By Jo Nova
“DOGE can’t be stopped because it’s a very technical team.”
Trump and Elon Musk make a killer combination — One has business and politics, the other has wildly hi-tech science (and business skills too). For decades the Blob controlled science, captured it and strangled it to make it dependent. But they crippled their own teams so badly that one man came to achieve more than NASA. So it’s fitting that the same man came back to outflank the Blob’s technical defenses and leave them bare…
Joe Lonsdale, a tech venture capitalist who made his millions selling software to the Defence department, explains why Elon Musk and his tech expertise change everything this time. According to him, when Reagan tried to get answers from the bureaucracy, he’s didn’t have the technical help. They would ask questions but “there are so many ways of obscuring and to block these things. ” As Lonsdale describes it, “– no president has done this, ever. No President has ever had tech people around him.”
Lalonde: Elon got root access
They went to the systems… and they started finding things, like “oh my goodness” and these people who work for the agencies tried to confront them, “you can’t look at the systems” “you’re getting around all our ability to block this stuff… “We thought you’d never actually get to see this stuff”. They’re freaking out.
So it’s very transparent … they actually saw the payments, …the payments were going out to crazy s***. There were payments to people with the same social security numbers, payments to people with no social security numbers … to internews network which is training media all around the world how to have a certain point of view — it’s a very left point of view. There are payments to protestors…
The White House now has tech support.
The matrix is being reprogrammed to make success one of the possible outcome. They did not expect this.
K. Maru. https://t.co/7WctjBCKSU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025
Elon Musk tweets the ages of social security recipients in the USA. The simplest of tests. The most banal of cross checks, and yet there are about four million people who are 150 years old, and 2 people still collecting checks who predate the constitution.
And the attacks for finding massive waste keep coming: US Senator John Fetterman attacked Musk for Rummaging through our personal s***, and Elon replied, “Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal shit, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello???“
And where is the media? Apart from a few outlets most are reporting the legal feuds that are trying to block Trump and Musk.
The biggest exposé of government fraud, waste and corruption in history is unfolding…
Help, I’m already running out of popcorn and there’s 4 years to go!!
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Obummer and Bidum agree “Presidents Obama and Biden clearly love the work @DOGE is doing”
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1890817980289712613
and Clinton
“In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore took on a challenge that few politicians dared to confront: cutting the size of the federal government.”
https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1891551070121492965
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Yes, saw the video of those 2 announcing their cuts to the US public service over the weekend. Eventually Clinton and Gore’s program reduced the total of government workers by 400,000. Nothing in this world is unprecedented.
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395 million more people with social security numbers when there is only 335 million in the USA, no wounder they have trouble getting their kids thru math at school, the adults can not add or subtract!!
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/might-be-biggest-fraud-history
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People are really have fun with this!
“Damn George Washington is still drawing Social Security? 🙂
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1891615275784569072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1891615275784569072%7Ctwgr%5E372bbbd7c656a5f8807483a81493c7cc1252e68f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fbruh-musk-shuts-down-fetterman-over-deep-state-doge-disinfo
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In reference to the X RapidResponse47 video link, obviously Obama and Biden were just speaking empty rhetoric about cleaning up wanton government spending and fraud. The Internews Network budget doubled between 2016 and 2023, so even Trump either wasn’t fully aware of the increased funding or was unable to obtain evidence it was on the rise. Trump 2.0 was fully prepared, DOGE executed their USAID data raid with military precision.
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“DOGE executed their USAID data raid with military precision.”
Well done indeed. Now that USAID is no longer assisting many countries in the world China will step in to the vacancies so enthusiastically caused by Trump and Musk. In fact that has already happened with reporting coming out of Nepal, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, documenting directly that where USAID programs have ended that the People’s Republic of China has told these governments that it will step in and become the partner for these governments to continue that work. Perhaps Trump and Musk are not as clever as they believe
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Sorry to say there won’t be enough popcorn to see this out. LOL.
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Maybe they’ll stop turning it into ethanol.
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Department of Government Efficiency@DOGE
DOGE is looking for help from the general public!
Please DM insight for reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, along with any helpful insights or awesome ideas, to the relevant DOGE affiliates (found on the Affiliates tab). For example, @DOGE_USDA, @DOGE_SSA, etc.
We will add more affiliates over time.
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“Let’s Do It”: Rand Paul Supports Fort Knox Physical Audit After ZeroHedge Suggestion Goes Viral
One of the biggest questions over the past 50 years is whether the gold at Fort Knox, Kentucky is really there, or if it’s been plundered.
What we do know is that the last ‘audit’ of America’s gold stash was conducted on Sept. 23, 1974, when the US Treasury opened just one of its 15 vaults at Fort Knox so politicians and reporters could swarm the site for a two-hour photo-op with roughly 6% of the alleged amount held.
Adding to the complete farce, none of the bars being passed around for the cameras were matched to a serial number, assayed or tested for purity, or even verified as US holdings – as foreign countries have previously stored their gold at Fort Knox as well.
Since then there has been no independent verification of the roughly 4,580 metric tons supposedly held by the Treasury outside of bullshit annual ‘vault seal checks’ that don’t actually analyze the gold (oh, and they’ve ‘lost’ seven of those) – various efforts have been raised to audit Fort Knox – most recently in 2021, when Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced (now-dead) legislation to audit America’s gold holdings with a full assay, inventory, and audit of all US gold – which would include a full account of gold transactions undertaken by the US government.
In 2010, former Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul called for an independent audit of Fort Knox.
“It’d be nice for the American people to know whether or not the gold is there,” Paul said at the time.
Activate Agent Big Balls
With Elon Musk’s team at DOGE – including a gent who goes by the name “Big Balls” – investigating government-wide waste, fraud and abuse, we thought it might be helpful to point them towards Fort Knox.
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The last audit of Fort Knox was in 1948.
Since then, locks & seals are checked for integrity.
G.A.T.A. (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) has done much work here.
