[FoxBusiness] Elon Musk said DOGE's review found large numbers of people over the age of 100 in Social Security's system
The acting head of the Social Security Administration opened up on the activities of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the agency, as well as claims about millions of dead people receiving benefits.
Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said that DOGE "is a critical part of President Trump's commitment to finding fraud, waste, and abuse, and better ways for the government to function to support its people."
"I want to be very clear about the DOGE personnel who are now working at Social Security," Dudek said. "DOGE personnel CANNOT make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information. They only have READ access. DOGE personnel do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future. DOGE personnel must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution."
Dudek's statement also discussed reports about Social Security beneficiaries over the age of 100 receiving benefits, which followed comments Musk made in the Oval Office with President Trump last week.
“I also want to acknowledge recent reporting about the number of people older than age 100 who may be receiving benefits from Social Security," Dudek said. "The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits."
Musk said that the Social Security system has "people in there that are about 150 years old" and that "there are a whole bunch of Social Security payments where there's no identifying information, like, why is there no identifying information?"
Later, in a post on X, Musk posted a picture of a spreadsheet he said was from the Social Security database showing the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to false. It showed more than 17 million such records for people over the age of 100.
In 2015, the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its inspector general looked into the number of people in the system with no death record who were listed as being over the age of 112. SSA found 6.5 million numberholders aged 112 or older with no death information in the system, but noted that other records suggested the majority of them were deceased.
Of those, SSA issued payments to 266 numberholders — though the IG's review indicated only 13 beneficiaries were likely age 112 or older, while in the remaining 253 cases there were discrepancies in SSA's records that indicated the beneficiary wasn't actually that old.
Following the review, the SSA decided not to proceed with adding presumed death information to the records because it would be costly to implement, provide little benefit to the agency and duplicate other information already available in government data exchanges.
#2
OK, I understand that just because somebody's in SS's records, it doesn't mean that they necessarily draw benefits.
Here's the thing. If someone of current age 369 was recorded on original files, they had to be at least 250 at the earliest records (Aug 14, 1935). Or they were added later.
Either way, your records obviously have errors.
That was just the first look at the records, without detailed examination. (I have read that SSA challenges people in regards to benefits at age 115. OK, good.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/22/2025 14:23 Comments ||
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#3
"It only looks like dead people are collecting benefits because our record-keeping sucks. So there."
Posted by: Matt ||
02/22/2025 14:25 Comments ||
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#4
More interesting is who were these records shared with, particularly political parties. There must be a trail.
The retrieval-inhibition account assumes that the forget cue activates an inhibitory control process that impairs access
Suggesting that some of diminished capacity ['Danes', et. al.] may be suffering a evolutionary disfunction of the organic engine of memory. I suppose a propagation error is possible in small gene pools, clans or constrained religious sects.
I'm reminded of the street interview videos of Muslims following the 10/7 events. Complete, absolute denial of the encroachment, murders and kidnappings that occurred.
#4
IMO, leftists (rank & file) fall into two categories: herd creatures and people who (somewhere deep inside) know they're second rate but like to pretend they're elites.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Another coronavirus feared to be powerful enough to spread through humans has been discovered in China.
In scenes eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of Covid, researchers at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology detected the new strain living within bats.
HKU5-CoV-2 is strikingly similar to the pandemic virus, sparking fears that history could repeat itself just two years after the worst was declared over.
The new virus is even closer related to MERS, a deadlier type of coronavirus that kills up to a third of people it infects.
Virologist Shi Zhengli, known as 'Batwoman' for her work on coronaviruses, led the discovery, published in a top scientific journal.
Tests showed HKU5-CoV-2 infiltrated human cells in the same way as SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid.
Sharing their discovery in the journal Cell, the Beijing-funded researchers admitted it posed a 'high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.'
Then you’d better lock your people down so it dies out instead of leaving China. Because if you do it again after your little Wuhan experiment escaped, there will be repercussions.
Posted for the background on the current conflict, dear Reader. The NGO is not really the point for us at Rantburg.
[IsraelTimes] Africa 3030’s Israeli American founder Ariel Kedem fears third Congolese civil war, warns the severely malnourished children his group is feeding could die in days if not cared for
The Israeli head of an NGO that helps severely malnourished children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... says he fears for the future of his project and for the eastern region where it operates after Rwanda-backed rebels swept through earlier this month.
Africa 3030, set up a decade ago, runs a rural center 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) southwest of Kavumu in the country’s eastern South Kivu province, where it feeds some 200 severely malnourished children between ages 1 and 10.
