On March 20, Popular Information revealed that the Social Security Administration (SSA) secretly implemented a policy shift that could impose massive demands on the agency's already overburdened network of field offices.
Does Connolly think that anyone in the Trump junta gives a damn about a letter? Want action Gerry? Shut the damn Oversight Committee down by forcing things to move as slowly as possible. Get out in front of a f'king camera and tell the American people about the destruction of Social Security that Trump and his quislings are engaged in. Find someone who SSA declared to be dead and put them on camera with you. Letters are pointless. Act like you are in an existential battle, because you are.
We should have had AOC. Thanks a lot, Nancy. Although you have done a lot of good, you made a bad move by preventing AOC's advancement to a role in leadership.
Every one of the rallies AOC is doing with Bernie show Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic gerontocracy just how wrong they are to cling to power. AOC is leading the fight against Trump while the rest of them are still looking for a consultant to run a focus group.
When you are in the minority Dems don’t have the votes on committees to slow anything down or make you happy.
This policy targeted immigrants. You know who wants to put immigrants on TV these days for politics? Trump fans.
My neighbor who is here legally no longer comes outside. Not even for groceries. They are delivered. There isn’t a snowball’s chance if this happened that he would go on TV over it.
Plus dealing with trying to fix it is exhausting - bank accounts are closed; pensions cut off. Everywhere you go you are “dead.”
Please think more strategically about where you point your anger. At least 2 states have numbers for people to call about issues with Social Security. I have no doubt every Legislator gets calls. Whether people want to be dragged in front of a camera is questionable. GOP legislators are not going to do this - where a lot of the ‘targets’ live.
There is a good chance this is just starting to reach the ‘collateral damage’ point. WaPo did a story on a Social Security recipient. It can be summarized this way:
— A guy goes into a Social Security Office.
He tells a security guard. “Hi, I’m dead.”
The security guard calls out to the other security guard - “Hey, here’s another one.” —
You are not paying attention. The American people are not buying Trump's bullshit about killers and criminals. Why? Because he and his thugs do stupid shit like deporting a guy to the one country TRUMP'S OWN JUDGE said he couldn't be deported to, then admitting it was an error, then refusing to bring him back. And how do you think the deportation of a 2 year old, who is a citizen, is going to play? The country may end up being saved because Trump and his sycophants are just plain stupid.
I’m paying enough attention to notice nothing you said contradicts a thing I wrote. The Dems are a minority party & the GOP is not going to rollover and let them run a committee to stop immigrants from being deported.
I’ll tell you another thing that is not a big secret. One of the reasons some of there actions are so very unpopular is that those acts threaten not only people of color who voted for trump but also threaten pale people. I live in very red state, veto proof legislature & a Dem governor. They break ranks when they Vote because something affects them. They’ll vote down ballot initiatives but vote for the legislators that put them on the ballot.
Talking in public about prisons in El Salvador for ‘home growns’ was not too bright. Some of it is because voters are so peeved about the economy & tariffs it doesn’t take much to disapprove of other things. It’s called “contagion”.
Dems, mostly congressmen, are going into GOP districts where their own Rep won’t hold public meetings. Bringing issues those voters care about. That’s more effective than performances with 0 impact that everyone ignores.
I’m paying enough attention to know deporting a 2 yr old was intentional. They did it in the 1st term. Children have been deported with no representation and ‘in absentia’ for a long time. Thousands. Now it is being done with the memory of child separation, “incommunicado” with a very irritated judicial branch https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/23/attorney-general-greenlights-arrests-under-suspended-florida-immigration-law/ in the midst of general chaos and anger.
Trump and his team are in a hurry. They knew when they began their actions would not be popular. They knew it before he took office. They knew it when he ran from P2025 and said he had nothing to do with it. They knew it when the plan to implement was written. Speed; flood the zone; spread, fear, chaos and confusion.
Thank you for bringing this corruption of Trump to the Social Security Administration and his hatred of alien immigrants who only want to live and work in our country. We have to admire Gerald Connolly for his intensive and explanatory letter to Dudek on this issue. (He's one of the "older" House members who certainly should not be primaried cf. David Hogg.)
That isn’t why he said he ran. What I received from him was making sure young people were included. I don’t think it is part of the job of DNC leadership to pick primary candidates either. I’m starting to feel like Dems are reverting to the old circular firing squad. Focusing on one another instead of defeating the cause of the frustration.