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A job for Sherlock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K3Nwdg9x3w
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On Monday, Elon Musk’s DOGE revealed the federal government didn’t trace $4.7 trillion in payments.
$4.7 trillion dollars in payments were left blank, making it nearly impossible to trace, DOGE said.
“The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process),” DOGE explained in a post on X.
“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible.
As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going. Thanks to US Treasury for the great work,” DOGE said.
The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process).
Musk’s DOGE has exposed trillions in waste in just the first few weeks of Trump’s second term.
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Of course the permanently TDS afflicted [now MDS afflicted] are screaming that Musk [personally, on a whim] will cut Granny from her social sec and medicare entitlements. How stoopid is that?
If he and Big Balz can cut a trillion from waste, why is there a need to trim welfare entitlements?
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Hysterical claims of the Far Left have a very poor record. Anyone going on a sailing holiday around the Arctic this summer?
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Flush with freedom: Trump’s appliance order wipes away decades of regulations
From mowers to dishwashers, new policy reverses decades of government control over household devices
This is a day I’ve been waiting for at least 20 years. With a stroke of the pen, President Trump has declared that you are now once again the king or queen of your castle.
No longer will the nanny state tell you what kind of car you can put in your garage. What kind of lawn mower, weed eater or sprinkler you can use on your lawn. What kind of light bulb you can put in your lamps. What kind of showerheads you can use or how much water pressure comes when you flush your bathroom toilet. What kind of stove or dishwasher or washing machine you can use in your kitchen or basement.
Mr. Trump has now overturned all these edicts, many of which were enacted under George W. Bush’s presidency and worsened under Presidents Obama and Biden.
Many of these green edicts came at the behest of environmentalists who hate when you use energy or water. Of course, the foolishness was that these edicts didn’t do anything to save water or energy.
Nothing is more frustrating than toilets having so little thrust when you flush that you have to flush twice. A shower lasted twice as long to get clean under the water statutes. Nothing was saved, and a lot of personal freedom was lost.
Mr. Bush started this green war on appliances in the name of saving the planet with the worst energy bill ever signed back in 2007. It regulates nearly everything that moves or is plugged in at your house. The Bushies said it would be good for you because you would save money on your appliances, whether you liked it or not.
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I think a lot of the new so-called environment legislation, such as the recent edict here that says we must use only interconnected smoke alarms, is motivated by a desire to create economic activity, but using the money in OUR bank accounts to do so.
The dark side of this, not discussed in the media, is the waste and waste that goes along with it as we’re forced to throw more and more, perfectly functional products into landfill. It’s like they don’t care about the environment as much as they claim …
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May not be as good as it sounds. Cali will maintain their regs, manufacturers will comply and that will be the device sold around the country.
If you have no mechanical interest, quit now, but the pulse carbys on brush cutters, chain saws etc cannot have adjustable jets in Cali, lest you tune your machine for power, not economy.
Maybe importers will buy stuff acceptable in the other 49.
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Loads of carbs for sale on ebay.
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A lot of these were not “laws” passed following debate in any legislative body of elected representitives and then signed into law by an elected executive. These were mostly administrative policy edicts.
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Yeah BUT manufacturers have adjusted their processes, inventories and tooling to build products which satisfy existing regulations. Unless there is serious competition FAT chance they will return to the old processes.
Hopefully bureaucrats will not have carte blanche to create new regulations
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If people want the old designs then the market will adjust. Left to its own devices, it does work well.
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Oh for a Musk here. Jacinta will have her work cut out looking into wastage in the Aboriginal Industry but that is only one small sector of our version of the blob. Albo has employed another 57000 public servants. What do they do? I have a mate whose son works from home and who moves his mouse occasionally just to prove he is “working”. He was preparing to interview another two applicants for similar jobs in the same underworked department. How many billions are wasted? Just scrapping climate agencies, mandates and subsidies could reduce electricity prices. 2GB is reporting that Bangladesh is growing coal plants faster than wind and solar and has power prices a quarter of ours. The NDIS would be another gold mine.
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Have you seen how many ‘alphabet’ agencies are attached to the electricity industry, just amazing.
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Enormous waste in the Education dept.
Just one small example from each: years ago, I was responsible for the Science dept budget for a high school. There wasn’t a lot of equipment needed and I had $1000 left to spend. Thinking I was being frugal with govt money, was told to spend it on or we wouldnt get the same amount the next year. I decided to buy a dishwasher as a lot of time was spent cleaning dirty equipment, most of the kids not doing a great job. It cost a $1000 from the official ed suppy dept. The local retail price was $500! Just one item, one school.
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The fundamental problem with Government from local right through to federal. Is the ONLY measure is how much money is spent. If we take local for example, there are potholes in your street. So you complain to your councilor (who promises to do ‘something’ about it) The ONlY they can do is, argue for more road maintainence money at the budget meeting. That money then becomes the reponsibility of the works manager. The works manager’s MAIN job is to make sure their budget is spent in full. Their proformance is not measure on how many potholes are fixed, it’s how much money they spend. Potholes getting fixed, is just a by-product of the overall system.
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I recall that Obama was said to have had the social security number of someone born an impossibly long time ago and born in the wrong place.
Of course, the “fact checkers” (sic) of the Left vehemently deny all of this which is all the more reason to believe it may be true.
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“He should have a Hawaiian Social Security number like his half-sister, Maya, starting with the numbers 575 or 576.”
It all goes with his fake ‘wife’ and fake children.
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Back when I was a “birther” [I’ve done a sensitivity course since] I spent some time searching for Big Mike’s [Oops, there I go again] pregnancy and nursing photos. Not a damn thing showed up.
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re the 0’s SSN
the claim is there was a zip code typo on his SSA application when a leading 0 was entered instead of 9.
Although, in his case, the 0 is appropriate – I would like to know how many, if any, such typos have occurred.
Surely someone would have noticed the mistake
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Please, Mr. Thump and Mr. Musk, come and sort Australia out.
