#social security for illegals

[jangillman]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"Just when you thought it hit rock bottom..." as drawn by Edith Pritchett

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 18, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 19, 2025

In a court filing last night, the Director of the Office of Administration in the Trump administration, Joshua Fisher, clarified the government position of billionaire Elon Musk. In a sworn declaration to the court, Fisher identified Musk as “a Senior Advisor to the President.” He explained: “In his role as a Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives.”

Fisher’s statement went on to say that Musk is neither an employee nor the service administrator—that is, the leader—of the Department of Government Efficiency.

The statement is in response to a lawsuit filed by 14 states—New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington—contending that Musk’s role is unconstitutional because he has such sweeping power in his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that the Constitution requires that his position be confirmed by the Senate.

President Trump has routinely referred to Musk as DOGE’s leader, and the media routinely refer to “Elon Musk’s DOGE.” Musk has flooded his social media site with claims that DOGE is cutting programs that he claims are wasteful or fraudulent, although so far he has yet to provide any proof of his extravagant claims. In the early hours of Monday, he reposted a picture of a leaner, meaner version of himself dressed as a Roman gladiator with the caption: “I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus.” Musk added: “And I am.”

Beginning on Friday, the Trump administration began mass purges of federal government employees. As Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein, and Emily Davies reported in the Washington Post, the firings were haphazard and riddled with errors, but apparently most of those firings were of employees in the probationary period of employment, typically the first year of service but a status that’s triggered by promotions and lateral transfers as well. About 20 FDA employees who review neurological and physical medical devices were fired, hampering the agency’s ability to evaluate the devices produced by Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink. Employment lawyers say the mass firings are illegal because they ignore employee protections.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, had noted: "This is essentially a private citizen directing an organization that's not a federal agency that has access to the entire workings of the federal government to hire, fire, slash contracts, terminate programs, all without any congressional oversight." Now the Trump administration is attempting to protect Musk by saying he is simply an advisor.

Department of Justice lawyer Joshua Gardner told Chutkan that he could not independently confirm the firings of thousands of federal employees last week, prompting her to note that his ignorance seemed willful: "The firing of thousands of federal employees is not a small thing,” she said. “You haven't been able to learn if that's true?"

Peter Charalambous of ABC News noted that lawyers from the Department of Justice are also unable to explain what, exactly, DOGE is. They won’t say it’s an “agency,” which, as U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote, would be “subject to the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.” On Friday, Charalambous points out, when reporters asked senior advisor to the Treasury Department’s general counsel Christopher Healy, who runs DOGE, he answered: “I don’t know the answer to that.”

What is clear, though, is that the DOGE team is vacuuming up data from government agencies. It began its run shortly after Trump took office by accessing the Treasury Department payment system, prompting the resignation of career civil servant David Lebryk. Then on February 2 the DOGE people moved on to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) where they struggled with security officers trying to stop them from accessing classified information. By February 12 they were at the General Services Agency, which oversees the government’s real estate.

That pattern has continued. Over the weekend, Fatima Hussein of the Associated Press reported that DOGE was trying to get access to taxpayer data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), specifically the Integrated Data Retrieval System that enables examinations of tax returns, deep troves of information about hundreds of millions of American citizens and businesses. Access to individuals’ bank account numbers and private information has, in the past, been tightly guarded. Indeed, compromising access to that information is a felony.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Committee on Finance, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the top Democrat on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, wrote to Douglas O’Donnell, acting commissioner of the IRS, demanding information about DOGE’s access to taxpayer information and noting that the request for access raises “serious concerns that Elon Musk and his associates are seeking to weaponize government databases containing private bank records and other confidential information to target American citizens and businesses as part of a political agenda.”

DOGE worked over the weekend to get access to Social Security Administration databases as well. Amanda Becker of The 19th notes that these records contain information about individuals’ income, addresses, children, retirement benefits, and even medical records. Lisa Rein, Holly Bailey, Jeff Stein, and Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post reported that acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration Michelle King, who had been with the agency for decades before Trump elevated her to acting commissioner last month, resigned after a clash over access to the data.

Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported today that workers at the General Services Administration resigned in protest after Musk ally Thomas Shedd, who now runs the group of coders DOGE has embedded in that agency, requested access to “all components of the Notify[DOT]gov system.” That system is used to send mass text messages to the public. Information about it is highly sensitive and gives anyone with access “unilateral, private access to the personal data of members of the public,” according to Koebler. That includes not just names and phone numbers, but information about, for example, whether individuals are enrolled in public benefit programs that are based on financial status.