Wait. Doesn't the EBE program enable the SSA to issue SS numbers to undocumented people who have received work authorization, then pay into the system and get nothing in return?
"In the 2024 fiscal year, there were over 3.24 million initial Employment Authorization Documents approved by USCIS."
I thought the conservative party of constant criminals liked free money!
Gerry Connolly, 75, suffers from cancer, a fact he only revealed after the 2024 election. Thanks to the aged leadership of the Democratic Caucus, he is ranking member instead of a genuine leader, AOC.
That's probably why it took him a month to write a Susan Collins-esque whiny letter.
Connolly's letter follows the same timeline as Judd Legum's! He presented all of the details and persuasive points needed to provide reasoning for Trump and Dudek--they don't respond just because it's the right thing to do.
Tragically, acting SSA commissioner leland dudek is a midlevel jerk who was elevated to a job he is wholly unqualified for to do whatever the trump regime tells him to do. He got his promotion after he let DOGE into the SSA computer system. He has no scruples and no qualms about dismantling the SSA and cutting people off from lifesaving earned benefits. Thanks for breaking stories on these attacks on the SSA and for keeping this in the news. The more people know about this, the more outraged they become.
This man, Leland Dudek is a factotum plucked from the rank and file of SSA workers because he collaborated with DOGE before they even asked for collaboration. He is a useful tool for Trump and DOGE. Look at him go! He is dismantling a great system and agency at rapid speed.
Think about how evil it is to go after the weakest and most vulnerable citizens: the aged, the young, the infirm, the powerless, the poor, the needy the friendless. I bet Leland goes home every night and uses a magnifying glass to see how much his Du-dick has grown that day. Perhaps in his daily report to DOGE he even adds a silly centimeter when he self-reports his masculinity.
We applaud Popular Information and Mr. Connelly's exposure of this clandestine manipulation of a properly operating system to create confusion, waste and illegal interference in a congressionally approved program. Thank you!!
This isn’t “government efficiency.” It’s targeted disenfranchisement. 🚨
Let’s call this what it is: a quiet, bureaucratic attack on immigrants and the systems that support them.
The EBE freeze doesn’t make Social Security more efficient, more secure, or less expensive—it does the opposite. It intentionally adds confusion, cost, and delay, hitting the most vulnerable communities the hardest.
As someone with privilege and power, I believe allyship means standing up loudly when policies are engineered to break systems from within. 🛑 Cutting corners to “protect taxpayers” while making it harder for legal immigrants and newly naturalized citizens to fully participate in society is the same old voter suppression tactic in a new trench coat.
👀 75,000+ extra people a week now forced into field offices?
💸 $55.80 per card now instead of $8?
🚫 No public notice or explanation?
It’s not incompetence. It’s calculated cruelty.
Shoutout to you Judd and the Popular Information team for dragging this into the light. We need more leaders like Rep. Connolly pushing back—and more citizens refusing to stay silent. This is about more than Social Security. It’s about the soul of public service and who it’s designed to serve.
You all have done it again. You have brought a threat to the foreground. This is a stunning bit of breaking news that should alarm us all. Thank you for your hard work.
Do we have time for more, endless investigations?. The number of crimes committed and convictions keeps increasing. Arrests should be made. They can wait for trial in prison like others do.
For what is worth, Connolly is spot on with the reason for the freeze. But what are all the highly trained chip workers from Taiwan going to do as they move to Little Taipei (outside Phoenix) to work at the new TSMC plant?
Step 1: Point shotgun at foot. Step 2: Pull trigger. Step 3: Bitch about how it's not your fault.
I am halfway through a two-year extension on my green card (issued in 2022, with conditions). I filed last year to have the conditions removed, but as I mentioned my extension is only valid for less than one year at this very moment. I don't appear to be in a position where I can be safe in knowing whether I can stay with my husband, or if I'll be deported.
Does Connolly think that anyone in the Trump junta gives a damn about a letter? Want action Gerry? Shut the damn Oversight Committee down by forcing things to move as slowly as possible. Get out in front of a f'king camera and tell the American people about the destruction of Social Security that Trump and his quislings are engaged in. Find someone who SSA declared to be dead and put them on camera with you. Letters are pointless. Act like you are in an existential battle, because you are.
Your indignation and anger comes through and I am right there with you. Also, thank you for the word quisling.