Please.
Pretty please!
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Start in Qld, it’s a shorter flight.
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Its only Oz, they could do it as a work from home side gig.
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When Elon is finished auditing the US Government can he and his team please come to Australia?
Australia does in fact have “auditor generals” (or equivalent name) federally and in the states but they don’t do true audits in the style of Musk, they just sign off on the information other public serpents hand to them. They don’t do anything useful, they themselves are just additional wasteful Government departments.
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David, somehow I think they will be extremely busy for most of the 4 years, maybe in Jan 2028.
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If “they” is DOGE, there is a sunset clause built in, Jun, 30. Not sure if that is ’26 or ’27.
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I once had the dubious pleasure of involvement in an Australian National Audit Office project.
Greater focus on “models” than accounts, depressing.
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Excellent work by Musk and his team, but now the question for Australia is, ‘Do we have any political leader who has the ambition and realistic ability to do the same here?’
Given that the Uniparty is still well in control, the answer is a sad, No!
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Yes. That would be no. No. And more nos.
To be fair, fake conservative Dutton has appointed Jacinta Price as spokesman for Government Efficiency. She has been seeking an account of where the $42 billion (2023) of taxpayer funds given to Aboriginal organisations actually goes but no one will give her answers.
But Dutton lacks moral clarity and is a fake conservative Uniparty fence sitter. If he does anything at all, it will be half hearted, nothing like the aggressive approach of Musk.
And Dutton is no TRUMP or even an Abbott.
Plus, I suspect Australia’s public “service” is much more powerful, secretive and corrupt than in the US plus we have numerous corrupt and traitorous Deep State politicians in the Uniparty.
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Dutton vivdly remembers how Abbott got knifed, and he’s sitting at the top of that pile of dung. It’s a fake, divided house that anyone with morals or a conservative fiber in their body trust at their own peril. Hear he distanced himself from a Trump-style gig and wants to follow the Howard example – heaven help us.
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Perhaps, but anybody considering putting their hand up would be well advised to first investigate if we too have an ‘USAID’ situation, such that illegal funding of all the leftist activity and propaganda could be cut off. If that could be done here, he/she would have a chance of turning things around.
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Grants to the Yartz and the social sciences. Grants or contracts for “public art” aka hideous sculptures.
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When in 2009 Tony Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader, the ALP in government, with Shorten and Swan prominent, adopted the policy of forget policy altogether, just bag the man and make him unelectable.
This did not immediately gain traction. But for Clive Palmer’s piracy Abbott would have won a landslide majority at the 2013 election which would have allowed him to do what Trump is doing now.
THat piracy marked the turning point for the “identity politics”. But Tony Abbott ignored it, and made no defence against it.
I was getting so worried by this that about Australia Day 2015 I got in the car, drove three hours to Penrith, caught a train to Circular Quay and a ferry to Manly to hand deliver to Tony Abbott’s remarkably Spartan office a letter pleading with him to mount a defence against the personal vilification.
I never saw any sign that anybody read that letter. In just a few months he was out of the job.
The ALP then continued to apply that policy to get rid of Tony Abbott twice, Campbell Newman, Scott Morrison, and are now unabashedly piling it on to Peter Dutton.
If Peter Dutton doesn’t attack that vilification, he will join that list.
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In the last couple of days I saw Clare O’Neil playing Pooh-Bah on Sky (where was everybody else?) and not making a bad fist of it either, until she almost forgot the play book and hastily added the obligatory abuse of Dutton.
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“Play the ball, not the man”. This aphorism applies to sport but can also be applied to politics.
Politicians such as Big Wind Bowen put more energy into crafting the art of ridicule rather than educating themselves on the practical aspects of their portfolio.
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Politicians are a dime a doz. What is MUCH harder to find is a Musk.
Unlike Musk any auditor rings to make an appointment, knocks on the front door and is escorted around and allowed entry to approved rooms.
I am in awe of Elon’s whizkids who came up the service elevator straight into the heart of the beast and could search the original databases with their own enquiries, not those available via official menus.
At least that’s how I think it happened. 🙂
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Not my experience with Auditors. The external big name Auditors where usually quite superficial and lightweight. Our internal Auditors had unfettered access, knew the business and knew the systems. There was no hiding stuff from them.
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OTOH the external auditors sometimes offer opinions on the value of the internal audit department
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I just hope more of the US population start to understand what the Musk team are finding and hopefully start to think for a change.
Trumps new very strong WH Press Secretary is starting to conquer the press room briefings every day and hopefully there should be even more support in Congress from now on.
The activist judges are trying to throw a bag full of spanners into the works, but more light should scatter these parasites and the worst of the Demorats liars and con artists.
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Yes, it’s wonderful to see a WH Press Secretary who is a merit hire and who knows her stuff and doesn’t constantly have to refer to a thick pile of notes like the previous DEI hire.
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Elon’s work has caused the spawning of a new psychiatric condition among Leftists called Elon (or Musk) Derangement Syndrome to complement TRUMP Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/democrats-are-succumbing-to-elon-derangement-syndrome-ted-cruz
A book has already been written about TDS.
Trump Derangement Syndrome: A Psychological Analysis of Leftist Ideology by Rachel Morin and Thomas Pappas
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Elon calls it “ElonGate”.
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Musk has a mammoth job combating and exposing “the swamp”. This could take many years surely? Unless judges, in particular, are prevented from muddyng the waters?
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Here We Go: ‘Lawfare & Disorder TRO’ Comes to SCOTUS
Democrats desperate to slow down Donald Trump’s demolition of the bureaucratic state have launched a new version of lawfare, forcing Trump into court at every step.
Trump appears to have learned from years of experience in Democrat lawfare, however, and is choosing the timing of his battles well.
The first case that Trump has taken to the Supreme Court offers him a good chance of success — and perhaps a precedent-setting decision that will moot many of the other challenges in the pipeline.
