Polymarket.com/doge

[Winehole23]

paid billions for people not to work, no demonstrated long-term savings

The Trump administration paid federal employees $9.5 billion not to work during 2025, part of the president’s plan to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy and government spending, according to a new estimate from a congressional watchdog.


The Department of Government Efficiency’s program to shrink the federal work force through deferred resignations increased the use of paid administrative leave by 435 percent during the first year of President Trump’s second term, the Government Accountability Office said in a report on Tuesday. That represents a sixfold increase since 2023.


Drastically reducing the size of the federal work force was part of a larger Trump administration plan to rein in frivolous and wasteful federal spending, with an initial promise of $1 trillion in savings.


The administration has said its efforts have led to $200 billion in savings, a figure that outside experts have not independently confirmed. In addition, the federal deficit has increased since Mr. Trump returned to office, in part because of the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025.

The federal civilian work force has shrunk by about 12 percent since Mr. Trump returned to office, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management, as a result of resignations, firings and new hires. But the agency has not been able to identify the long- term savings, the accountability office found.


The Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for comment.


Of the $9.5 billion in paid administrative leave, the congressional watchdog said that about $6.7 billion was associated with the deferred resignation program, which agencies continued to offer at other points during 2025. According to federal data, 139,963 federal employees took the deferred resignation offer.

Hasty efforts to achieve Mr. Trump’s downsizing mandates led some agencies to rescind deferred resignation offers or hire people to replace employees who left. The Partnership for Public Service, which advocates a more effective federal work force, found that the federal government has backfilled more than 20,000 positions left vacant because of deferred resignations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/u...-android-share

[Winehole23]

DOGE lives on as the National Design Studio; various erstwhile DOGE operatives are salted away in various US agencies

“What I really want to see is more people like Big Balls,” Scott Kupor, the director of the personnel office, said on Monday in an interview with right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. Mr. Kupor was using the online pseudonym for Edward Coristine, the DOGE employee who was hired at 19 last year to slash the federal bureaucracy.

“We need people who are patriotic, who say: ‘I care about this country. I’m willing to do something good,’” Mr. Kupor said, making the case that young hires like Mr. Coristine can work in the federal government for a couple of years and not an entire career. Mr. Coristine now works in a new White House office focused on improving the design of government websites.

[Winehole23]

DOGE was a coup

https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/doge-vs-civic-tech

[Winehole23]

chicken DOGErs playing with people's lives

[Winehole23]

violating privacy, breaking laws, wasting money

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-to-washington

https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/...tax-compliance

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

no legal authority to run USAID or perform any executive actions

hundreds of thousands of people have died because of this guy illegally running a US agency

On March 18, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio handed the reins of the US Agency for International Development to Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School, former investment banker, and affiliate of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. At the time, Lewin’s appointment drew criticism because of his lack of experience in government, diplomacy, or foreign assistance. But for career staff inside the agency, the issues surrounding Lewin’s new role were much more alarming than his thin résumé.


For at least two months, USAID senior staff had no knowledge of how Lewin, who appeared at the agency one day as a policymaker on an obscure detail from the General Services Administration, could have suddenly begun wielding the powers of the agency’s top official.


Internal USAID emails reviewed by WIRED reveal that during the three-week period of March 18 to April 4, during which Lewin began canceling lifesaving aid programs and personally signed off on the termination of thousands of USAID employees, he did not sign the paperwork typically required by law to begin work at the agency, despite repeated requests. In fact, his appointment was so mysterious that USAID security was unable to issue him an ID card because they had no records of his employment.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-28-year-old-doge-operative-gutted-usaid-hr-had-no-record-of-him-working-there/

[Winehole23]

Polymarket wallets drained, Kalshi faces criminal charges in Utah

https://cointelegraph.com/news/polym...ds-compromised
Utah files 14 criminal charges against Kalshi and its founders, says the site breaks the state’s gambling laws

[velik_m]

Polymarket wallets drained, Kalshi faces criminal charges in Utah

https://cointelegraph.com/news/polym...ds-compromised
Utah files 14 criminal charges against Kalshi and its founders, says the site breaks the state’s gambling laws

Great timing on those partnerships, NBA!

[Winehole23]

"expanding democracy will be the end of democracy"