Holding money at wise.com may be the next best thing to opening an offshore bank account
Wise.com use by U.S. citizens has some of the benefits of an offshore bank account but not all of them.
Category Archives: Politics
New Wired article about DOGE at VA
Wired just released a new article1 by Vittoria Elliott about DOGE’s incursion into VA, in particular the disruption that muskrat Sahil Lavingia is causing within the Office of the CTO’s VA.gov team by blustering around like a bull in a china shop. It’s a good insight into how the muskrats are working at government agencies.… Read More »
About yesterday’s Senate “shadow hearing”
As I noted previously, I was invited to testify at a “shadow hearing” held by the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, about the firings happening at VA.
Watch me testify before a Senate committee, Wednesday, April 2, 3:00pm Eastern
I have been invited to testify (virtually) at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs about firings at VA. The hearing will begin at 3:00pm Eastern on Wednesday, April 2. The hearing was organized by the Democratic committee members; although all members of the committee are invited to attend, the Republican members are not expected to show up. The hearing will be live-streamed on Twitter (https://x.com/SVACDems) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SVACDems/). And yes, I absolutely did let the committee know just what I thought of the fact that they were only streaming on corporate social media platforms controlled by people who support fascism.
Brief mention in “Yomiuri Shimbun” article in Japanese
I imagine most of my readers are not going to make much of this, but since I’m trying to capture everything here for posterity, note that I was mentioned briefly in an article in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun last Saturday.
Featured guest on “WatchCats” podcast March 25
Experienced ex-govies Julian Sanchez and Noah Kunin, started the WatchCats podcast a couple of months ago to report on DOGE and its doings throughout the federal government. I am the featured guest on the March 25 episode. Listen for the inside story of what went down at USDS between the election and when 44 USDSers… Read More »
WaPo article about Signal use by feds with me as lead-off hitter
This morning over at The Washington Post ([archive link]), Shira Ovide, Danielle Abril, and Hannah Natanson write about Signal use among federal workers. I’m the lede (funsies!). This is a great article capturing the mood among federal workers right now, and it makes relatively clear that while what Pete Hegseth et al are doing is… Read More »
TIME quotes me about DOGE and VA, gets stuff wrong
The TIME article contains two substantive errors, several minor errors, and a curious omission.
Long article about DOGE in Der Spiegel
The article features my concerns about DOGE and VA. Unlike mainstream U.S. media, the piece effectively debunks DOGE’s claims without equivocation. This is the kind of reporting we need to see (but won’t) from U.S. media.
Mar. 13 NPR “Consider This” talks about risks of DOGE data access, with cameo by me
NPR’s Ailsa Chang; Elizabeth Lair of the Equity and Civic Technology Project at the Center For Democracy and Technology; Jonathan Kamens, late of the Department of Veterans Affairs; and University of Virginia law professor Danielle Citron, talk about the risks of DOGE having access to federal government data and how the Privacy Act of 1974 is being used to push back on it.