"An official website of the United States government," reads small text atop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website that Elon Musk's team started populating this week with information on agency cuts.

But you apparently don't have to work in government to push updates to the site. A couple of prankster web developers told 404 Media that they separately discovered how "insecure" the DOGE site was, seemingly pulling from a "database that can be edited by anyone."

One coder couldn't resist and pushed two updates that, as of this writing, remained on the DOGE site. "This is a joke of a .gov site," one read. "THESE 'EXPERTS' LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN," read another.

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over”

The Trump administration celebrated the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services by rolling out the creation of the Make America Healthy Again Commission.

Make America Healthy Again arose as a slogan after RFK Jr. joined the Trump campaign. While some of Kennedy's ideas about health could be classified as "exotic," he asked questions that no one else seemed interested in talking about. Like why, with our enormous national investment in biomedical research and health care, is our nation a crap hole of health outcomes, particularly from chronic diseases?

This is from the introduction to the executive order creating the MAHA Commission:

The truth is, “minimal education experience” is a qualification for running an unconstitutional agency that poses an existential threat to our republic. Myriad data indicate the education industry is one of the nation’s lowest-performing, and its institutions some of the nation’s worst.

Institutions are run by people. The people responsible for the horrific performance of America’s education institutions are the least qualified to improve them. This is Management 101. And it is borne out by numerous longstanding data points. Here are just a few.

getting back to his comments about Trump's deportation plans, it seems especially disturbing, if not ridiculous, that the Pope wags his finger at those while issuing actual Vatican decrees for those who might break through the walls surrounding his own city.

According to the document, if you do, you will be fined between 10 and 25 thousand euros and may get tossed into jail for up to four years. Now, that's some brotherly love right there. Sure it's hypocrisy codified, but you know, Laws for thee....etc etc. Clearly a case of it here. What I find really crazy though, is the outright defiance of something the Jesuits taught me called The Double Standard. We all know what this is, but in college, they referenced it in every one of the 27 credit hours that I spent in philosophy classes at Rockhurst. Basically, if you're going to apply a double standard in your moral convictions, you have no convictions at all, as your principles are merely situational. Malleable. Prone to manipulation by events and others. You're a "squish."

A computer can never be held accountable. This legendary page from an internal IBM training in 1979 could not be more appropriate for our new age of AI.

A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

A computer can never be held accountable

Therefore a computer must never make a management decision

Mongoose
7 hours ago
Really, Mr. Wyden? Refund delayed? Let me tell you a story. I was working financial intelligence and got a call from a local bank. Seems they had a guy who wanted to deposit a million dollar+ check from the IRS. His tax refund, he said. The bank, which is supposed to report sketchy-looking activity on Treasury Suspicious Activity Report forms, thought this was... suspicious. On account of this guy had a W-2 job that paid him about $50,000/year. The bank really, really, really did NOT want to do this transaction, which they were certain was fraudulent.
It sounded squirrelly to me, so I called the IRS-CID special agent who handled refund frauds and was surprised to hear he already knew about it. The guy was pulling a 1099 OID fraud (it's on Wikipedia), and the bank had already told the IRS about it. I said, "Well, good, you can stop payment on the check, nip this fraud in the bud."
Nope, they'd been instructed not to interfere with the deposits/cashing of any refund checks. Go ahead and do the transaction, they told the bank. If it's fraudulent, we'll try to get the money back later. They couldn't even delay the check for a couple of weeks to do an investigation. Why? Because of Ron Wyden and people (Senators and Congressmen) like him. Apparently taxpayers(?) had been complaining to their congress folks about not getting their refunds (especially the fraudulent ones) in a timely fashion, and Ron and his buddies don't like those kinds of calls and can earn some easy constituent gratitude by squeezing IRS to push out that check post haste, so that's what IRS did.
I told the S/A that I thought he and IRS were f'n morons and told him I was going to tell the bank that I believed their deposit of the check would be a potential money laundering violation (thereby guaranteeing they wouldn't touch it or that customer with a hazmat suit). Which I did. (And in fairness, the refund fraud S/A was as distressed about it as I was.)
The crook took his business elsewhere, deposited his check, moved all the money out and when IRS finally went to get it, it was gone.
Now, multiply that little piece of insanity by a couple hundred thousand taxpayers(?) and we're starting to talk real money. Wikipedia says one 1099 OID fraud case involved three quarters of a billion dollars in false claims.
But those checks all went out because Ron Wyden doesn't want your refund delayed.

