DOGE: Who Are They and What Are They Up To?

[rgray222]

DOGE has been in place for less than a month and the headlines have been spectacular. The events have been described as a "takeover", "freeze", or "coup" by members of the Democratic Party and media, who state that DOGE does not have the authority to carry out these activities. Trump and Republicans claim Musk is implementing campaign promises of government efficiency, and that Musk's powers are limited. Elon Musk has launched a campaign from inside the federal government to radically upend agencies, exercising a level of control so sweeping that it is stunning former top White House officials, even in a political moment when many things are described as unprecedented. Despite the name, DOGE is part of the White House and not a Cabinet agency. In recent days it has gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, which are responsible for processing trillions of dollars of spending every year.

Once Musk became a Trump supporter the left abandoned him and he is now an alienating figure, but whatever side you come down on it is going to get loud, heated and contentious. So who and what is DOGE?

Here is the official Doge Tracker website. I believe it is updated in real time.

This is the meme site for Doge Crypyo and their mission, which somewhat aligns with the government.

Our mission is to bring awareness to government spending and over-regulation.

Our mission is to decentralize the narrative around government spending, giving power back to the people to hold government entities accountable for their financial decisions. We leverage the power and virality of memes, community and cryptocurrency culture, in an effort to make government transparency not only accessible but also engaging. Through awareness, education, and direct involvement, our community is our strength. Together, we will navigate towards a future where government efficiency is not just a goal but a standard.

Wired.com broke the story about the Doge Task Force and described them as follows.

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover

Engineers between the ages of 19 and 24, most linked to Musk's companies, are playing a key role as he seizes control of the federal infrastructure.



The dailybeast goes on to describe each member in more detail.

Elon Musk’s team of young DOGE disruptors have been unmasked, much to the ire of the billionaire and other MAGA figures.

One is a 19-year-old college freshman and heir to a popcorn fortune. Another was hosting Model UN sessions in 2019 and a third was given money by his parents to invest in stocks while at his high school in Silicon Valley.

The world’s richest man lashed out at an X account which suggested the six young men, who now have access the Treasury Department’s payment system, among other things, should be “paid a visit” by FBI agents.

“You have committed a crime,” Musk fired back at a comment from the account Monday, shortly before the post in question was removed for allegedly violating the platform’s rules.

Musk appeared to soften his stance on the men being identified later Monday, writing it was “time to confess” that the “media reports saying that @DOGE has some of world’s best software engineers are in fact true.” But he was wrong—not all the group are even “software engineers.” Three do not even have degrees. And one who does is trying to cash in on his new job by charging people to read his Substack entry which boasts, “Why DOGE: Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.”

Musk’s team of youngsters, as first reported by WIRED on Sunday, is Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, who said in September he was a senior at Harvard.

The ones who actually have degrees, or at least have left college, are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley;

The group’s relative lack of experience—especially no previous positions in government work—has Democrats crying foul they were granted access to sensitive records while remaining largely in the shadows, away from public scrutiny.

All six desperately tried to cover their digital tracks recently, almost all of them deleting LinkedIn profiles, X accounts and even Facebook.

Full Story: dogegov.com, wired.com, thedailybeast.com, wikipedia

[Ratszinger]

The CIA has routinely hired people that young and younger that had access to information and data that no one elected them to ever have access to just like Edward Snowden. Snowden himself was hired when very young and by the time he quit the amount of info he had access to on American and other country citizenry is staggering. He had the world at his fingertips at what? 19? Access to bank accounts, social security numbers, tax filings, current and past emails, texts, phone calls! There are likely hundreds just like him probably in the employ of the agency right now and others just like them in the NSA doing the same jobs or similar and with access to the same level of information and data on all of us. None of it voted on by the public. If not for Edward Snowden we likely wouldn't even know these kids exist at all.

[rgray222]

Posted by Ratszinger (here)
The CIA has routinely hired people that young and younger that had access to information and data that no one elected them to ever have access to just like Edward Snowden. Snowden himself was hired when very young and by the time he quit the amount of info he had access to on American and other country citizenry is staggering. He had the world at his fingertips at what? 19? Access to bank accounts, social security numbers, tax filings, current and past emails, texts, phone calls! There are likely hundreds just like him probably in the employ of the agency right now and others just like them in the NSA doing the same jobs or similar and with access to the same level of information and data on all of us. None of it voted on by the public. If not for Edward Snowden we likely wouldn't even know these kids exist at all.

Yes, I am aware of some of the CIA practices but it is no secret Elon Musk is going to get the best and the brightest to work alongside of him and they are going to be what many consider incredibly young. This will not be the first time that the young have excelled at something extraordinary

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by rgray222 (here)

(...)

Our mission is to decentralize the narrative around government spending, giving power back to the people to hold government entities accountable for their financial decisions. We leverage the power and virality of memes, community and cryptocurrency culture, in an effort to make government transparency not only accessible but also engaging. Through awareness, education, and direct involvement, our community is our strength. Together, we will navigate towards a future where government efficiency is not just a goal but a standard.

