Day: February 21, 2025

Cracking Down On Social Security Fraud

By now almost everyone knows that Elmo and his band of thugs in DOGE are taking on ‘saving’ the taxpayers money by gutting government.

Recently they were given access to people’s Social Security information, confidential information, in an attempt to head off the millions of dead getting money.

Let’s look at all that imagined fraud.

The Trump administration is falsely claiming that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments, the AP reports. Over the past few days, President Trump and Elon Musk have said on social media and in press briefings that people who are 100, 200, and even 300 years old are improperly getting benefits—a “HUGE problem,” Musk wrote. It is true that improper payments have been made, including some to dead people. But the numbers thrown out by Musk and the White House are overstated and misrepresent Social Security data.

  • What has the Trump administration said about payments to centenarians? On Tuesday, Trump said that “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” receiving Social Security benefits. He said Social Security would be “very powerful” if those people were removed from the system.
  • So are tens of millions of people over 100 years old receiving benefits? No. Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. Reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits. A 2023 report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” As of 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.
  • How big of a problem is Social Security fraud? A 2024 report from Social Security’s inspector general states that from fiscal 2015 through 2022, the agency paid out almost $8.6 trillion in benefits, including $71.8 billion—or less than 1%—in improper payments, mostly overpayments to living people. In early January, the US Treasury clawed back more than $31 million in federal payments—not just Social Security payments—that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that former Treasury official David Lebryk said was “just the tip of the iceberg.” The Treasury estimated that it would recover $215 million over three years.

The fraud in the Social Security system is a typical lie of the GOP….a few years ago it was the welfare system that was the target and that turned out to be ma fucking lie but yet they keep telling it year after year and yet there are some Americans that repeat this lie every chance they get

DOGE is a massive scam….

Even if you believe that Musk is trying to root out waste and fraud (and you really shouldn’t), he and his dweeby hatchet bros are only making things more corrupt and expensive.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/doge-results-government-waste-scam/

Even with information to contrary there are some that want to believe these thugs are doing the right thing….they are not.

But not to worry these parasites will be coming for Medicare soon.  (Post to follow)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will US Become An Oligarchy?

I recently read an interesting article on the The Conversation site……before I go into that let me define oligarchy for those that are fuzzy on just what it is…..

The political term, oligarchy, comes to English from the Greek with its meaning intact — a form of government run by a small number of people such as wealthy landowners, royalty or powerful military figures. If you say that you can’t fight the oligarchy, you mean the leaders of such a place. Sometimes the word refers to the few powerful people in charge of a large company or system. A financial oligarchy might try to block reform.

Keep that definition in the back of your mind…….

Now for the article I referred to in the beginning…..

In his farewell address, outgoing US President Joe Biden warned “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy”.

The comment suggests that, under Donald Trump’s second term as president, it will be billionaires rather than the people who shape public policy.

There is certainly some evidence Biden’s ominous caution should be taken seriously. The world’s richest man and the owner of X, Elon Musk, has been a vocal supporter of the Republican candidate. Other billionaire tech moguls to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago mansion after his 2024 election victory include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

There is nothing unusual about business leaders wanting the ear of an incoming president. What has concerned Biden and others is that so many of Trump’s influential backers also own media platforms and have the ability to sway public opinion.

Should these new tech titans be thought of as oligarchs?

https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-oligarchy-and-is-the-united-states-poised-to-become-one-247566

So will the US become an oligarchy?

It cannot become something it has always been.

From the very onset of this country it has been the ‘oligarchs’ that formed and run and continues to run this nation.

No?

Think about the definition.

… a form of government run by a small number of people such as wealthy landowners, royalty or powerful military figures.

If you have any history still rattling around your brain then you will see this is true for the ‘leaders’ of this country were the very people that the definition tells us.

What do these oligarchs want?

Bernie answers that probing question.

We we are living in an extremely dangerous time. Future generations will look back at this moment – what we do right now – and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism. They will remember whether we stood with President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg who in 1863, looking out at a battlefield where thousands died in the struggle against slavery and stated that; “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that a government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Do we stand with Lincoln’s vision of America or do we allow this country to move to a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires?

But it’s not just oligarchy that we should be concerned about, and the reality that the three richest people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society – 170 million people. It’s not just that the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider, and that we have more income and wealth inequality today than we’ve ever had.

It is also that we are looking at a rapid movement, under President Trump, toward authoritarianism. More and more power resting in fewer and fewer hands.

Right now, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is attempting to dismantle major agencies of the federal government which are designed to protect the needs of working families and the disadvantaged. These agencies were created by the U.S. Congress and it is Congress’ responsibility to maintain them, reform them or end them. It is not Mr. Musk’s responsibility. What Mr. Musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional – and must be stopped.

Two weeks ago, President Trump attempted to suspend all federal grants and loans – an outrageous and clearly unconstitutional act. As I hope every 6th grader in America knows, under the Constitution and our form of government the president can recommend legislation, he can support legislation, he can veto legislation, but he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding passed by Congress. It is Congress, the House and the Senate, who control the purse strings.

But it’s not just Congress that’s under attack. It’s our judiciary.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/12/what-the-oligarchs-really-want/

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Comment Apology

I regret that some visitors are having to give emails before they comment….this is a new thing….I have checked my settings and this is not what I have…..some visitors do not have to give their info while others do….I am so sorry for the trouble and I have contacted WP for an answer….and I wait….

I hope to have this glitch corrected soon….please bear with me because your comments are always important.

Please bear with me as I try to sort this out.

Thank you for your understanding and your time.

Finally A Cut In War Spending?

I have been bitching about the money thrown at the War5 Dept for decades….there should be less of it and more spent helping the Average family….

Finally that amateur SecDef has stated that there will be some cuts to his budget…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered Pentagon leaders to develop plans to make sweeping cuts to the Defense Department’s budget, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

According to a memo obtained by the Post, Hegseth’s order calls for an 8% cut to the Pentagon budget each year for five years. The Pentagon budget for 2025 is about $850 billion, and an 8% cut for five years would bring it down to roughly $560 billion, a reduction of $290 billion.

Hegseth wants the proposed cuts to be drawn up by February 24, and the memo included a list of 17 categories that would be exempt from the spending cuts.

The Post report said the exemptions include operations at the southern border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of submarines, one-way attack drones, and other munitions

(antiwar.com)

When I read the news I was impressed but that did not last very long….

Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert G. Salesses said in a statement on Wednesday night that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of Pentagon spending to realign spending to fund priorities of the Trump administration.

The statement from Salesses came after a report from The Washington Post said that Hegseth ordered a plan to cut Pentagon spending by 8% each year over the next five years. But according to the statement from Salesses, the idea is to redirect spending and not actually make cuts to the budget.

“Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” Salesses said.

“The Department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the Department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities,” he added.

On Thursday, Hegseth said that the Trump administration would be taking $50 billion away from “woke Biden-era non-lethal programs and instead spend that money on President Trump’s America First, peace through strength priorities.”

…

Salesses said spending priorities from the Trump administration include the “Iron Dome for America,” referring to an order from the president to establish a major new missile defense system, a project that would be a boon for the weapons makers and likely start a new arms race. Trump has also backed a budget plan drawn up by House Republicans that would increase military spending by $100 billion.

(antiwar.com)

This is becoming all too familiar Donny makes a statement or one of his lackeys and then someone has to ‘clarify’ what was meant.

This is a perfect example of why you should not take news reports at face value there is always something hiding in the meat of the discussion.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”