Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unleashes

[Dr Exiled]

I know you guys don't like someone probing your team's spending and would much rather probe the other team.

1. I don’t think that USAID belongs only to one ‘team’. Both (1) humanitarian efforts abroad, and (2) the projection of American soft power, seem the province of both parties. What’s your rationalization for declaring it otherwise?

2. I consider myself to be on Team Law and Order and Team Constitution. There’s a framework in place for reviewing agencies (a Congressional privilege) and rooting out waste (independent Inspectors General). We don’t have a legally-defined procedure for allowing an unelected tech bro unfettered access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, OPM’s personnel files or dismantling whole agencies. Just because a guy who took 7 years to build a glitch-ridden electric truck thinks that his donating a quarter-billion dollars to a Presidential re-election fund makes him an expert in determining the viability of whole agencies involved in a thousand tasks that he has no expertise in doesn’t mean that we toss out our legal and constitutionally-established framework, in order to entertain his ego.

For a fellow who always seems so suspicious of government and power at the hands of your undefined ‘elite’, this whole waving away by you of an actual powerful billionaire elite just thrashing about without regard to our laws because he was magically gifted his own agency is ... puzzling.

However, shouldn't we welcome the idea that spending is being audited? Shouldn't we welcome cleaning up fraud and waste? There's probably a lot of republican waste, fraud and abuse for the democrats to crow about when found. So, let's have at it. Get the democrat version of DOGE going.

What avenue does any Democrat have to redirect Musk to heavy hitters like DOD? What power of enforcement does any Democrat have right now? You’ve basically watched the new Administration just decide to unilaterally flout the rules, Constitution be damned. You are here stating your approval of that. If you toss out the legal structure, how does anyone else other than those in power play by any rules or effectively challenge the new status quo?

Musk opened up a can of worms and now let's look at all of it, including his government contracts.

I’m sure that he’ll get right on that, lol. : D

DOGE is finding some disturbing expenditures and you're reaction is to attack the messenger, probably because he is part of Trump's team. Would it be better for you if the DOGE leader was some pocket protector wearing accountant? What if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started her own DOGE type group that found out how some of the republicans used USAID for their own piggy bank in Georgia (the country that is near Russia)? Would that satisfy you? I think she should, somebody should. Lord knows the Republicans have done their fair share of shenanigans over the years.

Flout what rules? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential ... fficiency/ Here again you are just whining because ... Trump. DOGE is using an accounting program that can search out where expenditures have gone very quickly and its making all the democrats nervous for some reason. Maybe listening to what Mike Benz has to say about USAID will enlighten you a little. He's all over Twitter and the internet. Here is his Twitter: https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber?mx=2

[Gadianton]

DOGE is finding some disturbing expenditures and you're reaction is to attack the messenger,

DOGE is claiming to find disturbing expenditures and shutting down entire departments based on spurious tweets. Of course, it's no surprise given your history here that you find these tweets fully convincing.

Hey, I know as little about USAID as you do, which is nothing. You have nothing to base your agreement or disagreement with Trump and Musk on. You're just being contrarian.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Wrecking things or ruining the lives of a small number of people as publicity stunts to show how terrifying they are. Until he turns on medicare and military he's not going to save any money worth talking about. I want to see him do it. Nobody in my life right now relies on medicare while several of the older right-wingers in my neighborhood are on medicare and like Ajax said, are big on the talking point that Trump isn't going to touch their benefits.

[Dr Exiled]

DOGE is finding some disturbing expenditures and you're reaction is to attack the messenger,

DOGE is claiming to find disturbing expenditures and shutting down entire departments based on spurious tweets. Of course, it's no surprise given your history here that you find these tweets fully convincing.

Hey, I know as little about USAID as you do, which is nothing. You have nothing to base your agreement or disagreement with Trump and Musk on. You're just being contrarian.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Wrecking things or ruining the lives of a small number of people as publicity stunts to show how terrifying they are. Until he turns on medicare and military he's not going to save any money worth talking about. I want to see him do it. Nobody in my life right now relies on medicare while several of the older right-wingers in my neighborhood are on medicare and like Ajax said, are big on the talking point that Trump isn't going to touch their benefits.