The Paradox of DEI
DEI programs were instituted to ensure that workplaces and educational institutions reflect a broad spectrum of human diversity. Yet, there's growing concern that these initiatives sometimes overlook those who should benefit from true inclusion—individuals with disabilities, including those on the autism spectrum and other neurodivergent conditions.

Legal Protections vs. DEI Practices
Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, disabled individuals are entitled to reasonable accommodations. This law was meant to level the playing field, ensuring equal access to education and employment for Americans with disabilities. However, the push for DEI often focuses on demographic diversity in terms of race, gender, and identity, which can conflict with the accommodations needed by people with disabilities. //

The Employment Dilemma
The statistics are telling. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 21 percent of disabled Americans were employed in 2022. This stark figure highlights not a lack of skill or ambition but rather systemic barriers, including those inadvertently created by DEI policies.

Real-Life Implications
In practice, this means that schools and companies might prioritize hiring for diversity in a way that doesn't account for the need for individualized learning or working accommodations. There are stories of autistic individuals being passed over for roles or being pushed out of jobs for not being a "cultural fit," a term often used to mask the inability or unwillingness to accommodate an individual's disability. //

The Path Forward
The irony of DEI policies marginalizing people with disabilities while claiming to be inclusive cannot be ignored. True inclusion means adapting our systems to genuinely accommodate all forms of diversity, including disability. //

anon-onh5
4 hours ago
"DEI programs were instituted to ensure that workplaces and educational institutions reflect a broad spectrum of human diversity."

DEI programs were instituted to divide people along racial lines and keep fostering race hatred. FIFY

OrneryCoot
5 hours ago
That woman is emblematic of the various NGOs and green companies that grift off of the Federal teat provided by Democrats and the administrative state. Especially the administrative state. Why do you think that the outcry is so great about what DOGE is doing? Because the gravy train is being brought to a crashing end, and the various vultures who are just like Elizabeth Holmes are realizing that the good times have suddenly gone. Good riddance. Hopefully, a lot more Elizabeth Holmes clones will be joining her soon. //

maroon
4 hours ago edited
Well of course People Magazine folks were sympathetic to her (they are Lefties, it's what they do). She conned them just like she did to all the other gullible victims, and she probably sold them ocean-front property in Switzerland (the deed is "in the mail"). Not surprising that sawdust brain Biden fell for it. Max Planck: "Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination." When presented with something that seems too good to be true, it's time for "experiments" to prove it.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy.
10:57 PM · Feb 13, 2025. //

TK421
4 hours ago
To that moron from the union: It doesn't matter whether there's precedent, just whether it's legal. And, your use of the term 'dismantling' is meaningless in a legal sense. What would be unconstitutional would be the Executive branch eliminating a Congressionally created agency. That hasn't happened. It was moved under the auspices of the State Department, so it still exists. One of the things the Executive can do, is determine the staffing level, and you have no right to argue otherwise. If the Executive branch determines that only 10 people are needed to administer the agency's programs (especially because those programs have been scaled back), tough luck. //

anon-tk7z NavyVet
37 minutes ago
do you know how many companies just gave up because of unions? This is exactly their position. Businesses were not negotiating with their people , they were negotiating with a distant entity that showed up for a day or two, threatened the company, left, destroyed the company, and left the workers with no jobs unless they moved. Bread companies, gum companies, toy companies, glass companies, local metalists, on and on and on, small businesses of 50-60 people. So, the companies just closed. Poverty and lack of self worth flourished. The good things unions did are now hard-wired into any business here in this country.

