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برچسب: DOGS

  • Musk Is Gone But His DOGS Live On, Embedded in Agencies

    Musk Is Gone But His DOGS Live On, Embedded in Agencies


    Elon Musk left Washington, where he enjoyed the exalted status of being Trump’s brain. He returned to Texas, his new home. Where he launched into a Twitter tirade against Trump.

    But he left behind a still large contingent of DOGS (Department of Governmental Subsistence).

    Who are they?

    ProPublica has been tracking them.

    In an effort launched shortly after DOGE’s creation, ProPublica has now identified more than 100 private-sector executives, engineers and investors from Silicon Valley, big American banks and tech startups enlisted to help President Donald Trump dramatically downsize the U.S. government.

    While Elon Musk has departed the Department of Government Efficiency, the world’s richest man is leaving a network of acolytes embedded inside nearly every federal agency.

    At least 38 DOGE members currently work or have worked for businesses run by Musk, ProPublica found in an examination of their resumes and other records. At least nine have invested in Musk companies or own stock in them, a review of available financial disclosure forms shows.

    ProPublica found that at least 23 DOGE officials are making cuts at federal agencies that regulate the industries that employed them, potentially posing significant conflicts of interest. One DOGE member tasked with overseeing mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for instance, did so while owning stock in companies the agency regulated.

    At least 12 remain, on paper, employees or advisers of the companies they worked at before DOGE, a review of financial disclosure forms shows. And at least nine continue to receive corporate benefits from their private-sector employers, including health insurance, stock vesting plans or retirement savings programs. These employment agreements could create a situation in which a DOGE staffer would be shaping federal policies that affect their employer.

    The people behind DOGE are largely men in their 20s and 30s, most of whom bring no government experience to the task. Many of them previously worked in finance.

    ProPublica’s list — the largest of its kind by any news organization — allows readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the backgrounds of the people assigned to one of the Trump administration’s signature efforts. It comes at a crucial moment, as some of the first-generation DOGE members are leaving the government and a new crop is joining.

    “Even though Elon Musk and some of his top officials are shifting their attention to other issues, I see no indication that the DOGE team members who remain will slow down their work to test the legal and ethical boundaries of using technology in the name of improving government services,” said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology.

    While the Trump administration asserts it is the most transparent in history, DOGE operates shrouded by the shadows of bureaucracy.

    Many of its staffers have deleted their public profiles, have wiped the internet of their professional backgrounds or were encouraged by leadership not to discuss their work with friends. At the behest of the Trump administration, the Supreme Court halted a court order Friday that would have required DOGE to turn over information to a government watchdog — challenging whether the group will ever be subject to public records requests. The Trump administration has banned DOGE staffers from speaking publicly without approval.

    To cast a light on this secretive group, ProPublica began reporting in February on Musk’s influence inside the Trump administration, cataloging who was part of DOGE and how associates of the billionaire tech mogul were taking up senior posts across agencies. Our DOGE tracker, the first such list published by media outlets, is the culmination of hundreds of conversations with sources across government.

    Today, we are adding 23 staffers to our tracker, taking the total to 109. They are spread throughout the government, from the Department of Defense to the General Services Administration to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    Open the link to see the list of DOGGIES.

    By any measure, Musk failed.

    First, he said he would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Then, he said he would cut $1 trillion.

    Then, he dropped his target to $165 billion.

    Even that number is disputed because federal courts keep ruling that DOGS firings should be nullified and workers should return to their jobs. Other “savings” were canceled out by the costs of benefits. By some measures, the DOGS game may have cost money, not saved it.

    One thing is certain: the federal deficit will grow after Trump’s first year in office, thanks to tax cuts for the top 1%.



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  • Russ Vought Will Keep the DOGS going Without Elon

    Russ Vought Will Keep the DOGS going Without Elon


    In case you wondered, I now call DOGE something else. I call it DOGS, although truthfully that’s not fair to dogs. Dogs are wonderful creatures; In my experience, dogs give you unconditional loyalty and love. These DOGS are loyal to one man, Elon Musk. They are shredding the federal government, destroying the careers and lives of tens of thousands of professional civil servants. They have gathered our personal data. They are embedded in high-level positions across the government. They should all be fired and sent back to Elon Musk.

    But the bigger risk to our democracy is Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, one of the most powerful positions in the federal government. He is a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist. He is working in opposition to the Founding Fathers, who made clear their intention to keep religion out of government.

    Democracy Docket reports on Vought:

    Though Elon Musk is leaving the White House, DOGE isn’t going anywhere.

    It appears that Russell Vought — Trump’s budget hawk and one of the chief architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — is stepping in to become DOGE’s new power broker.

    With Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist, at the helm, the slash-and-burn effort against the federal government may be on the cusp of an even darker turn.

    In many ways, Vought is what Musk is not. After working at public policy organizations for nearly two decades, he has a far better understanding of how the government works — and how its weaknesses can be exploited. Despite advising Trump for almost 10 years, he’s also kept a fairly low profile, rarely giving interviews or speaking in public. 

    And Vought appears to be motivated first and foremost by creating a Christian nation controlled by an overtly Christian government. 

    Last year, Vought told undercover journalists with the Centre for Climate Reporting that he wants “to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation.”

    “And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism,” Vought said. “That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”

    To achieve that, Vought said in the interview he seeks to replace the non-partisan and merit-based federal civil service with a bureaucracy in which employment hinges on allegiance to Trump. He said he also seeks to impound congressionally approved funding, help coordinate mass deportations and find ways to let Trump use the military to put down protesters.

    As former Trump adviser Steve Bannon recently told The Atlantic, “Russ has got a vision. He’s not an anarchist. He’s a true believer.”

    Federal agencies, in particular the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), have already implemented numerous policies that Vought drafted to achieve those goals.

    Earlier this year, OPM proposed new regulations that would formally revive Schedule F, a key tool developed by Vought to gut the federal government and replace career public servants with partisan ideologues.

    In another move championed by Vought, the personnel office last week also announced a s0-called “Merit Hiring Plan” that would, if implemented, ask prospective hires for the thousands of DOGE-induced vacancies across the federal government to write short essays explaining their levels of patriotism and support for the president’s policies.

    “How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads one of the essay prompts.

    Vought, too, has recently taken steps to impound funds. 

    This week, the White House sent Congress proposed spending cuts — also called a rescission package — that’s been backed by Vought in order to formalize cuts made by DOGE. The $9.4 billion package targets funding for NPR, PBS, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign aid spending.

    The rescission process allows a president to avoid spending money on discretionary programs, and since rescission bills only require simple majority approval in the House and Senate, there’s a chance some of the proposed cuts will become law. If they do, they will be the first presidentially proposed rescissions accepted by Congress since 1999. 

    If Congress doesn’t pass the package, the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which restricts when and how the president can delay or withhold federal funds, requires Trump to release the funds — that’s assuming that the administration follows the law. 

    The same day the White House sent Congress the package, Vought threatened that if lawmakers don’t pass the rescissions, the executive branch would find ways to override Congress’ constitutional authority to allocate funding.

    “We are dusting off muscle memory that existed for 200 years before President Nixon in the 1970s and Congress acted to try to take away the president’s ability to spend less,” Vought said.

    When asked by CNN whether he was attempting to tee up a legal fight to challenge the Impoundment Control Act as unconstitutional, Vought implied he was.

    “We’re certainly not taking impoundment off of the table. We’re not in love with the law,” Vought said.



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