Sure, wave you hand at what Mr. Benz says while engaging in a little ad hominem swipe. He has been at it for a while and has a pretty decent resume, but, whatever. Why don't you show me where he is wrong and perhaps correct a fellow traveler from his faulty, unrefined beliefs? Too bad Honorentheos or other such refined posters that have left recently aren't here for you to discuss current events on a higher plane. I guess you just have to muck it up with the swine for a while.

Here is another tid bit from Wikileaks of all places and it came from a tweet (probably unchecked by favored fact checkers - so beware):

It seems USAID funded the world thought police. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/usa ... ople-reach

But of course, it came from a tweet, and from wikileaks, and probably Satanic, so don't believe it.

[Gadianton]

He has been at it for a while and....

Sure -- I'm sure there's somebody out there who has. How about you? What did you know of USAID prior to reading these tweets?

So now after reading a few tweets from a single person you're ready to gut an entire government agency. You knew nothing of it a week ago, and in three minutes of reading you know damn sure we've got a big problem.

[canpakes]

1. I don’t think that USAID belongs only to one ‘team’. Both (1) humanitarian efforts abroad, and (2) the projection of American soft power, seem the province of both parties. What’s your rationalization for declaring it otherwise?

2. I consider myself to be on Team Law and Order and Team Constitution. There’s a framework in place for reviewing agencies (a Congressional privilege) and rooting out waste (independent Inspectors General). We don’t have a legally-defined procedure for allowing an unelected tech bro unfettered access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, OPM’s personnel files or dismantling whole agencies. Just because a guy who took 7 years to build a glitch-ridden electric truck thinks that his donating a quarter-billion dollars to a Presidential re-election fund makes him an expert in determining the viability of whole agencies involved in a thousand tasks that he has no expertise in doesn’t mean that we toss out our legal and constitutionally-established framework, in order to entertain his ego.

DOGE is finding some disturbing expenditures and your reaction is to attack the messenger, probably because he is part of Trump's team.

In the true spirit of equality, I attacked both the messenger and the behavior of the messenger. : D

But, to be more serious, I don’t think that Musk necessarily sees himself on ‘Trump’s team’. I believe that Musk considers himself to be on ‘Musk’s team’. He will choose his targets according to his own agenda at least as much as for whatever Trump dislikes.

But your comment ignores my concern stated above, about the process and the law, and it being tossed aside. Why does the legal and lawful process need to be ignored?

Would it be better for you if the DOGE leader was some pocket protector wearing accountant?

I have a better question: do you believe that SpaceX or Tesla doesn’t employ accountants and that Musk does all of this same sort of work within his own companies? Why or why not?

What if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started her own DOGE type group that found out how some of the republicans used USAID for their own piggy bank in Georgia (the country that is near Russia)? Would that satisfy you? I think she should, somebody should. Lord knows the Republicans have done their fair share of shenanigans over the years.

Again, who within the Trump Administration will allow that to happen?

A few days ago, Musk’s team literally locked the public access doors to the Department of Education while he turned his focus on to that agency. Democratic lawmakers went down to the agency and were not allowed inside. So you can continue to pretend that your idea is viable, but the current Administration isn’t going to humor you one bit.

Are you concerned with that behavior, by your government?

Flout what rules? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential ... fficiency/

Nothing within this executive order dismantles the existing procedures for auditing or theoretically dismantling entire government agencies, or dismissing IIG staff outside of Congressional rules.

Do you have a better link?

DOGE is using an accounting program that can search out where expenditures have gone very quickly …

Great, he knows how to use Quickbooks.

What part of his access allows him to unilaterally decide that any payment should be invalidated? What’s the criteria for deciding that an organization should suddenly be deemed unworthy? These determinations are concluded on the spot?

Seems like the intent was to shut down the entire agency. If Trump didn’t care to even look for a minute into USAID during his first 4 years in office, what’s the hurry now? Who is driving that decision, and why?

These are questions that I would expect you, ever the worrywart about ‘powerful elites’, would ask. Is it because you’ve decided to interpret this situation through the lens of ‘teams’ and align with one over the other?

Maybe listening to what Mike Benz has to say about USAID will enlighten you a little.

