As Elon Musk’s DOGE targets the Social Security Administration for cuts and reorganization, the agency is rolling out new rules for benefit recipients that could spur chaos and dysfunction at the agency. This week, the agency announced that it will no longer allow new benefit recipients to verify their identities over the phone. Instead, those […]
HIV Is on the Brink of Defeat, but Trump’s Pending Funding Cuts Could Bring It Back
The Trump administration might be looking to give HIV a hand. The federal government is reportedly eyeing drastic cuts to its funding for HIV prevention efforts at home. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the potential funding cuts Tuesday afternoon, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Should the pruning go through, it would […]
Tesla Hate Is Making Insurance More Expensive for Owners
Teslas are getting more expensive to insure thanks to the manufacturer’s sliding fortunes and reports of vandalism against the cars. There are few markets as pure, heartless, and single-minded as auto insurance. It’s a machine run on actuarial tables and its calculations are telling insurers that they’ll probably have to pay out a damage claim […]
Rightwing State and Local Govs Seek to Follow in Elon’s Footsteps and DOGE Themselves
Elon Musk is attempting to destroy the federal government by crippling the agencies that deliver public services, keep Americans’ air and water clean, tell us what the upcoming weather looks like, and protect us from predatory corporations. Conservative governments across the country are so impressed with this effort that they, too, want to destroy themselves […]
Judge Calls DOGE Firings a ‘Sham,’ Orders Thousands of Workers to Be Reinstated ‘Immediately’
A federal judge has dealt a blow to Elon Musk’s DOGE agenda. On Thursday, Judge William Alsup of San Francisco said that the firing of tens of thousands of federal probationary workers had been based on a “lie” and that the government had conducted the expulsions illegally—further calling the initiative a “sham.” Alsup ordered that […]
Elon Musk Makes Secret Visit to NSA After Saying Agency Needs ‘Overhaul’
Elon Musk visited the National Security Agency on Wednesday for a meeting with the spy agency’s leadership, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reports that Musk’s discussion centered on “staff reductions and operations,” which is entirely unsurprising, given the billionaire oligarch’s ongoing destruction of the U.S. government with the […]
‘I’m the Villain’: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump
Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according […]
How to Track the Flood of Bullshit Coming From Trump’s White House
During Donald Trump’s first term, Steve Bannon explicitly laid out what the administration’s strategy would be to get things done: “flood the zone with shit.” The theory is pretty simple: throw out as much bullshit as possible—knowing that there is only so much attention, outrage, and resistance that people can muster—and take wins while everyone […]
‘Most Transparent Administration in History’ Is Shredding Documents and Ignoring FOIA
The Trump administration has given itself the moniker “The Most Transparent Administration in History.” It seems like it’s an “in name only” kind of thing, because the New York Times reports that a senior administration official at the U.S. Agency for International Development—the agency that has been stripped for parts by Elon Musk and the extremely […]
DOGE Threat: How Government Data Would Give an AI Company Extraordinary Power
The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has secured unprecedented access to at least seven sensitive federal databases, including those of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration. This access has sparked fears about cybersecurity vulnerabilities and privacy violations. Another concern has received far less attention: the potential use of the data to train […]