the workers, both Federal employees and NGO staff, pay their own airfare back to the United States. The remaining USAID staff who weren't RIF'd were folded into the State Department, reporting to Secretary of State "Little" Marco Rubio. The faith-based organizations feel betrayed and they are beginning to talk in the churches and temples about the thousands of people who are dying because of what Musk and Trump have done.

 

[rareboy]

USAID is done.

TrumpCo. and the GQP Congress aren't going to fight to get it back.

See: The World Without the US.

There's no question. Other countries need to step up. But everyone was caught off guard and a retooling of aid will take time.

China will definitely see the opening for exerting soft power as they have in many areas and thereby gain control of the ground.

Rzzzia would. but it is too distracted now.

The EU, Canada, Australia and Britain could all do more and carve out a socio-political presence that would not include US influence, but that will take some time.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

I guess the truth really will set you free.

DOGE Fires Operative After He Admits the Government Was Already Pretty Efficient

One of Elon Musk's austerity operatives discovered that the government has far less glut than he'd banked on — and admitting so publicly got him fired. Sahil Lavingia, a tech founder and erstwhile software engineer with Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), revealed in a recent blog...

www.yahoo.com

 

[rareboy]

Self Dealing....compiled into a report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/03/elizabeth-warren-elon-musk-doge-report.html

 

[rareboy]

Bear in mind that all of the Trump/Musk stuff could just be distraction.

 

[rareboy]

Sweet Sweet Karma. Tastes like honey.....mixed with acid.

 

[rareboy]

If the DOGE bros. are smart, they will try to play up their experieince and get the fuck out of town...or suck dick in some of the departments they haven't yet savaged to flip to the
Beltway insider team.

 

[rareboy]

The fallout will be years in the reckoning.

 

[KaraBulut]

We knew that DOGE's statements about fraud at the Social Security Administration were lies. It was discussed in this forum.

What we didn't know was that Pee-Wee German's wife (and rumored Elon mistress) was behind the lies. Katie Miller (aka Mrs Stephen Miller) made sure that Elon's false claim that 40% of the calls to the SSA were fraudulent was not only repeated over and over and over, she shut down anyone at the SSA who tried to correct the record. Mrs Miller then left her government job and went to work for Musk.

The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security

The drama offers a case study in how Elon Musk’s team sought to run a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts — and how longtime employees responded.

www.nytimes.com

The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security

Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact. After journalists followed up, staff members began drafting a response correcting the record.

That’s when Leland Dudek — plucked from a midlevel job only six weeks earlier to run Social Security because of his willingness to cooperate with Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar with the exchange.

“The number is 40 percent,” insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aide who was working closely with Mr. Musk, according to one of the people familiar with the April 1 call. President Trump believed Mr. Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.”

Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found.

Now that we have been distracted by Trump's invading California with the National Guard and having his pity party parade, we've forgotten the damage that DOGE has done at the SSA. It's bad.

..under pressure from Mr. Musk’s team, nearly half of the Social Security Administration’s 140 senior executives, and thousands of employees overall, have taken buyouts or retired. As many as 12 percent of staff members, out of a bureaucracy that numbered around 57,000 people, are expected to depart their jobs as part of DOGE’s cost-cutting plan.

To try to make up for the staffing shortfall, the agency has encouraged specialized professionals like lawyers, human resources staff and technologists to take reassignments in customer service jobs — often at higher pay than what the people they’re replacing had made. Workers have said they felt pressured to volunteer for reassignments, or else risk being fired later.

Katie Miller:

Nope, it's not a Spirit Hallowe'en Uncle Fester costume... it's Leland Dudek- the guy Elon and Trump put in charge of the SSA after they fired the leaders who tried to protect your private data from DOGE.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Spoke too soon.

Big Balls, like all his other Doge Bros has likely found himself a sweet long term gig in the government. Likely doing sweet fuck all except harvesting data.

 

[KaraBulut]

Spoke too soon.

Big Balls, like all his other Doge Bros has likely found himself a sweet long term gig in the government. Likely doing sweet fuck all except harvesting data.

Just in time...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5366922-trump-data-sharing-privacy-surveillance/

The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans’ personal — and sometimes private — information, dismantling barriers around data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud.

Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a surveillance state, increase the government’s vulnerability to cyberattacks and risk pushing people away from public services.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sought, and nearly always received, access to Social Security numbers, addresses, medical histories, tax histories, welfare benefits, bank accounts, immigration statuses and federal employee databases.

 

[KaraBulut]

Today's bit of irony.

The head of DOGE, Steve Davis, was fired. Only, he didn't act fired. He kept showing up at work. He kept sending emails. He kept holding meetings.

It was so bad that the Office of Personnel Management had to send out an email telling DOGE staffers that they shouldn't talk to him because he had been fired.

Steve Davis is one of Elon's buddies. Musk brought him in to DOGE from Twitter. Steve's largely responsible for the dumpster fire that is DOGE.

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www.politico.com

Steve Davis’ departure from government was anything but typical.

It wasn’t enough that the White House announced on May 29 that the operational head of DOGE was following Elon Musk out of Washington.

In June, the White House Presidential Personnel Office contacted DOGE leads across the government and White House liaisons in the agencies to tell DOGE staffers that Davis was no longer an employee and to cease all communication with him.

That’s because Davis was acting as if he’d never left.

Not only did he remain in touch with staffers, asking for DOGE updates and making requests, he also led a DOGE meeting on the sixth floor of the General Services Administration a week after the White House had said he departed, according to two people familiar with the events granted anonymity to speak about them. At the meeting, he announced a DOGE 2.0 in which DOGE would be more collaborative with Cabinet secretaries — a proposal that never came to be, one of two people said.

“He was at the GSA running the meeting like it was business as usual,” the person said.

My Old Friend Is Helping Elon Musk Destroy America

For Steve Davis, Musk’s right-hand man at DOGE, life has always been a game — but Musk’s game increases inefficiency and makes people’s lives worse.

www.rollingstone.com

I once took refuge from my political day job by attending laugh-filled game nights at the home of a person now firing tens of thousands of federal workers.

For Steve Davis, Elon Musk’s right-hand man at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), life has always been a game. A puzzle to be solved regardless of a larger vision or set of values.

But sadly, as I told The New York Times, my friend who was once a fun outside-the-box thinker is now a drone — blindly subservient to a corrupt billionaire on a self-enriching power trip.

Even worse for millions of Americans, Steve’s current tunnel vision doesn’t allow him to challenge the obvious flaw in the game handed to him by Musk. This game only gives points for cutting dollars in the federal budget, even if greater financial costs — plus the cost of human pain — are transferred to American families and businesses.

This is the guy that fired all of those Federal workers, destroyed USAID and set the record for laying off the most veterans in US history:

 

[rareboy]

They are almost to a man, sociopaths and psychopaths, grifters and confidence men.

Stupid, reckless, unfeeling, egotistical anarchists who love to bust stuff up but have no real ideas about how to put something in place.

I have known too many of these as CEO's and organization leaders in my lifetime.

They almost never survive in their positions but keep failing upwards as boards realize they need to get them the fuck out of there.

 

[rareboy]

So TrumpCo got 9.9 billion in recissions gutting foreign aid and shuuting dow the CPB.

But Blumenthal is seeing the reports on the billions of dollrs wasted by Doge during their reign of terror.

The $21.7 Billion Blunder: New PSI Report Reveals Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Squandered by DOGE | U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) released a Minority...

www.blumenthal.senate.gov