State Level DOGE Inspired Task Forces Watchlist

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64252755

Archive link without paywall: https://archive.is/Wod1E

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said city police weren’t notified about the escape until 10:30 a.m., about two hours after the routine headcount turned up short. The department then set out to inform the public so people could protect themselves and help with the search.

“We wanted to immediately notify our public because we knew these escapees would be in our city,” she said before promising a “full court effort” to track down the escapees.

Kirkpatrick declined to criticize the sheriff’s office but said the delay in reporting the escape was “concerning.” When asked whether Hutson should have let her know about the escape sooner, the superintendent demurred.

“We’ll deal with that at another time,” she said.

The jailbreak is the latest in a series of oddly high profile incidents regarding the Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson over the last several weeks.

The current Governor of Louisiana has critiqued New Orleans sanctuary policy for handling immigration since at least 2017, when he was Attorney General for the state. The policy is the result of a federal consent decree handed down by the Department of Justice.

In 2024, the mayor of New Orleans, who has been under legal pressure due to her own corruption scandal, ignored concerns of many civil rights advocates, when she sided with the Governor to establish a permanent state police (Troop Nola) presence in the city.

Governor Landry claimed this was necessary to reverse damage to NOPD caused by the Federal decree.

The following has all seriously happened in New Orleans over the last 2.5 weeks:

•Sanctuary city trial. The current Louisiana AG filed charges against Hutson to force her to lift what the state argues is a sanctuary city policy, relating to a federal decree placed on NOPD by the DOJ.

The AG, a long time friend of Governor Landry, argued that New Orleans was in violation of state law created last year.

That law was written by Blake Miguez, a different long time friend of Landry and member of his Louisiana DOGE taskforce. Miguez has also been helping the Governor restructure the Louisiana board of ethics following claims of ethics board violation, which have allowed Landry the ability to appoint the majority of the members of the ethics board directly, with less oversight.

Ultimately, the federal judge ruled that she did not believe AG Murrill had the authority to make those claims against Hutson.

•A Trump EO about ending federal decrees and sanctuary cities was released on the Monday night, (less than 48 hrs) before the Wednesday trial

•The Saturday after the trial, the city held a vote to continue a millage, so that a small amount of property tax would fund the jail. Hutson said she needed the funds to make repairs to the jail, but faced a bizarre disinformation campaign falsely claiming voting yes would raise taxes. Nobody has ever taken credit for the signs placed around the city.

It just barely passed by 2 votes. A request for a recount was filed early the next week.

•The recount request was filed under an alias by somebody who had previously run for elected office in Louisiana, and was previously involved in revealing an astroturfing scandal against the city The recount ultimately increased the number of yes votes so the millage passed by 4 votes.

•This past Tuesday the city submitted a request to lift the consent decree. The request was filed right at the 5 pm deadline

•Thursday Governor Landry released an EO urging Louisiana law enforcement to partner with ICE

From the Office of the Governor news release Governor Jeff Landry Partners with President Donald Trump to Launch “Operation GEAUX”

•Late Thursday night/early Friday morning, 11 prisoners escape from Orleans Parish jail

•Hutson is up for re-election soon. Candidates running against her are now speaking to the press, claiming this should make her ineligible to run for re-election.

Governor of Louisiana was being charged with ethics violations, so he just decided to change the law so he wouldn't be.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) assured America he doesn't use encrypted messaging apps like signal.

"I get about 400 a day literally just from members," Johnson said at an Axios News Shapers event in Washington, DC. "A lot of them text. That's our main means of communication."

He added, jokingly: "Probably being monitored by the Russians, for all I know."

What a funny joke to make considering the previously confirmed Russian oligarch and Putin loyalist financial contributions to Johnson.😅

At the time the donations to Johnson's campaign were made by American Ethane, the majority of shares (88%) were owned by three Russian nationalists. Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev. As this Newsweek article points out, Nikolaev is a top ally of Putin.

The majority of Americans may not be aware that Mikhail Yuriev is also a famous Putin loyalist. So much so, Yuriev wrote a "fictional" novel about a Russian leader that shares a striking resemblance to Putin.

The novel is famous among far right Russian nationalists and Putin has called it his favorite book, The Third Empire: Russia as It Ought to Be.

The 2006 novel preemptively describes the strategy to invade Ukraine years before it actually began. The novel envisions Russia as a 3rd Rome, eventually conquering the entire globe. In the novel, Russia drops a nuclear bomb on the U.S. after conquering Europe. The U.S. surrenders to Russia, and a victory parade is held on May 9th in Red Square

representatives of the American elite: President [George] Bush III and former presidents Bill Clinton, Bush Junior, and Hillary Clinton; current and former members of the cabinet, the House, and the Senate; bankers and industrialists; newspaper commentators and television anchors; famous attorneys and top models; pop singers and Hollywood actresses. All of them passed through Red Square in shackles and with nameplates around their necks. … The Russian government was letting its own citizens and the whole world know that Russia had fought with and vanquished not only the American army but the American civilization.