We should have had AOC. Thanks a lot, Nancy. Although you have done a lot of good, you made a bad move by preventing AOC's advancement to a role in leadership.
Every one of the rallies AOC is doing with Bernie show Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic gerontocracy just how wrong they are to cling to power. AOC is leading the fight against Trump while the rest of them are still looking for a consultant to run a focus group.
Damn right!
This.
Peter could not agree more with you, stop being passive.
Sounds great. Except it is a mirage.
When you are in the minority Dems don’t have the votes on committees to slow anything down or make you happy.
This policy targeted immigrants. You know who wants to put immigrants on TV these days for politics? Trump fans.
My neighbor who is here legally no longer comes outside. Not even for groceries. They are delivered. There isn’t a snowball’s chance if this happened that he would go on TV over it.
Plus dealing with trying to fix it is exhausting - bank accounts are closed; pensions cut off. Everywhere you go you are “dead.”
Please think more strategically about where you point your anger. At least 2 states have numbers for people to call about issues with Social Security. I have no doubt every Legislator gets calls. Whether people want to be dragged in front of a camera is questionable. GOP legislators are not going to do this - where a lot of the ‘targets’ live.
There is a good chance this is just starting to reach the ‘collateral damage’ point. WaPo did a story on a Social Security recipient. It can be summarized this way:
— A guy goes into a Social Security Office.
He tells a security guard. “Hi, I’m dead.”
The security guard calls out to the other security guard - “Hey, here’s another one.” —
Here’s Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/social-security-recipients-accidentally-deleted-doge-2064092
You are not paying attention. The American people are not buying Trump's bullshit about killers and criminals. Why? Because he and his thugs do stupid shit like deporting a guy to the one country TRUMP'S OWN JUDGE said he couldn't be deported to, then admitting it was an error, then refusing to bring him back. And how do you think the deportation of a 2 year old, who is a citizen, is going to play? The country may end up being saved because Trump and his sycophants are just plain stupid.
I’m paying enough attention to notice nothing you said contradicts a thing I wrote. The Dems are a minority party & the GOP is not going to rollover and let them run a committee to stop immigrants from being deported.
I’ll tell you another thing that is not a big secret. One of the reasons some of there actions are so very unpopular is that those acts threaten not only people of color who voted for trump but also threaten pale people. I live in very red state, veto proof legislature & a Dem governor. They break ranks when they Vote because something affects them. They’ll vote down ballot initiatives but vote for the legislators that put them on the ballot.
Talking in public about prisons in El Salvador for ‘home growns’ was not too bright. Some of it is because voters are so peeved about the economy & tariffs it doesn’t take much to disapprove of other things. It’s called “contagion”.
Dems, mostly congressmen, are going into GOP districts where their own Rep won’t hold public meetings. Bringing issues those voters care about. That’s more effective than performances with 0 impact that everyone ignores.
I’m paying enough attention to know deporting a 2 yr old was intentional. They did it in the 1st term. Children have been deported with no representation and ‘in absentia’ for a long time. Thousands. Now it is being done with the memory of child separation, “incommunicado” with a very irritated judicial branch https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/23/attorney-general-greenlights-arrests-under-suspended-florida-immigration-law/ in the midst of general chaos and anger.
Trump and his team are in a hurry. They knew when they began their actions would not be popular. They knew it before he took office. They knew it when he ran from P2025 and said he had nothing to do with it. They knew it when the plan to implement was written. Speed; flood the zone; spread, fear, chaos and confusion.
Thank you for bringing this corruption of Trump to the Social Security Administration and his hatred of alien immigrants who only want to live and work in our country. We have to admire Gerald Connolly for his intensive and explanatory letter to Dudek on this issue. (He's one of the "older" House members who certainly should not be primaried cf. David Hogg.)
That isn’t why he said he ran. What I received from him was making sure young people were included. I don’t think it is part of the job of DNC leadership to pick primary candidates either. I’m starting to feel like Dems are reverting to the old circular firing squad. Focusing on one another instead of defeating the cause of the frustration.
Wait. Doesn't the EBE program enable the SSA to issue SS numbers to undocumented people who have received work authorization, then pay into the system and get nothing in return?
"In the 2024 fiscal year, there were over 3.24 million initial Employment Authorization Documents approved by USCIS."
I thought the conservative party of constant criminals liked free money!