(...)

Hahahahahaaaa!!!

Finally the Exceptionalistists got what they deserved.

[rgray222]

During Wednesday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke about Federal spending cuts that are being made by the Trump Administration.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0QUwB5t2-dY

[rgray222]

Now that Doge has exposed the massive fraud being perpetrated on the American people, Donald Trump is going to put more than 10,000 workers on administrative leave and keep fewer than 300 which will result in massive savings for the taxpayers. We can expect to see an enormous negative rant from the Democrats and the media.

Trump administration to keep only 294 USAID staff out of over 10,000 globally, sources say

Summary

• Only 12 staff would remain in Africa bureau, 8 in Asia bureau
• Life-saving programs worldwide left in limbo
• Life of staff - and their families - will be upended

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.



Washington's primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on January 20.
The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.

"That's outrageous," said J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
"A lot of people will not survive," said Atwood, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute.

The U.S. Department of State did not respond to a request for comment.
With Trump and Musk, the world's wealthiest man, leveling false accusations that its staff were criminals, dozens of USAID staff have been put on leave, hundreds of internal contractors have been laid off and life-saving programs around the globe have been left in limbo.

The administration announced on Tuesday it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAID employees globally, and recall thousands of personnel working overseas.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programs that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders, which have threatened efforts around the globe to stop the spread of disease, prevent famine and otherwise alleviate poverty.

Implementing partners of USAID are facing financial trouble on the back of stop-work orders from the State Department.

MERGING USAID WITH STATE

The overhaul will upend the lives of thousands of staff and their families.
The administration's goal is to merge USAID with the State Department led by Rubio, who Trump has made acting USAID administrator. However, it is not clear that he can merge the agencies unless Congress votes to do so, since USAID was created and is funded by laws that remain in place.

USAID employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It managed more than $40 billion in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.

Sources familiar with events at the agency on Thursday said some workers had begun receiving termination notices.

The USAID website said that as of midnight on Friday, February 7, "all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs."

It said essential personnel expected to continue working would be informed by Thursday at 3 p.m. EST.

The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished. The top recipients were Ukraine, followed by Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, according to the CRS report.

Full Story: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...ly-2025-02-06/

[rgray222]

The media is refusing to report the corruption in government spending because they know that people are in strong support of cutting costs. Did you know that the US Treasury has not denied a payment request for 22 years? This report comes out of the Government Accounting Office GAO and is for the most recent year with available data 2023.

Federal Government Made $236 billion “Improper Payments” Last Fiscal Year

The federal government reported an estimated $236 billion in “improper payments” during the most recently completed fiscal year (FY 2023). Such payments are essentially payment errors that can be the result of many things—including overpayments, inaccurate recordkeeping, or even fraud.

Payment errors are a long-standing issue for the federal government. Over the last 20 fiscal years, it has made an estimated $2.7 trillion in such improper payments.

What’s causing these errors and what can be done to prevent them? Today’s WatchBlog post looks at our new report, issued today.

What were the payment errors in FY 2023?

The $236 billion in improper payments were reported by 14 agencies across 71 programs.

• More than $175 billion (74%) of errors were overpayments—for example, payments to deceased individuals or those no longer eligible for government programs
• $11.5 billion were underpayments
• $44.6 billion were unknown payments—meaning it is unclear whether a payment was an error or not
• $4.6 billion were cases where a recipient was entitled to a payment, but the payment failed to follow proper statutes or regulations
• Some good news: payment errors have declined since last fiscal year by about $11 billion. Eight program areas saw substantial declines in improper payments this past year. For example, payment errors under Medicaid dropped by $30 billion from the previous year. Program areas that reported substantial declines in payment errors said the decreases were due to mitigation strategies that they had implemented, among other things.

But there was also some bad news: Five programs saw substantial increases in payment errors. For example, the Department of Labor’s Pandemic Unemployment Insurance program saw an increase of $44 billion in errors.

Overall, while improper payments were down from last year, they remain higher than pre-pandemic times.

Reported Estimates of Government-wide Improper Payments Since FY 2003



Which programs had the most payment errors?

About $186 billion (79%) of such errors were concentrated in five program areas: Medicare, Medicaid, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Paycheck Protection Program Loan forgiveness.

Some of these program areas have consistently been among those with the highest payment errors—including Medicaid, Medicare, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. These are also federal program areas that issue the most payments to individuals and, as a result, maybe more vulnerable to these sorts of errors.



To view the full report at the Government Accounting Office (GAO): https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-gov...st-fiscal-year

[Bill Ryan]

An update reported on Infowars:

Breaking DOGE News: Trump Terminates Contract for Fauci Exhibit at NIH Museum

[Bill Ryan]

An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

[Ratszinger]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

He was too controversial and they quitely fired him. That's what I heard. He and Musk agreed for mutual reasons to part ways and rumor is it's over the tensions created over Ramaswamy's H1B Visa comments. Most of the reports use terms like friction or tensions over firing but basically he was canned.

