The Federal Government Workers' Thread
February 1, 2025 1:19 PM   Subscribe

In a move reminiscent of Musk's mass firings and forced resignations at Twitter, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent 2 million government employees a deadline-driven offer of “deferred resignation” over an eight-month payout if they resign before 06 February 2025. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents 150,000 employees in 37 federal agencies and departments, urged employees to stand their ground. On Inauguration Day, the NTEU filed what was to become the first of many lawsuits against the unlawful Executive Order on "Schedule Policy/Career," stripping tens of thousands of civil service employees of their employment protections.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed suit on 28 January 2025. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed a joint suit on 29 January 2025. The website Federal Workers Rights is keeping track of all three, as is Democracy Docket.

FedScoop writes that Government won’t ‘get the same quality of folks’ for tech work under Trump policy, experts say. FedWeek reports that OPM Tells Agencies to Broaden Considerations for Schedule F – Now “Policy/Career.” Federal News Network notes that Trump administration targets a wide range of positions for removing federal job protections. The nonprofit The Partnership for Public Service says that it "is here, as it has been for more than 20 years, to support you–the federal employee–so you can continue to serve the public and uphold your oath of office."

The ACLU-DC is an alternate source of help for federal workers in lieu of the now-purged inspector generals, especially on issues related to federal employees and the First Amendment, starting with A Know-Your-Rights Guide.They also note that:
Stripping federal employees of their rights not only raises First Amendment concerns; it is an ineffective way to provide critical services that people rely on every day. As far back as 1883, Congress recognized that giving government jobs based on loyalty to the president was both a dangerous abuse of power and an inefficient way to run a government. For most of the 19th century, the federal civil service operated under a ‘spoils system’ in which the party in the White House handed out federal jobs based on political support, instead of competence and experience. That system failed to provide critical services, was riddled with corruption and incompetence, and further degraded people’s trust in the government. Congress created a merit-based federal jobs system in both 1883 and 1978 so that professionals could work in the best interest of the American people rather than working in the interest of a politician or party.”
For federal workers pondering the now existential question: Do I Pack Up and Quit? and the loss of job stability and remote work the ever-timely Ask-a-Manager provides thoughts and advice as does /r/fednews.

For those in need of immediate solace, I'm reposting links to Michael Lewis's book the 2018 book-cum-love letter to the federal workforce The Fifth Risk, and the beginning of an updated series of articles about government workers, currently being published in the Washington Post, starting with The Canary.

Finally, please remember that these are challenging times, and expressions of hate, absolutism (all blah or all blee) or doom only many of us feel worse. If we notice each one another succumbing to temptation, I've noticed it's often helpful to remind one another in thread to please refrain. This seems especially important in a thread about federal workers, which will be speaking directly to other Mefites under a lot of pressure right now. Please think of them first.
posted by Violet Blue (217 comments total) 69 users marked this as a favorite
 
One of the two Senators from my state (Washington) has pointed out that the government is only currently funded through March 15, 2025, and that, as there is no funding allocated towards this program, there is accordingly no guarantee a federal worker could even be compensated if they did retire. And as we all know that Trump has a long history of stiffing workers on contracts, she went on to recommend that people hold fast. I've never before seen a communication from a sitting Senator that openly calls a sitting President a scammer. All of which is to say that some people are not backing down, and that there is no good reason to buy into what Trump and his Nazi crooks are selling.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:50 PM on February 1 [52 favorites]


Great post showing the people affected by this administration's notion of "government efficiency"
posted by otherchaz at 1:52 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


That we seemingly don't even know what the whole plan is drives stress quite a bit. What comes after any of these actions? Or is this the end point for gutting the federal government and there's just a slow decline of services after the coming very rapid decline?

Or is there a plan at all and has Trump turned Musk loose on the federal government, to do as he will without any further thoughts on the matter?

Do they want a more complete return to the robber baron era or is this just the zeal of a victorious (political) army putting the enemy city to the torch?