Here is an archived copy of the Atlantic article about the Russian novel without a paywall

Updating this to include more information: It might be worth mentioning here that each year, Russia actually holds a giant military victory parade in Moscow's Red Square to commemorate the end of WWII. Putin usually uses the parade to show off Russia's military power, and invites foreign leaders to attend. G.W. Bush (Bush III) attended the parade in 2005 (the year before Yuriev's novel was published). However, in recent years, no western leaders have attended.

In January, Putin announced that the 2025 victory parade would include a mystery "big guest," from the U.S.

Interestingly, with the date of Putin's annual victory parade approaching, Kyiv has asked EU officials to visit on Kyiv on May 9th as a show of diplomatic force against Putin. Separately, Zelenskyy is meeting with members of the coalition of the willing, to determine security guarantees for Ukraine.

As of this morning, Russian state media announced Marco Rubio will be attending the upcoming parade.

Rubio's attendance has not been confirmed by U.S. officials, but if true, could potentially send a message about U.S. loyalties among ongoing tension between Russia and U.S. NATO allies.

Also, as of today (May 1, 2025), a Kremlin spokesperson seemed to issue an ominous threat, stating that Russia was capable of mobilizing it's army for a war on scale with WWII if necessary.

In a hearing Wednesday on Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s push to eliminate "sanctuary" policies for immigrants in the New Orleans jail, a federal judge peppered a state lawyer with questions over what she at one point called “insufficient” arguments for the attorney general to be allowed to intervene in the case.

Now, with President Donald Trump vowing to deport some 20 million people from the U.S., conservatives in state governments are pressing the issue. With support from Gov. Jeff Landry, Murrill argues that Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office policies should be erased, after a state law passed last year that effectively banned so-called “sanctuary cities" in Louisiana. The agreement for the New Orleans jail "now sits fundamentally at odds with state law," Murrill argues.

I didn't even know the state law banning sanctuary cities was authored by Senator Blake Miguez, but when I read that I wasn't even actually surprised, because of course it was. The same names are just constantly popping up in connection with this corrupt BS.

Miguez is also an official member of Landry's Louisiana DOGE taskforce. He accidentally revealed the taskforce was meeting in secret and violating transparency laws when he posted a picture of the meeting to Facebook.

After Landry was accused of an ethics violation, Miguez also sponsored an ethics board statute that granted Landry the ability to appoint the majority of the members of the board directly, with less oversight.

Which seems like such an odd move given that Landry and Miguez both love ethics, oversight, and government accountability so much.

The Club for Growth was founded in 1999 by Stephen Moore, Thomas L. Rhodes, and Richard Gilder. Stephen Moore worked at the Heritage Foundation from 1983 to 1987 and again since 2014.

Roe created the State Policy Network in 1992.

TIL that Krieble funded the first of its kind Russian corporation for cooperation between Russia and U.S. businesses in 1991

ITEP provides an 80% tax abatement for up to 10 years. This is supposed to be in exchange for job creation and economic investment in Louisiana. Except Landry removed the requirement for job creation back in Feb.

As Landry explains, "It is not about job creation. It is about capital investment."

To sweeten corporate welfare as an incentive to business, Landry is now giving businesses with existing ITEP contracts the ability to "opt-out" of previous requirements binding them in their current contracts.

So come to Louisiana, exploit whatever you need, benefit from corporate welfare and now you don't even have to create jobs to do it.

The Louisiana Comeback campaign created by GNO Inc. and the Pelican Institute, has been pushing this idea that Louisiana must be freed from over dependency on Federal aid for several years.

They want to incentivise big businesses to come to Louisiana by allowing them to take advantage of ITEP, and claim this will allow Louisiana to be less dependent on Federal aid. However, if there are no jobs being created, and no state taxes going towards state level benefits how would that possibly benefit any Louisiana resident and actually make them less dependent?

It doesn't offer any incentive to Louisiana residents to make them less dependent, it just makes wealthy individuals more wealthy.

Also, I've mentioned this before, but will keep mentioning it every time I come across more of this corrupt BS screwing over the state and telling us we should be happy about it:

The Pelican Institute is part of a nationwide network of think tanks (SPN). SPN is a Heritage Foundation affiliate and receives funding from some very wealthy individuals.

SPN is known for using these think tanks to push for state level policy that benefits their wealthy donors, and disguising the policy as representative of residents living in the state.

