On Feb 16, 2025, at 11:14 AM, Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com> wrote:
Seems to me that Utah, given its large LDS population, while
conservative politically would be an imperfect fit for many MAGA
policies.
My understanding is that early Mormons were persecuted and that’s why
they moved west and settled in Utah, and to this day are sympathetic
with other groups subject to discrimination. Although the church
itself has a mixed record of tolerance. Individual Mormons I’ve met
seem to be of the “live and let live” mindset.
Also, historically some Mormons moved to Mexico, so there’s something
of a bond there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_colonies_in_Mexico
And many Mormons go abroad on missions, gaining from personal
experience a more factual and nuanced view of the world outside the
USA, compared to the stereotypical “low information voter”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_missionary
*From:*AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Chuck
*Sent:* Sunday, February 16, 2025 9:05 AM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com
*Cc:* af@af.afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov)
Images shown as part of a history lesson is far different from
posting colors. They only allow colors from tribes, states and
nations to be posted. I support the proposed law. Do you really
want MAGA and KKK flags to be allowed?
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 15, 2025, at 7:11 PM, Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com> wrote:
Just saw this.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/utah-law-allow-nazi-confederate-160556024.html
Scratch Utah from the places I want to visit.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/15/2025 4:55 PM, Jason McKemie wrote:
I guess you could call the executives that ran ENRON
"turnaround artists" as well, I want that sort of behavior
far away from my government though. I've heard the argument
many times that our institutions will provide the guardrails
to keep our democracy healthy. They can't do their job if
they no longer exist or are gutted. Hopefully the judicial
branch will provide some resistance to this nonsense, but
we're going to be staring down the barrel of a constitutional
crisis if the current administration just ignores judgements
they don't like.
I'm all for getting rid of bureaucratic bloat and waste,
that's not what this is though.
On Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 6:42 PM Chuck <ch...@go-mtc.com> wrote:
When large publically traded companies are on the rocks
they bring in a new CEO to turn things around, sometimes
parting it out. Our nation is the largest publicly owned
business on the planet. It has some turn around artists
at the helm. Sit back and watch the show. Some good may
come of all of this. Highly entertaining at the least.
The republic is very likely to survive and could actually
benefit from a good house cleaning,
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 15, 2025, at 6:17 PM, Jason McKemie
<j.mcke...@veloxinetbroadband.com> wrote:
This seems about par for the course with these guys.
Scary stuff.
I love how this administration uses the term
"maximally transparent", or some derivation thereof
everywhere they can. I guess if you say it enough,
it must be true, right?
On Sat, Feb 15, 2025 at 5:59 PM Ken Hohhof
<khoh...@kwom.com> wrote:
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/
DOGE’s Website Is Just One Big X Ad
*The source code for the new Department of
Government Efficiency’s “official US government
website” points to X as its primary source of
authority, while sharing links to the site sends
users to x.com <http://x.com>.*
At a press conference in the Oval Office
<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/12/tech/elon-musk-x-oval-office/index.html>
this
week, Elon Musk promised the actions of his
so-called Department of Government Efficiency
(DOGE) <https://www.wired.com/tag/doge/> project
would be “maximally transparent,” thanks to
information posted to its website.
At the time of his comment, the DOGE website was
empty
<https://bsky.app/profile/joncooper-us.bsky.social/post/3lhwsmk4iac2u>.
However, when the site finally came online
Thursday morning, it turned out to be little more
than a glorified feed of posts from the official
DOGE account on Musk’s own X platform, raising
new questions about Musk’s conflicts of interest
in running DOGE
<https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-doge-cfpb>.
DOGE.gov claims to be an “official website of the
United States government,” but rather than giving
detailed breakdowns of the cost savings and
efficiencies Musk claims his project is making,
the homepage of the site just replicated posts
from the DOGE account on X.
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
<https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization> direct
search engines to x.com <http://x.com> rather
than DOGE.gov.
A canonical tag is a snippet of code that tells
search engines what the authoritative version of
a website is. It is typically used by sites with
multiple pages as a search engine optimization
tactic, to avoid their search ranking being diluted.
In DOGE’s case, however, the code is informing
search engines that when people search for
content found on DOGE.gov, they should not show
those pages in search results, but should instead
display the posts on X.
“It is promoting the X account as the main
source, with the website secondary,” Declan
Chidlow, a web developer <https://vale.rocks/>,
tells WIRED. “This isn't usually how things are
handled, and it indicates that the X account is
taking priority over the actual website itself.”
Advertisement
All the other US government websites WIRED
checked used their own homepage in their
canonical tags, including the official White
House website. Additionally, when sharing the
DOGE website on mobile devices, the source code
creates a link to the DOGE X account rather than
the website itself.
“It seems that the DOGE website is secondary, and
they are prodding people in the direction of the
X account everywhere they can,” Chidlow adds.
Alongside the homepage feed of X posts, a section
of Doge.gov labeled “Savings” now appears. So far
the page is empty except for a single line that
reads: “Receipts coming soon, no later than
Valentine's day,” followed by a heart emoji
<https://www.wired.com/story/heart-emoji-lost-all-meaning/>.
A section entitled “Workforce” features some bar
charts showing how many people work in each
government agency, with the information coming
from data gathered by the Office of Personnel
Management in March 2024.
A disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads:
“This is DOGE's effort to create a comprehensive,
government-wide org chart. This is an enormous
effort, and there are likely some errors or
omissions. We will continue to strive for maximum
accuracy over time.”
Another section, entitled “Regulations,” features
what DOGE calls the “Unconstitutionality Index,”
which it describes as “the number of agency rules
created by unelected bureaucrats for each law
passed by Congress in 2024.”
The charts in this section are also based on data
previously collected by US government agencies.
Doge.gov also links to a Forbes article from last
month that was written by Clyde Wayne Crews, a
member of the Heartland Institute, a conservative
think tank that pushed climate change
disinformation
<https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/heartland-institute-leak-exposes-strategies-of-climate-attack-machine/>
and
questioned the links between tobacco and lung
cancer
<https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/heartland-institute/>.
It is also a major advocate for privatizing
government departments
<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-shift-key-climate-denialist-group-heartland-institute-pivots-to-policy/>.
The site also features a “Join” page which allows
prospective DOGE employees to apply for roles
including “software engineers, InfoSec engineers,
and other technology professionals.” As well as
requesting a Github account and résumé, the form
asks visitors to “provide 2-3 bullet points
showcasing exceptional ability.”
The website does not list a developer, but on
Wednesday, web application security expert Sam
Curry outlined in a thread on X
<https://x.com/samwcyo/status/1889527715029557607> how
he was able to identify the developer of the site
as DOGE employee Kyle Shutt.
Curry claims he was able to link a Cloudflare
account ID found in the site’s source code to
Shutt, who used the same account when developing
Musk’s America PAC
<https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-election-denial-community-x/>
website.
On Thursday, Drop Site News
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/doge-fema-funding-access-social-security-numbers>
reported,
citing sources within FEMA, that Shutt had gained
access to the agency’s proprietary software
controlling payments. Earlier this week, Business
Insider reported
<https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-staff-list-white-house-2025-2> that
Shutt, who recently worked at an AI interviewing
software company, was listed as one of 30 people
working for DOGE.
Neither Shutt, DOGE, nor the White House
responded to requests for comment.
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