All Things Trump: The Return Of The King

[Tero]

Snopes thinks Trump was talking to his base:

"Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified: $22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens, $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. $8 million to promote LGBTQ+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of, $60 million for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. $60 million. $8 million for making mice transgender.

This is real."

While the White House did not respond to our requests for clarification about whether Trump misspoke, it did publish an article on its official website titled, "Yes, Biden spent millions on transgender animal experiments," featuring a list of alleged research projects related to the claim.

In sum, while it is indeed possible Trump misspoke during the address to Congress, the White House officially doubling down on its anti-transgender agenda on their website implies that his statement was intentional, whether it was meant to be a representation of the truth or not.

If the White House responds to inquiries about whether Trump misspoke when saying "transgender," this article will be updated.

https://www.snopes.com/articles/469397/ ... rec=djRfMQ

[Tero]

We are now a Trump casino.
'

A Digital Fort Knox'

President Donald Trump hosted a cryptocurrency summit at the White House yesterday, where crypto czar David Sacks and top executives from major crypto firms discussed the future of digital asset regulation.

The summit came one day after Trump signed an executive order (see fact sheet) establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a US Digital Asset Stockpile within the US Treasury. The reserve will be funded through federal asset forfeitures, with an estimated 200,000 bitcoins (worth approximately $17B) already in government possession. The order mandates a full audit of government-owned digital assets and will hold the assets as a long-term store of value, similar to other national stockpiles. See its potential to offset national debt here.

The Trump administration has said it aims for the US to be the “crypto capital” of the world and has halted legal actions against several crypto firms.

[Tero]

dead people on social security:

We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security numbers from people aged 100 to 109 years old.

It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don't know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly. 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129. 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149, and money is being paid to many of them, and we're searching right now. In fact, Pam, good luck, good luck. You're going to find it.

But a lot of money is paid out to people, because it just keeps getting paid and paid, and nobody does, and it really hurts Social Security. It hurts our country. 1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159, and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby.

Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229; one person between the age of 240 and 249; and one person is listed at 360 years of age, more than 100 years — more than 100 years older than our country. But we're gonna find out where that money's going, and it's not going to be pretty.

By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2025/03 ... otated-dg/

From CNN’s Tami Luhby and Daniel Dale: The vast majority of these people do not have dates of death listed in Social Security’s database. But that doesn’t mean they are actually receiving monthly benefits. Public data from the Social Security Administration shows that about 89,000 people age 99 or over were receiving Social Security benefits in December 2024, not even close to the millions Trump invoked.

[Tero]

Republicans in Congress fear for their lives:
"More than a half-dozen Republican defense hawks in the Senate — not a group usually shy about communicating its views — declined to comment for this article or did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Trump’s statements on Ukraine or why other Republicans were not speaking out."
"Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, said the real fear among Republicans in the House who might otherwise voice criticism of the administration on some issues was violence against their families.

“I’m friends with a lot of these guys, and I had wrongly assumed that what was holding them back from speaking out against Trump was they were afraid of losing their jobs,” he said in an interview. “But what they’re afraid of is their own personal security. They tell me that their wives tell them, ‘Don’t contribute to us getting harassed at church or at the grocery store or at the club.’

"Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic lawyer who oversaw the Biden campaign’s successful efforts to beat back lawsuits filed by allies of Mr. Trump seeking to overturn his 2020 election loss, is sharply critical of Republicans who say they acquiesce to Mr. Trump out of fear.

“I know what it’s like to be targeted by him and the mob he unleashes,” Mr. Elias said in an interview. “It is totally reasonable to be worried. But for a Republican senator to say they are so worried that they’re going to betray their oath of office is such cowardice. Why are you in office?”

Can this continue? Will Trump and his supporters continue to cower their opposition or will people gradually become disgusted enough to rise up and provide encouragement for opposition to speak out?

NYT

[Tero]

Trump turns the State Department into a Chamber of Commerce:


In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

Lknk: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... irect=true

[Brian Peacock]

Are nearly 4% of the US population really over 120?

[Tero]

https://bsky.app/profile/esa88jarvi.bsk ... vicxitn22a
one meme, one photo a few hours ago

[Tero]

Gun nuts showing up to shoot Trump in DC. He must helicopter out of there, probaly, now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna195517

[Tero]

Storyteller Trump forgets a line. "They rigged the election and I became president."
https://www.threads.net/@micheleegwynn/post/DG91Iiiu2Du

[Tyrannical]

Are nearly 4% of the US population really over 120?

Is Twilight real? Are Vampires collecting social security? Who is that 360 year old guy?

That's Trump showmanship

Now the entire country knows that the social security database needs an audit and a better system to keep track of who died. Two months prior, no one had any idea.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Duh. Some will believe Musk's lies, and some will simply repeat them for their own malicious reasons.

'No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits'

Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits.

But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the government payment systems.

...

While no evidence was produced to back up [Musk's] claim, it was picked up by right-wing commentators online, primarily on Musk’s own X platform, as well as being reported credibly by pro-Trump media outlets.

Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.

COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.

Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.

These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150.

That’s just one possible explanation for what DOGE allegedly found. Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115.

However, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims were figures from “the Social Security database” to X, writing that “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!”

The figures suggested that over 10 millions people aged over 120 were collecting benefits.

“Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk wrote.

The database Musk took the screenshot from listed almost 400 million people, which is more than five times the number of people receiving benefits in 2024, according to the SSA’s own website. It’s also significantly more than the entire US population.

[Tero]

The 400 million list is the entire list of Social Security numbers ever used.

[JimC]

As the MAGA crowd leaps on this, it will be another case of "my ignorant opinion is just as good as your painstaking expertise..."

[Tero]

Trump deportation chief going after anyone with a visa. Only citizens are safe
https://bsky.app/profile/fpwellman.bsky ... y4qgl5fc2f

[aufbahrung]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-u ... 11529.html?

US economy in trans shock - it's gonna be OK, the bolt-cutters plan will deliver. Not like former times when 'merica sneezes world catches a cold, being a net importer. More like when 'merica sneezes 'merica catches a cold and the world at large avoids such a thing, as 'merica