As in, these giant corporations are coming to Louisiana, not paying taxes, and not creating jobs because, we the people somehow believe it's in our best interest.

While the economy is still trying to recover from the nosedive it took due to Trump's failed(?) AI tariffs math, Guidehouse will be getting paid to tell the Army how they should be spending money.

In August of 2024, on behalf of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller) (ASA(FM&C)) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Army Financial Improvement (AFI).](https://sam.gov/opp/1e1313d86ead46db83316abdea7c1661/view#20240828)

The RFP was a "full and open competition for a single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, with a maximum value of about $250 million over three years."

Weird how so many of these contracts just happen to be going to Guidehouse over and over again while the government is supposedly eliminating as many consulting contracts as they can in order to cut costs.

The state actually hired 2 consulting firms to help with oversight and management of the funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Obviously Guidehouse was one firm. The other was 929 Strategies, a public policy and "government relations consulting company." 929 Strategies was founded by former state labor commissioner, Melissa McLawhorn Houston.

McLawhorn Houston served on the current Governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt’s transition team. You can read more about Oklahoma's ARPA money and McLawhorn Houston in this article written by Oklahoma's SPN affiliate.

Once again, I find it so odd that multiple "small government" loving elected politicians across multiple states, are not only all connected by the same Heritage Foundation affiliate network, SPN which is dumping money into policy design for these state affiliates, they're also all using the same D.C. area consulting firm, which has been partnering with the F.B.I. for decades.

I honestly don't think most state citizens would be ok with so many outside influences trying to influence or purchase the policies that determine every day life for citizens of the state. I found out my own local government in Louisiana violated transparency laws and met in secret with Guidehouse, and I know I'm in no way ok with it. You cannot demand transparency and oversight, and then pretend it's somehow ok to hide shady business dealings paid for with tax dollars just because you're pointing the finger at other people.

Hiring the consultants was allegedly justified by the state because of the Federal restrictions on how the money could be spent.

As McLawhorn Houston points out, "This is not funding for pensions... This is not for funding ‘rainy days..."

She said the "basic purpose” of the federal funds was “to respond to the public health emergency” of COVID-19 and its associated impacts.

However, according to this Treasury webpage that outlines eligible uses for the funds, there were actually several ways that money could have been put directly into the pockets of some Oklahoma citizens.

This includes:

Respond to the far-reaching public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic, by supporting the health of communities, and helping households, small businesses, impacted industries, nonprofits, and the public sector recover from economic impacts

Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service in critical sectors

I'm curious to know if that's how Guidehouse and 929 strategies advised it be spent? Did citizens of Oklahoma benefit from these billions of dollars?

The Energy Department has identified 16 federal sites that could house powerful data centers to advance U.S. artificial intelligence technologies. The goal is to begin construction on new AI sites by the end of 2027. DOE is seeking feedback from data center developers, energy firms and the public as part of a request for information released last week. The RFI is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to advance AI and boost energy production. Feedback to DOE is due by April 20.

*The first link I tried to use to a hill article covering the story is working, but was showing an access denied title in the thumbnail Here is a link to the hill article

Florida Republican Rep. Donalds along with Democratic Rep. Moskowitz recently introduced a "bipartisan" bill to liberate FEMA from Homeland Security and turn it into a cabinet position.

Moskowitz, was one of Trump's early picks to lead FEMA and also the first Democrat to join DOGE

The bill was introduced the same day Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem announced during a televised Cabinet meeting that DHS intended to eliminate FEMA

Noem has complained that offices of civil rights within DHS interfere with the DHS mission on immigration, although only two of the three offices Noem has attacked, deal with immigration

The third office is the office of civil rights and liberties within the DHS, and applies to all civil rights issues regardless of immigration or citizenship status.

Noem's attacks against Civil Rights Offices within DHS were made following statements that she plans to use polygraphs on ICE employees

Many current ICE employees are federal employees who were removed from previous positions and have been diverted to ICE.

Diversion of federal employees is seen by many as a highly politicized move that first began in early February and seemed to be a blatant act of retaliation for January 6th investigations.

Despite the fact that polygraphs are known to have high false positives rates, Noem said she plans to use polygraphs to root out individuals leaking information to the press. Noem's threat was followed by similar threats made against employees of the Dept. of Justice and Dept. of Defense.

Notably, FEMA also has a civil rights office within the agency, which deals with any civil rights issues that arise during emergency management Elimination of FEMA as a federal agency by absorbing it into the president's cabinet would place FEMA under complete executive control.

