So what actions can individuals take, aside from contacting our federal representatives and objecting to Musk and Doge. We know it’s illegal but how can we get free of him quickly? Can’t assume the courts will succeed in removing him anytime soon.
If a federal court case was successful, I don't understand why federal marshalls can't go in and kick Musk out. He's not the president, even though he seems to think he is. He's a private citizen. So far, Trump hasn't replaced the head of the U.S. Marshalls Service (shhhhh, don't tell him)
I believe the executive branch has control of the Federal Marshals. tRump or Pam Bondo are both unlikely to order him expelled. The rethuglicans have parsed The Constitution for every single flaw and are prepared to take advantage of every one.
The U.S. Marshall Service is the law enforcement authority for the federal judicial system, and is supposed to enforce judicial decisions. This is one reason why traditionally the DOJ has been considered a neutral agency. But obviously, that's not true now (it's reasonable to say that it has never been fully true, but that's a longer read by a legal beagle).
I think Jay pointed out (either Jay or Joyce Vance) that a judge technically has the power to hire private enforcement officers — literally a posse. It would bring me great joy to see a private, mean-spirited Walton Loggins doppleganger arrest Musk as part of said private authority.
Seems to me that if a judge orders them expelled and the Marshall refuses because they are told they are not allowed to. Everyone involved with that decision should be arrested. And if we have to send our regular police officers in there to do that we should do so. There has to be some kind of backup system to get these illegals out of there!
I wonder if the Capitol Police would be so inclined. In theory, the crimes could be within their jurisdiction (I'm not sure where these offices are all located) and I imagine at least a few of them are a little cheesed off at the pardons given to Trump's J6 seditionists.
By "regular police officers" you presumably mean state or local? There is no such thing in Washington, D.C. since even local authorities are ultimately controlled by the federal government.
The most action right now appears to lawsuits from states and through nonprofit organizations. Contact your secretary of state and your state AG, as well as your state leg reps. ACLU, NAACP, and a number of law-based organizations are filing suits, often in collaboration. A number of journalists and public interest publications are tracking these, including several substacks. We need to stop being passive and start digging ourselves to find out what is going on in our states.
The legacy media is sanewashing this information. The NYT yesterday talked about how Democrats have been bogged down by bureaucracy while Trump was "cutting through red tape." This is so dangerous to try to play to both sides without telling the truth.
The NYT has been in Trump's back pocket for the past ten years. All of corporate media has been. I don't know how you reach all those low-information voters who read headlines and nothing else, let alone the people who refused to vote for Kamala on the basis of some bullshit purity test. My PT has a master's degree, and she had never heard of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I felt like saying, "You do know that if Trump gets his way, there will be no Medicare/Medicaid and no ACA, and your business would close," but it was my last day.
But everyone on Substack says "here's what you can do," and it's never anything. Planned demonstrations with funny signs are not taking to the streets, and too many Democrats are sitting on their asses.
Column or allegedly straight news? If it's a column, who is the author? This smacks of a scared 4th estate trying to appease the new Hitler and his pet hound - you can choose which is which
It's a wishy washy article, not about the current trump slash and burn, but about how regulations can both protect and impede things. As a commentary, this amounts to "Duh."
This is the same newspaper that called Trump's proposed Gaza ethnic cleansing plan a Gaza Development Plan, like it's a proposal for a multi-use development with a Maggiano's and Dave and Buster's.
This is another area where we need to take the initiative: checking the validity of what we read. There's news reporting. Some reporters are better than othere. There's analysis (a good analyst will cite sources and explain their reasoning). Then there is opinion, which is all over the place. Most newspapers have opinion pages in which people with various perspectives and opinions appear. These represent ONLY the writer not the publication. Some are reliable and provide substantive information. Others are explaining simply what they think, nothing else. And some are just flaky. It really is up to us to learn how to discern which is which, which means becoming familiar enough with a given publication to know how it is structured (generally news is separate from editorial, but analysis is often mixed in with mush. Know the authors and who is reflecting real life and who is treading in the muck.
The thing is, most of the folks who are likely to believe Musk do not read the New York Times or any other “legacy” media. Let’s just cut that sector loose and figure out how to work around them. Most people get their news on social media. If you’re active on social media, get to work spreading the truth as far and wide as possible. Do you have family, friends, neighbors, or coworkers who are vulnerable to the lies? Set the record straight in your own network. Share this post from Jay with a headline that will resonate with your audience to entice their curiosity. How about something like: “So-called tech-wizard Musk forgot about COBOL! Misreads Social Security Records. What a dope.”
There are an estimated 100,000 centenarians alive in the U.S., with 89,106 currently receiving Social Security benefits. That doesn’t demonstrate ANY evidence of “fraud”. I’m a retired accountant, not a forensic accountant, however, and it’s pretty obvious to me that this is a non-problem. I guess the richest person in the world is either lying because it aligns with his true agenda, or less smart than he thinks he is.
Having worked for 43 years at SSA I can vouch that every year was an annual Centanarian Project whereby the manager was personally responsible for having personal contacts made with centenarians, verify their well-being and that payments were being used appropriately and suspending payments for non-cooperators and non-locatable recipients and then issuing an investigation with the Office of Inspector General (who Trump keeps firing) to further investigate and consider fraud. The pressure on managers was pretty intense.
I am a semi-retired software guy. I even worked for PayPal for several years, well after Elon left, thank God. Never, not once, did I see Elon's name in the repository (where software code is kept, revised, and tracked).
