Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond
East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, due soon for a vote in Congress, is poised to reduce the voting block. If you’ve switched parties, moved, or changed your last name when you married, there would be a requirement to provide, in person, either a passport or birth certificate with your current legal name at your local elections office.
Currently 69 million women don’t have a birth certificate with their married name, according to Common Cause.
Changes due to Elon Musk’s DOGE staff cuts to Social Security appear designed to crash the Social Security system, which has operated efficiently for 90 years -- even when understaffed. Fortune.com reported that a former SS Commissioner warns that benefits could be cut in the next one to three months, followed by eventual systemic collapse. Before collapse, late payments are likely, hence the former Commissioner’s warning to “start saving now” ahead of a payment stop.
Prior to DOGE SS interference, former SS Board of Trustee member Robert Reich says SS did have a payment accuracy rate of 99.7% and ultra-low administrative costs of 0.5%.
In a nutshell: destroying SS would allow the wealthy to dodge proposals to shore up SS by increasing or eliminating SS’s cap on taxable wages. Musk, who is wielding the DOGE chainsaw on SS, doesn’t have to pay into SS shortly after the year’s change, due to the pay-in cap.
Raising or eliminating the cap would not change what most people pay in, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Those paying in more due to higher incomes would get higher SS benefits.
Sen. Patty Murray says her office is inundated with calls from people terrified about DOGE’s attack on SS, including plans to fire up to 50% of SS’s workforce (so far 12% have been fired, triggering chaos). She said there’s “NO way” to make those kinds of staff reductions “without seriously jeopardizing the agency’s ability serve its customers… and get benefits out in a timely manner.”
Trump’s SS Administration wants to end phone services for SS claims on March 31. The remaining options: processing claims in person or on-line (under DOGE SS websites have been crashing, stopping account access for millions). With SS employee cuts those options could be a head-banger.
Rep. John Larson has introduced Congressional bills to protect Social Security from DOGE. One bill would block SS office closures, another would protect private SS data, that Musk has allowed untrained DOGE employees to access. Bill support may not come from Republican pro-Trump lawmakers.
Experts say SS’s collapse would impact 73 million. (Comparison: 77.3 million voted for Trump).
The 82-year-old Seattle man SS declared dead says the ordeal’s been a nightmare: after many calls to SS, when lengthy waits were cut off, he went to an obviously understaffed SS office. Telling them he was dead worked; a $5,200 SS deduction made was returned. But, he told the Seattle Times, he’s yet to receive February or March benefits. “If I was living solely off Social Security, I could be close to dumpster diving about now,” he said. “I’m OK with mistakes...But I’m not sure how much they’re focused on fixing these kinds of mistakes… as they are in using the mistakes to tear the place down.”
A U.S. District Court judge, in a 68-page decision, said the DOGE effort to close down USAID “likely violated the Constitution” and ordered restoration efforts. Another judge found thousands of workers at other agencies were illegally fired due to DOGE-led employee purges.
“It’s a heist” two auditors told Wired, regarding DOGE “audits.” They noted that reviewing a single government project can take six to 18 months, not a week or two, which has been DOGE’s norm.
Telling headlines:
- Oklahoma City man says Social Security benefits terminated without warning or explanation;
- Trump NatSec Adviser Accidentally Added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to a Group Chat About Secret War Plans (critics likened the mistake to “the carelessness of a high school group project”);
- Trump Says “You’re Rehired!” (after judges ruled probationary job firings were illegal);
- Federal Reserve cuts US economic growth outlook amid Trump tariffs;
- Trump’s call for impeaching judge who ruled against his deportation plans; [Supreme Court Judge] Roberts rejects call for impeaching [that] judge (Roberts’ response: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose”);
- Wells Fargo is plotting to privatize the Post Office (memo plans include raising prices, selling off real estate, and decimating the unionized workforce);
- What the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador experienced (most had no due process; they were slapped, shoved, kicked, chained, put in barren cold cells, 80 to a cell. Trump denied signing the proclamation used to send them to El Salvador, but the White House communications director said Trump personally signed);
USPS head Louis DeJoy resigns amid reported clash over DOGE access to mail system.
Blast from the past: “To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Republican Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, 26th president