“When DOGE found empty fields in Treasury’s payment system, they uncovered more than missing data. They found a mechanism.”
February 10th, 2025I’d be astonished if it’s only 50% fraud.
Via: EKO:
Simple things were left blank:
Payment categories
Payment rationales
Basic audit controls
The kind of fields any small business would require. The kind that let you track where money goes. The kind that stop a billion dollars of fraud. Every week.
Here’s what Treasury didn’t want exposed:
Over $100 billion flowing annually to accounts without Social Security numbers. No temporary ID numbers. No verification. Nothing. When Musk asked Treasury officials how much was “unequivocal and obvious fraud,” the answer revealed decades of corruption: Half.
…
“Everything at Treasury was geared towards complaint minimization,” Musk revealed after meeting with officials. Not accuracy. Not accountability. Not protecting taxpayer dollars. Just keeping the machine quiet.
This wasn’t incompetence. This was design.
DOGE Technologist and Thiel Fellow Luke Farritor
February 10th, 2025And now, Department of Energy: …listed as an engineer in the DOE’s staff directory…
Hmm.
Via: R&D World:
Before he joined the White House’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), 23-year-old engineer and former SpaceX software intern Luke Farritor was already making waves in digital archaeology. In 2023, he helped lead the Grand Prize-winning team in the Vesuvius Challenge—netting a portion of a $700,000 payout—by using state-of-the-art “autosegmentation” algorithms to virtually unroll a fragile Herculaneum scroll without physically cracking its carbonized layers. The Musk Foundation is among the biggest financial backers of the Vesuvius Challenge, whose partners include the Getty and the Google data science subsidiary Kaggle.
According to a Wall Street Journal article published on Feb. 9, 2024, the contest was launched by investors and scholars hoping to spur breakthroughs in reading these carbonized scrolls. It ultimately drew more than 3,000 competitors, including college students, software engineers, and AI researchers—all aiming to unearth texts lost for nearly 2,000 years.
Two years after virtually unrolling a scorched Herculaneum scroll along with Youssef Nader and Julian Schilliger, 23-year-old software whiz and Thiel Fellow Luke Farritor is once again in the spotlight—this time for his involvement at DOGE, reportedly receiving access to the Department of Energy’s IT system and listed as an engineer in the DOE’s staff directory.
Related: Palantir’s ‘Revolving Door’ with Government Spurs Huge Growth
Musk: FEMA Diverted Funds Meant for Natural Disasters to Pay for Luxury Hotels for Illegal Migrants
February 10th, 2025Under Biden, FEMA betrayed the American people by diverting funds meant for natural disasters to pay for luxury hotels for illegal migrants https://t.co/x135ryYM66
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
Trump Orders End of Penny Production
February 10th, 2025Via: USA Today:
A 233-year run could be over.
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he is telling the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies, after more than 200 years of the coin.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump said on Truth Social. “I have instructed my Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
Research Underway to Enable Satellites to Permanently Orbit in Very Low Earth Orbit
February 9th, 2025Is this actually going to happen?
I don’t know why, but Cryptogon is read by many people who are qualified to provide a sanity check on this. I hope they comment.
Needless to say, it would be very bad if remote operated/autonomous weapon systems were able to use realtime, high definition imagery, available planet-wide, for ISTAR.
This would be very, very bad. Double plus bad.
Current systems require tasking (with sometimes lengthy delays) or deployment of assets that have limited loitering durations.
As you continue to be fleeced to within an inch of your life for energy, the space based control grid… Fuels itself?!?
Via: BBC:
“When you start describing it to people, it starts to sound like a perpetual motion machine,” says Spence Wise, senior vice-president at Redwire, an aerospace firm in Florida. A perpetual motion machine is not meant to be possible. But it almost is, in this instance.
…
This new generation of orbiters could enable ultra-high-definition surveillance of activities on the ground, or superfast satellite-based communications.
…
They are developing technology to harvest molecules from the thin layer of air that is present in VLEO in order to actually propel satellites here. Such a system, called Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP), has been made possible by advancements in electric and ion propulsion in recent years. In essence, it involves fixing a large bucket or opening to the front of the satellite, into which gas molecules from the atmosphere flow before they are ionised to create plasma that generates thrust.