Trump removed the existing head of the Office of Special Counsel immediately on taking office, prompting a lawsuit to reverse Trump’s actions. Oddly, the district court agreed and issued a TRO putting Hampton Dellinger back on the job, and the DC CIrcuit Court of Appeals declined to intervene.
That allowed the White House to petition the Supreme Court:
The Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let it fire the head of an independent watchdog agency that investigates federal workers’ whistleblower reports.
Why it matters: The case concerning the removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel is the first of what’s expected to be several appeals to the high court since President Trump regained office and moved to fire government workers in a federal workforce overhaul. …
Driving the news: Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said in the filing that a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking Dellinger’s dismissal, which the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit late Saturday declined to overrule, marks an “unprecedented assault on the separation of powers.”
Harris added: “This court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will.”
As a test case for the DOGE-driven deconstruction of the bureaucratic state, Trump couldn’t have asked for a better set-up.
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The numbers of incredibly elderly people in the US is indicative of a problem that CAN be fixed.
Have a computer identify anyone over 130 years. Check the social security number, (SSN), if the issue sequence for the SSN is consistent with the age, then send a letter to the registered address of the recipient. If no response within 10 days, then amend the SSN to indicate that the person is no longer alive. And of course cancel all funds that may be going to that person. If the SSN does not align with the age then cancel the SSN. Anyone unfairly caught out by this will quickly contact the authorities.
Where funds WERE going to a person who has not responded or is false, follow the money. If it was paid into a bank account, then audit the account. Identify the benefactor and commence criminal proceedings to recover the funds and also to put an end to the process.
When the computer has finished the 130+ group, drop another ten years and keep going till the age and the SSN’s issue sequence(s) align.
A computer could collate this data in less than a day. This should be underway already.
As a bonus. I hope Oz is doing an audit like this on our systems every month as part of a regular fraud elimination process.
If not, why not?
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“Death field set to false” means the number is still active, according to the system.
His chart showed more than 20 million over 100 years old “including more than 3.9 million in the 130-139 age range, more than 3.5 million in the 140-149 range and more than 1.3 million in the 150-159 range.” Not to mention the couple of folks who must be the original vampires who are between 240 and 369 years old.
Musk also noted how there were unresolved inconsistencies between the Social Security and Treasury files.
“The logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks INSANE. No one person actually knows how it works. The payment files that move between Social Security and Treasury have significant inconsistencies that are not reconciled. It’s wild,” Musk declared in a post on X.
In another post, Musk said “there are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history.”
The fact that the numbers are active in regard to people who can’t be alive doesn’t necessarily mean that money is going out to them. Musk seems to be implying at least some of it is, as he talks about “vampires collecting Social Security.” But it does mean that the numbers are active, and for more people than are in the U.S.
So that means there’s a big problem in the system, with these numbers theoretically still active.
Elon pointed out how this was discovered some time ago, but then nothing was done about it.
on Musk@elonmusk
What’s super weird is that the @USGAO pointed out years ago that millions of dead people were tagged as alive by Social Security, but nothing was done!
So they obviously need to work through that and all the numbers and find out who’s doing what, in order to stop/prevent fraud. But this is pretty crazy that it’s in this state. This is why Democrats look so silly when they protest DOGE — because there is so much to clean up.
No wonder the Democrats are so out of touch with the American people, because this is exactly the kind of thing that infuriates us all.
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Stephen Miller Exposes Foreign Fraud Rings: Foreign Nationals Use Fake SSNs to Steal Billions in Taxpayer Benefits Through IRS — Full Scope Unknown Until DOGE Accesses Records
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller has sounded the alarm on a massive foreign fraud operation that has siphoned off billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded benefits through the IRS.
Speaking with Fox News, Miller detailed how foreign nationals, using fraudulent Social Security numbers and fake identities, have infiltrated the American tax system to extract untold sums from hardworking Americans.
With the Department of Government Oversight and Enforcement (DOGE) on the verge of gaining full access to IRS records, Miller predicts that what they uncover could expose one of the largest financial scams in U.S. history.
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Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN) said the Democrats are terrified of Elon Musk and DOGE because there is a “paper trail” of money that went overseas and right back into their pockets.
“You’re going to see a paper trail come back to Washington, DC. That’s why a lot of people are nervous. You’ll see a lot of retirements. They are stealing from the American taxpayer and now they’ve got their hand caught in the cookie jar, and all they can do is attack Elon Musk,” Burchett said on Fox News.
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US citizens resident out side the USA, are required to file social security form 7162 on a regular basis (annually or bi-annually) if they are receiving payments.
Perhaps all persons over 70 years of age receiving USA social security payments should file a similar form? Would confirm addresses if nothing else…..
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“then send a letter to the registered address of the recipient. If no response within 10 days”
A better idea: first stop any payments going to the over-100 cohort. Then send the letter … no need to wait as legit recipients will be on the doorstep the day after non-receipt…
Hopefully false positives will not lead to the suicides that doomed the Australian Robodebt …
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We’ve had these public service audits and cuts before, even in Australia. Malcolm Fraser in his government had the Razor gang which the media called the “Frazor” gang. The beauty of the DOGE process is that it’s so analytical but also that staff within those departments are told to stay home ( or sacked) and so are not hindering the process. So wish we could do this in Australia, but I think the bureaucracy run the government and would just block any efforts.
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I think TRUMP can also save a lot of money by getting out of NATO.
Europeans haven’t been paying their way for decades.
And, Canada and Western Europe have decided they no longer want to be part of Western Civilisation as they have invited in millions of military age males who are fanatical followers of the seventh century warlord.
There is almost nothing left worth defending in Europe in its present occupied state.
The only issue is for TRUMP to retrieve the nuclear weapons from the UK and France so the enemies of the West don’t get them and use them against us.
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And the UN. It’s not just the IPCC and the WHO, but endless committees. They even pay to host the UN. You just wonder how much vanishes into keeping the 40,000 full time employees and 40,000 contractors in the UN. That’s a $5Bn cost.