Did any of the money begin moving again and if not, was that intentional or because this is a ketamine fueled destructive orgy without organization?

I would feel a lot better if anyone had any clear understanding of what the ever loving fuck is going on.
posted by Slackermagee at 1:55 PM on February 1 [14 favorites]


I'm going to be honest, this is the first time I've feared that it's actually over, like no-going-back over.

Musk is far more dangerous in the short term than Trump is. Trump is merely hurting Americans and the international order with bad policy. Musk is essentially trying to take over the government. Mass resignations/firings will hollow out the civil service and leave it ripe for him to mold. And he's moving very quickly.

Fortunately, he's also a weak point: he doesn't have the same amount of sycophantic support as Trump.

There needs to be immediate and severe pushback against Musk specifically. Call your representatives.
posted by heraplem at 1:55 PM on February 1 [45 favorites]


Perhaps related, everyone in the Office of Personnel Management has been locked out of the computer system.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:56 PM on February 1 [12 favorites]


Mod note: One comment that was using doomerist language was removed with OP's support and a response to it was also removed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 2:07 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]


For most of my childhood I grew up about twenty minutes outside of DC in Northern Virginia. My father was a lawyer working for the RTC and later FDIC, mostly doing internal stuff. My best friend’s dad was a “grand poohbah” in the CIA (the title he told all curious children and refused to elaborate upon), and the vast majority of my peers had an adult figure in their lives who worked for the federal government in some capacity. I know that this has ramifications for the entire country, and I have no particular love for NoVa, but all of this just makes me think about what it is like for the families there now. What it would have been like for me, ten years old, suddenly half the kids I know with parents at risk of losing their jobs, their benefits, their pensions, in some cases their housing or school access.

I hope that some of the people who voted for these assholes can see how such an attack would appear if it were on their own communities and industries. One of the issues my dad had was that he dealt with unions and construction contracts for government work. He would complain about their absurd demands, their inefficiency and their corruption. As I hit my teens I would bite back - like he’s coming from such a holy position? The FDIC is entirely free of inefficiency and absurdity? Bullshit. Unions wouldn’t have the demands they do if they weren’t written in blood. And he would concede, and try to do right by the people he worked with and for. But that’s the thing! We are all people. Infinitely complex and annoying and capable of truly incredibly things when in large groups, but still people. The federal government is far from ideal, but this attempt to what, wipe the slate clean and try again? It’s not going to get us something magically better. It’s all still people.
posted by Mizu at 2:15 PM on February 1 [26 favorites]


Now that we're not at the beginning of the thread and can move on to doom: Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Full Access to Treasury’s Payments System (NYT) suggests that the plan for DOGE isn't so much advising on budget cuts, as enacting those cuts directly through payment controls. I don't think it's an unreasonable stretch to see that much as SpaceX exists to replace NASA, the ultimate goal here (at least in Musk's mind) may be to privatize Treasury, perhaps under the aegis of the X Money app (AP)?
posted by mittens at 2:16 PM on February 1 [22 favorites]


People like Trump and Elon are bullies whose primary motivation appears to be demonstrating that they can't be stopped. It doesn't seem to matter to them what they're doing so long as it's something someone else doesn't want them to do. They need to be stopped. Not in a "action X you're taking in regards to topic Y is wrong, you should do Z instead" kind of way, but in a "everyone needs to focus on taking power from these bullies" kind of way. We don't need alternatives to their actions, we just need to find a way to stop them, stop their supporters, and stop their imitators. All of democracy's actions need to be focused on stopping the people who've decided that their next demonstration of power is to destroy democracy, just to show they can.
posted by krisjohn at 2:17 PM on February 1 [20 favorites]


From the Pew Research Center, 01 January 2025
U.S. Federal Workers: Key questions and employment data

What kinds of work do federal employees do?

Almost all federal employees (92%) are considered “white collar” workers – that is, in professional, administrative, technical, clerical or similar jobs. But the range of specific federal occupations runs literally from A (740 able seamen) to Z (43 zoologists).

