Support Our Journalism

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Politics National News World Economy Lifestyle Store

Tag: doge

Musk's DOGE Gang Hit With Fresh Revelations Of Heinous Conduct

The aspiring young goons in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are being exposed as inexperienced and untrustworthy young Musk-o-lytes who have histories of posting racist and sexist things online.

One of Musk’s DOGE boys has a history of retweeting white supremacists and well-known misogynists. Gavin Kliger is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and possibly the “Special Advisor to the Director” at the Office of Personnel Management, Reuters reports, per his LinkedIn profile.

According to Reuters, between October 2024 and January of this year, Kliger shared posts by white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-avowed misogynist Andrew Tate. The latter remains under criminal investigation by Romanian authorities for allegedly trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, and money laundering.

Bloomberg reports that another young member of Musk’s DOGE team,19-year-old Edward Coristine, was previously terminated from a job at an online security firm for “leaking internal information to the competitors.”A spokesperson for Path Network, an Arizona-based data security and hosting company, told Bloomberg that Coristine’s contract was terminated “after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”

Coristine’s connection to Musk comes from a brief stint working atMusk's brain-chip startup, Neuralink. According to the Washington Post, Coristine’s online name is “Big Balls.” All of this is the opposite of what you want to see on someone’s resume who is set to potentially access hundreds of millions of people’s private information.

Those two join 25-year-old Marko Elez, who resigned last week, after the Wall Street Journalexposed his racist history on social media. Elez was quickly rehired at the insistence of Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and Trump, cavalierly passing off Elez’s previous racist posts that went up just a few months ago as youthful indiscretion, while giving him access to the country’s most sensitive financial data.Coordinating all of the destruction for Musk is Steve Davis. Davis comes over from leading Musk’s Boring Company, an anti-public transportation company, that repeatedly makes deals with cities involving tunnels and delivers nothing, delaying public works for years. Davis is credited with helping Musk obliterate Twitter in order to turn it into the much-depreciated cesspool of right-wing bigotry and misinformation known as X.

Senate Democrats have opened up a whistleblower portal for federal employees, hoping to uncover some of the clandestine destruction being done by Musk, Trump, and their goons.

Americans At Risk As DOGE Hackers Hijack Private Data From Treasury

People working with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency are exposing sensitive Education Department data to artificial intelligence systems that have not been vetted for this use.

The Washington Post reports that DOGE (which is an advisory commission, not a real department) sent the data to Microsoft’s Azure cloud system as part of a process to identify the Education Department’s disbursements. President Donald Trump has said he wants to destroy the department, and attacking the payments is apparently a step toward that goal.

Azure’s system has not been designed to secure the type of data that DOGE is feeding it and could be subject to theft during a cyberattack. Furthermore, AI systems frequently produce wrong and inaccurate results that are presented as factual assertions—meaning that decisions made based on this AI output could be based on nonsense. (Such “hallucinations” have long plagued AI.)

The Post reports the DOGE team has also gained access to personal information from millions of Americans who are part of the vast student loan system. There are no known third-party safety systems or guardrails to ensure that this information remains secure and private.

Similarly, DOGE team members have reportedly bullied their way into the Treasury Department’s sensitive payment system, which administers trillions of dollars flowing through the federal government. Again, there are no known guidelines on how this information, which previously was limited to a very select group of people, is being used and secured.

“They’ve burrowed into the private information of every American, something we should all be alarmed about and should be blocked in federal courts,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said in a CNN interview on Thursday.

Rep. Lori Trahan, Democrat of Massachusetts, also noted, “Donald Trump has handed control of people's personal, financial and health information over to his billionaire donor, Elon Musk. This is corruption plain and simple.”

A coalition of labor unions has sued Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his department in an attempt to block DOGE’s wild behavior. On Thursday, a federal judge partially blocked DOGE from getting their hands on some of the information.

Yet, despite the concerns about data security and Musk’s haphazard approach to federal agencies (enabled by Trump), congressional Republicans are providing cover for the richest person in the world. They blocked a Democratic effort to compel Musk to testify about his actions.

“It's a puzzling role for many people, certainly on this side of the aisle, and I think for some on yours, who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight or concurrence,” Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in response to the Republican maneuver.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Treasury Security Staff Warns Against 'Insider Threat' From DOGE Hackers

The handful of young men Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has hired to help him gut various federal agencies are now reportedly being treated as a significant security risk.

Tech publication WIRED reported Friday that the threat intelligence team with one of the payment systems managed by the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) is now recommending that Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" (which is not yet a congressionally authorized federal agency) employees be monitored. An email to BFS information technology workers entitled "recommendations" explained the reasoning.

“There is ongoing litigation, congressional legislation, and widespread protests relating to DOGE’s access to Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” the email read. “If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems.”

Last weekend, the New York Times reported that DOGE employees had gained access to the BFS' systems, which oversee the disbursement of roughly $6 trillion in annual federal government payments involving everything from Social Security and Medicare benefits to small business loans, government contracts and federal income tax returns, among others. One of the staffers reportedly had administrator-level access to those systems, and Talking Points Memo reported that staffer may have already made changes to the payment systems' source code.