$300 million worth of medications are sitting on pallets about to expire thanks to Trump's effort to gut foreign aid. These drugs would've prevented people from going blind from a preventable tropical disease—Donald Trump would rather waste them in an East African warehouse. ///

The fastest shipping to South Africa is 25 days. If true, these were expiring long before Trump ordered anything. //

GreenLanternMD
5 hours ago
The even funnier part is that what he’s describing sounds like ivermectin. //

OrneryCoot Largo Patriot
4 hours ago
It shakes them to their core and infuriates them. They have been accustomed to being the gatekeepers for all of the knowledge disseminated to the poor yokel masses, and shaping what is delivered to suit their purposes. They now have millions of fact checkers that can spotlight any falsehood or narrative almost instantaneously. They are continually being caught in pants-on-fire lies, and it erodes their credibility ever further. Thus, even more people dig in deeper on their half-truths and outright lies. It is snowballing so quickly that they are being replaced as the arbiters of truth in real time. The Democrats who push this and benefit from it are in a state of existential threat and denial that the old ways just don't work anymore, and they become ever more shrill and frantic. It is absolutely amazing to witness. Hallelujah!

Eco-activists protests are nearly non-existent. Meanwhile, Romanians may be getting the president they wanted after their country’s USAID-funded NGOs were gutted. //

The damage done by the exposure of USAID’s extensive, expensive meddling could be far-reaching as other countries in Eastern Europe that have governments that were unpopular with the Americans are left to wonder how much of their unpopularity in their own country was bought and paid for with American dollars. And how much of it was in concert with their like-minded globalist bug-buddies in Brussels. //

schmuul | February 12, 2025 at 9:53 am
You are also seeing the impact in Israel as well where US interference through fake NGO’s almost took down Netanyahu and the whole Knesset. It’s insane how much we meddled in other countries in ways that weren’t in the best interest of any stability or peace let alone self determination. I guess they were in the best interest of George Soros and some insane “progressive “ vision.

Under the Constitution, “the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion.” For his decisions, “he is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience.” His choices cannot be questioned in court because “the subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive.”

Who penned these outrageous words? Democrats and many pundits might answer Vice President J.D. Vance. Over the weekend, Vance provoked an onslaught of criticism for suggesting that federal district judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

But the usual suspects would be wrong. The right answer is John Marshall, the greatest chief justice in Supreme Court history. And he did not squirrel this view away in a private journal. Instead, Marshall publicly explained that courts could not review presidential decisions on “political” subjects “entrusted to the executive” in a Supreme Court opinion.

He announced this principle not just in any case, but in Marbury v. Madison, the greatest opinion in Supreme Court history. The very same Marbury that concluded that federal judges should reject unconstitutional statutes, also recognized that courts could not intrude into the president’s exercise of his constitutional — dare we say “legitimate” — powers. Marshall’s opinion has given rise to the “political question doctrine,” which prohibits courts from reviewing decisions vested in the Constitution in the other branches, such as making war, prosecuting cases, and conducting impeachments. //

During the Vietnam War, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman sued to stop the bombing of Cambodia (which President Richard Nixon had ordered). Holtzman obtained an injunction from a district court. The court of appeals promptly stayed the district court order. Holtzman petitioned Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who oversaw that court of appeals, to vacate the stay. Marshall properly refused, writing “the proper response to an arguably illegal action [by Nixon] is not lawlessness by judges charged with interpreting and enforcing the laws.”. //

The question whether the president can fire heads of “independent” agencies such as multi-member commissions is still debated, but the clear trend of recent Supreme Court decisions indicates that the president can remove these officers if they refuse to carry out presidential orders. No doubt Trump’s recent removal of members of the National Labor Relations Board are intended to set up a case to settle this question at the Supreme Court. Our prediction is that Trump will win that dispute — decisively.