“The idea is to use the same air slowing down your satellite as a propellant,” says Francesco Romano, a scientist at the Swiss Plasma Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, who has previously studied this technology. Using electric and magnetic fields, the engine would ionise gas from the atmosphere, taking away one electron from each molecule, to produce a free electron and an ion. Then, using magnets, the electrons and ions are pushed out the back of the spacecraft, producing thrust. “Theoretically, if you can generate a thrust that is the same as your drag, you stay at this altitude for an infinite amount of time,” says Romano.
To date, an assortment of experimental ABEP systems have been able to produce relatively small amounts of thrust at ground level, but their feasibility in orbit has yet to be properly tested.
USAID Funded Massive ‘News’ Platform, Extending ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’ To Billions Worldwide
February 9th, 2025Via: ZeroHedge:
In addition to propping up far-left corporate media outlets like Politico and the BBC with taxpayer funds, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled half a billion dollars to a secretive non-governmental organization operating a global news propaganda matrix.
WikiLeaks published the bombshell report in the overnight hours that shows the massive taxpayer-funded state propaganda network – operating as a shady NGO – called “Internews Network”:
USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.
Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor
February 7th, 2025Via: MacRumors:
The British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to the cloud, reports The Washington Post.
The undisclosed order is said to have been issued last month, and requires that Apple creates a back door that allows UK security officials unencumbered access to encrypted user data worldwide – an unprecedented demand not before seen in any other democratic country.
The spying order came by way of a “technical capability notice,” a document sent to Apple by the Home Secretary, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping UK Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) of 2016. Critics have labeled the legislation the “Snooper’s Charter,” as it authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the revelation, though the law actually makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government even made such a demand.
Upcoming Steven Spielberg UFO Film: “Disclosure”
February 7th, 2025Mmm hmm.
Via: World of Reel:
Shooting on “Disclosure” is set to begin in New Jersey on February 28.
…
No plot details at this time, but the story, written by David Koepp, is said to be a “two-hander” with a UFO storyline.
Mel Gibson Claimed Qigong Master Levitated Him During Therapy
February 7th, 2025You might think Mel Gibson’s claims sound like nonsense. I think they sound like nonsense.
Here’s something that happened to me that also sounds like nonsense:
About thirty years ago I was doing sales related work. I had a customer who owned a furniture shop in Huntington Beach, California. He had a bunch of pictures of him and other people doing some sort of martial art.
I asked, “What style of martial art are you into?”
I’m pretty sure he said that it was Judo and he was a 3rd dan black belt.
“But,” he said, “The style doesn’t matter and neither does the belt. What matters most is your mastery of qi.”
“What’s qi?” I asked.
“Hold up a hand,” he said.
“Are you going to hit me?” I asked.
“No,” he chuckled
I held up my right hand.
He held his right hand a few inches from mine.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Uhh, I’m ready.”
An instant later, I felt an intense burning sensation on the palm of my hand and immediately pulled it away.
“That’s qi,” he said.
Believe it or not. I don’t care. It happened.
Via: Video Advice:
RC-135 Rivet Joint Surveillance Jet Just Flew Unprecedented Mission Off Mexico
February 6th, 2025Via: The War Zone:
A U.S. Air Force RC-135V Rivet Joint conducted a highly unusual flight in the Gulf of California yesterday, between Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and the rest of that country, according to online flight tracking data. The strategic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) plane looks to have done the same today.
The Rivet Joint is one of America’s most capable intelligence-gathering assets and the appearance of one off the Mexican coast is a significant development. This comes amid a major increase in U.S. military support for operations along the border with Mexico under President Donald Trump and talk of unprecedented direct action by American forces against drug cartels, which you can read more about in this separate TWZ feature.
Flight tracking software shows RC-135V serial number 64-14845 flew southwest from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to the skies over southern California on Feb. 3. Offutt is home to the 55th Wing, which oversees the bulk of the Air Force’s Rivet Joint fleet along with an array of other ISR and highly specialized command and control aircraft. The jet then hooked south along the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula before flying up into the Gulf of California. The aircraft subsequently returned to Offutt following the same route, but in reverse.