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If the US exiting some of these unelected international organisations resulted in some Australians
starting to consider doing likewise, it would be a great thing.
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When you reward fraud it increases . Watch what happens when you penalise it…..Accountability might be on its way back . Due to the large numbers and spread of the fraud AI’s will be required to track it all down . The numbers are staggering and will probably change the financial landscape . Big balls indeed.
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A huge target for waste and fr@ud investigation in Australia is Australia’s biggest scam outside of “renewables” and that is the NDIS.
A substantial amount of payments are either fr@udulent or massively overcharged.
Why is Dutton mostly silent about this?
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‘Fraud all over the place’: Taxi giant’s former integrity insider blows whistle on rampant rip-offs
Taxi giant A2B had no interest in effectively tackling the rampant fraud inflicted on customers and passengers using its products around the country, say former anti-fraud officers at the company.
Subscriber only link. Paywalled. Highlights:
“The fraud is all over the place and is all over Australia,” …victims were often state and federal government agencies that subsidised Cabcharge and taxi fares for disabled and aged Australians.
“You have [A2B’s] Cabcharge products from 75-year-old people who are bed-ridden in Queensland being traded among drivers in Melbourne who are charging them for four-hour rides they could never have taken.”
Taxileaks files detail systematic fraud by drivers enabled by gaping holes in the products and payment systems supplied by A2B. The Australian taxi giant not only owns the biggest cab brands in the nation but supplies the bulk of the country’s taxi payment terminals.
[edit for copyright. – LVA]
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NDIS is #1 on the scam hit list, social security would have to be #2, we need a low level recon mission to look into all of this.
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Another QUANGO?
Oz needs its own “Big balls”.
Root access indeed.
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Ex CA here with two test tickles. I would love to have a go at auditing the Feral and State/Territory Guv’ments.
My commission will be 1% of the total dollars of waste and corruption that I uncover.
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Plus the two huge scams called climate change and indigenous affairs. Just those four expenditures would amount to HUGE spending, probably more than enough to balance the books.
And don’t stop there.
CSIRO?
Public education?
Public hospitals and health care?
Defence?
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Universities and grants.
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Thanks Jo. An incredible narrative of the systematic unravelling of fraud/grift throughout USA institutions. US$ recovered will go a long way to reducing debt & ultimately the tax burden on US citizens. I would suspect that this dismantling of US govt in efficiency & the benefits thereby, has to have a top down flow effect on western world democracies. Perhaps as small incremental rumblings at first, but ultimately as systematic review as further pressure emanates from successive institutional change in the USA during the 2nd Trump POTUS term.
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I watched this last night. It’s about how the Blob manipulates the people. Edward L Bernays was the mastermind behind the psychological games that are used in things the Covid and Climate scams. Fascinating.
https://youtu.be/DnPmg0R1M04
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Wonder how fast they can produce 4,500 tons of fake gold bars before Elon pays a visit…
The USA is broke and has been for decades.
Exposing it won’t fix it which is why the inevitable is coming.
Come in USA, your time is up.
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Only the Guv’ment is broke. Big Business isn’t.
Just Default and start again with a better Guv’ment System. Trump and Musk can set that up.
Now, as for Australia…………………….
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Under the right leadership, such as with TRUMP, the USA will return to a free society, economically and socially, and they can recover from whatever economic situation they find themselves in. And the USA will find more gas, oil and coal and become an energy superpower as well, way surpassing the Arab countries and strengthening the Greenback.
Aa for the rest of the West, we will continue to be enslaved by the Left and then the followers of the seventh century warlord.
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5% of the people receiving benefits, 15 million people are over 110 years old.
I could imagine a few data errors, but 5% of the population is not possible.
I wonder how many duplicates there are?
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That’s one in 20 people in the data base born before 1915. Most in the 1800s. Surely someone noticed?
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People even noticed that Obama’s SSN was plainly not issued for somebody living in Hawaii.
Then nothing happens because it is in someone’s interest for nothing to happen.
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Maybe the people did notice and decided to become the recipients of the taxpayer’s largesse. Then they hoped that no one else would notice and until now, no one did.
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It is of course possible to have a SSN but not be drawing benefits.
But the list of dead people drawing benefits will undoubtedly be of great interest.
Possibly an even richer vein of gold will be tracing the payments from treasury which went out without a Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) which is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process).
My suspicious mind says that much effort has gone into making payments as untraceable as possible by having the money pass through a labyrinth of accounts.
$4.7T
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I saw a Facebook post earlier today where someone was claiming the 150 years of age thing was due
to Soc. Sec. being in Cobol. Anyone know anything about that?
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I assume that’s the old Y2K story. Even if it is all in COBOL, the world moved on thirty years ago. This is data.
The corruption in the data is extraordinary. Plus duplicates, zero, illegal/illogical/bad data. And this is an age related benefit where at least 1 in 20 records indicates payment should not be made.
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Some of it will be but only a small number. Other errors are due to missing information having been coded with impossible values.
But that will be a very small fragment as will the people cashing cheques because they forgot to tell the authorities to stop sending them.
The real question is where the money ended up. As always if you want the truth then follow the money. Then keep an ear out for those screaming the loudest.
Interest in countries without US extradition treaties will never have been higher.
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COBOL was created in 1959. Some 80% + ATM transactions depend on it. As do Banking transactions. Some 800 Billion lines of code are in current use.
It is a Procedural language, wherein the programmer tells the computer Step by Step what to do. A Python program can do in 10 steps what Cobol can do in 25 steps. COBOL cannot do multiplication or division. It is an accounting program. No relational data capability. Companions are WATBOL, WATFOR, and SNOBOL, ALGOL. Overtaken by APL, PL1, Visual Basic, etc.
Mostly those who know COBOL are 50+ yrs age. It is an antiquated language, embedded in all sorts of govt data handling. Almost nobody teaches it.