Nearly 364,000 federal employees, or 16% of the federal workforce, are in health-related fields – the single largest occupational category. By contrast, only 134,239 federal workers, or 5.9%, are classified as lawyers or in law-related jobs.

Out of more than 660 specific occupations that OPM lists, the most common are nursing and “miscellaneous administration and program work,” both with more than 111,000 workers; and information technology management, with about 99,000 workers. The federal government also employs some 14,000 custodial workers, about 2,500 welders, 580 cartographers and 21 bakers.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:18 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]


this is an orgy of destruction but in some ways it’s better than competent perversion of the government. there’s just no way that this can lead to an outcome favorable to the republican party. people hate chaos, they’re going to hate the tariffs and there’s no way they’ll be positive about the impact of cutting off payments and mass layoffs of federal employees. this shit sucks, and it impacts family members of mine directly since they work for the federal government but you just can’t do this kind of shit without consequences. the government is not a social media website. fucking it up has massive consequences and not even a dictator can escape reality.
posted by dis_integration at 2:18 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


This is all the start. That march deadline for the CR, that's where the GOP plays hardball and enacts what he wants into law.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:20 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


I'm awaiting for the unions to be more involved. They've all put out initial statements at this point but I'm waiting for the calls to action. Between AFGE and ACSCME these unions have about 2 million represented combined. That's alot of bargaining power that impacts a wide variety of jobs and resources, so I'm hoping to see more from them soon.
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:20 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


Legal journalist Dalia Lithwick: The D.C. Air Disaster Is a Flashing Warning Sign About DOGE

Let me give you a perfect example of why I think Musk’s approach is so dangerous. As everybody knows, there was a plane crash in D.C. on Wednesday. A helicopter collided with a passenger plane and almost 70 people died. When this collision occurred, the Federal Aviation Administration was leaderless. Why? Musk had Trump fire the former FAA leader as soon as he got into office, because the former leader had investigated and fined one of Musk’s companies, Starlink. This was a sheer vengeance firing. This was not about competence or even truly about political affiliation. Elon Musk was just mad at this guy for investigating his company and wanted him gone on Day 1.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:23 PM on February 1 [27 favorites]


What comes after any of these actions? Or is this the end point for gutting the federal government and there's just a slow decline of services after the coming very rapid decline?

With the caveat that answering this - or even posting this thread in the first place while insisting on no doomerism is absolute fucking farce are you fucking kidding me stop trying to control completely reasonable emotional respon-[ahem] …I will attempt an answer while maintaining an attitude of joyful, bubbling mirth and delight. You are free - possibly encouraged, to read this as savagely sarcastic bordering on protest art.

So! As everyone knows, the best way to trigger a delightful revolution that feels like SuNbEaMs DoWn YoUr BaCk (ooooh so good!) is food scarcity and desperation!! And when we gut (scrape claw yaaaa fuck ‘em up) federal agencies that people rely on to live (so overrated!) they can quickly land in a a cycle of feeling those toe-curling, hip-shaking, body rocking PaNgS oF hUnGeR (get that beach body *early* so you can SLAY QUEEN SLAY in Guantanamo Bay).

And the totally awesome thing about K-K-Killerrrrr revolutions is they give you an excuse to impose Martial Law (the sexiest law of all!) and Martial Law means all the best marginalized folx hanging with all the coolest artists, stars and trend-setters in private prisons! And the thing about prison is that there is no constitutional protection against slavery while imprisoned (lol who wants that fr?)!

Meanwhile, the collapse of most government functions provides an excuse to replace them with private orgs run by billionaires! (America, Fuck yeah!) Who will of course never ever abuse that or use it as a way to funnel more money to themselves and more of those smelly, awful non-billionaires (so gauche) into labor camps!

This is, obviously, the best of all possible worlds and we should welcome it with beaming smiles and open arms!! I can’t wait!!