“There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to,” the “Recommendations” email read. “We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled in favor of plaintiffs who sued to block DOGE staffers from accessing those systems, meaning they have now been temporarily locked out while their access is being litigated. The staffer who is accused of changing the payment systems' code — 25 year-old Marko Elez — recently stepped down from his role after the Wall Street Journal linked him to a racist social media account. He was reportedly reinstated after Vice President JD Vance advocated for him to be rehired on Friday.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

More Polls Find Musk Is A Big Liability For Trump

Donald Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk, is deeply unpopular, and his unlawful meddling in the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency, a federal advisory commission he leads, could become a serious liability for Trump and the GOP.

House Majority Forward, a progressive nonprofit, released polling from Impact Research on Thursday that found Musk's approval rating underwater, with 42 percent viewing him favorably and 51 percent viewing him unfavorably.

HMF said that voters are not a fan of Musk and his DOGE bros reportedly meddling in Treasury Department payment systems, which could impact Social Security and Medicare payments as well as tax return disbursement, among many other things. And HMF encouraged Democrats to go after Musk and DOGE on that issue.

"While not opposed to the concept of DOGE initially, registered voters fear DOGE may endanger the programs working families and seniors rely on for the purpose of enriching members of the Trump administration. These participants voiced strong opposition to gutting Social Security benefits, raising the retirement age, and cutting other government-sponsored retirement benefits," HMF wrote of their poll's findings.

The HMF poll results are similar to a bevy of other polling on Musk that came out this week.

A YouGov survey released Wednesday found that while the vast majority of Americans (83 percent) think Musk has influence over Trump, a plurality (46 percent) don't want him to.

A Morning Consult poll also published on Wednesday found that more voters disapprove of Musk's role in the Trump administration than support it for the first time since the outlet began tracking Musk's approval in November. The poll found that just 41 percent of voters approve of Musk's appointment, a 10-percentage-point decline since January 20, when Trump took office.

A new Civiqs poll fielded February 1-4 found that a plurality of registered voters (46 percent) believe Musk performed a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. That comes after Civiqs found that 52 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the right-wing billionaire.

Ultimately, Democrats have been sounding the alarm about Musk's power grab over the federal government.

Musk and his army of college-aged DOGE bros are working to shut down federal agencies and freeze spending that Congress approved, which has drawn numerous lawsuits.

As mentioned in the HMF poll, Musk and DOGE have also reportedly been accessing the Treasury Department's payment systems responsible for allocating trillions of dollars of grants, Medicare benefits, and Social Security payments. This has raised alarm bells from security experts and Democrats, who have vowed to introduce legislation to stop it.

“The scale here is unprecedented in terms of the risk to sensitive personal and financial information,” Alan Butler, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Politico. “It’s an absolute nightmare.”

Beyond the polling, there are real-world signs that Musk is galvanizing the demoralized Democratic base.

Protests cropped up in state capitals all over the country on Wednesday, with thousands of demonstrators voiced opposition to Musk’s hostile takeover of the federal government.

Pete Souza, a former presidential photographer, said he attended one of the protests in Illinois.

“I’ve probably been to 100 political protests like this in my life, and there have always been counter protesters that show up. Until today,” Souza wrote in an Instagram post, along with photos of the Illinois protest. “NO ONE came to support Trump/Elon. Not a single counter-protesters. ZERO.”

Wired reported that Musk's role is now "causing rifts" in the Trump administration.

However, publicly, GOP lawmakers seem totally fine with what Musk is up to. And House Republicans on Wednesday blocked efforts by Democrats to subpoena Musk to testify.

“I just moved to subpoena Elon Musk to appear before the Oversight Committee to answer for his unlawful takeover of agencies across the government,” Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote Wednesday in a post on X. “Republicans blocked my motion without allowing any debate. They will stop at nothing to cover up Elon Musk's lawlessness.”

Republican Senators have gone on TV to razz Democrats, telling them to get used to Musk's role.

“It is going to be a very aggressive movement on the part of Republicans, President Trump, and Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, so the Democrats need to get used to this,” Sen. Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, said in a Tuesday appearance on Fox News. “We are going to find ways to focus our American taxpayer dollars on the things that they should be spent on, which is the American people and our interests.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Shop our Store

Headlines

Editor's Blog

Corona Virus

World

        About The National Memo
    
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
TAGS

Created By

RebelMouse

About Masthead Terms of Service Privacy Statement Advertise Contact

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Musk's DOGE Gang Hit With Fresh Revelations Of Heinous Conduct

Americans At Risk As DOGE Hackers Hijack Private Data From Treasury

Treasury Security Staff Warns Against 'Insider Threat' From DOGE Hackers

More Polls Find Musk Is A Big Liability For Trump

Shop our Store

Constitution Cork Coaster

Bill of Rights Mug

Make America Think Again Hat

Constitution Rocks Glass

Headlines

'Limited Options' If Trump Defies Judicial Decisions