Musk vows to cancel grants after gaining access to US Treasury payment system | Hacker News Reader

Musk vows to cancel grants after gaining access to US Treasury payment system

ft.com

62 pointssega_sai14 comments

"The extent of DOGE’s access to the payments system appeared to be laid bare on Sunday by Musk, who responded to a post on X which contained a spreadsheet showing payments to a number of Lutheran charities."

I wonder if these payments to charities are payroll deductions of federal employees as part of the Combined Federal Campaign?

The Combined Federal Campaign allows federal employees to choose to give to charities of their choice by payroll deductions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Federal_Campaign

https://givecfc.org/

It would make sense for all of the playroll deductions to be sent as a single payment for a given pay period.

There are like a dozen legitimate reasons the treasury would be giving money to a charity. Either he's being mega dumb or he is counting on his followers to be.

They want demonize any recipient as the antagonist. That’s the reframing, standard manipulation.

From the spreadsheet Flynn posted, it seems mostly focused on https://www.globalrefuge.org/what-we-do/ (which was renamed recently from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service). It seems clearly politically motivated given their mission statement and services provided.

> The spreadsheet was posted by Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who was pardoned in 2020 after pleading guilty to lying about his contacts with Russians.

Looks like the info has already been sold to the highest bidder. Yikes.

You you can't leave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910525

Where was this list posted?

On X. I can't get a direct link but there are screen shots of the post at https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5uv2fzg5bj2wmfqqrc34opyf/po...

https://archive.md/HSZYb

What's wrong with Lutheran organisations? Can they not qualify for grants?

Nothing, as long as the grant is for something non-religious, like running a food bank or providing clothes for anyone, regardless of their faith.

My understanding is they may have been providing assistance to refugees. This type of activity may not be consistent with "America First" rhetoric.

Did Musk provide any more details or evidence than what is alluded to in this article?

It sounds more like he and his cronies are incredibly naive about the nature of federal payments.

"[I]llegal payments", claims the US Minister of Propaganda without showing any proof.

Do you guys even have an opposition party? I'm not hearing or seeing any in your media, which is supposedly "liberal leaning", or so I have been told for decades.

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