Today’s blog post is dedicated to my classmate who said, “This is a beautiful thing to watch.”
Today’s blog post is dedicated to everyone who told me, “We need a businessman in the White House.”
Today’s blog post is dedicated to all the evangelicals who voted for this fascism.
If you take offense at my referring to the Trump Administration as being fascist, file your complaint with Merriam-Webster, not me.
This is how the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines Fascism: “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”
If legislating through Executive Orders is not dictatorial, I don’t know what it is. If the shoe fits….
The “red flag” was today’s headline on TV and online: “Thousands of immigrants declared dead, but they aren’t.”
I had planned to include today’s topic in a blog post sometime next week. It is a post that will contain a list of “highlights” of how things are going in the United States of America; however, the deeper I dived into what is going on at the Social Security Administration, the more concerned I became. It quickly became obvious that this deserved its own blog post.
I looked forward to a respite from the news and a break from blogging over the weekend. I made the mistake of turning on my desktop computer and the TV this afternoon.
If you have not been paying attention today, you might not know what has happened since Thursday… and this is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than Trump lifting the tariffs from electronics coming from China. The electronics tariff news taking the spotlight today is there is distract you from something happening at the Social Security Administration that should make your blood run cold.
The price of your iPhone or the price of eggs could soon be the least of your worries.
The purpose of the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
The purpose of the SSDI was to prevent the Social Security number of a deceased person to later be assigned to someone else.
That sounds like a good purpose, doesn’t it?
My deceased parents’ names are in that database. I don’t want their Social Security numbers being reassigned to someone else.
But then the Trump Administration came along…
This is how it went down, according to The Washington Post:
- Social Security Administration (SSA) officials made the Trump Administration aware that they had concerns about the security of the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) database. They (SSA officials) were worried that people could be added to the SSDI without proper proof of death.
- The Trump Administration chose to exploit that revelation.
- Scott Coulter, the new chief information officer installed by Elon Musk and the folks at the US Department of Homeland Security wanted to use the database for nefarious purposes, so on
- Greg Pearre, Associate Commissioner, Office of Systems Architecture at the Social Security Administration, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, “clashed with Scott Coulter,” telling Coulter that it was “illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead,” according to three people who had knowledge of the events.
- Trump appointees did not appreciate Greg Pearre’s knowledge of the law.
- The names of 6,100 living immigrants ranging in age from teenagers to octogenarians were declared dead by the Trump Administration and added to the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, which is apparently being renamed “Ineligible Master File.” (This was done on April 8, 2025, as well as I can determine.)
- On Thursday, April 10, 2025, security guards escorted Greg Pearre out of his office and out of the Social Security building in which he worked. A sad ending to anyone’s 25-year career.
No one should be okay with this!
If you are okay with this, may God have mercy on your soul. Your level of hate and bigotry and your disdain for the United States Constitution is greater than I can wrap my head around.
In the name of “Make America Great Again,” my deceased parents (and perhaps yours?) and everyone else who has had a Social Security number and died since the creation of the Social Security Administration in 1937 are on that list, lumped together with living immigrants that Donald Trump wants to rid our country of. (Forgive me for ending a sentence with a preposition, but the dismantling of American democracy is happening too fast for me to worry as much about grammar as I did three months ago.)
If the Trump Administration doesn’t like you (in other words, if you don’t financially support Donald John Trump, Sr. AND appropriately and publicly sing his praises), you, too, might just find your name on the new Death Index.
I just might find myself dead any day now. Literally or figuratively dead. And it really makes no difference which it is. If the wrong people discover my blog, it could happen to me. That’s the America in which I live in 2025.
Please don’t think any of this is okay.
Thank you, Greg Pearre, for trying to save the Social Security Administration. I’m sorry your valiant efforts resulted in you losing your job. At least you still have your integrity from your 25-year career in government service.
Thank you for The Washington Post’s reporters who were brave enough to go public with this story!
No, Mr. Trump, the press is NOT the “enemy of the people.” You are, Mr. Trump. You are.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 