Last Friday, following the takeover of Kavumu by the rebel March 23 Movement, which goes by the name M23, the NGO sent its staff and families home and hid its vehicles for fear they would be stolen.
"There’s a foreign-gang that is officially the new boss in town, and nobody knows what will happen next," said Ariel Kedem, founder and chairman of Africa 3030.
He added that the children being cared for by the project are all "severely malnourished and fragile" and that "two or three days without our support could be lethal."
Africa 3030 provides these children with daily meals and spirulina cookies made of home-grown dried spirulina algae, a protein, mineral and vitamin-rich superfood.
It funds scholarships that enable 80 children to attend schools and has given micro-loans to over 150 women to help them start small businesses.
The region, which borders Rwanda, has been in turmoil since 1996 following the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which some 800,000 mainly Tutsi citizens were murdered by their Hutu neighbors and the rise to power in Rwanda of Tutsi military leader Paul Kagame, who became President in 2000.
Kagame sponsored two wars in the DRC, during which over six million people died, ostensibly to protect Tutsi populations there. Now, there are fears of a third civil war following M23’s rapid takeover of the eastern Kivu provinces, from the northern capital, Goma, to the southern one, Bukavu.
Critics say the real reason for the instability is the region’s mineral wealth, mined under the supervision of countless militia groups, often using child labor, and smuggled into Rwanda, a darling of the West.
Eastern DRC is rich in copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum, and lithium, all of which are used, for example, in manufacturing cell phones.
Africa 3030 was now "trickling the children back," Kedem told The Times of Israel Wednesday from his home in central Kfar Saba.
But he went on, "Renegade soldiers could come and take our generators or solar panels. We have a couple of vehicles in the city that we’re hiding, as M23 has been looting vehicles from Goma to Bukavu and taking them into Rwanda. Our land cruiser is a lifeline, used to help staff move around, bring in supplies, everything."
"Our center has equipment that draws curiosity," he continued. "Stray soldiers can run by and do whatever they want. Ten days ago, Congolese soldiers who had fled battle formed a gang and walked along the main drag of our village at night, harassing people for money and killing more than nine of them."
With the banks closed, Kedem said, "There’s no money, no local or regional government, no social services; food prices are rocketing, food is becoming more scarce, and it’s a question of days, maybe weeks before people will have nothing to eat or drink, children will be sick, and they’ll get angry. I don’t see anything that M23 can do other than start shooting people. These are plain soldiers supposed to take over government. They don’t know how."
He added, "I’m pretty sure we will find whatever it takes for our community. But if it becomes more dangerous, and there are curfews and the kids aren’t allowed to come to the center and movement becomes restricted, these kids can die."
The battles for Eastern Congo have seen reports of widespread violence, looting, and rape by M23 and Congolese government fighters.
On Tuesday, the UN human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... office confirmed cases of summary execution of children by M23 in Bukavu and recruitment of child soldiers. It condemned attacks on hospitals and humanitarian warehouses and threats against the judiciary.
"Everyone has an interest in Eastern Congo," said Kedem. "The biggest fear is of a third Congo war."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] If the EU countries decide to ensure their own security without US assistance, they will need to mobilize about 300,000 troops. This is stated in a joint study published on February 21 by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) and the Brussels consulting company Bruegel.
"Europe will have to create about 50 additional brigades with a total of 300,000 soldiers. This will require at least 1,400 new tanks and 2,000 infantry fighting vehicles. <…> In addition, it will be necessary to produce about 2,000 long-range drones every year," says the material published on the IfW website.
The study also showed that at least €250 billion per year would be needed to expand the armed forces. To achieve this, the total defense spending of EU countries would have to be 3.5–4% of GDP, rather than 2%, as it is now. As an example, the researchers reported that Germany would have to spend €140 billion instead of €80 billion if its military spending increased to 3.5% of GDP.
Co-author of the analysis and senior research fellow at IfW, Professor Guntram Wolff, said that such expenditures are needed to prepare for a potential war with Russia. The reason for the build-up of armed forces in the EU was that Russia has significantly strengthened its army in recent years, as well as increased defense production.
"Russia may have enough military power to attack EU states within the next three to ten years," Wolf said.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in May 2024 that the EU leadership was preparing for war with Russia. According to him, on instructions from Brussels, the media began to shape the corresponding moods in the countries of the union.
On 22 January 2025, European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius stated that the EU was facing an existential threat, allegedly coming from Russia. He called for preparing for war within the next five years and mobilising all financial resources for this.
On January 15, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called on EU countries to prepare for war and increase defense spending. Otherwise, he said, in five years Europeans would have to learn Russian or move to New Zealand.