… so yeah that’s the plan and hopefully my phrasing passes muster, because lord knows we don’t have enough bullshit thought control/doublespeak pouring out of the billionaire-controlled media 24/7, and the healthiest thing for the good folk of Metafilter is to voluntarily import that shit here, too.
posted by Ryvar at 2:32 PM on February 1 [41 favorites]


My perennially understaffed Agency (SSA) sent an e-mail to all employees saying we're not eligible to take Musk's offer to resign, the unstated implication being we're needed to get the work done. I have not heard that any other Agency has done this, but I hope many do. This was the absolute right thing for us to do; we couldn’t withstand the loss of personnel Musk wants.
posted by pasici at 2:36 PM on February 1 [25 favorites]


If you care about this, it's something to call your reps about.

To my eye, some Congresspeople don't think the American people even understand what the agencies do, or why they should care. What Musk is doing is not merely pushing for policies which might be reversed: he's burning expertise, loyalty to the good of the American people, and commitment that will take generations to replace, if it ever is, with the intent of filling the gaps left with incompetent stooges. It's an actual plan, and it's very dangerous.
posted by praemunire at 2:43 PM on February 1 [20 favorites]


I know that this has ramifications for the entire country, and I have no particular love for NoVa, but all of this just makes me think about what it is like for the families there now.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland which also has a very high proportion of government workers and I can tell you it's awful. People are scared, people are losing decades of work, people are being pushed to do shitty stuff (like removing mentions of "DEI" from their workplaces), people are getting fired and so are their friends and family and they have no idea what they're going to do now. This is absolutely devastating for this area (everyone else too! But yes here is bad).
posted by an octopus IRL at 2:49 PM on February 1 [19 favorites]


roterote posted about this on TT with some info about this particular bit of vandalism. Some interesting back story on the architects of this from Wired:
'According to the same sources, other people at the top of the new OPM food chain include two people with apparent software engineering backgrounds, whom WIRED is not naming because of their ages. One, a senior adviser to the director, is a 21-year-old whose online résumé touts his work for Palantir, the government contractor and analytics firm cofounded by billionaire Peter Thiel, who is its chair. (The former CEO of PayPal and a longtime Musk associate, Thiel is a Trump supporter who helped bankroll the 2022 Senate campaign of his protégé, Vice President JD Vance.) The other, who reports directly to Scales, graduated from high school in 2024, according to a mirrored copy of an online résumé and his high school’s student magazine; he lists jobs as a camp counselor and a bicycle mechanic among his professional experiences, as well as a summer role at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company.'
r/fednews, linked above, is providing community support for those being subjected to this attack on the professionalism of Federal Government workers by a 'bunch of self serving nepo freaks with zero interest in serving their country'.
posted by asok at 2:50 PM on February 1 [15 favorites]


Thank you Violet Blue for putting this together. Given the batshit insanity of the past week, I'm happy to see a discussion on how this is affecting the federal workforce. I don't want to go into details, but I'm a Fed myself, in a rather high-visibility job currently, and my wife is a contractor that does work with USAID. Needless to say that the last week has been kind of pure hell for us. Only saving grace is that we don't currently live in the DC area (or in the US for that matter), so we aren't completely surrounded by this nonsense.

Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Full Access to Treasury’s Payments System (NYT) suggests that the plan for DOGE isn't so much advising on budget cuts, as enacting those cuts directly through payment controls.

A lot of the DOGE crap has been easy to ignore or roll my eyes at (including some of this week's OPM emails) but this right here actually scares the crap out of me. To give an idea of scale, these systems distributed $5.4 trillion last year. The entire US GDP was about $27 trillion. So literally about one-fifth of the entire US economic activity came from this one organization. Imagine shutting off one-fifth of the US economy overnight, just imagine the havoc that would cause.
posted by photo guy at 3:02 PM on February 1 [25 favorites]


This is going to come across awfully naive, I'm sure, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that our systems have always been this fragile and all it took was one bold lunatic to knock it all down.

How is it possible that a bunch of people who have not been vetted by Congress or given any kinds of security clearances are shredding the US federal bureaucracy in real-time with very little pushback in real-time? Especially when it comes to security clearances and access privileges... how is Musk able to have the keys to the kingdom and where are the brave bureaucrats denying him access?

