Elon Musk’s DOGE continues to lie about Social Security, and now very alive recipients are being told that they are actually dead?!
Sam Seder of The Majority Report joined Francesca to set the record straight about Social Security.
Elon has been busy destroying our federal agencies for a while now, and Social Security has been at the top of his list despite being the most popular federal program. Heaven forbid someone other than Elon gets money from the government!
Musk has attempted to sell a bunch of lies about the program, from 150 year olds getting checks (they aren’t), to claiming the program is increasing the national debt (it isn’t). Both these claims were very easily disproved, and yet, Elon is still pushing to gut the program. Unfortunately, we may already be seeing the results of his efforts.
There have been multiple recent reports from Social Security recipients who stopped receiving their checks. When these retirees looked into the reason why, they found out that they were listed in the system as being deceased! We don’t know for sure if DOGE is behind this, but it is extremely sus to say the least.
Notice that while claiming the debt is too high tRump and crew are still trying to make permanent the huge tax cut to the wealthy give during tRump’s first term that added nearly 8 trillion in debt. Plus these people claim there is no money yet always find more for the military, increasing the profit of the defense contractors / companies that not only give them large donations but that the congress people have stocks in. They also never talk of why there is not enough money … the constant push to cut all the government’s revenue from those with the most money, the wealthy and large corporations. The greatest times of property for the public and the country was when taxes were high on the wealthiest people and corporations, why because they have all the money and can afford the tax.
Then Reagan began the shifting the tax burden from those most able to pay to the poorest members of society, those with no ability to pay. Suddenly the country went from a boom in infrastructure and ways to increase financially upward mobility for the middle class to a system of oppression and drudgery for the lower incomes while the upper incomes lived in untold luxury.
The republicans pushing for European countries to pay more for NATO was recently explained on a Sunday news show as the Senator said that by forcing the European governments to pay more for defense it would lower what they would be able to do for social welfare programs for the public. Why do the republicans in the US want the rest of the developed nations to lower the spending on their people? Because the people in the US constantly can see now that other countries can do it, that other countries take care of their public, the people living there. The US gives billions to Israel which has free healthcare, something these same politicians say we can not afford in the US. Profit is king in the US, people are expendable. Hug
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“We all agree this is an unsustainable area that we’re in right now — almost $36 trillion in debt and we are spending more on the interest on our debt than we are going to spend on the National Defense Authorization Act this year. Over a trillion dollars.
“And so we’ve got to right the ship and it’s going to mean cuts. It’s going to mean cuts to the 24% of the discretionary spending that we have and it’s also going to mean looking long-term at the front end of some programs like Social Security and Medicare.
“Not taking anyone off of what they paid into so far. But there is some waste, abuse and fraud in Medicare that we can take those numbers back and add to our general coffers and our treasury.
“And on the front end on Social Security, I think there’s a way, when people are living longer, they’re retiring later, then on the front end we can move that retirement age back a little bit.” – GOP Rep. Mark Alford, today on Fox.
Alford appeared here last week when he called for impeaching “full of slime” Biden. Alford, a freshman and former TV reporter, appeared here in December 2023 when he introduced a bill seeking to defund the Pentagon’s investigation into white supremacist service members.
and scaling back an overly bloated military budget their own auditors can’t reconcile
Do Republicans REALLY wanna dance on that third rail, given how they barely control the House already? Y’all wanna test your whole “but we have a mandate” bullshit?
This is something that a lot of people get wrong because the US debt is never explained. The US debt is held in bonds which anyone can invest in. Yes, it’s technically borrowing, but it’s borrowing like one lends money when they invest in even a 401k or savings account. That money earns interest. And the money “borrowed” from social security is really that the social security fund is held in interest-bearing bonds. What republicans want to do is cut medicare and social security so they don’t have to make good on those bonds.
We can only hope the divisions and internal infighting will delay the worst of the things the most maga want to do including tRump. Remember the republicans in congress and in the states still have to be voted in. Call your local offices even if they are republicans, tell them you are a voter, be polite and to the point. You disagree and why. They are worried about their job and even in deep red districts republicans won’t be happy if their incomes and funds are cut or shit interferes with their families. Sadly a lot of people who voted for tRump thinking he did not mean them or their families will find out he did, just as the people deported last time whose family members voted for tRump. Hugs.
It’s a busy date, but 3 cheers for Social Security!
| August 14, 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating unemployment compensation, old-age benefits and aid to dependent children.“We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.” President Roosevelt signing Social Security Act of 1935 in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Library of Congress photo  A comprehensive history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ |
| August 14, 1941 In the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, a group of prisoners had been chosen by the camp’s commander for death by starvation. Roman Catholic Fr. Maximilian Maria Kolbe offered himself for death instead of one of the condemned because the man had a family he needed to be alive to support. Fr. Kolbe was put to death on this day by lethal injection following two weeks of starvation. Pope John Paul II declared him a Saint in 1982. |
| August 14, 1945 President Harry Truman announced that Japan, one week following the atomic bomb attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. |
| August 14, 1959 The U.S.-launched Explorer VI satellite recorded the first photograph of Earth taken from space, at an altitude of 17,000 miles (27,400 km) .  Read more: https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/the-earth-from-afar-ten-incredible-images-of-our-planet-from-space/ |
| August 14, 1966 Twenty people were arrested for trying to attend services at the white First Baptist Church in Grenada, Mississippi. They were charged with “disturbing divine worship.” Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) field staff member Jim Bulloch was arrested and his car fire-bombed while he was in jail. |
| August 14, 1968 400 anti-apartheid students occupied the university in Cape Town, South Africa, to protest its refusal to hire a black professor.  |
| August 14, 1976 Majella O’Hare, a young Catholic girl, was shot dead by British soldiers while walking with other children to confession near her home in Ballymoyer, Whitecross, County Armagh.The soldiers, initially denying they had fired any weapons, claimed that the patrol had been fired upon by an unidentified gunman. But there were serious doubts about the army’s claim. Eyewitness reports failed to confirm it and, unofficially, police investigating the case referred to the army’s “phantom gunman.” The same day 10,000 Northern Irish gathered at a demonstration in Andersontown, organized by the Women’s Peace Movement (later known as Peace People).  Majella O’HareHow it happened from people who were there: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/other/1976/murray76.htm |
August 14, 1980 After months of labor turmoil, more than 16,000 Polish workers seized control of the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. They helped form Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity), the first independent labor union anywhere in the Soviet bloc, as the Warsaw Pact nations were known. Under the leadership of Lech Valensa [lek va wen´suh] and others, it helped unite the broad political, social and religious opposition to the Communist government. Long-range look at Solidarity: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/21746 |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august141935
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