Turns out it isn't.
At all.
cc
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...a-lawsuit/amp/Farmers, green groups sue USDA over ‘unlawful purge’ of climate data
...
The organizations involved include Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Ins ute at Columbia University, which are representing the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group.
The coalition says that valuable datasets relating to climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation and investment in clean energy projects in rural America were purged from the site.
“By wiping critical climate resources from the USDA’s website, the Trump administration has deliberately stripped farmers and ranchers of the vital tools they need to confront the escalating extreme weather threats like droughts and floods,” Anne Schechinger, Midwest director for the Environmental Working Group said in a statement.
“This lawsuit isn’t just about transparency — it’s about holding those in power accountable for undermining the very information that helps protect the livelihoods of food producers, the food system, and our future.”
...
January 30: Fact Check: No evidence US spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza
January 30: FACT FOCUS: No evidence that $50 million was designated by the US to buy condoms for Hamas
February 12: ‘Some of the things that I say will be incorrect’: Musk backs away from false claim of $50 million for Gaza condoms
February 17: No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits
February 18: Why DOGE’s ‘Receipts’ Show Elon Musk’s Math Doesn’t Add
February 18: DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.
February 19: New Social Security chief refutes claims of deceased people over 100 years old getting checks
February 19: DOGE released data about federal contract savings. It doesn’t add up
February 19: Tens of millions of dead people aren’t getting Social Security checks, despite Trump and Musk claims
February 21: DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes
February 22: Musk’s DOGE says it has saved $55 billion. Not so fast.
February 22: DOGE Claims It Has Saved Billions. See Where.
February 25: Nearly 40% of contracts canceled by DOGE are expected to produce no savings
February 25: DOGE Quietly Deletes the 5 Biggest Spending Cuts It Celebrated Last Week
February 26: Dozens of DOGE ‘receipts’ saved no money and killed contracts meant to boost efficiency
February 26: DOGE releases updated “wall of receipts” with more discrepancies
February 26: Musk’s cost-cutting drive quietly deletes billions in claimed savings from website
February 26: A look at the misleading and incorrect claims on DOGE’s ‘wall of receipts’
February 26: Musk claims DOGE ‘restored’ Ebola prevention effort. Officials disagree.
partial credit
DOGE is a e savings tracker
"excellent"
he just means he likes it, the word excellent has no objective meaning
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/...es-18f/403400/GSA eliminates 18F
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The team was founded the same year as the U.S. Digital Service, which has since been transformed into Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Musk has said that he wants to fix the government’s at-times antiquated technology — which featured prominently in the executive order creating the DOGE, too — but legacy staffers at USDS who’ve been working on government tech problems have also been fired or quit in protest.
The billionaire wrote on his social media platform X that 18F and TTS had been “deleted” weeks ago, re-posting another account that called the 18F a “far left government computer office” and pointed to its work on the IRS’ free tax filing system, Direct File.
Other examples of the team’s work include the redesign of a website at the Justice Department on a key disability civil rights law, ada.gov. Last year, the office celebrated its tenth year, highlighting 450 government tech projects it had worked on since its inception under former President Barack Obama. The team’s size has fluctuated over the years, beginning with several dozen staffers and at times growing to well over 100 technologists in its ranks. About 90 people were impacted, two of the affected employees told Nextgov/FCW.
“As federal employees, we don’t have conflicts of interest, just dedication to your mission,” the 18F website reads. “Together with our government agency partners, we deliver projects that stay within budget and improve their technology.”
...
possible procurement capture
https://www.anildash.com/2025/01/04/...ement-capture/Tycoons don't like any game that's not rigged in their favor. And right now, government spending at the federal level is mostly controlled by an agency called the General Services Administration, which oversees procurement. Is it complicated? Sure! Sometimes the complexity is for the same reasons that processes are inefficient around the office at your job, and that's frustrating. But sometimes it's good, because they're trying to make sure nobody is buying $800 hammers. It's not perfect, and it's overly complex, but it is not totally captured by the richest guys in the world right now.
Now, imagine you were a tycoon who is also a defense contractor that is trying to sell hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment to the government, and you know that the procurement process requires them to go with the lowest bidder. But, since you're a dude with hundreds of billions of dollars, it doesn't seem fair that the system isn't even more rigged in your favor. How would you "fix" this system? Well, you'd have to capture procurement, so that it was rigged to only buy stuff from you and your friends, at whatever price you guys want. And if it could screw your compe orsalong the way, and punish them for not kissing your ass? That would be a bonus.
Enter DOGE.
Say you're a government employee trying to figure out who to buy rockets from. Maybe it better be from the guy who runs the "department" that's in charge of deciding where money gets spent in the government! But what if you're that government employee and you're still trying to do things by the book, and follow the laws as written, and listen to the process that says you should go with the lowest bidder so you can spend less taxpayer money on things?
