The Daily Populous

Monday April 21st, 2025 day edition

image for Elon Musk’s $1 Billion ‘Government Efficiency’ Fund Disappears Without a Trace, And No One Knows Where It Went

The initiative promised bold results and boasted that it had already saved taxpayers $65 billion by eliminating waste, axing redundant programs, and selling off federal assets.

According to investigative outlet NOTUS, nearly $962 million in previously reported savings quietly vanished from the DOGE website on April 15.

Along with the missing money, hundreds of data entries were changed or deleted entirely — and the site, which hadn’t been updated in weeks, offered no public explanation.

Read Also: Furious Trump Booted Elon Musk Out of a Secret Pentagon Briefing, ‘What the F**k Is Elon Doing There?’.

In total, DOGE’s savings estimate is now sitting at $155 billion — which sounds impressive but has skeptics raising serious questions.

ABC News went a step further, describing the figures as “unverifiable” and pointing out that much of DOGE’s self-reported data can’t be independently checked.

But experts are puzzled, especially given the sudden and silent removal of nearly a billion dollars in claimed savings. »

'We are all Hamas': Qatari defense minister posts, then deletes message in support of Hamas

Authored by jpost.com

Qatari deputy prime minister and defense affairs minister Sa'oud bin Abd Al-Rahman Al Thani this week posted and quickly deleted a Twitter/X post in support of Hamas: “We Are all Hamas… Oh Al-Quds, revolt and commemorate Al-Qassam!”.

Thani, who was appointed in November as Qatar’s deputy prime minister and defense affairs minister, has served as head of the Emiri Diwan for several years before that.

However, the Qatari minister quickly deleted the post, along with other posts endorsing Hamas, in an attempt to erase his history of support for the terrorist group. »

OK, Chuck Schumer. Trump Just Crossed Your Red Line. Now What?

Authored by newrepublic.com

But when I reached out to Schumer’s office late Monday, the senator hadn’t even posted a response to the news yet.

Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous.

Is Schumer’s banal press statement really the best that Democratic leadership can do?. »

Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold Trump officials in contempt

Authored by theguardian.com
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“I believe as long as these courts hold, and the constituents hold, and the Congress starts standing up, our democracy will hold,” Klobuchar told CNN’s State of the Union, adding “but Donald Trump is trying to pull us down into the sewer of a crisis.”.

Klobuchar said the US supreme court should hold Trump administration officials in contempt if they continue to ignore a court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador, the Maryland resident the government admitted in court it had deported by mistake.

The senator’s comments came hours after supreme court released justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion on the court’s decision to block the Trump administration from deporting more Venezuelans held in north Texas’s Bluebonnet detention center. »

Sam Altman Admits That Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

Authored by futurism.com

OpenAI CEO and tech billionaire Sam Altman recently admitted that people politely saying "please" and "thank you" to their AI chatbots is costing him bigtime.

When one poster on X-formerly-Twitter wondered aloud "how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying 'please' and 'thank you' to their models," Altman chimed in, saying it's "tens of millions of dollars well spent.".

While it may seem pointless to treat an AI chatbot with respect, some AI architects say it's an important move. »