A White House spokesperson defended DOGE’s access to the IRS by saying that “waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long,” adding: “It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.” But DOGE has been unable to document what it claims are cost-saving measures. On Monday it listed what it said were $16 billion in canceled contracts, but Aatish Bhatia, Josh Katz, Margot Sanger-Katz, and Ethan Singer of the New York Times corrected the record, noting that a contract DOGE valued at $8 billion was actually closer to $8 million. Further, they noted, claims of $55 billion in savings lacked documentation.

Musk’s recent claims that the Social Security Administration is sending out payments to tens of millions of dead people more than 100 years old—a claim echoed by President Trump—were wrong: the software system defaults missing birthdates to more than 150 years ago and the Social Security Administration decided not to spend more than $9 million on upgrading its system to include death information. Right-wing podcaster Trish Regan warned DOGE that “it’s critical to present the math CORRECTLY” and noted: “Looks like the team got out over its skis on this one.”

Aside from the many legal problems with the argument that the opaque DOGE can alter programs established by Congress, and the problems with documenting its actual work, it is undeniable that Musk’s team has had access to a treasure trove of information about Americans and American businesses and the ways in which they interact with the government. This information can feed the AI projects that Musk envisions putting at the center of American life. It also opens the way for Musk and his cronies to weaponize private information against business competitors as well as political enemies.

In addition, it can also feed a larger technological project for controlling politics.

The story of how Cambridge Analytica used information harvested from about 87 million Facebook users to target political ads in 2016 is well known, but the misuse of data was back in the news earlier this month when Corey G. Johnson and Byard Duncan of ProPublica reported that the gun industry also shared data with Cambridge Analytica to influence the 2016 election.

Johnson and Duncan reported that after a spate of gun violence, including the attempted assassination of then-representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and the mass shootings at Fort Hood in Texas, a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, had increased public pressure for commonsense gun safety legislation, the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, worked with gun makers and retailers to collect data on gun owners without their knowledge or consent. That data included names, ages, addresses, income, debts, religious affiliations, and even details like which charities people supported, shopping habits, and “whether they liked the work of the painter Thomas Kinkade and whether the underwear women had purchased was plus size or petite.”

Analysts ran that information through an algorithm that created a psychological profile of an individual to enable precise targeting of potential voters. Ads based on these profiles reached almost 378 million views on social media and sent more than 60 million visitors to the National Shooting Sports Foundation website. When Trump won in 2016, the NSSF took partial credit for the results. Not only was Trump in office, it reported, but also, “thanks in part to our efforts, there is a pro-gun majority in the U.S. House and Senate.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[serpentface]

Question about Couya! Since she is a bastard what are the reasons about her being brought into the main family by her father. Was it genuine care for his child or a way to save face politically/socially? Is her birth mother alive? Do you think she would have had a better life growing up anywhere else?

This is in large part due to how cultural perceptions and legal punishment of adultery varies between male and female citizens, looped into the very strictly patrilineal kinship system.

By legal definition, the word for 'adultery' applies only to situations where a man has an affair with a married woman, or a married woman has an affair with any man. Other forms of affairs (eg a married man having an affair with an unmarried woman) are wrapped into a broader set of sexual misdemeanors and aren't often charged or punished in practice, and the punishments are comparatively minor (if an unwed woman's father pursues charges, the man in the affair is likely to just pay a fine). On a social level, extramaritial affairs in general are certainly not Approved of and seen as lowly and dishonorable, but the average response is significantly less harsh/more willing to entertain Nuance with men than with women.

In this society there's differentiated shades of bastardry depending on the contexts of the child's birth, as well as a distinction for 'nameless bastards' (has not been claimed by their biological father or maternal grandfather, or claimed in adoption).

a) A child born to an unmarried woman via an unmarried man: non-issue for father, potentially serious social harm for the woman (especially if she has never been married and expected virginal, much less severe as a widow or divorcee). The child will not be notably disadvantaged in of themselves (their status will depend more on whether they are claimed and thus provided the social security of a family patriarch), the father will experience no hard disadvantages in claiming them.

b) A child born to an unmarried woman via a married man: mild sexual misdemeanor for the father carrying levels of social shame, even more serious social harm for the woman (often framed as not just loose but a manipulative Seductress of a married man). The child might experience minor to moderate social disadvantages, the consequences of the father claiming them are purely social and will not typically be severe. (Couya is this)

c) A child born to a married woman via an unmarried or married man: both man and woman have committed a crime and can be severely punished. The biological father can technically claim the child but will be disincentivized from doing so. This is the form of bastardry most comparable to the conventional definition, in that it is heavily stigmatized and has effects on concerns of kinship and inheritance.

