🎂 Almost 100 Days of DOGE

☀️ April 25, 2025 ☀️

🐾 Now Let’s Sic ‘Em! 🐾

Can you believe we’re about to hit the 100-day mark? For those who feel like celebrating the upcoming milestone, you better hurry — floggable piñata effigies of Elon Musk are selling out across the country.

To mark the occasion, here’s a brief run-down of all the things DOGE has accomplished…

Key Highlights:

• SSA chaos: Untrained replacements are filling claims roles, delaying disability and retirement benefits
• IRS meltdown: Office overcrowding and broken internet cripple tax season; staff resort to personal hotspots
• Procurement bottlenecks: 500,000 government credit cards canceled; dry ice for lab samples took a month to buy
• DOGE secrecy: 20+ examples of dysfunction across 14 agencies; little transparency on supposed $160B in savings
• Tech brain drain: DOGE disbanded 18F, a tech team that once saved the Pentagon $500M in a weekend
• Humanitarian aid gutted: 80% of USAID programs cut, nearly all overseas staff to be fired by September
• Inspectors general fired: Including HHS watchdog who helped recover $14.5B over three years
• Mass layoffs: Over 260,000 civil servants out; many fired, rehired, then fired again due to legal whiplash
• Fraud-fighting irony: DOGE dismantled programs designed to prevent fraud — the very thing Musk and Trump rail against
• Savings in doubt: Even right-leaning think tanks say DOGE may cost more than it saves

Hooray? 🎉🎉🎉

The Shaggy FDA. FDA Databases Collapse Under DOGE Cuts, Leaving Docs in the Dark.

Vital FDA databases used by doctors, hospitals, and researchers to track drug approvals, safety alerts, and manufacturing data are now outdated or missing key information due to DOGE-driven staff cuts.

The problem isn’t just limited to neglected entries — it’s become systemic, with delayed public alerts, backlogged registry updates, and complete uncertainty about how or whether these systems will be maintained beyond June 2, when even the few returning staff are set to be axed again.

Internal FDA officials describe the situation as a “nightmare.” Immediate safety alerts — like those warning consumers of tainted supplements — are being held up for two weeks for bureaucratic approval. The National Drug Code Directory, Drug Registration and Listing Database, and labeling systems are also all falling into disrepair, which directly affects clinical care, public safety, and drug supply chain monitoring.

All of this is happening under the leadership of Health Secretary RFK Jr., whose rhetoric about “radical transparency” now looks like a bad joke. The administration insists it’s modernizing and streamlining. But to the people doing the actual work — and those depending on the system — it looks more like DOGE took a sledgehammer to a life-saving system, then walked away.

Watchdog Waste. Bongino’s FBI Detail Raises Eyebrows — and Costs.

Dan Bongino, former MAGA firebrand turned FBI deputy director, is getting an unprecedented full-time FBI security detail — a move that’s raising hackles inside the agency.

Past deputy directors handled themselves with just a sidearm or light protection, but Bongino now commands up to 20 agents, including elite SWAT and Hostage Rescue Team members (…WTAF?), rotating through 30-day stints guarding him around the clock. Current and former officials say it’s not about a credible threat — it’s about Bongino flexing power and burning taxpayer money.

The deployment directly contradicts Director Kash Patel’s stated goal of shifting agents out of HQ and back to field work. Even inside secure FBI facilities, Bongino reportedly moves with an entourage, breaking norms and sparking criticism.

Where’s DOGE when you need em?

Wrapped with a Bow-Wow. Trump Hands Musk & Tesla A Regulatory Gift.

The Trump administration is keeping a key autonomous vehicle crash-reporting rule — but only after declawing it in ways that directly benefit Tesla.

Previously, companies had to report most crashes involving vehicles using Level 2 driver-assist systems, like Tesla’s Autopilot. Now, under the revised rules, if the crash doesn’t involve a death (oh, just that) or a vulnerable road user, it doesn’t need to be reported at all — a change that conveniently shields Tesla from most of the transparency that’s plagued it since the rule’s inception.