See: https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/technology/programming/what-is-cobol-and-who-still-uses-it
You’d be surprised at how much of YOUR life depends upon COBOL. Bank/ATM transactions, retirement payments, medical payments, etc.
Converting a Legacy COBOL data system to something like Python or SQL or whatever is a decades long process, with precious few who understand it.
This is a Trillion dollar process, with worldwide catastrophic ramifications if it isn’t done properly. Doing it wrongly can stop Super payments, freeze credit cards, stop ATMs, halt online banking, end ETF payments, etc. That’s why few people want to poke the Bear.
I started out in Assembly language for the 8086 microprocessor and Machine Code, so I’m definitely a crocodile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages
Nothing is permanent, but COBOL is pretty close. Because it was early on and embedded in Govt systems.
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“COBOL cannot do multiplication or division. It is an accounting program. No relational data capability.”
I wrote many COBOL programs for IBM Mainframes. COBOL has no problem doing multiplication or division using the MULTIPLY, DIVIDE OR COMPUTE statements as these functions are required in most Accounting Programs. Also, IBM Mainframe COBOL can execute SQL statements on IBM’s DB2 database (DB2 is a SQL based relational database) to retrieve and write data. A very large portion of those legacy COBOL programs run on IBM mainframes.
COBOL does have its limitations and I agree that these programs need to be converted to a more modern language, but COBOL might be a bit more functional than you think it is.
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1973
Bank audit of certificates of deposit (ie compound interest) COBOL program written for the audit department (by an experienced FORTRAN programmer)
Outcome: full audit by outside accounting firm
A bit later a couple of COBOL programs which IT were reluctant to tackle.
COBOL is not that obscure
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“COBOL is not that obscure”
Like any language, when used for the type of problems it was designed for, it performs very well. COBOL was designed for batch (offline) processing of very large datasets. IBM made it work in their (online) CICS (Customer Information Control System) programs but it was not really designed for that type of processing. When it comes to Internet processing, it really is like trying to put a square peg in a round whole; you can make it work, but its not the most elegant or efficient solution.
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Correct. In later versions. https://www.mainframestechhelp.com/tutorials/cobol/arithmetic-statements.htm
But. DB2 didn’t exist until 1993. Some 34 yrs after COBOL was created. “IBM Db2 database for LUW”.
https://www.ibm.com/products/blog/the-hidden-history-of-db2
I took 1 course in COBOL in 1975. At that time, COBOL was pretty incapable of more than simple accounting.
Most of early COBOL was already embedded in govt systems by 1975.
I thought the World changed when the WatFIV FORTRAN compiler was released on our center in 1977. Finally no more “compile error 1037xx” that left you to look up the possible error in a dictionary, then sort out the actual error, but “Termination midprogram line 387, expecting comma , found period.”
Lots of things change. But they didn’t change when a whole lot of code was written previously.
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“I took 1 course in COBOL in 1975. At that time, COBOL was pretty incapable of more than simple accounting.”
I took IBM COBOL in 1971 and it had most of the functionality then that it has now including MULTIPLY, DIVIDE and COMPUTE. It couldn’t access DB2 then because, as you rightly point out, it didn’t exist then. It could, however, access IMS (Information Management System) which is a hierarchal database, a forerunner of the more functional relational database. IBM COBOL gave you a nice list in excruciating detail of your errors, especially if you forgot the periods at the end of the statements (kind of like forgetting the semicolon at the end of a C statement)
I spent the last 20 years of my career trying to convince management to convert their COBOL programs to a more modern language, but to no avail. They always said it would cost too much, never seeming to realize that the longer they waited, the more it would cost (sigh). I would guess that most companies that still have a lot of COBOL program had a similar rational for keeping them.
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I would like to jump in here re: Hi-tech science nerds.
I am relying on memory from 50 years ago.
My understanding is that COBOL was used by the old State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) on an IBM mainframe for accounts.
I believe they also used FORTRAN.
They employed some very smart people who would be in their 70’s or 80’s now. One such person was JM.
He could program in both languages among others, who remembers BASIC?
If he reads this, he will know who I am referring to.
Microsoft products were starting to get traction with Word, Excel and Db.
I was a user of computers, not a programmer but JM was phenomenal in his understanding of computers and programming languages.
He built one of the early kit computers, I think it was based on the 8008 chip.
The SECV decided to use Dataflex. It could sort by multiple fields (I think up to 4) whereas Db could only sort one field at a time.
JM was puzzled as to how Dataflex worked so disappeared for a few days and returned with page after page of foolscap with columns of 1’s and 0’s with loop arrows which, to me, meant nothing though I understood what he had done.
He has essentially decompiled the program and announced with a big smile – I know how it works now because that is what the developers created. He went on to be the premiere Dataflex wizard in the company.
Another drawback was that if you wanted to insert a new field into your database you had to go back to the code and create the new field in the correct place and recompile it, a somewhat tedious process.
One day JM pulled a 3.5” diskette from his pocket and said, look at this. If a client wants to modify their database, I just insert the disc and bingo create the new field.
A very smart man who I think could be of use to DOGE in the USA or Australia if he was so inclined.
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I knew people like JM so I appreciate that story. My first experience with BASIC was on an APPLE I computer; it was just a motherboard so you had to supply the power supply, keyboard and monitor. The later APPLE II computer (Apple’s first large selling computer and my second computer) used essentially the same BASIC as the APPLE I. Microsoft also supplied a version of BASIC for the APPLE II called Applesoft BASIC. It was more functional than the the Apple supplied BASIC in ROM (written by Steve Wozniak), but it was also more buggy. BASIC still survives as a modern language in the form of Visual Basic .NET. It is not as popular as C# .NET but it is just as functional as C# and a very nice modern adaptation of BASIC.
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Old Cobol Programmer here as well.
Completely agree with RicDre. Cobol does maths, it uses databases. Dont mistake 1970’s cobol (which used file systems) with the COBOL in use now.