Just shows how much they don’t understand the system
Got that right.
Their ignorance may be bliss but it's neither safe nor healthy to be that clueless!
I think every bit of Congressional pushback helps. I’m sure his letter will carry more weight than sternly stated Substack comments.
Agreed 😉
Gerry Connolly, 75, suffers from cancer, a fact he only revealed after the 2024 election. Thanks to the aged leadership of the Democratic Caucus, he is ranking member instead of a genuine leader, AOC.
That's probably why it took him a month to write a Susan Collins-esque whiny letter.
Connolly's letter follows the same timeline as Judd Legum's! He presented all of the details and persuasive points needed to provide reasoning for Trump and Dudek--they don't respond just because it's the right thing to do.
Great reporting…facts lead to the truth…leads to freedom.
Been mad, angry, and loud.
Doesn’t get anything done.
Call, Write, Protest to every one of your friends, family, and Senators, Congressman/women. Be Sure when picking a leader…that they can actually
Lead & Win! Thanks again Judd!
Tragically, acting SSA commissioner leland dudek is a midlevel jerk who was elevated to a job he is wholly unqualified for to do whatever the trump regime tells him to do. He got his promotion after he let DOGE into the SSA computer system. He has no scruples and no qualms about dismantling the SSA and cutting people off from lifesaving earned benefits. Thanks for breaking stories on these attacks on the SSA and for keeping this in the news. The more people know about this, the more outraged they become.
This man, Leland Dudek is a factotum plucked from the rank and file of SSA workers because he collaborated with DOGE before they even asked for collaboration. He is a useful tool for Trump and DOGE. Look at him go! He is dismantling a great system and agency at rapid speed.
Think about how evil it is to go after the weakest and most vulnerable citizens: the aged, the young, the infirm, the powerless, the poor, the needy the friendless. I bet Leland goes home every night and uses a magnifying glass to see how much his Du-dick has grown that day. Perhaps in his daily report to DOGE he even adds a silly centimeter when he self-reports his masculinity.
We applaud Popular Information and Mr. Connelly's exposure of this clandestine manipulation of a properly operating system to create confusion, waste and illegal interference in a congressionally approved program. Thank you!!
This isn’t “government efficiency.” It’s targeted disenfranchisement. 🚨
Let’s call this what it is: a quiet, bureaucratic attack on immigrants and the systems that support them.
The EBE freeze doesn’t make Social Security more efficient, more secure, or less expensive—it does the opposite. It intentionally adds confusion, cost, and delay, hitting the most vulnerable communities the hardest.
As someone with privilege and power, I believe allyship means standing up loudly when policies are engineered to break systems from within. 🛑 Cutting corners to “protect taxpayers” while making it harder for legal immigrants and newly naturalized citizens to fully participate in society is the same old voter suppression tactic in a new trench coat.
👀 75,000+ extra people a week now forced into field offices?
💸 $55.80 per card now instead of $8?
🚫 No public notice or explanation?
It’s not incompetence. It’s calculated cruelty.
Shoutout to you Judd and the Popular Information team for dragging this into the light. We need more leaders like Rep. Connolly pushing back—and more citizens refusing to stay silent. This is about more than Social Security. It’s about the soul of public service and who it’s designed to serve.
📣 Stay loud. Stay vigilant. Stand up.
Thank you for your work. Thank you for keeping us informed. You are the most important news source I read.
You all have done it again. You have brought a threat to the foreground. This is a stunning bit of breaking news that should alarm us all. Thank you for your hard work.
Chilling.. every day gets worse hope we can get started to stop this annihilation of our country & democracy
Do we have time for more, endless investigations?. The number of crimes committed and convictions keeps increasing. Arrests should be made. They can wait for trial in prison like others do.
For what is worth, Connolly is spot on with the reason for the freeze. But what are all the highly trained chip workers from Taiwan going to do as they move to Little Taipei (outside Phoenix) to work at the new TSMC plant?
Step 1: Point shotgun at foot. Step 2: Pull trigger. Step 3: Bitch about how it's not your fault.
I am halfway through a two-year extension on my green card (issued in 2022, with conditions). I filed last year to have the conditions removed, but as I mentioned my extension is only valid for less than one year at this very moment. I don't appear to be in a position where I can be safe in knowing whether I can stay with my husband, or if I'll be deported.
I've never been so scared in my life 😭