Ninja

Lawyer, coffee drinker. Very bad at Twitter.

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

@Acyn Is this how we find out the B in MBS is really short for Bubba?

[Momentum Chaser @electricfutures]

Elon presents this scary chart of SSNs issued to noncitizens; then through handwaving and conjecture concludes that this proves the Democrats are trying to steal elections.

Context: this is a chart of SSNs issued through EBE. This is a program for legal immigrants only.

Furthermore, they still can't vote! Elon's friend mysteriously references cases of voter fraud they found by cross-referencing these SSNs, but conveniently provides no numbers! Again, @elonmusk, WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS?

My guess would be that a handful of green card holders mistakenly believed they were allowed to vote. It happens. But if there was a conspiracy to commit mass voter fraud, these pathological liars wouldn't keep the data to themselves.

Finally, Elon references a law in NYC recently struck down that would have "allowed illegal immigrants to vote". What he doesn't mention is that this law was for voting in city elections. New York cannot make it legal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, nor can any other state. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk offers nothing in this town hall besides more fearmongering slop targeted at paranoid, low-info voters.

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

@realbigjoe_24 @InternetH0F Stopped for expired registration. Detained and released after of officers arrived, with tickets for the expired reg and possession of drug paraphernalia for a vape pen claimed by the passenger. Ultimate resolution of charges not clear.

https://t.co/q6EaaxJYfs

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

@Garrett_Archer Has anyone checked to see if there are bamboo fibers embedded in these Social Security cards yet?

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

@whstancil The data here reflects everyone in one database, Numident, that does not have a recorded date of death.

Numident does not track payment of benefits. It is the biographical data associated with an individual's SSN.

The SSA IG has covered this twice: https://t.co/q0Hz8aJ8Il

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

We have a good idea of what these numbers are because the SSA IG has issued two reports on the topic.

These are people in one database (Numident) for whom SSA has not recorded a date of death. This database is everyone who has been assigned an SSN; it does not reflect payments.

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

@JamesSurowiecki There are a couple SSA IG reports on what these numbers represent. It's not benefit payments; it's the lack of a death date in one of SSA's databases.

Addressed in more detail here:

https://t.co/q0Hz8aJ8Il

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

We have a good idea of what these numbers are because the SSA IG has issued two reports on the topic.

These are people in one database (Numident) for whom SSA has not recorded a date of death. This database is everyone who has been assigned an SSN; it does not reflect payments.

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

The 2015 IG report is available here: https://t.co/EeLD0tTr7b

The 2023 IG report is available here: https://t.co/5XBQ2geSX6

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

We have a good idea of what these numbers are because the SSA IG has issued two reports on the topic.

These are people in one database (Numident) for whom SSA has not recorded a date of death. This database is everyone who has been assigned an SSN; it does not reflect payments.

[Jared Walczak @JaredWalczak]

I ran the numbers from this table, and can assure you that Social Security isn't actually paying anywhere near this many beneficiaries. Short version: if this table were accurate, Social Security would cost $1 trillion per year more than it actually does.

Somewhat longer version: Social Security costs about $1.5 trillion a year, though some of that goes to SSI and SSDI. There are 52.7 million retirement beneficiaries. Even if we assume that only 40% of 60-69 year olds are receiving benefits (a low estimate), this table would suggest about 93.97 million retirement beneficiaries.

Retirement checks will average $1,976 in 2025. With 93.97 million beneficiaries, that would cost $2.23 trillion per year. At the actual count of 52.7 million (which will rise slightly throughout the year), it would cost about $1.25 trillion. I can't find a line-item projection for how much will go to retirees in 2025, but it typically runs ~85%, and 85% of a $1.5 trillion budget is $1.28 trillion.

I have no insight into what data generates this table. It may be a misunderstanding of Social Security databases. But there may also be poor recordkeeping and bad data, and that's genuinely worth addressing. We also know that some payments will be fraudulently received, and rooting those out is a good thing. But we can know that these tables aren't reflective of actual payment obligations because we'd then have to be paying ~41 million more beneficiaries than we actually are, at a cost of about $1 trillion a year more than we're actually spending.

[Ninja @NinjaEsq]

The IG found ongoing Numident database issues when it revisited the issue in 2023.

SSA stated it weighed the issue, but found the fix too costly while offering minimal benefit and posing some risk. IG agreed there was minimal benefit to SSA, but flagged other potential abuses.

[Dustin Volz @dnvolz]

Members of the Cyber Safety Review Board were informed they have been dismissed pursuant to a DHS order disbanding all advisory committees.

The board had been in the middle of probing the Chinese hack of U.S. telecoms, a review that now is in limbo and possibly terminated.

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

What. Did. He. Just. Do. At. The. End. Of. This. Seven. Second. Clip?

[Matthew Gertz @MattGertz]

Broad pardons for family members while doing nothing to protect the rest of the country and publicly welcoming Trump back to the White House is not coherent.

[David Corn @DavidCornDC]

SCOOP: Insiders at a RFK Jr.-led nonprofit questioned why/how he funneled $67 million to a small environmental group he & a hedge-fund billionaire helped set up in the Bahamas. A board member resigned over this, noting he couldn't get RFK to explain it.

https://t.co/VaDyRFeZ52

[rat king 🐀 @MikeIsaac]

the Rogan interview with Zuckerberg that dropped this morning is something to behold. basically him dumping years of anger at the media, the government, social discussion

clearly all pent up for years and now allowing himself to do it because of Trump coming to power

[Jeff Stein @jstein_notus]

It's really pretty simple:

1. You can define tariffs as "universal" if they are import duties that are applied equally to every country;

2. You can also say that tariffs are "universal" in the sense that they are applied to every single *type* of import.

Trump, in his campaign, ran on a definition of universal that encompassed both 1 AND 2

And NOW, at least for the very outset of his presidency, & w/ nothing set in stone thus far, his aides have been LOOKING at only doing 1 while scaling back 2

My reporting these straightforward facts was denounced by the president-elect today and by many on the left who described it as "sane-washing"

But this is an important, if provisional and uncertain, shift, and it deserves to be covered as such, which is what I did.

[Poker and Politics @PokerPolitics]

Our unelected President is now promoting Pizzagate and the idea that Tom Hanks is a pedophile. The Trump Presidency was bad but it wasn’t pilled. The Musk Presidency is going to be both bad and totally pilled.

[Sam Stein @samstein]

NEW: Pediatric cancer research advocates spent years building up to this week. They celebrated when their priorities were included in the CR. And then, Elon began tweeting

[J. David McSwane @davidmcswane]

Let me tell you a story – one of the more haunting I’ve seen in 20 years of journalism. It’s about greed, death and denial. It took two years to unravel one doctor’s myth, a hospital’s complicity in creating it, and a documented trail of suspicious deaths… 🧵