You're damn right those kids know nothing about COBOL. And Elon knows nothing about software. When I worked at PayPal, they used terrible custom-rolled software called MaxCode for the business transaction layer (that's the part that interprets data and builds the logic for the presentation/display/ui layer to consume and render).
MaxCode was a Max Levchin invention. Max was one of the founders of PayPal. All Elon did was give a thumbs up to Max's terrible invention. PayPal moved on from it because only PayPal developers knew MaxCode, so even good engineers needed to be trained on it. Ridiculous.
I point this all out because it represents what a bad CEO-type Musk is. He's very good at techno-babble word salads, though, and he is good at convincing people his way is the only way.
Thank you so much for calling Twitter by its real name, instead of X, which has got to be the strangest obsession I've ever seen. Everything is X, even his poor kid.
This dude is almost as unwell as Trump. We need to get him away from this data post haste.
Social security is the third rail. You touch it, you die (metaphorically speaking). Go ahead and grab it elon. Drugs, narcissism, racism and lust for power have addled your brain. You are a weird creep with no redeeming qualities. Your wealth won't save you as the rage against you and your attempted coup grows.
My only issue on "calling him out" is that anytime I try I get called "ignorant" and "gullible". Honestly the people who really need to know the truth or realize they are being lied to are the ones who just laugh in your face. I'm tired, I'm trying but at the same time I have to wonder if anything I say or do really matters. I'm quite literally being tired of being told my "ignorance is amazing", I know I'm right but the insults get old.
It's a cult. There is no reasoning with these people, they are too far down the rabbit hole. Make sure you self care and don't get too exhausted. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Oh I know. And you can't argue with the ignorant. But it still gets old and I seriously wonder if "calling it out" even matters. I've blocked more people in the last month than I have in my entire time on FB. And I'm sure the very few of my remaining "frump supporting" friends don't see anything I post anymore, I figure by now they have themselves set to not see what I post. Head in the sand, ignorance is bliss.
To be honest, I brutally culled my FB friend list. The few dumpers I kept (old friends and a few family) have most like unfollowed me so daily, I'm preaching to the choir when I share and comment. I do think I've moved a few like minded friends to start using 5 Calls so that's a good thing. But of course, we live in a deeply red state where our calls fall on deaf/willfully and blissfully ignorant, and defiant ears. It IS mind numbing.
Yea same. The frumpers I still have on my friend list are also old friends who I could never break ties with and family. I only see 1 or 2 pop up on my non political posts so I know the rest have unfollowed me.
I have not started using 5 calls yet, I think I need to though
The important thing is that WE know, and then we find others to join with to push back. I don't try to convince people they are wrong. When I do hear clearly bogus info, sometimes the best response is a quiet question along the lines of "How does that work in your life?" When they think about it, it might start to dawn on them. I ignore the insults. Not my problem. They go away after a while.
At some point, you just have to say to them that they're just not worth investing your time or energy in any longer. To that "your ignorance is amazing" person, tell them that if their beliefs are any indication, it doesn't appear to take much to "amaze" them.
LOL I just block them. I mean it's people I don't know who are just trolling sites that they obviously don't agree with the content or friends of friends. Just people who feel the need to insult people they don't know for no reason. Social media is rough right now
"Musk wouldn’t know the “Truth” if it bit him in the X." 😂😂
Seriously though, this is beyond illegal. He must be stopped. If seniors would lose their Social Security, you wont believe the number of wheelchairs, canes and walkers that will descend on Capitol Hill.
You’re assuming the apostles listen to or believe legacy news outlets. They do not. My Trumpian acquaintances do not (and will not) watch or believe anything not on Fox. They will not watch or believe any legacy or independent sources and they are crowing over democratic leaders being in a wad. They chalk it up to the president doing his job effectively and accomplishing exactly what he should.
Same here, Linda. My husband refuses to read the Letters from an American that I print for him hoping he will realize he’s been bamboozled by Fox. It’s so stressful. He has a terminal illness and instead of caring for him lovingly, I resent that he was duped and had a part in bringing this onto his children and grandchildren.
So sorry to hear you have to live with that. In my world there are no Fox viewers or MAGA. I have zero friends that have ever voted for trump. The few people I knew I have cut out of my life. The last being a friend who said, with conviction, that 1/6 was planned by the FBI. That was the last time I spoke with her. I am sure thre are many in my step family that voted for him, them being in agriculture. Just waiting for them to realize they were duped. Not that I will ever know since I don’t ever speak with them except when absolutely necessary.
As unpalatable as the idea may be, there might be common cause to be made with the anti-Musk MAGA contingent, e.g. Steve Bannon. The real populists don't care for the tech oligarchs, especially when they make their president look weak and ineffectual, as Musk is doing. Find people who are willing to talk about this on right-wing podcasts and social media; from there, Fox and WSJ Opinion will have to at least give it cursory coverage. That's how you inject it into the broader media ecosystem.
Will any of us be around to witness it? Who knows. So far, they’re minimally affected by it and they are exultant in their glee. Over the moon deliriously happy.
Linda, my mother had a saying for just about everything. The one I think she'd use for this is 'They'll know when the chickens come home to roost." Took me a long time to figure out what that meant because everybody in my family raised chickens who went in the henhouse at dark. Finally hit when I met some back-country folks who very literally had free-range chickens. They foraged for free, but came home when there was danger lurking. Some didn't make it. In other words, the people so gleeful now just haven't had the consequences hit them yet. And when it does, it will be too late to seek safety in the branches around the house.