What a surprise to now see Donalds running for governor with House Speaker Mike Johnson's official approval.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60369289

Part 2: https://toad.social/@PimentoMori/114280296722159897

Part 3: https://toad.social/@PimentoMori/114280389161260976

If you find anything going on in your state, please post it here: https://lemm.ee/c/stateleveldoge

Total Contract Value: $38,127,127.20

Omg how is that even a real number. For one single contract?!? Are you fucking kidding me!?

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/25573398

Congratulations, Wisconsin!

Again, we have "savings" coming from DOGE at the state level from cuts.

When Landry proposed his original 2026 budget, state level cuts were supposedly making things more efficient. These cuts will somehow be offset by federal rewards in more funding for the states efficiency effort. However, the federal government seems to be slashing more funding anyway.

So are we really being "rewarded" or just fucked over at the state and federal level?

If Medicaid is unsustainable that means healthcare cuts.

When you're looking for where you should be making healthcare cuts what makes the most logical sense to you?

At least having a discussion about how these administrative salaries and positions are actually justified?

Or

•Slash and burn policy eliminating doctors that were already accepting Medicaid

•Reducing care offered to patients so that the patients will then indeed become less healthy, rely on emergency services and require more costly care in the long run

•Claiming Medicaid is unsustainable bc "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients."

If you abruptly eliminate all the doctors that do accept Medicaid and then claim you need to increase the Medicaid budget to incentivise doctors in order to get them to accept Medicaid patients, then yes, by default it becomes easy to make the argument that no doctors in your hospital "want to accept Medicaid."

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59903645

I will put references for all of this info in a comment to save space:

So back in Feb Landry announced he found $11M in savings from Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

It turns out that a few weeks before that, Louisiana DOGE held secret meetings with Tara LeBlanc, an employee who works for Guidehouse, a consulting firm in the DC area. Before she worked for Guidehouse, she was director of Medicaid at LDH. Since these meetings were held in secret, there is no public record and we don't know what they actually discussed (which is a violation of transparency law).

1 week after Landry said he found $11M in savings, he announces LA DOGE was partnering with the LA Legislative auditor to find savings.

A little under two weeks after that, the LA Legislative auditor releases a report saying that LDH is being audited for misspending funds for Medicaid program MCIP, which was designed to enhance health outcomes for patients on Medicaid. The program was created in 2018 and implemented in 2019.

The audit is blaming the hospitals that were running the programs. However, think back to that secret meeting for a second: A Guidehouse description of Tera Leblanc welcomes the former Medicaid Executive Director for the LA Department of Health, and says she previously "designed and implemented plans to elevate Louisiana’s pioneering public health emergency unwinding strategy and enhance outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries."

Tera LeBlanc was deputy and then executive director of Medicaid from (2019-2023). This means that LeBlanc was involved in designing and implementing plans to improve outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries during 4 of the 5 years (2019-2024) that the Louisiana Legislative Auditor claims MCIP funds were misspent on administrative costs such as submitting reports and meetings.

Why do I bring up your LCMC doctors?

Around the time this audit was announced, I learned that several doctors who accept Medicaid were suddenly no longer with LCMC. Nobody seems to understand exactly what is going on. Nurses trying direct people on where to find care are being informed by patients that doctors they are recommending patients contact are no longer with LCMC. There is no reporting on this, which is why I am asking people to help me figure out exactly how widespread this issue is.

According to Landry's team, they found $11M in savings at LDH by eliminating contracts and almost 60 of the health department’s 7,700 employment positions in an effort to reduce spending. I would really like to see exactly what contracts and positions those were.

However, Landry's team also says the overall LDH budget for next year is also increasing due to Medicaid costs being out of their control. This is all apparently coming from federal money, but the day after an article came out clarifying that LDH budget was increasing by $1.5B, another article came out that said the Federal DOGE was suddenly slashing $55M in grant money already given to LDH. Some grants had already expired, but others hadn't.

The most recent estimate of budget elimination when considering expired vs not expired grants is ~$10M. Now LDH is having to figure out how to make up for that $10M in other ways. Which seems like it kind of offsets any "$11M savings" Landry found, but honestly I am very confused by most of this.

I do know that the LA Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, who has long opposed Medicaid expansion, claims that one reason the Medicaid budget is growing is because they have to offer doctors more money as an incentive to get them to accept Medicaid.

You've probably heard the often repeated phrase "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients." So why were several doctors that accept Medicaid patients abruptly no longer practicing at LCMC?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to claim you need more money to pay doctors to incentivise them, only to have one of your largest contractors suddenly no longer employ doctors who have been accepting Medicaid patients for years, right?

If you get rid of all the doctors that will accept Medicaid, then it becomes pretty easy to prove the point that no doctors want to accept patients on Medicaid. Weird.