In addendum to this, if the adulterous wife's legal husband claims the child, this may be punishable if determined to be active concealment of adultery (which is also a crime), and has EXTREME social consequences either way. (Either you're a cuckold too stupid to notice that your wife has been skipping out on you, or you're a MEGAcuckold adultery-accessory willingly rearing another man's child after being horribly shamed by him).

(This is separate from adoption- a man who marries a woman with an unclaimed child after the fact (whether it was a product of adultery or just a general out of wedlock birth) and claims the child is an adoptive father, he is not concealing adultery or being cuckolded.)

A child born in an affair can be considered an heir to their biological fathers (descent and kinship is fully patrilineal and on a Basic level it doesn't matter who the mother is), and can very smoothly and legally be claimed when the affair was not considered criminal adultery. The concern on that front is social perception rather than material legal consequences or kinship issues.

Couya's birth mother was an unwed servant working as a housekeeper for her father Saizen, so the Crime of adultery did not take place. It would be considered a minor sexual misdemeanor, and the woman's father was not about to pursue charges against a nobleman who could Ruin him (and had also formally expressed that he would claim the child, which meant he would not be saddled with a nameless bastard granddaughter). So the concerns here were entirely social.

The affair might have started beforehand but the pregnancy that produced Couya occurred after his wife's third viable pregnancy ended in the premature birth of a underdeveloped boy deemed necessary to euthanize (and tbr would Not have survived either way). This was after Livya Haidamane had a couple early term miscarriages, two viable but very difficult pregnancies wherein one child was very weak and sickly for the first several years of life, and struggled to conceive every time. A lot of people are going to be at least a little sympathetic to a married man having an affair and claiming a bastard in this context. It's definitely ideal and practical to have more than two children, and his wife (while not outright infertile) clearly could not reliably bear healthy children. (The average response is going to be "Well he shouldn't have done it but like, I get it")

Couya being claimed by her father was a mix of genuine care and saving face. Initially it was MUCH more the latter than the former. Saizen made attempts to hide the servant's pregnancy and to keep his own wife out of sight during the late term (to prevent the baby appearing after his wife had been seen Extremely not pregnant). But there's some levels of care involved, he could very easily have fired the pregnant servant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have no recompense whatsoever. The choice to keep and claim the baby and ensure its entrance into the world bore as little social scrutiny as possible is an act of care for his own progeny.

This was Not an act of care for Couya's birth mother (beyond the fact that concealing her pregnancy would benefit her in hiding that she is not only Not a virgin prior to marriage but had a child). She probably would have been about 17-19 at the time and was fired a few months after giving birth, and most likely never saw Couya again after this point (if she did, it would most likely be in the context of seeing her as an adult Odonii in public and noting her to look Scarily familiar). She has an Okayish chance at still being alive, she'd be around 50 (and a person who survives the high infant mortality and birth casualty rates stands a good chance of hitting their 60s), though she could very well be a casualty of the drought+famine.

Whether or not Couya's life would have been better is kind of a mixed bag. She had an awful fucking childhood in large part because her adoptive mother Livya Haidamane hated her. (Livya was ultimately a pretty horrible person but not just like. An Evil Bitch. She had A Lot going on and Couya was a living breathing insult to her and reminder of like, every one of her dashed hopes and dreams). Couya is also autistic and presented very intense symptoms as a child in a society that is Not equipped for a mass-understanding and support of cognitive differences. But she still did have an immensely privileged life with profound physical/economic levels of security inaccessible to the vast majority of people in this region, including her birth mother. Saizen also actually Liked her and cared about her, he just wasn't a routine physical presence in any of his children's lives.

Had she been left with her biological mother, she would be in a very disadvantaged situation as a nameless bastard to an unwed mother. Her biological grandfather may or may not have been willing to claim her, and her mother would have great difficulties in finding a husband (which is ultimately necessary for the security of women in this society). I think her mother was a relatively kind person but not like, a perfect angel. She would probably have complicated feelings about her bastard daughter, especially one whose very existence materially disadvantages her and was very, very difficult as a child. So this probably would not have been a good situation for Couya either.