The way things are looking right now, it may come sooner than you think. Trumps approval ratings are dropping like a rock. Over 11 points in the last two weeks. The only person doing worse is Musk.
Sometimes they obtain fake SS numbers. In that case, the SS is held from their paychecks, but they never see a dime of it. $25.7 billion was taken away in 2022 and added to the SS pot that went to everyone else.
The issue is much bigger than that, I think. Sometimes those fake SS numbers they use actually belong to a legit citizen, who gets hammered by the IRS for false income reporting at tax time. Also, some of those MedAdvantage plans mentioned above are zero premium. And some SS recipients are dual subscriber, meaning both Medicare and Medicaid. Their enrollment is questioned and possibly denied when extra income is posted toward their SS account. Creates a whole lotta mess for some folks. Musk has no real working knowledge of the dangerous can of worms he’s opening here. Neither does Drumpf. When they let Musk in to Fort Knox to inspect the gold reserves, LOCK HIM IN THERE! Just saying…
They are not "fake" SS numbers -- they are not actually SS numbers at all in most cases. Just like corporations have a Tax ID number (TIN) in order to pay corporate taxes, individuals who don't qualify for or don't have an SSN can apply for what is called an Individual Tax ID number (ITIN) and this is what enables them to fill out the government paperwork necessary for employment. It is true that they are paying into our tax and SS system -- using these ITINs -- but as long as they do not have citizenship they will never be able to claim any federal benefits like SS. Hence, whether we want to believe it or not, millions of undocumented immigrants are subsidizing Social Security.
Sorry. Maybe I should have been more clear. I worked payroll for several companies who employed immigrants in forestry, wildland fire, farming, and other fields who had fake SS cards/numbers. Believe it or not, the employers were required by law to accept the documents provided, falsified or not. People here in my area worked really hard producing those phony cards. There were a lot of phony cards with fake numbers during my two year run doing these payrolls. But, folks who are here LEGALLY usually do not get valid SS cards with SS NUMBERS. They get ITIN’s, taxpayer identification numbers. They look a lot like SS CARDS and SS numbers. It’s the only way that taxes can be withheld from their paychecks, which they have to pay just like you and I do.
It is true there are fake social security numbers and cards and there are also people who allow others to use their social security numbers. Still the undocumented citizens will never see that money. And yes the citizens who do such a thing with full knowledge could get serious trouble.
Do NOT lock Musk in there! He's obviously setting things up so people believe gold has been stolen and if he gets in he can pocket a few bars and then claim he was right, that there's gold missing.
Sorry but the left keeps making the mistake of giving MAGAs any intellectual credit. MAGA is now a religion that operates on beliefs and not on facts and reason.
"Musk sees evidence of fraud everywhere because that’s what he wants to believe and report out on."
The psychological concept of "projection" also fits Musk (and Trump) to a T. He sees fraud because he commits fraud. He sees fraud because he is a fraud.
And of course, all those > 100 year old recipients are eating dogs and cats too! Seriously, I’ve been holding my breath to see if I received a SS deposit this month, and yes I did. But how long will I, and when will he stop my Medicare? These are things people on the dole — as rich folk think of SS — like me need to think about!
Me, too! I don't think I will feel confident anymore about relying on my SS deposit appearing, now that Musk has breeched SS. Its my primary income source, so I am feeling pretty anxious about the future. 😬
Might not be a bad idea to open up a separate bank account to sweep whatever you receive into each month and just leave the old account there as a depository for future payments. I've used my checking account for FIT refunds in the past, but now that the systems have been compromised by the Doge-bag, I'm feeling very uncomfortable with that account I've had for decades.
Edit: I also downloaded my Social Security report (I'm not old enough to draw), so I at least have a baseline of where I stand before he starts fiddling around with it. I plan on downloading a fresh one each month when I do my bills from now on.
Just finished the Wired article on Musk's shithousery, and clicked on yours, Jay, for even broader takedown...this is the consequences of - you know - "genius" doesn't do his homework, gets severely schooled for his willful AND self-serving ignorance.
Musk is doing this just as his company doesn’t mind blowing up rockets and having the fuel and debris pollute the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than think something through before acting, he’s just going to break things until he finds something unbreakable. It’s all about him (better learn that Trump) and he cares nothing for anyone else!
People will wake up when their social security checks don't show up. A LOT of MAGAts are on Social Security and if they're not, their parents are. When mommy and daddy suddenly need to move in with their kids because they can no longer afford to pay for housing, they'll wake up. The financial institutions will wake up, too. And those who provide services to seniors. As will businesses who get a lot of $$ from seniors, like Big Pharma, Medicare Advantage Plans (paid for with $$ from our monthly SSA disbursements), other medical businesses, etc. It'll be a blow to the entire economy. OH, NO! What will little donny do when all of corporate America hates him and Wall Street crumbles?
As for this Social Security recipient... I have a question for the legal beagles out there -- if my checks don't come, can I file for bankruptcy and get mortgage relief so I can stay in my house (it's my only debt)(no kids to move in with)?
You don't really get "mortgage relief" in bankruptcy--it's a secured debt. Foreclosure is put off until after the bankruptcy is closed, but with no other debts that won't take long. Sorry. I DO think that if Social Security is cut off, the banking industry is going to be in holy turmoil. They don't really WANT to suddenly have to foreclose on a bazillion homes--what will they DO with them? It's going to be one sector of the oligarchy against another, possibly with automatic weapons.
