Did DOGE discover that the General Services Administration has been paying Michelle Obama $122,000 per month since 2009? No, that's not true: The story originated on a website named "The Dunning-Kruger Times" which has a clear disclaimer it publishes satire. It is run by a man who runs a network of sites and Facebook pages designed to trick conservatives into sharing made up stories.
The claim appeared in an article published on Dunning-Kruger Times website on February 28, 2025 titled "Michelle Obama Has Been Receiving a Monthly $122,000 Payment from the GSA Since 2009" (archived here) which opened:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A newly uncovered General Services Administration (GSA) report has revealed that Michelle Obama has been receiving a mysterious $122,000 per month from the federal government sin...
This is what the post looked like on the Dunning-Kruger Times website at the time of writing:
(Source: Dunning-Kruger Times website screenshot taken on Thurs Mar 13 15:11:32 2025 UTC)
From there on the story gradually became more and more absurd, explaining what her compensation was for:
Providing America with the illusion of healthy eating while secretly ordering Shake Shack three times a week.
Setting an example for proper bicep flexing so that citizens wouldn't be intimidated by strong women. Serving as emergency call mom consultant for teenagers needing an excuse to get out of family events.
And listing a nonsensical breakdown of the monthly $122,000 payments to Obama including:
$25,000 national vegetable awareness program
$40,000 official dance moves for the nation
$30,000 first lady fashion stabilization
Social media posts have been sharing the story without noting that it has a clear satire disclaimer as a screenshot of this post on X (archived here) shows:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thurs Mar 13 15:27:13 2025 UTC)
Had DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency established by President Donald Trump and run by Elon Musk, uncovered a monthly $122,000 payment to the former first lady it would have been national and international news. A Google search (archived here) using keywords "DOGE Michelle Obama receiving $122,000 per month since 2009," returned other fact checks of the claim, but no authentic evidence-based news stories reporting such a claim.
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
The Dunning-Kruger Times
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
It is run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair, a self-professed liberal from Maine who for years has run networks of websites set up to troll conservatives with made-up news items in order to get them to share his posts. He often goes by the nickname "Busta Troll." A 2018 BBC profile called Blair "the Godfather of fake news," describing him as "one of the world's most prolific writers of disinformation."
His websites usually have multiple satire disclaimers and the stories very often contain obvious hints they are not real, like category names indicating they are fiction, links to "sources" that instead go to funny or offensive images or an "S for Satire" logo added to the images used as illustration. Another telltale sign is the name "Art Tubolls" (anagram for "Busta Troll") for characters in the stories. Blair also frequently pays homage to two of his friends who passed away by using their names ("Joe Barron" and "Sandy Batt") in stories.
Blair's stories have been widely copied by spammy, foreign website networks trying to make a buck by spamming American conservatives with clickbait headlines.
Here you can find some of the many, many stories from Blair's websites Lead Stories debunked over the years.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about DOGE can be found here, about Elon Musk can be found here and regarding Michelle Obama can be found here.