Pushback as in checks-and-balances... Congress doing something to stop them or Judiciary stepping in somehow. I understand that 3rd parties are pushing back but by the time legal challenges are resolved, it may be too late.

And yes I know IOKIYAR, but can you imagine if a Dem president tried anything on this level? They'd be impeached in a hot second with votes rightfully coming from both parties.
posted by kokaku at 3:06 PM on February 1 [21 favorites]


>Or is there a plan at all and has Trump turned Musk loose on the federal government

my take is that Musk's people are forcibly injecting Palantir-like products into the Federal payment system to perform a brute-force audit of who is getting paid by this system, gathering intelligence and looking for poster children of gov't fraud/abuse – literally, these examples will be in 100pt type behind GOP members speeches in the budget hearings coming later this year.

They kinda tipped their hand with the September end of their paid WFH furlough. They want deep, deep cuts starting Oct 1, when the new Federal fiscal year starts.

Plus the power to STOP the checks too. BBC had their "Very British Coup" (I see that is from a 1982 Chris Mullin novel) . . . welcome to the return of the Trump Show, brought to you by Project 2025 and the makers of such fine software as PayPal.

None of this of course is surprising me in the slightest. This is what they said they were going to do.
posted by torokunai2 at 3:17 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


From the American Prospect

Probationary Federal Employees Targeted for Mass Purge
As many as 200,000 federal employees with weaker civil service protections [only 1-2 years of experience] could be let go. But they are supposed to only be fired for poor performance.

The article includes this advice, which seems relevant to all federal workers:
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents unionized EPA officials, sent an email to staffers, urging them to “Please do what you need to protect all of your information regarding your Federal employment … you need to download/print out all pertinent employment information such as your entire eOPF. Do this ASAP!”
posted by Violet Blue at 3:21 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]


Federal middle manager. If anyone tells you they know what's going on, they are lying. Not even the assholes trying to destroy the government know what the fuck they are doing.
posted by gwydapllew at 3:22 PM on February 1 [31 favorites]


From USAFacts.org:
At the end of 2023 the government employed 3.0 million people, or 1.7% of the entire US workforce.

Around 2.3 million of them were full-time employees.

Federal offices with the most personnel in 2023 were all military programs under the Defense Department (775,100 people), the Department of Veterans Affairs (433,700), and the Department of Homeland Security (212,000).

The Federal Trade Commission, National Credit Union Administration, National Labor Relations Board, and Civil Defense Programs had the fewest employees, about 1,000 each....

Most federal employees are in California (147,487), Virginia (144,483), and Maryland (142,876). Federal employees represent 0.8%, 3.3%, and 4.6% of these states’ total workforces.

High federal employment numbers in Virginia and Maryland are due to their proximity to Washington, DC. In Virginia, the Navy (31.4%), Department of Defense (19.5%), and Army (10.5%) employed the most people. In Maryland, Department of Health and Human Services (28.1%), the Navy (12.0%), and the Army (10.6%) led the way.

As of March 2024, 26.4% of California federal employees worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs and 23.5% worked for the Navy. The remaining 50.1% worked for other agencies.

Washington, DC, has the highest number of federal employees (162,144) representing 43.3% of the District’s workforce.
posted by Violet Blue at 3:48 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


The reality is that Elon Musk actually can't do any of this -- he is not an elected official and he has never been confirmed for any position. He is the leader of a department that is literally a joke and does not exist. It's no different than if Trump had dropped in at a Greyhound station and appointed as God Emperor of the Universe the first drug addict he found sitting on a bench there, day drinking and ogling girls. Why then is this working? Why isn't anything being done about it? I don't know.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:16 PM on February 1 [13 favorites]


Yes, my understanding is that Musk giving these kinds of orders violates the appointments clause of the constitution. People should be ignoring him and there should be law suits and the Senate should be insisting on its rights. This isn't happening because the institutions have rotted out, and that in turn is because institutions and their rules are made of people and if those people don't care, the institution doesn't exist.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:23 PM on February 1 [30 favorites]