Yeah... Can you imagine what it would do to the housing market? I imagine a reverse mortgage won't be easy to get, either, which I figure would be my only other option. Thanks for the reply.
as I mentioned in another comment below, I think any attempt to stop checks en masse will be met with instant court action. And can you IMAGINE the number of red state seniors finding the leopards eating their face and screaming to their reps and senators?
They're probably cheering Musk on... for now... for getting all those 150 y.o.'s and illegals off the rolls. That's the only part of this that feels good - knowing they'd have a HUGE dose of reality coming if Musk is at all successful. I'm guessing he's trying to break the system before he gets hit with a TRO.
Another factor to put banks in turmoil--the people who would be foreclosed on are pretty much by definition seniors, who have mostly had mortgages in good standing for YEARS. So it would be unlike the PR around the 2008 crises, which was caused primarily by the industry's writing of bad loans to people who didn't really qualify.
I held my breath until I received my SS deposit yesterday. But I have cataract surgery scheduled in May and am wondering if I will still have Medicare by then.
Any attempt to stop Social Security checks is going to be hit with a TRO/injunction so fast the news won't be able to keep up. If they tried to stop it tomorrow, pretty sure my check would still arrive next week.
Right there with you, Ada. Held my breath until my Feb. check arrived. Cataract surgery schd. next week. Fingers crossed I’ll still have Medicare to pay for most of it! Scary times for us seniors. Courage.
I'm a software guy so I've been keeping a close eye on the SSA personal profile page for the last two weeks.
On the log-in page today, I saw something I don't remember seeing, but maybe it's been there and I missed it:
Hours of Service: Monday - Friday 4:15 AM - 1 AM ET | Saturday 5 AM - 11 PM ET | Sunday 8 AM - 11:30 PM ET
That seems weird to me. A huge enterprise-level website should not need "an hours of service" notice. Huge websites have rolling production servers such that changes get rolled out one machine at a time with no downtime.
The paranoid part of me is afraid these hours are Musk bro times, for them to turn off the site so that can gain access to the database so they can break things.
As Jay says, they probably have no COBOL knowledge (I've looked at a few of their profiles and they seem like mostly Python/C++ guys, a world apart).
Maybe that notice has always been there and I'm just being paranoid but we all need to be vigilant for even subtle changes in what we see on that site.
I too was a COBOL programmer long ago. But not for government. The dataset that Elmo and his lost boys were looking at as proof of fraud was named "Numident". Sounds like it was list of SSNs, names, and birthdates and whatever else was provided when a SS number was issued.
Which is exactly what is needed to prevent from handing out duplicate SSNs. Only one SSN per person living or dead. And if a person did not know their birthdate then the default birthdate was used. Which happened for a lot with people born before November, 1936 (when the first SSN were assigned) before record keeping of births and deaths was required or possible.
Thanks. To be clear, I was not a COBOL programmer. Object-oriented programming for me. Thanks for the explanation. I read about the COBOL dating issues but didn’t want to write about them because I didn’t feel confident enough with my knowledge there. Thanks again.
He wants to solve problems?Why don't he try these problems,the ones that actually NEED solving!Things like world hunger, illnesses with no real cure like MS or Parkinson's Disease,climate change,homelessness,poverty,and there are many others that actually need attention,not a bunch of fabricated nonsense,or ideas that likely won't work or take so much time and effort to realize,none of us will even be around by then.We don't need to"fix"Mars to make it habitable for a handful of people,we need to fix Earth to keep it habitable for future generations of our own children and grandchildren!
He has all that damned money that he could use to SAVE HUMANITY but he don't give a shit about humanity and likely never has!
My fantasies consist of imagining him being declared a criminal enterprise and his wealth being confiscated and redistributed to the agencies and people that he's harmed.
He has enough money that everyone in this country could receive money out of it.I really like the idea of his money being confiscated and handed out to the people and charities that would actually use it to help people.
He actually doesn't have all that much money. He primarily has stocks - and at least the Tesla stock he owns is likely not going to be worth much. Nor is the Twitter stock.
So what actions can individuals take, aside from contacting our federal representatives and objecting to Musk and Doge. We know it’s illegal but how can we get free of him quickly? Can’t assume the courts will succeed in removing him anytime soon.
If a federal court case was successful, I don't understand why federal marshalls can't go in and kick Musk out. He's not the president, even though he seems to think he is. He's a private citizen. So far, Trump hasn't replaced the head of the U.S. Marshalls Service (shhhhh, don't tell him)
The Marshalls report up through Pam Bondi, so that is likely to not happen.
In fact, all the enforcement actions are under the purview of DoJ.
That doesn't mean a federal judge shouldn't attempt to enforce it on private citizen Musk and force the issue.
I believe the executive branch has control of the Federal Marshals. tRump or Pam Bondo are both unlikely to order him expelled. The rethuglicans have parsed The Constitution for every single flaw and are prepared to take advantage of every one.
The U.S. Marshall Service is the law enforcement authority for the federal judicial system, and is supposed to enforce judicial decisions. This is one reason why traditionally the DOJ has been considered a neutral agency. But obviously, that's not true now (it's reasonable to say that it has never been fully true, but that's a longer read by a legal beagle).
