Washington Post: Records of dead people show how the pro-Trump spin machine keeps going

Posted on June 3, 2025 by M

Supporters cite a prosaic DOGE announcement as evidence that a Social Security problem that never existed has been fixed.

The big lie:

“We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. Believe it or not, government databases list … 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them.”

— President Donald Trump, in a speech to Congress, March 4

The simple explanation:

Social Security databases rely on COBOL, a nearly 70-year-old computer programming language, and COBOL doesn’t have a standardized way to store dates. So a default date, such as 1875, was chosen for people lacking birth information.

But Trump and his cronies will never let a good lie go unrepeated, every chance they can.

Analysis | Records of dead people show how the pro-Trump spin machine keeps going

Supporters cite a prosaic DOGE announcement as evidence that a Social Security problem that never existed has been fixed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/03/social-security-dead-trump-false

New York Times: Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner

Posted on May 27, 2025 by M

Paul Walczak’s pardon application cited his mother’s support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary.

As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.

Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.

Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.

Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.

Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

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trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html

Irish Star: Elon Musk embarrassed as Social Security ‘fraud’ claim debunked by new data

Posted on May 25, 2025 by M

Musk and fellow DOGE proponents’ assertions about revamping Social Security due to colossal fraud losses have been met with skepticism.

Fortune reports that Doge’s bid to transform the government’s main safety-net program, citing claims of it hemorrhaging vast sums to fraud, despite Musk’s team being denied permission to view official documents.

Musk, who had a humiliating screaming match with a Trump official, has boldly claimed that his team has unearthed weekly fraudulent entitlement payments totaling a staggering $100 billion, calling the situation ‘utterly insane. ‘

During an April Fox News interview, Social Security department staffer Aram Moghaddassi concurred with Musk’s sentiment, stating that 40% of calls they receive about altering direct-deposit data are from tricksters.

…

However, according to Fortune – which referenced a government technology-focused news source, the actual frequency of phone-related fraud is minuscule, barely exceeding a fraction of 1%.

Nextgov/FCW snagged an internal scoop revealing that out of 110,000 Social Security claims, merely two have been identified as highly probable for fraud. The tech news site indicates less than 1% of claims are even slightly suspicious for fraudulent activity.

Elon Musk embarrassed as Social Security ‘fraud’ claim debunked by new data

Claims from Elon Musk and the Department of Government Employees (DOGE) that the Social Security program is losing billions of dollars, despite Musk being blocked from viewing official files, to fraud are being challenged by new data

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-social-security-doge-35277349

Explícame: DOGE must delete the Social Security data in its possession as well as the software it installed

Posted on May 24, 2025 by M

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been ordered to immediately delete all Social Security data in its possession, along with the software it installed on the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) systems. This directive comes from federal district judge Ellen Hollander, marking a significant moment in the ongoing battle for privacy rights in the United States. The ruling serves as a stern rebuke to DOGE’s methods, which were justified under the guise of fraud prevention.

The decision, as reported by The (Raleigh) News & Observer, follows a lawsuit initiated by unions and retiree organizations. These groups argued that DOGE’s access to sensitive SSA records violated privacy laws and jeopardized the security of highly confidential data. The court’s ruling highlights the tension between government oversight and individual privacy rights.

Judge Hollander’s resolution was unequivocal: “Rooting out potential fraud, waste and mismanagement at SSA is in the public interest. But that doesn’t mean the government can break the law to do it”. She criticized the rationale provided by SSA’s interim commissioner, Leland Dudek, deeming it insufficient to justify such intrusive access.

The court not only denied DOGE’s request for unlimited data access but also mandated corrective actions: “DOGE must delete the Social Security data in its possession as well as the software it installed,” as covered by The (Raleigh) News & Observer. This decision underscores the judiciary’s role in safeguarding privacy against overreach.

DOGE must delete the Social Security data in its possession as well as the software it installed

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/doge-must-delete-the-social-security-data-in-its-possession-as-well-as-the-software-it-installed/ar-AA1FmN4Z

New York Times: Pressuring Migrants to ‘Self-Deport,’ White House Moves to Cancel Social Security Numbers

Posted on April 10, 2025 by M

By placing migrants in Social Security’s “death master file,” the Trump administration is seeking to cut off their access to credit cards, bank accounts and other financial services.

People who have been here LEGALLY may soon discover that they are “dead”.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were allowed into the country under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Now, the administration is taking drastic steps to pressure some of those immigrants and others who had legal status to “self-deport” by effectively canceling the Social Security numbers they had lawfully obtained, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with six people familiar with the plans.

The goal is to cut those people off from using crucial financial services like bank accounts and credit cards, along with their access to government benefits.

The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/politics/migrants-deport-social-security-doge.html

Irish Star: True meaning behind [Bimbo #1] Karoline Leavitt’s nickname as White House press secretary clashes with reporters

Posted on March 29, 2025 by M

[Bimbo #1] Karoline Leavitt has been living up to a new nickname she was given following her first White House press briefing as she’s accused of making a disgraceful attempt to spin the Trump administration’s Signal group chat scandal.