If you broaden the question to ANY other family completely divorced from the circumstances of her birth, yeah it definitely could have been better. But in her case it's like either "Life of grotesque socioeconomic privilege but in an abusive household" or "Life of profound socioeconomic disadvantages in a household that Probably wouldn't have been this abusive but certainly wouldn't be healthy". There wasn't really a good option for her.

[gamer2002]

"Acthually, we just let illegal aliens to commit identity fraud" is a take, I guess

[sneepity-snoop-snorpity-sneep]

Got an email from family in DC this morning telling me to make a MySocialSecurity account and download a copy of my info ASAP, went online like "can't wait to find out what caused this" and lo and behold

*sing-songy voice* DOGE wants our infoooooooooo

[jackass-democrats]

Kamunism

As always, never buy anything made in china. Don't ever trust a democrat and NEVER leave your child alone with one.

[claraameliapond]

A perfect character profile of America in their international relations : "The Americans always wanted to treat Latin America as their backyard..... But, the intermeddling of America is ever present.

Now when you don't obey America, they want to ensure that you fail...and they are quite good at that. " Professor PLO Lumbaba

This is their attitude and approach in all international relationships. Everyone has to walk on eggshells lest they anger the 'big bad'. It's the same attitude that gives them the arrogance to very openly now veto a ceasefire of a genocide, openly support a genocide. Help and supply that genocide of genuinely innocent people. On the world stage, they're not even hiding the fact anymore that they want a foothold in that area of the world, that they have profit interests there - hello oil. And they apparently think they're powerful enough that everyone else will just let them. Their inflated ego has intentionally wroght havoc and killed children, women, men, people who are innocent, civilians in many places and especially right now in Palestine.

This action is all taking far too long to just halt it, ceasefire, let alone decolonise Palestine, but we have had proof that some of the rules which govern the UN for example, the UN security council, don't work and aren't effective in the crises they were created for. We have proof that full veto power cannot exist , especially in the case where vested interests lie; we are realising that it must instead be a majority vote, not one negative vote vetos the entire situation. Globally, the world is realising we need to take back our power and ensure UN security councils, for example, are based on equality and practical application, instead of allowing members to act as if they have supreme power over everyone else for the pursuit of their own vested interests.

[relaxedstyles]

[agentfascinateur]

Freedom for Vladimir Kara-Murza

Russia can offer no lessons until it lets people speak.

[internationalintelligencefirm]

[jangillman]

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A post shared by Mindsetofthetruth (@mindsetofthetruth)

[leepacey]

i watched the livestream of trump signing executive orders and answering questions from the press. here are some of the big ones + other things mentioned today:

trump declared a national emergency at the southern border + is getting the US military more involved in stopping "invasions including mass migration"

no one can declare asylum in the US

all existing appointments for people wanting to legally become US citizens are canceled

birthright citizenship (aka the 14th amendment) is now gone

ICE sweeps beginning "soon," not specifying when (though there are rumors it's starting tomorrow in sanctuary cities such as chicago)

mexican cartels are now designated "foreign terrorist organizations" and trump is not opposed to US troops entering mexico to eliminate them

he restored the death penalty for "crimes committed by illegal aliens"

biden had signed an executive order attempting to stop cops from using chokeholds or doing no-knock warrants. trump just revoked that order

25% tariffs on canada and mexico begin on feb 1 2025 — expect a lot of produce imported from mexico to get more expensive soon

tariffs on china will begin soon, not specified when

trump said he intends to take back the panama canal, did not specify when or how

january 6 insurrectionists are to be immediately released/pardoned

he pardoned the leader of the proud boys

tiktok has a 90 day extension, during which the US gov will try to buy 50% of tiktok. trump said he no longer cares that china is "spying on our young people," but he wants to buy half of tiktok so the US government "can police it a little bit, or a lot." if tiktok will not sell, it will be banned in the US again.