I’ve seen a lot of head-shakingly bad propaganda said about USAID in this new effort to malign it at any cost. If you believe that Benz has a valid point or two worth sharing, post those specific points here.

[canpakes]

He has been at it for a while an....

Sure -- I'm sure there's somebody out there who has. How about you? What did you know of USAID prior to reading these tweets?

So now after reading a few tweets from a single person you're ready to gut an entire government agency. You knew nothing of it a week ago, and in three minutes of reading you know damn sure we've got a big problem.

Perhaps the good doctor will do the hard work of finding out just what the problem is that he seems so bothered about. He can start here:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/a247294.html

Maybe it’s useful to look into what programs like this aim to accomplish, arguably within environments not always friendly to democracy, before merely parroting what some unknown fellow with his own agenda is peddling on X … of all places. Otherwise, I suspect that there’s a chance that one could also end up promoting the thing that he claims to be against … suppression of free speech and alternative viewpoints.

[Jersey Girl]

I've never seen it used in the context of my career.

Question 2: Could you please install a troll emoticon for the board?

To indicate what you're doing now?

Huh. Never read a military regulation or correspondence either?

[Jersey Girl]

Good lord ... didn't know I was speaking with the language police. But thanks. Abuse, Fraud and Waste or Waste, Fraud and Abuse definitely isn't the same thing as Fraud, Waste and Abuse.

Language police? It's the term that the Fed Gov't uses particularly the GAO. When someone is giving you additional information do you take that as a personal criticism or something? Lighten up, Exiled.

[canpakes]

.
Oops.

ELON'S DOGE BOY WHO "RESIGNED" WAS APPARENTLY DOING SOMETHING VERY NAUGHTY WITH THE TREASURY'S CODE

VICTOR TANGERMANN
FEB 7, 10:43 AM EST


DOGE Whistle

One of Elon Musk's lackeys at his DOGE group, Marko Elez, unexpectedly resigned on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal revealed a litany of extremely racist social media posts he'd apparently made shortly before joining the team.

The exact reason for his abrupt departure remains unclear. However, as Wired reports, White House officials seem to have provided incorrect information about Elez only being given "read-only" permissions to the US Treasury codebase, hinting at the possibility that he could have been in trouble for things other than the egregiously racist posts linked to his departure.

According to Wired, Elez did in fact have write access, allowing him to push unvetted and untested changes straight to the Treasury's payments system — a nightmare scenario that could introduce all sorts of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and leave doors open for adversary hacker groups.

In other words, given Musk's well-established leniency and penchant for racist ideologies, there may be far more to the story than the WSJ's reporting lets on.
Did Elez push code changes to a payments system responsible for a gargantuan $5.45 trillion in 2024?

Put simply, it looks like Elon's DOGE boy was doing something naughty — and regardless of whether he had "permission" from Musk, he may have ended up taking the fall for it.

Cookie Jar

Adding to the ominous signs around Elez' activity and departure, the blog Talking Points Memo reported this week that Elez had made "extensive changes" to the system before his write access was revoked on February 5. In other words, it sounds a lot like White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was either intentionally or unintentionally obfuscating the truth by claiming that Elez only had "read" permissions.

On the same day his code-writing privileges were rescinded, a federal judge ruled to temporarily restrict any DOGE staffers from making changes to the payment system in light of a lawsuit filed against DOGE, specifically singling out Elez and fellow DOGE employee Tom Krause.

Lawmakers are now demanding answers following the allegedly unlawful infiltration of the US government's treasure chest.

"People will be held accountable for the crimes they’re committing in this coup attempt," senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has publicly demanded answers about DOGE's "illegal seizure of Americans' private data," told Wired. "I’m not letting up on my investigation of what these Musk hatchet men are up to."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-DOGE ... asury-code

[canpakes]

I wouldn't put it past anyone like happened with the J6 committee and how they destroyed their documents ...

How weird that you believe this.

Have you visited the site where all of the supposedly ’destroyed’ stuff is available for you to peruse?

https://www.govinfo.gov/collection/janu ... Collection

After that, you can visit the site currently attempting to archive the facts and history of that day that the Trump Administration is removing from White House records.

https://www.justsecurity.org/77022/janu ... ringhouse/