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 <http://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 <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*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
<http://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 <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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