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bethalex.bsky.social
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Today in National Parks News The pushback from the idiotic firing of thousands of National Parks employees is having an effect. Keep calling Keep the pressure on 202 224 3121 www.latimes.com/california/s...

Three updates: 1. The Justice Department has deleted a database tracking federal police misconduct. The database was first proposed in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd.

DOGE recommended firing workers at: -FDA, which oversees Neuralink -FAA, which oversees SpaceX -USAID, which probed Starlink -CFPB, which oversees Tesla's financing arm and a potential payment platform on X. "Conflict of interest" is a severe understatement.

The DHS will use polygraphs to question employees about communications with the media or nonprofit organizations in an effort to root out members of the resistance.

NEW: DOGE technologists Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old known online as “Big Balls”—and Kyle Schutt are now listed as staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

We have reached out to the company who was awarded this contract and they have confirmed the ceiling was $8 million—NOT billion. Here is their statement. The federal government is cooking the books.

We have been careful to avoid using the word coup, but it’s time to call it what it is—this is a coup. Trump signed an executive order granting only the attorney general or the president the authority to interpret laws executed by the executive branch.

A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, our healthcare, and the information we receive. Many are now currying favor with Trump to avoid accountability and maintain their power. This is what oligarchy looks like.

DOGE having access to Americans' Social Security data isn't just a major security breach. It's part of a deliberate ploy to cut benefits — using the false pretext of "waste and fraud" — and have Congress use the savings to give billionaires another giant tax cut. Be warned.

!!!!!!!!!

Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases 1/n

Elon Musk's DOGE has requested access to an Internal Revenue Service system that retains the personal tax information of millions of Americans.

“Should the DOGE staffers attempt to rewrite sections of the COBOL code, it could lead to unintended consequences, including major disruptions to critical government services. And unintended consequences are very possible, if not probable.”

Many of President Donald Trump’s executive orders have landed in court, raising the question of what judges can do if he chooses to defy them. Here's what to know.

Trump administration struggling to find fired nuclear safety staff: Report

Insiders are blowing the whistle on Kash Patel, claiming that Donald Trump’s appointee to run the FBI lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings and is already directing a “purge” of the bureau while he’s still a private citizen.

#ICYMI: ProPublica has confirmed the names and roles of more than 30 Musk-affiliated staffers who are helping the world’s richest man dismantle or downsize federal agencies one by one.

This is what oligarchy looks like.

Trump and DOGE accused federal civil servants of fraud (with no evidence). Meanwhile, they're halting enforcement of a foreign anti-bribery law, dropping criminal charges against Eric Adams, and pardoning a former governor who tried to sell Obama's Senate seat. Hello?

If Dem's current messaging is what the new DNC chair is advising them, then they definitely picked the wrong guy.

Another way the dictatorship might kill you. This is from a friend who is a retired air traffic controller.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which oversees government whistleblower protections and enforces certain ethics laws.

"The database it is pulling from can be and has been written to by third parties, and will show up on the live website.”

A DOGE staffer left some bewildered and concerned after arriving at the IRS. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/doge-ir...

The CFPB will begin deleting agency data as soon as today. Meanwhile, the Trump administration and Musk staffers are rewriting history on U.S. government websites and erasing data from databases nationwide—removing information that doesn’t align with their political agenda.

"A WIRED review of the page’s source code shows that the promotion of Musk’s own platform went deeper than replicating the posts on the homepage. The source code shows that the site’s canonical tags direct search engines to x dot com rather than DOGE.gov."

Conflict of interest? The State Department’s procurement forecast lists Tesla as the recipient of the largest expected contract, with Marco Rubio’s department planning to purchase $400 million worth of “Armored Tesla” vehicles.

Pretty damn good framing for Dems

The coup is in full swing folks

When Musk's minions forced their way into USAID's servers, they made themselves "super administrators" meaning they had access to workers' Social Security numbers, credit histories, and home addresses. They may have well broken the law. www.propublica.org/article/usai...

The CFPB was dismantled over the weekend, with all activities suspended, its funding reduced to zero, and its headquarters temporarily closed—removing a crucial layer of oversight for consumer-facing financial companies. Staff members ordered to cease all ‘supervision and examination activities.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Minority Leader, has launched a new online portal for individuals to report corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety, with the legal protections afforded to whistleblowers.

If you needed any additional proof that Trump is in bed with Putin and the Russian oligarchs, here you go.

The Senate GOP budget resolution is a clear betrayal of all working families They're prepared to gut health care like Medicare & Medicaid, raise the cost of higher ed, jeopardize countless jobs And that's all to pay for a costly tax giveaway to the ultra-wealthy & corporations

Senate rules were explicitly designed to protect the minority. Democrats should exploit them mercilessly to slow Trump and Musk before they destroy the country.

In a wild scene, federal officers are blocking Democratic members of Congress from entering the Department of Education.

It’s past time for Treasury to come clean on Musk’s takeover. People's Social Security, Medicare, and their most sensitive personal data is at risk. I'm not going to stop until I get answers.

Call your representatives every day. “…Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

This is a terrifying disaster

NEW: Elon Musk’s DOGE is working on a custom chatbot called GSAi. The project is part of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s ambitions to use AI and other technologies to cut costs and modernize the US government.

SCOOP: The US Treasury claimed a DOGE's Marco Elez didn’t have ‘write access,’ when he actually did. Sources tell WIRED that his ability to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded, days after officials said it didn't exist.

Lawless

A note to our readers, from Politico CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and Editor-in-Chief John Harris:

NEW: President Donald Trump has given Elon Musk sweeping authority to overhaul the U.S. government bureaucracy and its operations around the globe. ProPublica confirmed the identities and roles of more than 20 key people affiliated with Musk.

Letitia James of New York, along with 11 other state attorneys general, announced plans to sue over a cost-cutting initiative that gave young aides to Elon Musk extensive access to critical federal computer systems.

Don't forget — Republicans are still trying to ram through another round of tax cuts for the rich. They're now reportedly trying to hide its huge cost by using alternative deficit scoring methods. They can't hide from the truth: it's yet another trickle-down scam.