I have also seen comments where it says that COBOL cant do dates properly (misunderstood Y2K thing I assume) and that it defaults all DOB in the SS system to some date in 1875 if it is not entered.
WTAF. People are deluded if they think that the social security system allows active users with a default DOB. I was also wondering about why there was no check on entering dates outside acceptable limits, particularly for DOB. There could be any number of failures in the validation when SS details are entered or updated.
I think Elon is onto something here. If he can ascertain how those dodgy DOB’s got into the system, he will be getting a handle on the type of corruption and who did it. Was it the coding, was it the entering of dates that the system allowed, who authorised those ridiculous business rules etc etc, how long ago was it last updated (that is one I particularly want to know).
00
So are cockroaches and flour beetles.
And Keef, of course.
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On COBOL and Dates, IBM COBOL could not process dates directly as it did not have a date format, but that problem was usually handled by a call to an ASSEMBLER routine to do date math (add and subtract dates). The YTK problem was not caused by COBOL, but because programmers usually stored their dates with a 2-digit year (00 to 99) instead of four digits (1900 to 1999) to save storage space as it was very expensive on a mainframe. The fix was to either: 1) change all of the year parts of the date fields on your data storage from 2 to 4 digits [an expensive and time consuming option] or 2) change the programs to treat dates with a year of 00 to 49 as being in the twenty-first century and those with a year of 50 to 99 as being in the twentieth century [a much easier and cheaper fix]. Those that chose option 2) and still have their COBOL programs are going to have a YTK like problem 25 years from now.
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Nothing wrong with Cobol.
The problem is that the source code gets lost/misplaced/overwritten etc.
Hence the load code cannot be altered.
If it works- why change it?
Cobol subroutines are common on large mainframe systems.
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“If it works- why change it?”
Because if the source code is lost, it can’t be updated when necessary and even if you have the source code, very few people are around who know COBOL or want to learn it. Also, compared to modern languages, COBOL does very little to make coding a problem easier.
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Why keep COBOL?
The answer is very straightforward. Exception logic. Over, say, 50 years, rules change, regulations change, business needs change. However, the old rules often are “grandfathered” in, requiring two separate logic paths. And this may have occurred a dozen times in 50 years.
So to convert this to a more modern language, you will have to mirror all this “obsolete but necessary” code. Hard? You bet. But converting the code is the easy part. TESTING is the nightmare. Every bit of all those old “used to be used, but “now only by 3 people” is the frightening thing. Someone has to know that logic was there so it can be tested. And virtually all COBOL programs nowadays are truly “Mission Critical”, i.e. they fail, the business fails.
The existing code has been running for years, it has been debugged over the years. Any bets on the new systems?
20
For those who missed it, the K Maru reference in Musk’s tweet refers to the Kobayashi Maru test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1ah6MOorg
It’s a no-win scenario. However, one Starfleet cadet did defeat the no-win test by reprogramming the scenario that allowed the Enterprise to rescue the fuel carrier. His name was James Tiberius Kirk.
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K Maru was an impossible situation, solved by “cheating”. The COBOL situation cannot be solved by cheating. Only solved by a long term plan and diligence.There is no short term fix, except by integrating “more COBOL” to error trap the actual logical failures in the current data systems. After that action, there can be a long term conversion to a more modern language. But that is an enormous task that few to none wish to engage.
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Umm, the “cheating” was performed by reprogramming the test. I doubt that COBOL (one of the uglier languages ever created) was used by Capt. Kirk, but the analogy holds. The IRS situation will need to be fixed using some sort of reprogramming. Having worked with many languages and database systems, my gut feel is that the solution won’t involve fixing the old code, but it will be to translate what data they have into something maintainable. The problem isn’t so much error trapping, but corrupt data. It’s amazing what you can do these days along those lines. But if they have to, I’m sure there are IBM360 emulators out there that could run the old code. A 10 year old Dell laptop should be plenty powerful enough.
10
It has quite a bit of stiff competition.
In its favour, it’s about the same vintage as FRTRAN, which is even uglier.
On the subject of excuses, I don’t know what Guido was thinking when he made indentation levels matter.
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Actually, there is a 4341 emulator running an early version of MVS Operating System. No CICS but some old geezers have written a clone of it. It’s PD due to a quirk of US copyright law. TSO is extra (not free, but not expensive).
https://hercules-390.github.io/html/
For a start. (Yes I have a MVS emulator set up on a Win 7 Box (a NUC computer). It really, really works.).
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Like the condoms to Gaza claim and the stolen election bs, a cursory investigation into this assertion of 150+ year olds is , again, made without evidence. But hey, it’s true if you want to believe it .
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Likewise, it’s a lie if you want it to be, even without evidence.
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Yes, I just said that ??
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Yes, there may other explanations.
But the data needed (needs) to be CLEANED and verified.
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Careful there, next thing people will be asking sceptics for evidence against AGW .
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Uh, I personally am asked this almost weekly.
And it’s easy to provide.
There’s lots.
The A part is the main problem.
(Although I do have a passing concern with proving a negative. But no one can prove that Trump is NOT Russian agent, or an alien.)
From the magical interspace:
“There have been at least five major ice ages in Earth’s history, with the most recent one starting about 2.6 million years ago and still ongoing today. This current ice age is known as the Late Cenozoic Ice Age, which includes the Quaternary glaciation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation
But I think this last one was the first one that had anthros, although the previous ones melted with out anthros, this time it’s obviously people’s fault.
Of course, a mile high sheet of ice over New York and Canada would solve some persistent political problems.
I myself however, will use all my will power to live flatulence free until this Laurentide Utopia returns and our glacial future is secure.
And a vaccine is developed to solve the anthro part in a final sort of way.
The anthropogenic Earth era must be ended anthropogenically so that a natural Earth may be restored.
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My understanding is that all the analysis data is available. Of course not the original data as that is private.
So you are suggesting everyone is lying. Of course. But it’s a very odd sort of lie which advantages no one.