[thepainterdoug]

All I know is they are kicking ass and shakin the ultra corrupt paradigm up.

[Satori]

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

He was too controversial and they quitely fired him. That's what I heard. He and Musk agreed for mutual reasons to part ways and rumor is it's over the tensions created over Ramaswamy's H1B Visa comments. Most of the reports use terms like friction or tensions over firing but basically he was canned.

Vivek changed course, for reasons we are not privy to, to run for Governor of the State of Ohio.

[Ratszinger]

Posted by Satori (here)

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

He was too controversial and they quitely fired him. That's what I heard. He and Musk agreed for mutual reasons to part ways and rumor is it's over the tensions created over Ramaswamy's H1B Visa comments. Most of the reports use terms like friction or tensions over firing but basically he was canned.

Vivek changed course, for reasons we are not privy to, to run for Governor of the State of Ohio.

That is not what Grok search on X tells you at all. No mention of that actually. The more I use Grok over Google for searches the more impressed I am with Grok.

[Bill Ryan]

In his Signal Hour news update video yesterday Chris Martenson showcased that this is just one of the DOGE team's super-smart young geniuses who have been using AI tools to reveal USAID's criminality. And the Woke Left have doxxed him and his parents and want him dead. (Literally.)

But watch this 3 minute video. This young guy, Luke Farritor, is a hope for humanity. Before his work for DOGE, he shared the Vesuvius prize for discovering the very first readable word from a blackened, rock-solid 2000 year old charred scroll that looks like a hunk of charcoal.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zpflT8XuSyg

[shaberon]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Before his work for DOGE, he shared the Vesuvius prize for discovering the very first readable word from a blackened, rock-solid 2000 year old charred scroll that looks like a hunk of charcoal.

What he found was:

ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑϹ, “purple”

Herculaneum was an Epicurean site, whose library was mostly ruined by ash from Vesuvius, and so this is rather extraordinary from the view of physical science. Not bad for a non-graduate.

[norman]

I want to believe this is documentary, not P.R.

It tells the public what they want to see, whichever is the case.







https://t.me/followsthewhiterabbit/105703

[Satori]

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Satori (here)

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

He was too controversial and they quitely fired him. That's what I heard. He and Musk agreed for mutual reasons to part ways and rumor is it's over the tensions created over Ramaswamy's H1B Visa comments. Most of the reports use terms like friction or tensions over firing but basically he was canned.

Vivek changed course, for reasons we are not privy to, to run for Governor of the State of Ohio.

That is not what Grok search on X tells you at all. No mention of that actually. The more I use Grok over Google for searches the more impressed I am with Grok.

The New York Times has a recent article on how Vivek’s relationship with Trump may give him an edge in his race for governor of Ohio.

My original source for what I said is my wife. She’s usually correct.

[Ratszinger]

Posted by Satori (here)

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Satori (here)

Posted by Ratszinger (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An aside here. I've not heard a thing about Vivek recently. He was appointed to be partnering with Elon in the DOGE initiative.

Did I miss something? Does anyone have an update?

He was too controversial and they quitely fired him. That's what I heard. He and Musk agreed for mutual reasons to part ways and rumor is it's over the tensions created over Ramaswamy's H1B Visa comments. Most of the reports use terms like friction or tensions over firing but basically he was canned.

Vivek changed course, for reasons we are not privy to, to run for Governor of the State of Ohio.

That is not what Grok search on X tells you at all. No mention of that actually. The more I use Grok over Google for searches the more impressed I am with Grok.

The New York Times has a recent article on how Vivek’s relationship with Trump may give him an edge in his race for governor of Ohio.

My original source for what I said is my wife. She’s usually correct.

I don't disagree with that sentiment. People may vote for him just because they dislike Trump and Musk or just Musk so yeah I can see that. The enemy of my enemy is my friend kinda thing.

[bojancan]

For some times on... I am listening this young man... Chris Norlund...
Interesting talk...
Satori, please do not tell me I am against US... I am pro humanity!!!
Everyone who SEE People First... I am for it... I hope RFKj will do the job!


Elon Musk DOGE tech bros flawed AI solutions

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KcQApDn6wwo

First Comment: "Why isn’t anyone addressing the fact that Musk is the biggest welfare recipient in America? Can we get a segment on that?"

With my permission on my post... I removed second video... because of picture..

[jaybee]

*
*

meanwhile - a little trip to the National Education Association and then The Department of Education - after Trump announces changes to education....

1:50..... ALL THE THINGS - WE MUST WIN ALL THE THINGS - ALL THE THINGS

then later on Maxine Waters attempting to enter the Dept. of Education - but prevented by a very calm man -


Maxine Waters Trying to BREAK INTO the Department of Education (9:03)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MzNNy1CbSU8