Schools are under local/state jurisdiction, so not a federal issue and
hopefully one that DOGE will stay out of.
But on the topic of Nazis, many of you were probably not born in 1977
when Nazis wanted to march in Skokie, IL which was 50% Jewish and home
to many Holocaust survivors. ACLU actually took the free speech case
on behalf of the Nazis. If you’ve seen the 1980 Blues Brothers movie
with the “Illinois Nazis” scene, it undoubtedly references the Skokie
case.
Some history:
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-skokie-case-how-i-came-to-represent-the-free-speech-rights-of-nazis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie
*From:*AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Chuck
*Sent:* Monday, February 17, 2025 9:00 AM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com
*Cc:* af@af.afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov)
Why should a black student have to have the stars and bars everyday.
Jewish school kid see the nazi flag at the front of the classroom
everyday.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2025, at 5:49 PM, Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com> wrote:
Why should we hide flags that are part of history?
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 2:42 PM, Chuck wrote:
Why should school kids have to face controversial special
group flags as part of their daily life?
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2025, at 3:42 PM, Bill Prince
<part15...@gmail.com> <mailto:part15...@gmail.com> wrote:
I would include the rainbow, MAGA, and KKK flags in that
definition. Probably dozens of others.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 1:28 PM, Chuck wrote:
It is posting flags in school rooms. Limited to
nations, states and NA tribes. Not at all
unreasonable. Images of other flags can be shown if
they contribute to teaching a historical event.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2025, at 2:06 PM, Bill Prince
<part15...@gmail.com> <mailto:part15...@gmail.com>
wrote:
If it's only posting colors/flags as part of a
curriculum, I would support all flags, including
KKK and MAGA. Rainbow flags are now part of the
historical record, and I would put them in the
same category.
I have a completely different view of what flags
can be displayed publicly. I suppose it's a free
speech issue, but I don't really look approvingly
of people who might display KKK, Nazi, or
Confederate flags.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 2/16/2025 7:04 AM, Chuck wrote:
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>
<mailto: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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