I think Jay pointed out (either Jay or Joyce Vance) that a judge technically has the power to hire private enforcement officers — literally a posse. It would bring me great joy to see a private, mean-spirited Walton Loggins doppleganger arrest Musk as part of said private authority.
Seems to me that if a judge orders them expelled and the Marshall refuses because they are told they are not allowed to. Everyone involved with that decision should be arrested. And if we have to send our regular police officers in there to do that we should do so. There has to be some kind of backup system to get these illegals out of there!
I wonder if the Capitol Police would be so inclined. In theory, the crimes could be within their jurisdiction (I'm not sure where these offices are all located) and I imagine at least a few of them are a little cheesed off at the pardons given to Trump's J6 seditionists.
By "regular police officers" you presumably mean state or local? There is no such thing in Washington, D.C. since even local authorities are ultimately controlled by the federal government.
Right now we have no backup. Even legal experts are writing pieces about what if he chooses to just ignore court orders.
The most action right now appears to lawsuits from states and through nonprofit organizations. Contact your secretary of state and your state AG, as well as your state leg reps. ACLU, NAACP, and a number of law-based organizations are filing suits, often in collaboration. A number of journalists and public interest publications are tracking these, including several substacks. We need to stop being passive and start digging ourselves to find out what is going on in our states.
The legacy media is sanewashing this information. The NYT yesterday talked about how Democrats have been bogged down by bureaucracy while Trump was "cutting through red tape." This is so dangerous to try to play to both sides without telling the truth.
It was shameful. I saw that take.
The NYT has been in Trump's back pocket for the past ten years. All of corporate media has been. I don't know how you reach all those low-information voters who read headlines and nothing else, let alone the people who refused to vote for Kamala on the basis of some bullshit purity test. My PT has a master's degree, and she had never heard of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I felt like saying, "You do know that if Trump gets his way, there will be no Medicare/Medicaid and no ACA, and your business would close," but it was my last day.
But everyone on Substack says "here's what you can do," and it's never anything. Planned demonstrations with funny signs are not taking to the streets, and too many Democrats are sitting on their asses.
(WHAT is Hochul doing???)
Column or allegedly straight news? If it's a column, who is the author? This smacks of a scared 4th estate trying to appease the new Hitler and his pet hound - you can choose which is which
It's a wishy washy article, not about the current trump slash and burn, but about how regulations can both protect and impede things. As a commentary, this amounts to "Duh."
This is the same newspaper that called Trump's proposed Gaza ethnic cleansing plan a Gaza Development Plan, like it's a proposal for a multi-use development with a Maggiano's and Dave and Buster's.
This is another area where we need to take the initiative: checking the validity of what we read. There's news reporting. Some reporters are better than othere. There's analysis (a good analyst will cite sources and explain their reasoning). Then there is opinion, which is all over the place. Most newspapers have opinion pages in which people with various perspectives and opinions appear. These represent ONLY the writer not the publication. Some are reliable and provide substantive information. Others are explaining simply what they think, nothing else. And some are just flaky. It really is up to us to learn how to discern which is which, which means becoming familiar enough with a given publication to know how it is structured (generally news is separate from editorial, but analysis is often mixed in with mush. Know the authors and who is reflecting real life and who is treading in the muck.
The thing is, most of the folks who are likely to believe Musk do not read the New York Times or any other “legacy” media. Let’s just cut that sector loose and figure out how to work around them. Most people get their news on social media. If you’re active on social media, get to work spreading the truth as far and wide as possible. Do you have family, friends, neighbors, or coworkers who are vulnerable to the lies? Set the record straight in your own network. Share this post from Jay with a headline that will resonate with your audience to entice their curiosity. How about something like: “So-called tech-wizard Musk forgot about COBOL! Misreads Social Security Records. What a dope.”
There are an estimated 100,000 centenarians alive in the U.S., with 89,106 currently receiving Social Security benefits. That doesn’t demonstrate ANY evidence of “fraud”. I’m a retired accountant, not a forensic accountant, however, and it’s pretty obvious to me that this is a non-problem. I guess the richest person in the world is either lying because it aligns with his true agenda, or less smart than he thinks he is.
Both. He lies and is cognitively deficient.
Having worked for 43 years at SSA I can vouch that every year was an annual Centanarian Project whereby the manager was personally responsible for having personal contacts made with centenarians, verify their well-being and that payments were being used appropriately and suspending payments for non-cooperators and non-locatable recipients and then issuing an investigation with the Office of Inspector General (who Trump keeps firing) to further investigate and consider fraud. The pressure on managers was pretty intense.
wow, thank you!
Very well done.
I am a semi-retired software guy. I even worked for PayPal for several years, well after Elon left, thank God. Never, not once, did I see Elon's name in the repository (where software code is kept, revised, and tracked).
You're damn right those kids know nothing about COBOL. And Elon knows nothing about software. When I worked at PayPal, they used terrible custom-rolled software called MaxCode for the business transaction layer (that's the part that interprets data and builds the logic for the presentation/display/ui layer to consume and render).
MaxCode was a Max Levchin invention. Max was one of the founders of PayPal. All Elon did was give a thumbs up to Max's terrible invention. PayPal moved on from it because only PayPal developers knew MaxCode, so even good engineers needed to be trained on it. Ridiculous.
I point this all out because it represents what a bad CEO-type Musk is. He's very good at techno-babble word salads, though, and he is good at convincing people his way is the only way.