At the heart of this issue is the de minimis provision, which originates from Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This provision was initially designed to prevent the government from incurring excessive costs and hassles for small imports made by individuals in a single day, as long as the fair retail value of those imports did not exceed $1. Over the years, Congress has raised this threshold multiple times, and it currently stands at $800, making it the most generous de minimis exemption in the world. In contrast, Canada’s de minimis exemption is capped at only $15. //

A congressional report revealed that between fiscal year 2018 and 2021, more than two-thirds of de minimis imports came from China (including mainland and Hong Kong). In 2023 de minimis imports comprised an astonishing 1 billion parcels valued at approximately $54.5 billion, with around $18 billion in shipments originating from China.

The Select Committee on the CCP estimated that two Chinese companies accounted for more than 30 percent of the daily de minimis shipments in the U.S. These companies are Shein, a fast fashion online retailer based in Singapore that sources most of its products from China, and Temu, a China-based e-commerce marketplace offering a wide range of items from cosmetics to knock-off iPods. These companies ship their merchandise directly to American consumers at extremely low prices, utilizing small shipments that are exempted under de minimis provisions.

Engelmayer is the first judge ever to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the president of the United States that also forbids a cabinet secretary from accessing his own records without giving these parties an opportunity to respond. He offered zero analysis of his constitutional authority to make such a radical ruling, the federal rule governing injunctions and temporary restraining orders, or why he is enabling fraud and grift by blocking access to records that show who got government money and for what. //

The situation is actually worse than that. Here’s the timeline of the court filings. All these initial documents were filed by New York Special Trial Counsel Colleen Faherty. //

1:04 a.m. — Faherty e-mailed four items — the complaint, the legal memorandum, her prior affirmation, and the order granting the TRO — to two government lawyers, only one of whom had been a recipient of her 7:32 p.m. email.

1:14 a.m. — The complaint was refiled with the deficiency corrected. Note that a properly filed complaint was not filed until more than a half-hour after Judge Engelmayer had already entered his order. //

The accelerated timeline is simply incredible, especially in view of the voluminous materials that any diligent judge would analyze to render a proper opinion. And I mean “incredible” in its literal sense of “not to be believed.”

The last documents filed in support of the request for a TRO were at 10:13 and 10:15 p.m. These included the legal memorandum with its citation to 54 court opinions. Did Engelmayer read these? Not a chance. Did he read any of them? If he did, you can’t tell it from his order, other than one citation from him to a single case that had no resemblance to the case before him. //

Even if Engelmayer had received and began to study these materials immediately after he had them all, he spent less than two-and-one-half hours reviewing and analyzing the materials presented to him before entering his order at 12:39 a.m.

That’s not even counting the time it would have taken Engelmeyer to write his order. If he took only a half-hour to do that, he spent less than two hours to peruse the voluminous record and then begin to write his order. He could not possibly have considered more than a small fraction of the cited cases and other authorities in that time. It raises the question of how much of this order was AI-generated.

Abortion discourse focuses too often on the existence or limits of a so-called right to “bodily autonomy.” It is seldom framed as it should be: in terms of duty. For any parent, mother or father, in whatever circumstances, the proper response to a pregnancy is the willingness to take any risk, make any sacrifice to protect that little poppy seed-sized life. Those who feel otherwise should seek not to eliminate the unwanted child but to correct the deficiency in their own souls.

Solar Powered Water Systems: Design and Installation Guide

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This free guide was created with UNICEF and Water Mission. It has been downloaded by people in over 130 countries.

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Learn how to operate and maintain solar powered water systems. This guide’s adaptable format can be tailored to fit your unique context.

Whether you’re an operator, technician, or trainer, this resource provides practical insights for ensuring sustainable water solutions.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion. //

Non-governmental groups bilked taxpayers for up to $1.7 billion in services including dollar-for-dollar matching savings plans for cars, homes, college educations or startups; small-business loans of up to $15,000; loans to repair credit history of up to $1,500; “cultural orientation,” “emergency housing support,” legal assistance and Medicaid care. //

Dieter Schultz NavyVet
15 minutes ago edited
We have an audit trail. This is theft from American taxpayers.

