Tag Archives: DOGE

The Washington Post reports: They came in aggressively, a former official who witnessed Elon Musk’s team take over the Social Security Administration said, demanding access to sensitive taxpayer data and refusing briefings on how the agency ensures the accuracy of its benefit systems. They recklessly exposed data in unsecured areas outside Social Security offices, the official said, potentially disclosing personally …

The Washington Post reports: The Department of Health and Human Services has granted associates of the U.S. DOGE Service access to a sensitive child support database with troves of income data, overriding the objections of career employees, according to four people familiar with the matter. The government database — created to help enforce child support payments and overseen by the …

NBC News reports: The scam text message claims you are now eligible for a $5,000 federal government subsidy. It claims the money comes from funds saved by cuts made to the federal budget by the Department of Government Efficiency. It tells you to reply to the message with Y, close the message, open it back up, and then click the …

The Alabama Political Reporter reports: Elon Musk’s DOGE purge now includes the building housing the historic Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery. The Montgomery Bus Station, the site where Freedom Riders were attacked by white supremacists in 1961, is owned by the federal government’s General Services Administration. As part of a nationwide cost cutting initiative undertaken by Musk and the newly …

NBC News reports: Elon Musk met with Senate Republicans for nearly two hours in a closed-door lunch meeting Wednesday, seeking to reassure them amid voter anxiety over the sweeping cuts his Department of Government Efficiency is making. They discussed a “rescission” package that the White House could send to Congress to codify his cuts through a measure that can get …

Bloomberg News reports: Two weeks ago, SpaceX engineer Ted Malaska showed up at the FAA’s headquarters in Washington to deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s Starlink satellite terminals. Malaska told those in attendance that the employees had up to 18 …

NBC News reports: White House adviser Alina Habba said Tuesday that military veterans affected by the DOGE-led layoffs of federal workers may not be “fit to have a job at this moment.” Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, Habba was asked about fired workers whom Democrats have invited to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night. …

The Hill reports: House Republicans are being encouraged to avoid in-person town halls in favor of phone and live-streamed versions, advice that comes after constituents and activists rocked recent GOP events by expressing outrage about the Trump administration’s dramatic moves to reshape the federal government. National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) told House Republicans at a closed-door conference …

The Heartland Signal reports: Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) reportedly threatened a former Department of Veterans Affairs worker for asking a question during work hours in an exchange on LinkedIn over the weekend. Van Orden responded by telling the worker he would “be referring you to DOGE as it seems that at 13:46 on a Monday you should have been …

CNBC reports: Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago. But the recent actionsby Elon Musk’s so-called DOGE are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com. “Ultimately, you’re going to see …

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued “wall of receipts,” erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers. Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent …

The New York Times reports: Rather than boycott President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, some Democratic lawmakers are inviting former federal workers to the speech on Tuesday as a way to protest the mass firings and funding cuts that have defined Mr. Trump’s first month back in office. Federal workers’ treatment by Elon Musk’s Department of Government …

The New York Times reports: While George W. Bush was president, the U.S. Coast Guard signed a contract to get administrative help from a company in Northern Virginia. It paid $144,000, and the contract was completed by June 30, 2005. Twenty years passed. Presidents came and went. Last week, Elon Musk’s restructuring team, DOGE, said it had just canceled the …

The Huffington Post reports: Elon Musk is calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” prompting suspicion that the world’s richest man is merely hoping to privatize a social safety net that has existed since the 1930s — and has kept millions of elderly, poor and disabled Americans from destitution. The billionaire argued Friday on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that the …

Politico reports: The Education Department is offering a buyout of up to $25,000 to most of its employees, according to a department-wide email obtained by POLITICO. Employees have until Monday at 11:59 p.m. to make a decision, Jacqueline Clay, a chief human capital officer, wrote Friday afternoon. “This is a one time offer in advance of a very significant Reduction …

The Washington Post reports: Agencies across the federal government are dismantling offices that enforce civil rights and antidiscrimination laws under a Trump administration push to shrink the workforce, weakening the government’s ability to deliver on legal obligations to protect workers’ rights. The Social Security Administration this week announced it was closing its Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, where …

CNN reports: FBI Director Kash Patel walked into his new office on the seventh floor of the bureau’s headquarters last week and made an immediate order – he wanted new carpeting and window coverings, calling the office “dingy.” Patel’s plans to remake the FBI go well beyond redecorating. He wants to overhaul the bureau in fundamental ways that could drastically …

Politico reports: A federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials involved in Elon Musk’s “opaque” DOGE to testify under oath in one of the sprawling lawsuits seeking to block DOGE’s access to sensitive government databases. U.S. District Judge John Bates agreed Thursday that “very limited” efforts to question officials connected to DOGE would help clarify what exactly the group is …

Politico reports: Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Thursday that he’s trying to schedule a meeting of House Republicans with Elon Musk soon to discuss the work of DOGE. Johnson, who met with Musk at the White House late Tuesday, said Musk would “meet with either small groups of members, appropriators or maybe all the House Republicans,” likely next week or …

Wired reports: Engineers for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are working on new software that could assist mass firings of federal workers across government, sources tell WIRED. The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several …