Thank you so much for calling Twitter by its real name, instead of X, which has got to be the strangest obsession I've ever seen. Everything is X, even his poor kid.
This dude is almost as unwell as Trump. We need to get him away from this data post haste.
Social security is the third rail. You touch it, you die (metaphorically speaking). Go ahead and grab it elon. Drugs, narcissism, racism and lust for power have addled your brain. You are a weird creep with no redeeming qualities. Your wealth won't save you as the rage against you and your attempted coup grows.
My only issue on "calling him out" is that anytime I try I get called "ignorant" and "gullible". Honestly the people who really need to know the truth or realize they are being lied to are the ones who just laugh in your face. I'm tired, I'm trying but at the same time I have to wonder if anything I say or do really matters. I'm quite literally being tired of being told my "ignorance is amazing", I know I'm right but the insults get old.
Find your true community and organize there. Don’t scream into the wind!
Oh I have a great community... some of them have some truly ignorant "friends" though.
Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
It's a cult. There is no reasoning with these people, they are too far down the rabbit hole. Make sure you self care and don't get too exhausted. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Oh I know. And you can't argue with the ignorant. But it still gets old and I seriously wonder if "calling it out" even matters. I've blocked more people in the last month than I have in my entire time on FB. And I'm sure the very few of my remaining "frump supporting" friends don't see anything I post anymore, I figure by now they have themselves set to not see what I post. Head in the sand, ignorance is bliss.
To be honest, I brutally culled my FB friend list. The few dumpers I kept (old friends and a few family) have most like unfollowed me so daily, I'm preaching to the choir when I share and comment. I do think I've moved a few like minded friends to start using 5 Calls so that's a good thing. But of course, we live in a deeply red state where our calls fall on deaf/willfully and blissfully ignorant, and defiant ears. It IS mind numbing.
Yea same. The frumpers I still have on my friend list are also old friends who I could never break ties with and family. I only see 1 or 2 pop up on my non political posts so I know the rest have unfollowed me.
I have not started using 5 calls yet, I think I need to though
This is another good reason to quit meta, delete your accounts, and stop supporting capitulating billionaires
Yea, but right now I couldn't get rid of FB due to it being the only place some of my pages for other things are. Dog rescues, hockey, hobbies, etc
Their belief system isn’t rooted in logic so it can’t be countered with logic.
The important thing is that WE know, and then we find others to join with to push back. I don't try to convince people they are wrong. When I do hear clearly bogus info, sometimes the best response is a quiet question along the lines of "How does that work in your life?" When they think about it, it might start to dawn on them. I ignore the insults. Not my problem. They go away after a while.
At some point, you just have to say to them that they're just not worth investing your time or energy in any longer. To that "your ignorance is amazing" person, tell them that if their beliefs are any indication, it doesn't appear to take much to "amaze" them.
LOL I just block them. I mean it's people I don't know who are just trolling sites that they obviously don't agree with the content or friends of friends. Just people who feel the need to insult people they don't know for no reason. Social media is rough right now
"Musk wouldn’t know the “Truth” if it bit him in the X." 😂😂
Seriously though, this is beyond illegal. He must be stopped. If seniors would lose their Social Security, you wont believe the number of wheelchairs, canes and walkers that will descend on Capitol Hill.
Not just the seniors but all of us disabled as well!!!
You’re assuming the apostles listen to or believe legacy news outlets. They do not. My Trumpian acquaintances do not (and will not) watch or believe anything not on Fox. They will not watch or believe any legacy or independent sources and they are crowing over democratic leaders being in a wad. They chalk it up to the president doing his job effectively and accomplishing exactly what he should.
We’re not trying to reach the maga folks writ large. There are a lot of Americans who didn’t vote including millions of Dems.
Same here, Linda. My husband refuses to read the Letters from an American that I print for him hoping he will realize he’s been bamboozled by Fox. It’s so stressful. He has a terminal illness and instead of caring for him lovingly, I resent that he was duped and had a part in bringing this onto his children and grandchildren.
Oh Janet. So sorry. That is a tough place to be, both dealing with the denial and dealing with his inevitable loss.
So sorry to hear you have to live with that. In my world there are no Fox viewers or MAGA. I have zero friends that have ever voted for trump. The few people I knew I have cut out of my life. The last being a friend who said, with conviction, that 1/6 was planned by the FBI. That was the last time I spoke with her. I am sure thre are many in my step family that voted for him, them being in agriculture. Just waiting for them to realize they were duped. Not that I will ever know since I don’t ever speak with them except when absolutely necessary.
As unpalatable as the idea may be, there might be common cause to be made with the anti-Musk MAGA contingent, e.g. Steve Bannon. The real populists don't care for the tech oligarchs, especially when they make their president look weak and ineffectual, as Musk is doing. Find people who are willing to talk about this on right-wing podcasts and social media; from there, Fox and WSJ Opinion will have to at least give it cursory coverage. That's how you inject it into the broader media ecosystem.
Brilliant ideas! I was surprised by Bannon. Your comment helped me understand his motive.
Wonder if they’ll choke on that sand they’re hiding their heads in.
Will any of us be around to witness it? Who knows. So far, they’re minimally affected by it and they are exultant in their glee. Over the moon deliriously happy.
