Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?

[jon-nyc]

Good point, Matt.

[jon-nyc]

Also - why have we heard of no arrests or investigations if there’s all this fraud going on?

[Doctor Phibes]

@jon-nyc said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

Also - why have we heard of no arrests or investigations if there’s all this fraud going on?

They've accidentally let all the investigators go?

[89th]

@jon-nyc said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

Also - why have we heard of no arrests or investigations if there’s all this fraud going on?

I think even the DOGE folks probably would admit many of these "fraud" issues are actually legit payments, just connected to data entry issues, such as an incorrect birthdate listed. Although I'm sure there are folks out there who are committing fraud (and should be prosecuted accordingly).

Also to be perfectly clear, most agencies have (for decades) had teams dedicated to finding this type of fraud. And when it's found, it is eliminated, and fraudsters are prosecuted. There just aren't headlines about it.

Oh and Elon's "...thanks to your [Trump's] fantastic leadership..." is really giving me North Korea vibes, ugh.

[jon-nyc]

[jon-nyc]

I was at the boy’s spring concert last night and talked to the dad of one of his friends.

His brother had his NSF grant canceled by DOGE.

His Grant had the word ‘inclusion’ in it, 87 times.

He’s a geologist and the grant was to study ‘lithic inclusions’.

I didn’t know what they were either, so this paragraph from ChatGPT helped.

Lithic inclusions, also known as xenoliths (from Greek xenos = foreign, lithos = rock), are fragments of rock that become encased within a different igneous rock during magma intrusion or eruption. They are among the most valuable inclusions in geology because they provide direct samples of inaccessible parts of the Earth.

[Axtremus]

Maybe it's because of the word "inclusion", maybe it's really just a low value project in a low priority field of study.

[Mik]

Both are entirely possible, Ax. But the word inclusion calls to mind what I've said about laziness in the current admin.

[jon-nyc]

Two possibilities:

1. DOGE employees, almost all coders, read thousands of NSF and NIH grants, evaluated the science in fields as diverse as geology, high-energy physics, string theory, DNA methylation, and and the role of lysosomes in phagocytosis. They then canceled the ones they thought weren’t promising.

2. They hit CTRL-F and typed in a half dozen words they considered ‘woke’ and canceled accordingly.

What evidence have you seen for each theory?

[89th]

To be fair, the NSF grant's mention about "lithic inclusions" was part of a larger sentence that said "The purpose of this study is to provide minorities with the chance to study lesbian rocks and their connection to transgender vulcanology to include magma hormone therapy."

[LuFins Dad]

I suspect that it could be both. It gets tagged because of the word inclusion, but the review shows that it’s not really a good use for the dollars right now…

My issue is with the clawbacks. Reneging on grants that have already been awarded and agreed to, or even trying to pull the money already given back.