And, some on-point commentary from Garrett Graff:
I’ve long believed that the American media would be more clear-eyed about the rise and return of Donald Trump if it was happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority. Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at just such a dispatch. Here’s a story that should be written this weekend:



Musk Junta Seizes Key Governmental Offices
February 1, 2025
By William Boot

WASHINGTON, D.C. — What started Thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated Friday into a full-blown coup, as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch Elon Musk moved to seize key systems at the national treasury, block outside access to federal personnel records, and take offline governmental communication networks.

With rapidity that has stunned even longtime political observers, forces loyal to Musk’s junta have established him as the all-but undisputed unelected head of government in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy’s constitutional system and its proud nearly 250-year-old tradition of the rule of law. Having secured themselves in key ministries and in a building adjacent to the presidential office complex, Musk’s forces have begun issuing directives to civil service workers and forcing the resignation of officials deemed insufficiently loyal, like the head of the country’s aviation authority.

The G-7 country’s newly installed president, a mid-level oligarch named Donald Trump, appeared amid Musk’s moves to be increasingly merely a figurehead head of state. Trump is a convicted felon with a long record of family corruption and returned in power in late January after a four-year interlude promising retribution and retaliation against foreign opponents and a domestic “Deep State.” He had been charged with attempting to overthrow the peaceful transition of power that had previously removed him from office in 2021, but loyalist elements in the judiciary successfully blocked his prosecution and incarceration, easing his return to power.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:35 PM on February 1 [98 favorites]


Do Ford or GM get jealous that Tesla has their own department in the US government? Or do they think of differently, like it's one of their own in there?
posted by UN at 4:35 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


The company I work for is a federal contractor providing public-facing services for the Department of Veterans Affairs. When the grant freeze was announced, I asked my supervisor if it was going to put us out of business. She said No, explaining that we work by contract rather than by grant. I needily accepted the short-term reassurance, choosing to worry another day about Trump's decades-long history of stiffing contractors.

Then on Friday word came down that "secret shoppers" would be calling in, ostensibly to make sure we're treating our Veterans properly. (We capitalize the word out of respect.) Normally, I 'd have said "bring them on". I don't treat my callers any less respectfully or helpfully when I think no one is listening. But in the current climate, there seemed to no way to interpret this development except as "We are actively looking for any excuse to fire you. In the meantime, enjoy the atmosphere of unremitting hositility."

Ironically, our outfit was created by a Trump executive order during his first term. So management sent everyone an email saying, lightly translated, "This makes us likelier to survive the reign of terror than lots of other departments."

My wife has suggested I look into applying for similar work at a large health insurance company which pays more. I'm strongly considering it. At least every shift wouldn't be shadowed by the knowledge that the CEO actively wants to destroy the company.
posted by Lemkin at 4:39 PM on February 1 [13 favorites]




it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that our systems have always been this fragile and all it took was one bold lunatic to knock it all down.
It’s not one lunatic: it’s the entire Republican Party – this is flagrantly illegal and he couldn’t do it without Congress and the Supreme Court condoning it. If, say, George W. Bush had tried this he’d have been impeached, the FBI would have investigated, etc. and SCOTUS would have supported all of that. Unfortunately, the hard right-wing spent the last decade or two running ideological purges, and there are no moderates or principled people left. All of the people saying Trump wouldn’t be so bad, he’d be better than Harris on Gaza, he’d be better for the economy, etc. were forgetting that last time he still had members of his party in Congress who had some lines they wouldn’t cross on and a less extreme Supreme Court which didn’t start from the position that he was above the law and work backwards to confabulate the justification. This time the oligarchs are on board and every Republican knows the penalty for getting in the way.
posted by adamsc at 4:43 PM on February 1 [43 favorites]