Linda, my mother had a saying for just about everything. The one I think she'd use for this is 'They'll know when the chickens come home to roost." Took me a long time to figure out what that meant because everybody in my family raised chickens who went in the henhouse at dark. Finally hit when I met some back-country folks who very literally had free-range chickens. They foraged for free, but came home when there was danger lurking. Some didn't make it. In other words, the people so gleeful now just haven't had the consequences hit them yet. And when it does, it will be too late to seek safety in the branches around the house.
The way things are looking right now, it may come sooner than you think. Trumps approval ratings are dropping like a rock. Over 11 points in the last two weeks. The only person doing worse is Musk.
This is so accurate—it's Fox "News" or nothing.
How is it possible that doors are opened for an unelected, unconfirmed person with teenage hoodlum?
Even the dumbest Trump voter knows they’ve paid into Social Security their entire working life. So they would have a base income on retirement.
Undocumented ppl have no Social Security number, so they cannot benefit.
Sometimes they obtain fake SS numbers. In that case, the SS is held from their paychecks, but they never see a dime of it. $25.7 billion was taken away in 2022 and added to the SS pot that went to everyone else.
The issue is much bigger than that, I think. Sometimes those fake SS numbers they use actually belong to a legit citizen, who gets hammered by the IRS for false income reporting at tax time. Also, some of those MedAdvantage plans mentioned above are zero premium. And some SS recipients are dual subscriber, meaning both Medicare and Medicaid. Their enrollment is questioned and possibly denied when extra income is posted toward their SS account. Creates a whole lotta mess for some folks. Musk has no real working knowledge of the dangerous can of worms he’s opening here. Neither does Drumpf. When they let Musk in to Fort Knox to inspect the gold reserves, LOCK HIM IN THERE! Just saying…
They are not "fake" SS numbers -- they are not actually SS numbers at all in most cases. Just like corporations have a Tax ID number (TIN) in order to pay corporate taxes, individuals who don't qualify for or don't have an SSN can apply for what is called an Individual Tax ID number (ITIN) and this is what enables them to fill out the government paperwork necessary for employment. It is true that they are paying into our tax and SS system -- using these ITINs -- but as long as they do not have citizenship they will never be able to claim any federal benefits like SS. Hence, whether we want to believe it or not, millions of undocumented immigrants are subsidizing Social Security.
Sorry. Maybe I should have been more clear. I worked payroll for several companies who employed immigrants in forestry, wildland fire, farming, and other fields who had fake SS cards/numbers. Believe it or not, the employers were required by law to accept the documents provided, falsified or not. People here in my area worked really hard producing those phony cards. There were a lot of phony cards with fake numbers during my two year run doing these payrolls. But, folks who are here LEGALLY usually do not get valid SS cards with SS NUMBERS. They get ITIN’s, taxpayer identification numbers. They look a lot like SS CARDS and SS numbers. It’s the only way that taxes can be withheld from their paychecks, which they have to pay just like you and I do.
It is true there are fake social security numbers and cards and there are also people who allow others to use their social security numbers. Still the undocumented citizens will never see that money. And yes the citizens who do such a thing with full knowledge could get serious trouble.
Do NOT lock Musk in there! He's obviously setting things up so people believe gold has been stolen and if he gets in he can pocket a few bars and then claim he was right, that there's gold missing.
“Even the dumbest……..”
Sorry but the left keeps making the mistake of giving MAGAs any intellectual credit. MAGA is now a religion that operates on beliefs and not on facts and reason.
"Musk sees evidence of fraud everywhere because that’s what he wants to believe and report out on."
The psychological concept of "projection" also fits Musk (and Trump) to a T. He sees fraud because he commits fraud. He sees fraud because he is a fraud.
It also a means to an end. They have a solution in search of a problem.
Their solution doesn't actually solve any problem because that's not what they are after. They want in the hen house
This man is truly evil.
And of course, all those > 100 year old recipients are eating dogs and cats too! Seriously, I’ve been holding my breath to see if I received a SS deposit this month, and yes I did. But how long will I, and when will he stop my Medicare? These are things people on the dole — as rich folk think of SS — like me need to think about!
I did the same about my SS deposit this month. I was very relieved to see it reflected in my bank account.
Me, too! I don't think I will feel confident anymore about relying on my SS deposit appearing, now that Musk has breeched SS. Its my primary income source, so I am feeling pretty anxious about the future. 😬
Might not be a bad idea to open up a separate bank account to sweep whatever you receive into each month and just leave the old account there as a depository for future payments. I've used my checking account for FIT refunds in the past, but now that the systems have been compromised by the Doge-bag, I'm feeling very uncomfortable with that account I've had for decades.
Edit: I also downloaded my Social Security report (I'm not old enough to draw), so I at least have a baseline of where I stand before he starts fiddling around with it. I plan on downloading a fresh one each month when I do my bills from now on.
Agreed. I’m continuing to work full time at age 71 as my only shield against the criminal musk.
Just finished the Wired article on Musk's shithousery, and clicked on yours, Jay, for even broader takedown...this is the consequences of - you know - "genius" doesn't do his homework, gets severely schooled for his willful AND self-serving ignorance.
Musk is doing this just as his company doesn’t mind blowing up rockets and having the fuel and debris pollute the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than think something through before acting, he’s just going to break things until he finds something unbreakable. It’s all about him (better learn that Trump) and he cares nothing for anyone else!
How do we get people to finally wake up?
