Purgatory? More like Hell.
The Social Security Administration has eliminated more than 7,100 jobs since last year, according to reports — the largest workforce reduction in the agency’s history, which came as part of a Trump administration overhaul.
The cuts, which reduced the agency’s workforce by more than 13%, came alongside office consolidations, expanded use of artificial intelligence tools and a push to move more services online.
The shift at the Social Security Administration came as the White House laid off thousands of workers across the federal government in a bid to cut red tape.
But at the SSA, there have been longer delays, mounting confusion and growing barriers for some of the most vulnerable benefit recipients, according to a report published in March by the American Association of People with Disabilities and other organizations .
“We just have so many cases that are stuck in purgatory because they don’t have enough workers to work them,” a Kansas City-based paralegal told researchers. “They don’t have enough workers to answer the phone to tell me what’s happening to them.”
And the gum’nt’s response?
However, the SSA told The Post that service has in fact improved — with callers to the agency’s national 800 number being served 80% more quickly than under the Biden administration, wait times to field offices down 30%, and disability hearing wait times down 40%.
“Under this administration, Social Security is delivering better, faster, higher-quality service through technology and process improvements. The data shows just that,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.
The felon’s puppet in the House has an odd take on Democrats.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday raged at Democrats’ likely opposition to confirming President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next Director of National Intelligence.
Trump announced this week that he would nominate Bill Pulte to replace Tulsi Gabbard as DNI after she announced that she was resigning due to her husband’s cancer diagnosis .
Democrats immediately criticized the nomination of Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, because of his lack of national security qualifications and his reputation as a pitbull MAGA supporter whom Trump could potentially use to go after enemies.
Pulte has used his current position to open investigations into Trump foes , including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
“Democrats wouldn’t trust Jesus,” Johnson told reporters in response to a question about the hard road to confirmation for Pulte.
And we now have Agent Double Oh Nothing!
President Donald Trump has posted a meme of himself as the iconic British secret agent James Bond on another busy night on Truth Social.
Trump has a long history of making flattering comparisons between himself and famous figures , from Elvis Presley, Sir Winston Churchill and Mother Theresa to, most recently and controversially, Jesus Christ .
In his latest post, he used an archive picture of himself as a younger man, standing in front of a panelled mirror with the caption “Trump 007.”
With Amazon MGM – owned by the president’s friend Jeff Bezos – putting out an official casting call for a new Bond as the studio seeks a replacement for Daniel Craig , the White House has already nominated Trump for the role in tongue-in-cheek fashion.
Its official account posted its own meme , more elaborate than Trump’s, on May 16, consisting of an illustration of the president wearing a tuxedo and brandishing a silenced pistol in silhouette.
His slogan “Make America Great Again,” could be seen written in a gold military typeface in the bottom-right corner.
There’s a man who leads a life of golfin’
Russian agent man
Beware the p *** that you grab *** can have many STDs
Russian agent man
Lyin’ on the ol’ Bible, one day *****Odds are–oops!–that was your daughter!
Russian agent man
Wow! The Senate grew a spine.
The Senate officially rejected two of Donald Trump’s biggest priorities for the upcoming budget reconciliation bill, it was revealed Wednesday, as the upper chamber published the text of a bill to fund ICE and CBP.
With Senate Republicans retreating from negotiations with Democrats over Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding and turning to the filibuster-proof reconciliation process, Trump pressed the chamber to include a $1 billion funding item related to his construction of a ballroom on the White House grounds, as well as $1.776 billion to fund a “weaponization fund” meant to distribute payouts to people prosecuted by the Department of Justice under Democratic administrations.
The latter was derided as a “slush fund” for Trump’s friends, political allies and convicted Jan. 6 rioters, including by some Senate Republicans. Both items were stripped from the bill text published by Senate Republicans after a full-scale revolt in the chamber threatened the reconciliation bill’s path forward last month.
An explosive showdown between Senate Republicans and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche took place just before the Memorial Day holiday at a luncheon which was set to precede the beginning of markups on the reconciliation package.
At that meeting, Republicans “screamed at Blanche,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), over the fund and the administration’s lack of explanations surrounding a key non-starter for many congressional Republicans: The prospect of rewarding violent rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
And they took it out for a walk in public!
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House for the first time Wednesday approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran , defying President Donald Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long conflict that has reordered politics at home and abroad.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a plan for peace.
“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.
“It is time for the president to do the right thing,” he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”
Like remaining silent, the felon has the right, he does not have the ability. Same goes for him doing the right thing.
I am so stunned I cannot even try to think of a pithy label for this blatant and proud racism from the Second Felonial Era . (The bolding is mine.)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio just made a comment about immigration that sounded like a dog whistle, according to academics who study migration and race.
Under questioning from Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday , Rubio said the United States is giving white South Africans a privileged immigration pathway because they have a “high likelihood of assimilation.”
Paris has Tour Eiffel and what is the US getting? Yep, Arena Awful.
In preparation for an upcoming UFC event hosted on the White House grounds, a massive structure has been built on the White House South Lawn to house the fights. While it was always supposed to be a temporary fixture, Donald Trump has sparked outrage by suggesting that it could remain even after the upcoming UFC event is over.
In a video posted to the President’s official TikTok account, Trump suggested that the fixture could be permanent, going as far as to compare it to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which was initially built for the world’s fair but was never removed afterward.
Trump indicated that he could do the same thing with the UFC structure, claiming that it was “quite attractive to a lot of people,” adding that “maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”
O Canada!
Donald Trump has renewed his call to make Canada the “51st state” after he suffered a setback in his attempt to end the Iran war.
In one of many Truth Social posts on Monday night, Trump, 79, shared a link to an article about Canada technically being in a recession due to negative growth in two consecutive quarters. The last time that happened was during COVID-19 in 2020.
“51st State,” Trump wrote .
Not to worry, though. The felon and his flacks have a plan.
The Justice Department’s number three-ranked official suggested overnight in a since deleted post that the Trump administration would be moving forward with an alternative plan to compensate victims of claimed Biden-era “weaponization.”
The post came just hours after the acting attorney general committed to Congress that DOJ was scrapping plans for a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
The fund was created in exchange for President Donald Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general who signed off on the president’s controversial settlement, responded approvingly to a suggestion pushed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on X Tuesday that victims of so-called Biden-era “weaponization” could still be compensated through claims under the requests under the Federal Torts Claims Act.
“We’re on it.” Woodward posted at 10:45 p.m. Tuesday evening in response to Graham’s post. Woodward’s post was deleted Wednesday morning, and a DOJ spokesperson has not responded to ABC’s request for comment as to why it’s no longer on his X account.
The post comes just hours after acting AG Todd Blanche told House lawmakers that the administration was permanently scrapping plans for its “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
Russian agent man