Well, wouldn't it be a shame if the guy who runs the "department" also ran a huge social media company, and also had started mentioning individual government employees by name, and had a rabid army of followers who consistently targeted those employees for violent threats — including death threats — and had in fact just carried out two different terrorist attacks in the last week whilespecifically talking about how enemies of this new regime needed to be targeted for violence? Would that be enough to get you to reconsider following those written policies? Maybe so.
Would anyone let any other defense contractor or government vendor run a "department" that was trying to reduce government spending? What if the CEO of Boeing said they were going to cut government spending? A big pharma CEO said he was going to increase government efficiency? Maybe the head of an investment bank was going to come in and reduce spending at the Commerce department? That sound credible to you? What makes these particular corporate executives even remotely credible to do this job? How is it not a massive conflict of interest to put people who sell hundreds of millions of dollars of products directly to the government in charge of reducing government spending?
Getting rid of top notch technologists like 18F and USDS seems more like a bid to amplify waste fraud and abuse than curtail it
if talent like this is ever rehired to the USG, it'll cost a lot more
Introduction | 18F De-risking Guide
DOGE operatives reportedly couldn't pass basic tech tests to become members of USDS
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/s...e-being-forcedHere is a thumbnail sketch of the two units: USDS offered support and guidance to agencies, but could not dictate a governmentwide approach on most issues. In times of crisis, or when a President prioritized a policy outcome dependent on digital innovations, it could play a more prominent role, serving as a de facto firefighter for digital governance. The General Services Administration set up its own digital consultancy team, 18F in 2014. This team’s mission is to work with agencies to “[transform] the way the federal government builds and buys digital services.” 18F was a cost recoverable office, meaning that they charge partner agencies for their work rather than being funded directly through a congressional appropriation. Both organizations use similar managerial technologies, which includes agile, iterative design, a user-centric approach, a reliance on data-driven decision making, directly managing relationships with vendors, favoring open-source solutions, the prioritization of platform models, and a flatter organizational culture.
USDS and 18F represented a hopeful trend for American government: embedding serious tech skills inside the bureaucracy, rather than relying on private vendors. They care about public services, and represented the most visible public sector manifestation of “civic tech” in government.
Last edited by Winehole23; 03-02-2025 at 01:18 PM.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/28/p...ees/index.htmlExclusive: US intel shows Russia and China are attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say
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Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired employees with security clearances and probationary employees at risk of being terminated, who may have valuable information about US critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy, two of the sources said. At least two countries have already set up recruitment websites and begun aggressively targeting federal employees on LinkedIn, two of the sources said.
A do ent produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said the intelligence community assessed with “high confidence” that foreign adversaries were trying to recruit federal employees and “capitalize” on the Trump administration’s plans for mass layoffs, according to a partly redacted copy reviewed by CNN.
It added that foreign intelligence officers were being directed to look for potential sources on LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote and Reddit.
At least one foreign intelligence officer directed an asset to create a company profile on Linkedin and post a job advertisement, and to actively pursue federal employees who indicate they are “open to work,” the NCIS do ent says.
The adversaries think the employees “are at their most vulnerable right now,” another of the sources said. “Out of a job, bitter about being fired, etc.”
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Sure they are.
Of course they do
so they fired the USDS
Of course they were.
I thought this was worth a golf clap, there's a relative dearth of straight political takes lately
For some reason, the Trumpies don't want to talk about politics and power
All personal and culture war bull
another week, another round of DOGE postings that do not hold up to momentary scrutiny
DOGE has had trouble understanding the information they collect the whole way
https://www.muskwatch.com/p/the-week...wall-of-errorsEvery time the U.S. DOGE Service (DOGE) has updated its “wall of receipts,” an online database where it reports the money it has supposedly saved taxpayers, massive new errors have emerged. Last week was no different. DOGE claimed credit for saving $53.7 million by cancelling U.S. Coast Guard contracts that were fulfilled in 2006 and 2011 and a Treasury Department contract that was axed when former President Joe Biden was still in office, according to the New York Times. The Times also found that DOGE had inflated the value of a cancelled National Ins utes of Health contract by $148.8 million.
Asked about the discrepancies, a senior administration official told the Times that individual agencies are providing the numbers. Of course, this would not absolve DOGE of blame. It has deputies planted at nearly every federal agency and has pressured agencies to provide them with numbers DOGE can claim as budget cuts. “The group has even created a ‘leaderboard’ to measure which ones have eliminated the most,” the Times reported.
Just keep canning these lifetime s.
We'll pick up & match the pieces later on.
^^^ends justify the means talk is very trendy now
Pennsylvania set the trend in blood.
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