Donald Trump's SSN Is Out There

     From ABC News:

A Louisiana private investigator pleaded guilty on Monday to misusing Donald Trump's Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president's federal tax information before his election last year.

Jordan Hamlett, 32, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court.

Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump's tax information through a U.S. Department of Education financial aid website. ...

Merry Christmas

Problem Solved!

     From Mother Jones:

... I have some good news to share. I was browsing through the 2017 Social Security Trustees report, and it turns out that Social Security will be solvent through the rest of the century. Here’s their chart of how things look based on different estimates of economic growth:

As we all know, the official OMB/Treasury estimate of future economic growth is 2.9 percent, which means the trust fund will be flush with cash far into the future. This means everyone can stand down and leave Social Security alone. In fact, it’s doing so well that Congress might want to think about raising benefits. Hooray!

Look, Squirrel!

     In an editorial, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram falls for Sam Johnson's absurd attempt to blame Social Security's hearing backlog on the lack of a confirmed Commissioner for Social Security. Yes, they make some vague mention of "resources and staff" but the thrust of the piece is that the cause of the backlog is that there's no confirmed Commissioner. That's nonsense. The backlog is 100% caused by the failure of Johnson and his Republican colleagues in Congress to appropriate enough money for the agency. No Commissioner could do anything with this impossible budget situation. Blaming the backlog on the lack of a confirmed Commissioner is such an obvious misdirection by Johnson. He must be chuckling at how easily he fooled them.

Waiting In Tampa

     The Tampa Bay Times reports on the effects of Social Security's hearing backlog. Tampa has one of the highest backlogs in the country.

Happy Holidays

Call Eric Conn

Can Anyone Explain This One To Me?

     A contracting notice posted by the Social Security Administration:

The purpose of this request for information (RFI) is to conduct market research to determine potential vendors that are capable of providing mobile Livescan fingerprinting services nationwide.

     I'm sorry but it sounds a little black helicopterish, if you know what I mean.