he claims the people of greenland want to become part of the US

he says the gulf of mexico is now to be called the "gulf of america" + denali is now to be called "mount mckinley"

alaska is to be mined and become the US' main source for fossil fuels

the green new deal and "electric vehicle" (green energy) mandates are over

the US has withdrawn from the paris climate agreement

the US has withdrawn from the world health organization

reproductiverights.gov is already gone

the US now "only recognizes two genders, male and female"

trans women prisoners are to be housed in male prisons; gender affirming care for prisoners is gone

self-identification for gender on passports, government IDs, and social security cards is gone

all federal employees are required to work in the office five days a week, no more working from home

trump said the US is going to "pursue our manifest destiny into the stars" and plant a US flag on mars

sources on what executive orders were signed: one two three

and lastly, some things that happened during the inauguration:

the pastor who blessed the inauguration during the swearing in ceremony has already announced a new meme coin/cryptocurrency

trump did not put his hand on the bible + there are rumors the pope is going to say trump is the antichrist

the wealthiest people on the planet — the CEOs of twitter/tesla, amazon, google, meta, and even the CEO of tiktok — who own almost all communication platforms used by westerners — stood directly behind trump as he was sworn in

elon musk, the wealthiest person alive, who has been given his own vaguely-defined US government agency, did a nazi salute on stage at the presidential podium. neo-nazis are already celebrating

[flamingpen18]

We are fully aware that, in time, we will face retribution for the information we are sharing with the American public. However, we remain committed to standing as a line of defense. When resistance members block efforts by Elon Musk’s staff, they are placed on administrative leave, their personal belongings searched, and their offices and computers locked. Our coalition now includes over 50,000 federal employees from across the government.

We want to remind Americans why Elon Musk’s actions are illegal. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was not established by Congress but was instead granted authority through an executive order by Trump, making its operations illegal. It is not an official department of the federal government. This system could provide Musk with a mechanism to unilaterally restrict the disbursement of funds approved by Congress—a move that has historically faced significant legal challenges.

DOGE teams have begun demanding access to data and systems at other federal agencies. However, none of these agencies control the flow of money in the way the Treasury Department does. Access to the federal payment system has always been tightly restricted due to its inclusion of sensitive personal information about millions of Americans who rely on Social Security checks, tax refunds, and other government payments.

In fiscal year 2023, the Treasury Department disbursed over $5 trillion through this system in a process typically overseen by civil servants. The stakes are incredibly high, and it is vital for Americans to understand the gravity of these actions. Please continue to spread the word and raise awareness.

-Alt National Park Service Facebook

[kinialohaguy]

Invasion America

Aloha kākou. The rally at the Bronx proved to be an eye-opening experience into the psyche of the Hispanic community. These people may be poor in riches but they’re wise in prevalence. They made it abundantly clear that illegals are not welcomed in their community. They’re resentful of the government dumping illegal aliens into their Barrios. It’s not racial animus but strain on their…

[wilwheaton]

Musk hasn’t been confirmed by Congress. His “department” was never authorized by Congress. No one other than Trump has given Musk any authority. No one knows exactly who Musk’s goons are; they have not been vetted yet are handling some of the most sensitive personal information in the government. Not even Trump has the authority to stop your Social Security payments, let alone your Medicare or Medicaid or unemployment insurance or your food stamp benefits. Yet Musk and his goon squad assert they’re able to do so if they believe those payments are illegal. Musk boasted on his social media site X that he was “rapidly shutting down . . . illegal payments.” But who is Musk to decide that a payment is illegal?

Why the world's richest man is messing with your religion, your Social Security and everything else

I realize Democrats are out of power and can’t do much with legislation to stop this. 

I also realize this all happened in 3 days and appears to have caught them flatfooted (though I struggle to accept that nobody knew this was going to happen -- DC leaks like wet cheesecloth).

Okay. So what can they do?

Off the top of my head:

1. Members of Congress get the the bus and go to one of these agencies where Musk and his unvetted goons are installing rootkits, stealing our private information, and breaking the law. Tell the press they’re going to be there, and make a whole lot of noise. Force media to pay attention to this.

2. Stop everything in Congress. No unanimous consent, no approval of nominees, absolutely no help. Republicans uniformly opposed President Obama’s popular agenda, it shouldn’t be this difficult for Democrats to uniformly oppose Trump’s unpopular agenda.

3. File lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. Force them into court to defend and justify their plainly illegal actions. Force them to defy judges. Force them to take this all the way to the corrupt SCOTUS.

4. Trump and Musk are weak little boys with fragile egos and this unholy alliance will eventually fracture. Speed that up by talking a whole lot about President Musk.

5. Tell Chuck Schumer to shut the fuck up forever for a minute because his communications team is maybe the worst I have ever seen in my adult life.

I don‘t know that any of these things will actually stop this attack on America from these fascist scumbags, but I am pretty confident it will force the national conversation to be about the coup that was accelerated this weekend, instead of the fucking Grammys.