People will wake up when their social security checks don't show up. A LOT of MAGAts are on Social Security and if they're not, their parents are. When mommy and daddy suddenly need to move in with their kids because they can no longer afford to pay for housing, they'll wake up. The financial institutions will wake up, too. And those who provide services to seniors. As will businesses who get a lot of $$ from seniors, like Big Pharma, Medicare Advantage Plans (paid for with $$ from our monthly SSA disbursements), other medical businesses, etc. It'll be a blow to the entire economy. OH, NO! What will little donny do when all of corporate America hates him and Wall Street crumbles?
As for this Social Security recipient... I have a question for the legal beagles out there -- if my checks don't come, can I file for bankruptcy and get mortgage relief so I can stay in my house (it's my only debt)(no kids to move in with)?
You don't really get "mortgage relief" in bankruptcy--it's a secured debt. Foreclosure is put off until after the bankruptcy is closed, but with no other debts that won't take long. Sorry. I DO think that if Social Security is cut off, the banking industry is going to be in holy turmoil. They don't really WANT to suddenly have to foreclose on a bazillion homes--what will they DO with them? It's going to be one sector of the oligarchy against another, possibly with automatic weapons.
Yeah... Can you imagine what it would do to the housing market? I imagine a reverse mortgage won't be easy to get, either, which I figure would be my only other option. Thanks for the reply.
as I mentioned in another comment below, I think any attempt to stop checks en masse will be met with instant court action. And can you IMAGINE the number of red state seniors finding the leopards eating their face and screaming to their reps and senators?
They're probably cheering Musk on... for now... for getting all those 150 y.o.'s and illegals off the rolls. That's the only part of this that feels good - knowing they'd have a HUGE dose of reality coming if Musk is at all successful. I'm guessing he's trying to break the system before he gets hit with a TRO.
Another factor to put banks in turmoil--the people who would be foreclosed on are pretty much by definition seniors, who have mostly had mortgages in good standing for YEARS. So it would be unlike the PR around the 2008 crises, which was caused primarily by the industry's writing of bad loans to people who didn't really qualify.
I held my breath until I received my SS deposit yesterday. But I have cataract surgery scheduled in May and am wondering if I will still have Medicare by then.
Any attempt to stop Social Security checks is going to be hit with a TRO/injunction so fast the news won't be able to keep up. If they tried to stop it tomorrow, pretty sure my check would still arrive next week.
I hope you're right. After all, SS is OUR money, not theirs.
Right there with you, Ada. Held my breath until my Feb. check arrived. Cataract surgery schd. next week. Fingers crossed I’ll still have Medicare to pay for most of it! Scary times for us seniors. Courage.
I'm a software guy so I've been keeping a close eye on the SSA personal profile page for the last two weeks.
On the log-in page today, I saw something I don't remember seeing, but maybe it's been there and I missed it:
Hours of Service: Monday - Friday 4:15 AM - 1 AM ET | Saturday 5 AM - 11 PM ET | Sunday 8 AM - 11:30 PM ET
That seems weird to me. A huge enterprise-level website should not need "an hours of service" notice. Huge websites have rolling production servers such that changes get rolled out one machine at a time with no downtime.
The paranoid part of me is afraid these hours are Musk bro times, for them to turn off the site so that can gain access to the database so they can break things.
As Jay says, they probably have no COBOL knowledge (I've looked at a few of their profiles and they seem like mostly Python/C++ guys, a world apart).
Maybe that notice has always been there and I'm just being paranoid but we all need to be vigilant for even subtle changes in what we see on that site.
Charles,
I too was a COBOL programmer long ago. But not for government. The dataset that Elmo and his lost boys were looking at as proof of fraud was named "Numident". Sounds like it was list of SSNs, names, and birthdates and whatever else was provided when a SS number was issued.
Which is exactly what is needed to prevent from handing out duplicate SSNs. Only one SSN per person living or dead. And if a person did not know their birthdate then the default birthdate was used. Which happened for a lot with people born before November, 1936 (when the first SSN were assigned) before record keeping of births and deaths was required or possible.
Thanks. To be clear, I was not a COBOL programmer. Object-oriented programming for me. Thanks for the explanation. I read about the COBOL dating issues but didn’t want to write about them because I didn’t feel confident enough with my knowledge there. Thanks again.
Yes. Musk is just waving a piece of paper around. He doesn't understand what it actually says.
It seems it will be too late. MAGA's are already suffering -farmer's, flood victims, etc. Vets, I haven't seen them protesting, etc.
I've been trying to figure that out
He wants to solve problems?Why don't he try these problems,the ones that actually NEED solving!Things like world hunger, illnesses with no real cure like MS or Parkinson's Disease,climate change,homelessness,poverty,and there are many others that actually need attention,not a bunch of fabricated nonsense,or ideas that likely won't work or take so much time and effort to realize,none of us will even be around by then.We don't need to"fix"Mars to make it habitable for a handful of people,we need to fix Earth to keep it habitable for future generations of our own children and grandchildren!
He has all that damned money that he could use to SAVE HUMANITY but he don't give a shit about humanity and likely never has!
My fantasies consist of imagining him being declared a criminal enterprise and his wealth being confiscated and redistributed to the agencies and people that he's harmed.
He has enough money that everyone in this country could receive money out of it.I really like the idea of his money being confiscated and handed out to the people and charities that would actually use it to help people.
He actually doesn't have all that much money. He primarily has stocks - and at least the Tesla stock he owns is likely not going to be worth much. Nor is the Twitter stock.
RICO - arrest the 'Don', the capo's and Fredo Elon too.