Follow the audit trail. Confiscate the cars, homes, or businesses purchased with our dollars. Deport the thieves - they are compact in theft. Auction off confiscated items to American citizens.
For the big items that might work, I'm not sure I'd put money on it but... I watched the press event with Musk in the WH and one of the things that struck me from his audit was that he mentioned the lack of standard accountability, traceability, fields in treasury's payment system. Things like requirements to enter information in the 'notes' field, or forcing the data entry person to reference a payment authorization number, and more... were all things Musk noted was common to private/public companies were all not required or not used.

Musk noted that the system as it was being used was designed to minimize challenges to a payment, and therefore minimize the work associated with the authorizing/managing payment the payment process, were all, by design, making it nearly impossible to audit and/or account for the money that was being spent.

Protesters began unfurling banners and chanting "PEPFAR saves lives. Restore AIDS funding now" and continued to do so as they were being escorted out.

Mast didn't skip a beat, and had just a few short, sweet, simple, and to-the-point words for the protesters:

"I guess these guys don't watch the news. They didn't realize that PEPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be life-saving, so the funding was restored. Somebody better give them a link to, I don't know, maybe Fox News or something like that."

PEPFAR, which was started in 2003, stands for "the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief," and DOGE leader Elon Musk indicated on the Twitter/X platform Wednesday that its funding was mostly preserved:

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @iAnonPatriot
Funding for Ebola prevention and the parts of PEPFAR that appeared to be useful were not cut
6:03 AM · Feb 12, 2025

From his confirmation hearing, it was clear that RFK Jr. knows his most significant challenge will be bringing Medicare and Medicaid under control and improving the quality of service to consumers. He also understands the nature of the opposition he will face from monied interests who make money off of keeping us on drugs for a lifetime rather than focusing on exercise and nutrition as critical factors in keeping us healthy. Just remember, we don't have a health care system -- we have a sick care system. There is no money to be made off healthy, active people.

Even though RFK Jr. is not in sync with the Trump administration on everything, abortion comes to mind. I have no doubt that he will be a team player and color within the lines because this is the last chance of his lifetime to make a difference, and he is more focused on being a change agent than an ideologue.

The nomination of RFK Jr. to HHS has the possibility of being a brilliant pick that puts the US on track to better health and a much more sane use of health care and medical research dollars, or an utter disaster. But like with Tulsi Gabbard, Trump is the guy who will pay the price if RFK Jr. self-immolates and if he is fine with that risk, he deserves to have his man in place.

Now he does. //

anon-j4cj
4 hours ago
This guy Kennedy is supposedly a Democrat, and how many Democrats voted for him ? ZERO! Don't ever buy that "reaching across the aisle" BS again! It doesn't exist. This is our triangulation of the Democrats with RFK, Jr. and Tulsi. WE are the ones with the coalition; Americans are throwing off the chains of Marxist slavery. //

epaddon
4 hours ago
The irony for all those Dems and liberals who have spent decades with their silly Camelot nostalgia and pining for a restoration that the first Kennedy to serve in a Cabinet since 1964 is in a Republican Administration. :). //

GBenton ECoolidge19
3 hours ago
The political spectrum is changed. It's the elite vs the people more than right or left, at least with most Americans who are not hardcore partisans. I've come to believe that the Uniparty divided us into R vs D and then played pretend like there was an actual difference. Reality was the RINOs made sure the limited government Christian conservatives never won. Government only ever grew. We were told that was inevitable. Real reformers like Reagan were impeded by establishment RINOs like the Bushes who support bigger government in perhaps only marginally different ways than establishment Dems. Thus, the progressive Commies are mad they never got their full Communism and conservatives are mad we keep losing to the left. Now, Trump has taken populist ideas and shown that we can agree on more than we disagree on the core stuff like health and liberty. We'll have to agree to disagree on some things and let voters decide at the state level, but that's Federalism. Either way, the Uniparty can no longer divide us into fake party lines.