The White House press secretary – who recently showed off what a day in her life looks like – was first dubbed the “spinmeister” by CNN back in January as she was accused of spinning information about a pause on federal grants and loans when she said payments for Social Security, Medicare and food stamps would not be affected but didn’t say what would happen to nonprofit programs like Meals on Wheels.

“It’s a classic spinmeister tactic saying I answered that when you haven’t answered it and apparently can’t answer it right away,” CNN’s fact-checker Daniel Dale said.

But the 27-year-old’s latest spin attempt has backfired as she now appears to have made a spectacular U-turn after critics accused her of lying. After The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal messaging app group in which top government officials discussed plans for strikes in Yemen, Leavitt attempted to change the narrative.

During a fiery White House briefing on Wednesday the press secretary told reporters: “If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well.”

She called Goldberg’s piece a “sensationalized story from the failing Atlantic magazine” while attempting to smear the reporter and doubling down on claims that no classified information was leaked.

Leavitt snapped at CNN’s Kaitlin Collins when asked about the ongoing scandal before abruptly cutting the volatile press conference short.

Head in the sand often?

True meaning behind Karoline Leavitt’s nickname as White House press secretary clashes with reporters

True meaning behind Karoline Leavitt’s nickname as White House press secretary clashes with reporters

Newsweek: Social Security Close to ‘Total System Collapse’

Posted on March 26, 2025 by M

The former Social Security commissioner Martin O’Malley has said the government department is on the brink of “total system collapse” under the Trump administration.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) currently pays out retirement, survivor and disability benefits to more than 70 million Americans. But recent changes made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its current commissioner have come under considerable scrutiny.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, O’Malley said: “The Musk/Trump co-presidency has already taken 90% of the actions necessary to drive Social Security into a total system collapse.”

Social Security close to ‘total system collapse’: Ex-head

Martin O’Malley said the current administration has “taken 90 percent of the actions necessary to drive Social Security into a total system collapse.”

Social Security Close to ‘Total System Collapse’: Ex-Head – Newsweek

Speech of Sen. BernieSanders on the floor of the U.S. Senate

Posted on March 25, 2025 by M

Click here to read Bernie’s speech:

Sen. Bernie Sanders Speech

Speech of Sen. Bernie Sanders on the floor of the U.S. Senate: Mr. President, In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to travel in many parts of our country. And I have been able to talk to folks in Nebraska, in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. And what I am hearing from in all of these states and in fact all over the country is that our nation right now faces enormous crises, unprecedented crises in the modern history of our country. And how right now at this moment we respond to these crises will […]

Washington Post: Trump’s shocking military plan leak epitomizes a sloppy operation

Posted on March 25, 2025 by M

The second Trump administration has clearly made a decision to move fast and break things. Largely gone are the establishment Republican figures and steady hands that sometimes resisted President Donald Trump during his first term. In their place are a bunch of people with less subject-matter and governmental experience but with the zeal of MAGA true believers, eager to implement Trump’s complete governmental overhaul and to bust through the traditional guardrails in the process.

The result is a very — and increasingly — sloppy first two months, by any objective measure.

The big headline Monday was that top Trump national security officials shared sensitive military plans for impending strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels with the editor in chief of the Atlantic. The White House confirmed to The Washington Post that the editor was inadvertently included in the messages.

The editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to the string of messages on Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging service. The group included the names of prominent administration figures, such as national security adviser Michael Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, all strategizing about the impending attacks.

The messages were sent before the strikes began last weekend and previewed almost precisely when they ultimately took place.

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Trump’s shocking military plan leak epitomizes a sloppy operation

Donald Trump is lying about Social Security. Elon Musk is sabotaging it.

Posted on March 25, 2025 by M

Donald Trump is lying about Social Security. Elon Musk is sabotaging it. Together, they’ve created a slow-motion theft disguised as reform — a deliberate, calculated effort to break America’s most important safety net and blame the victims when it fails.

This isn’t just reckless governance. It’s cruelty wrapped in a spreadsheet — a war on America’s elderly, waged by a billionaire with a god complex and a president too lazy to learn the facts.

THE LIE THAT STARTED IT ALL

In his recent speech to Congress, Trump stood before the nation and claimed that millions of “dead” people were still in the Social Security system, draining taxpayer dollars with fraudulent checks. He said there were 4.7 million people aged 100 to 109 still on the rolls. He claimed 3.6 million people over the age of 110 were receiving benefits. By the time he suggested nearly 3.5 million people aged 140 to 149 were cashing Social Security checks, it sounded less like a speech and more like a fevered rant from a man who still believes windmills cause cancer.

The numbers weren’t just wrong — they were laughably impossible. The SSA’s own data shows that only about 44,000 records with unverifiable birthdates are still linked to active benefits. The agency has long had automated systems in place that suspend payments for anyone listed as 115 or older unless they actively prove they’re alive. Trump’s wild claims about centenarians on the take weren’t just exaggerated — they were fantasy.

But the truth didn’t matter. Trump’s lie wasn’t meant to inform. It was meant to create panic — to convince Americans that Social Security is a bloated, broken program riddled with fraud. Once that lie took root, the rest of his plan could unfold.

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Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge

Donald Trump is lying… – Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge | Facebook