I just cannot understand your suggestion that anyone is motivated to tell lies of this sort.
All that is claimed so far is massive incompetence. And you are skeptical?
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Musk disingenuously posts data that clearly can’t be true ( ie , a lie ) and claims it as fraud.
Is this the best‘ evidence ‘ his kids can find ?.
07
Chuck Schumer just posted the correct table of the ages of US Social Security members to show how wrong Elon is … oh wait… No!
Instead Democrats just change the topic, and hope their fans don’t notice they don’t have the correct data, because they never wanted to know it, and didn’t want the system to work. Indeed, they depended on crime, corruption, graft and grift, and it wasn’t a bug, it was part of the plan.
After four years in government where he didn’t care less about whistleblowers suddenly Schumer launched a new whistleblower portal to report on Donald Trumps program. Clearly he’s hoping someone will give him ideas.
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So, nothing about Musk’s lies
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What lies? You haven’t listed any?
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Gaza Mozambique…………..see we can all play the game
00
I wonder how many of those listed >100 in age voted in the prior USA election??
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About 23,000 of the dead ones are on the voter roll in my state of Michigan, and our Secretary of State refuses to remove them from the list. She’s a Democrat.
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Musk also needs to look at the voter registration records.
These are probably even more defective than the SSNs.
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“voter registration records”
Voting is a state thing in the USA. I doubt folks from the federal government have any right to investigate. Some states do better than others, and there should be investigations and improvements. At the moment, the ones that need improvement are doing all they can to impede the Trump administration.
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX Teams Up with FAA to Push for Safer, Modernized Air Traffic System
SpaceX personnel met with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Monday to discuss potential improvements in safety protocols following recent plane crashes.
The meeting is part of an ongoing effort to enhance aviation standards and ensure that SpaceX’s operations comply with the highest safety regulations. The discussions are expected to focus on identifying key areas where procedures can be strengthened to prevent further incidents.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy recently welcomed a team from SpaceX to the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seeks input from Elon Musk’s company on creating “a new, better, modern, and safer system” for air traffic management. In a social media statement, Duffy stressed that President Donald Trump deserves assurance of safe travel from point A to point B, committing to revamp the industry to enhance safety standards.
[SNIP]
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I think still pegged as the largest ever IT system project failure was the FAA Advanced Automation System: https://www.baselinemag.com/leadership-strategy/The-Ugly-History-of-Tool-Development-at-the-FAA/
The largest in the Southern Hemisphere was Queensland Health Payroll: http://www.healthpayrollinquiry.qld.gov.au/
I mean, the FAA problem was traced to being the lack of any provision for a paper/human based fail over, and the inability to get to 0 time between failure metrics. That was what I read about it anyway.
But payroll failure in 2013 – I mean. c’mon, payrolls were one of the 1st business functions to be computerised!
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Today I got several text messages that suggests those with Trump Derangement Syndrome are still clueless as to the importance of what DOGE and other Trump appointees are doing. Many are focused on something that triggers their personal interest. The legacy media can’t keep up and so neither can they grasp the full situation.
I note that Karoline Leavitt opened the press room to modern media. She is a star of communications just as Musk is of the audit stuff.
I do have a good supply of popcorn & beer.
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I think the lovely Karoline has introduced a strange concept in the White House press room – telling the truth.
30
Chelsea Clinton and DOGE.
(Copied from Farcebook.)
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Makes you wonder if all those aged 100 and over still vote. I recall they found somebody at 116 was still voting every year but don’t worry, the 2020 US election was the most secure ever.
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Actually, there is a 4341 emulator running an early version of MVS Operating System. No CICS but some old geezers have written a clone of it. It’s PD due to a quirk of US copyright law. TSO is extra (not free, but not expensive).
https://hercules-390.github.io/html/
For a start. (Yes I have a MVS emulator set up on a Win 7 Box (a NUC computer). It really, really works.).
10
You popcorn folks may need some more substantial snacks, as today may be just the opening act for DOGE.
1. President brings in some really talented coding types.
2. They gain access to the payment systems.
3. Reliable people are appointed as department heads and confirmed.
4……Well, in the cosplay that is American political entertainment, there is a thing called a “government shutdown”.’
It is, of course no such thing; it’s a legislative impasse and means that while the impasse holds the government can’t borrow money and
must pay bills from current receipts. Well, duh, if there is really a couple of trillion dollars of fraud, you could run the government on
a pretty healthy basis….if you had the power to manage the payment systems thus only pay expenses considered essential. In concrete terms, today’s revenues
would cover the 2020 government budget, bloated tho it might have been.
But how, one asks, could a president have enough control over disbursements to actually run all the necessary functions? You’d have to create a team of wizards with enough
AI to sort out what needs to be paid, and access to the treasury disbursement system. Hey gang, this sounds a lot like DOGE.
Since there is no question that in the event of a shutdown financial control migrates to the executive branch the current president may welcome a shutdown, and be perfectly fine running
the government. This presents a rather existential threat to congressional budgeting, if balance budget operation is actually demonstrated.
Can’t wait!
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What Musk is doing is exposing a system/culture where fraud can easily happen. Unscrambling the egg to prove it, in indiviual cases will be a task (tho these guys just might do it) Note I’m talking about the main players not some greedy fool who has worked out what’s going on and indepently decided to help themselves.
The REAL players leave these guys in place as cover.
At the moment he’s using the Lefts favorite stragity of parcial truth and innuendo.
$Trillions spent ‘often’ without a trace code so there no way of telling if it’s fraud. The sound bite is $trillions in fraud.
20 million SSNs over 100 years old, no mention of payments to them (people fill that bit in themselves)
Bottom line is heavy political damage to the Dems as they try to block him. If he can make just a few break ranks it will become a route.
The West in general is addicted to Government spending and cheap imports. Breaking any addiction is painfull, Trump has 2 years to make the Dems unelectable.
DOGE and the way they react to it plays a BIG part of that – and who know? They just might unscramble the egg!
10