In June 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called statements about a possible Russian attack on Europe nonsense. He noted that anti-Russian propaganda is used to justify the arms race. The head of state added that the deterioration of relations with a number of European countries was not Moscow's fault.
Nah, they will stop at the Dniepr river. Besides, that would be like winning a contest where 2nd Prize was two Western Europes. Who needs the headache!
#8
Eldest son said in the FOB he was in, the Germans were useless, weren't allowed to patrol after dark, carry loaded weapons in field, wouldn't get out of the APC's on patrol.
OTOH, the Norwegians were some the hardest guys he ever met. One Norge troop set an ambush by lying on the bottom of a mountain lake in a wetsuit with his rifle in a bag, breathing through a straw.
Worked, too.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/22/2025 14:33 Comments ||
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#12
Albanian SF at Spin Boldak, AFG in 2011. "No contacts, no problems." (note the Albanian flag on the whip and the 12.7 mm DShK mounted on the MRAP).
[AP] VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Making the trip from Vancouver to Seattle to watch baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays play the Mariners has been a tradition for Peter Mulholland and his wife, but not this year.
Mulholland was already frustrated over U.S. President Donald Trump's threats of crippling tariffs on imported goods from Canada and talk about the country becoming the 51st state. The final straw came when Trump referred to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator.
"We were starting to get leery," said the 69-year-old, semiretired Vancouver resident. "The tariffs he’s trying to do is going to hurt both countries, that’ll become evident eventually, but it’s going to hurt us more."
Mulholland is one of a growing number of Canadian who are choosing not to vacation in the U.S. this year.
McKenzie McMillan, a travel consultant with the Vancouver-based Travel Group, said some of his clients have canceled trips that were already booked.
February is usually a busy month for the retail travel agency which specializes in both corporate and premium leisure travel as Canadians make plans for spring break vacations.
"We’ve seen a complete drop off in any new requests or new interest in U.S. travel," said McMillan. "I’ve had no requests for travel to the United States for about two weeks."
#5
Informal surveys of cars in parking lots of several border towns and easily reached malls on the I-5 corridor north of Seattle reveals a marked decrease in British Columbia tags.
#9
Two points:
1) BC is one of most leftist parts of Canada.
2) The US dollar has soared vs C$, so anyone with US assets is sèĺlin̈g an̈d repaþriatin̈g the money.
[GatewayPundit] Democratic Representative Robert Garcia from California has received a letter from U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin Jr. seeking clarification on comments that the house member made during a CNN interview on February 12 in which Garcia stated, ‘What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight’, in the context of opposing Musk’s work.
In the meantime, a report arose that members of Elon Musk’s private security detail have been deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service. That would grant them certain rights and protections of federal law enforcement agents.
[AP] New FBI Director Kash Patel has told senior officials that he plans to relocate up to 1,000 employees from Washington to field offices around the country and move an additional 500 to a bureau facility in Huntsville, Alabama, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
The plans were communicated Friday, the same day Patel was sworn in at the White House, and are in keeping with his oft-stated vision of reducing the size of the FBI’s footprint in Washington and having more of a presence in offices in other cities.
"Director Patel has made clear his promise to the American public that FBI agents will be in communities focused on combatting violent crime. He has directed FBI leadership to implement a plan to put this promise into action," the FBI said in a statement that did not provide any specifics.
#5
Why you wanna do that to Alabama? (Or Atlanta, 'cause that's where they'll all hang out...)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/22/2025 14:26 Comments ||
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#6
"FBI Innovation Center at Redstone Arsenal
A Training Ground for the Cybersecurity Crimefighters of the Future"
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is expanding operations at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama with new facilities dedicated to attracting and developing a rising generation of technically advanced agents — a “graduate school” for the cyber crimefighter. The FBI envisioned a 240-acre Science and Technology District with a central building for cybersecurity crimefighter training and education plus offices that would support its critical mission to protect Americans now and into the future."
#8
Shall we assume salary adjustments to reflect relocation to a lower cost area? Seems only fair.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
02/22/2025 17:53 Comments ||
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#9
In January 1991, the FBI purchased 986 acres of land in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Seems to be mostly info-processing and training center. Might be able to disperse a few feebs there after the downsizing.
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#2
"Alexa, what is the best caliber?"
"It depends on the target du jour. For squirrels, .177 pellets. For poodles, use 9mm. For large mammals like deer and humans, you want something bigger. For really large mammals like water buffalo and mastodons, experts recommend the .577 Tyrannosaur."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka 
