The problem is that most people love their Congress critter and disapprove of all of the other ones because of all of the bad things that "Congress" does. The bad rarely gets punished for doing bad things. Congress will never correct itself. Someone else has to do it.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Hohhof" <khoh...@kwom.com> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 2:06:37 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov) Isn’t there a childrens book or a fable about a king who asks his wise men how to get rid of the mice who are eating his cheese? So they bring in cats, then dogs to get rid of the cats, then lions, then elephants, and finally mice to scare the elephants away. There’s a right way to rid ourselves of these mice, but it seems we’re too lazy to do it the right way. (i.e. hey Congress, you passed these laws we don’t like, how about you fix it) I fear we will be stuck with the cats once the mice are gone, and find ourselves with an oligarchy or autocracy with no path back to a constitutional democracy. I guess we can at least be amused at the irony of getting rid of immigrants and unelected bureaucrats by employing an immigrant and unelected bureaucrat. So maybe not a cat at all, just another mouse. Still, history says it’s dangerous to tolerate an unchecked executive as long as he’s not coming for us (yet). “A republic, if you can keep it.” - Benjamin Franklin From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chuck McCown Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 1:46 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov) Studied up a bit on the Humphries Executor SCOTUS precedent case. It appears a president cannot fire the head of an agency that is essentially the chairman of a panel composed of equal numbers of partisan members where the panel makes the decision and the chairperson is only a tie breaker. So it would seem to me to apply to the FCC. However if a bureaucrat chief makes the decisions and is an extension of the chief executive then they can be fired. It is not a bad thing to, now and then, be held accountable and fear losing your job. Complacency is a sin in my opinion. The struggle is the journey. From: Chuck McCown Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 1:24 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website ( www.doge.gov ) Best to pop some palomitos, sit back and enjoy the show. I love the nuts on both sides when their heads explode. I do wish “The View” would eventually admit they are wrong about something, anything. Just one thing From: Adam Moffett Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 1:07 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website ( www.doge.gov ) "we are getting pretty close to the end of the income tax so long as people shut off the news and quit being told what to think." Cool, as long as they do something about the spending too. The "he's got our data" stuff is rather alarmist. A lot of people have that same data. Owning a company based on targeted advertising, he might already know more about you than the government does. "he's unelected" is a statement simplified for dummies. The question is why should we trust THIS unelected guy with no senate confirmation, but NOT trust the unelected, unconfirmed people at the GAO and OIG? I haven't yet received an answer from anyone I've asked this question to, so I assume the answer is that people are willing to believe him because of his political affiliation, or because he's saying what they want to hear. I'm ready to be educated if there's a better answer to that. -Adam From: AF < af-boun...@af.afmug.com > on behalf of Steve Jones < thatoneguyst...@gmail.com > Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 1:03 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group < af@af.afmug.com > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website ( www.doge.gov ) Clinton pretty well did it, and balanced the budget on paper and Obama formed doge, so they both did their part. transparency is a pretty gender fluid word these days. means entirely different things to different people. we are getting pretty close to the end of the income tax so long as people shut off the news and quit being told what to think. hand out queens (many in this industry for sure) and the gimme gimmes are scared, rightfully so, and the grifters are petrified, even more rightfully so, lynch every one of them. "he's unelected" "he's got our data" - the battle cry of morons or the propaganda of those who love their morons. I hope RFK does the right thing and comes out against huffing sarin gas and drinking ricin slushies. The demand for sarin and castor beans will be through the roof with that media push and the course will correct. then we just need somebody to get the rumor out that oxygen makes you gay, belt and lemon sales will skyrocket and right that ship too. the level of mental retardation we are witnessing is astounding. On Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 8:13 AM Mike Hammett < af...@ics-il.net > wrote: I just saw a video of both Clinton and Obama saying they'd do what DOGE is doing, but they seemingly just paid lip service to it. I do want it to be more transparent, but I also want them to keep going. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Jones" < thatoneguyst...@gmail.com > To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" < af@af.afmug.com > Sent: Monday, February 17, 2025 8:00:49 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website ( www.doge.gov ) A better question is why do we have to take their word for it when it's spent? The good, final outcome of this is there is a framework in place now for all future spending to be on public record in a clear and transparent manner, publicly accessible, with the spend requests and links to the outcome reports. That should t require foia My guess is half of what they claw back will ultimately be paid out when it's explained and justified. On Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 7:23 AM Adam Moffett < dmmoff...@gmail.com > wrote: Steve, An example I just saw on doge.gov was an $8mil USDA contract with a screen shot of a record. Nothing on the screen demonstrates how it was waste, fraud, or abuse. The title of the contract was some fluffy sounding thing about environmental compliance, and as far as I can tell the title is what we’re supposed to accept as evidence. That was an example from the day’s “batch” with no information provided about whatever else was canceled that day. Maybe they’ll publish more details later for “maximal transparency”, but right now we are forced to take their word for it. It’s fair to have a problem with unelected bureaucrats wielding most of the power of the federal government, but the same should not become OK just because the bureaucrat is an ideologically appropriate apparatchik. Get Outlook for iOS From: AF < af-boun...@af.afmug.com > on behalf of Steve Jones < thatoneguyst...@gmail.com > Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2025 9:41:06 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group < af@af.afmug.com > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website ( www.doge.gov ) yeah, super scary. boogeyman level On Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 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 . At a press conference in the Oval Office this week, Elon Musk promised the actions of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project would be “maximally transparent,” thanks to information posted to its website. At the time of his comment, the DOGE website was empty . 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 . 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 direct search engines to 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 , 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 . 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 and questioned the links between tobacco and lung cancer . It is also a major advocate for privatizing government departments . 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 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 website. On Thursday, Drop Site News reported, citing sources within FEMA, that Shutt had gained access to the agency’s proprietary software controlling payments. Earlier this week, Business Insider reported 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. -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