Tesla, which has racked up over 1,500 crashes and 40 of 45 fatalities reported under the original rule, has been whining and whimpering for ages, saying that the feds were unfairly spotlighting their vehicles.

Those complaints — and Elon Musk’s $277 million in campaign donations — appear to have paid off. Musk now oversees DOGE, and the administration’s new guidelines mean fewer reports, less scrutiny, and more room to play bumper cars without consequences.

Critics say the revisions gut public accountability and undercut safety, just to keep the road clear for Tesla… so to speak.

Hide Out. PrepperDisk Becomes Must-Have as DOGE Guts Public Info.

As DOGE continues scrubbing websites and stripping away access to federal data, a quirky little device called PrepperDisk is quietly booming. What started as a humble offline archive kit is now a go-bag staple for anyone worried the internet — or democracy — might not survive Trump 2.0.

PrepperDisk is a portable "mini internet" that comes preloaded with offline backups of vulnerable public resources: Wikipedia, FEMA guides, NIH data, survival guides, 90,000 WikiHow tutorials, and even TED Talks for the apocalypse-curious. It’s not massive in storage (256–512GB), but what it lacks in size it makes up for in one key feature: it still has the pages Musk’s DOGE has deleted.

Founder Adam Chace says sales skyrocketed once Musk started purging public data. People suddenly realized that “be prepared” might mean grabbing a hard drive with the last known backup of Ready.gov before DOGE wipes it clean. Some customers asked if PrepperDisk’s maps still call it the Gulf of Mexico — spoiler: they do.

DOGE has made the loss of public data a routine headline, pushing even non-doomsday types into digital hoarding. “We’ve had customers ask if our copy of Wikipedia will keep entries the government deletes,” Chace said. “Yes. That’s the whole point.”

"White House Considers Lifting Sanctions on Russian Energy Assets"
In a potential gift to Moscow, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is reportedly flirting with the idea of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Arctic LNG projects as part of Ukraine peace talks. Critics say it’s a bonehead move that could undercut U.S. energy dominance and give Putin a windfall. Despite denials from Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who skipped the London peace summit altogether — insiders say Witkoff has pushed for the rollback, clashing with Rubio and Energy Dominance Council head Doug Burgum. Industry players warn the move would kneecap U.S. gas exporters and reward Russia — oh right. Now it all makes perfect sense. 🙄

“DHS Puts Deportee’s Wife in Danger by Posting Her Address”
Oh FFS…. After the DHS posted her home address on social media, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador — was forced into a safe house with her children. “I’m scared for my kids,” she said. Can this poor family stop getting terrorized?

“Trump Admin Texted College Profs’ Personal Phones to Ask If They’re Jewish”
“Press the Star Key if you’re Jewish.” The Trump administration sparked outrage after the EEOC sent text messages to Barnard College professors asking if they were Jewish — using personal phone numbers the school handed over without warning. The probe, tied to alleged anti-Jewish discrimination, is being called a political stunt to silence pro-Palestinian faculty and chill dissent. Critics say the EEOC is now a tool in Trump’s crusade against DEI, with anti-Israel speech being weaponized as grounds for federal investigation. Professors say the texts felt invasive and threatening.

“Trump Scolds Putin After Kyiv Carnage, Instantly Becomes a Meme”
Russia unleashed its deadliest strike on Kyiv in nearly a year, killing at least 12 and injuring 90 in a relentless overnight bombardment. The attack, which devastated residential neighborhoods and forced families (and pets) into shelters, triggered an unusually sharp reaction from Donald Trump. In a rare rebuke, Trump posted a message aimed at Putin, calling the strike “very bad timing”. His “Vladimir, STOP!” outburst quickly became meme fodder online. While Trump scolded Zelenskyy earlier in the week for refusing to cede Crimea, this latest Russian escalation put him in the awkward spot of publicly scolding his longtime Kremlin crush — just as negotiations teeter on collapse.

Well, that was a lot to chew on… Again.

So as your reward, here are a few treats.

Some doggy goodness to calm your nerves… lift your spirits… and get you through to tomorrow…

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🙌 Thanks for reading. Have a wag-nificent weekend. See you on Monday!  

🐾 And until then, do your best to stay pawsitive!