My bestie works in the Legislative Branch at the Financial Accountability Office; she has said that memo was sent to Executive Branch only. She loves her job, is good at it, and has been in that department before Trump 1.0. But she is anxious about the whole thing, for sure.
posted by Kitteh at 5:00 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


I don't think most normal people thought Trump wouldn't be that bad, and I don't think he'll be able to run unchecked forever. The consequences of his idiotic and illegal actions are already killing people. And this is the honeymoon period. Republicans, certainly after the midterms, will have vanishingly little to lose by telling him to go fuck himself, and I expect they will, whenever it suits them. Democrats? I have no idea.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:02 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]


I agree there is a slow-moving autocoup going on. The attempt to defund all federal programs, strip the federal workforce and install puppets in Defense, Intelligence and elsewhere make that clear. I suspect no one's calling it by name because the global impact could send the international markets reeling, not to mention whet the appetites of more warmongers.

But there's a selfish nihilism to pretending no one cares. You think this is what Pelosi, AOC, Schumer, etc. want!?

What's unfolding is a shock and awe campaign so fast and so furious folks are having trouble keeping up. The big issue vis-a-vis stopping Musk is who is going to intervene and how are they going to do it? Trump fired all the government inspectors, some folks at DOJ and the FBI. Ordinarily, this would fall within their domain, I suspect, but don't know. For sure, this is not a Western, with noble small town sheriff ready to arrest him, and root out corruption once and for all. That's a pity.

My guess, anyway, is the Dems have spent much of the last day or so talking to each other — and to constitutional and other lawyers — to try to figure out how to proceed.
posted by Violet Blue at 5:03 PM on February 1 [12 favorites]


he’d be better than Harris on Gaza

No one thought he would better than Harris on Gaza. They thought he would be no worse than Harris on Gaza. Not the same thing.

And based on what Harris said - repeatedly, for publication, and with emphasis - they had every reason to think so.
posted by Lemkin at 5:03 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]


There needs to be immediate and severe pushback against Musk specifically. Call your representatives.

Five Calls is a site that posts daily issues for progressives to call their representatives about, along with a basic, customizable script you can use. Right now their top issue is "Fight Against Elon Musk’s Government Takeover."
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:07 PM on February 1 [17 favorites]


Why isn't anything being done about it? I don't know.

Here's the thing, though. What can they do? What police do you call to enforce this law when this happens with the President's permission? Can you go to the courts? Sure, but how do you enforce their ruling? Call Federal Marshals? The DC police? Have Senators stand in front of the door? Does it help if those Senators get shot?

I think the Dem response has been terrible, but also -- what's the best they have to offer here? Hearings? Stopping work in the Senate? Those things are both good but meanwhile he's downloading the data or whatever. Yes, shock and awe, but also -- we're all struggling to come up with a way to actually stop this from happening when clearly he has permission from the one guy who can give the orders.

I'm delighted that Canada is targeting red states specifically for their retaliatory tariffs. Not much is going to be able to happen until some number of the elected R's are willing to stand up and say "this isn't right". And god knows how long that will take.
posted by anastasiav at 5:07 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]


Honestly, isn't that for the democrats to figure out? They always seem to think they know better than the voters. It's time for them to show us all why.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:13 PM on February 1 [14 favorites]


"What are the Democrats going to do about this" is why I have a flight fund in a different currency, in a bank not HQ'd in the US, with a renewed foreign passport.
posted by Slackermagee at 5:23 PM on February 1 [13 favorites]


A lot of Federal employees are union. Why aren't the unions screaming bloody murder?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:23 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


20 years ago, if you had pitched a movie plot where a newly elected president installs the world's richest man (who had just given Nazi salutes in public) in a White House office to begin dismantling the entire federal government, people would have called it too cartoonishly evil to be plausible.
posted by Lemkin at 5:34 PM on February 1 [27 favorites]


I imagine that the unions are probably advising employees on what to do in private; it doesn't really pay off to broadcast their moves.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:39 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]


It’s not one lunatic: it’s the entire Republican Party

This is correct. Congress and the supreme court are getting what they want and only barely dreamed they could have: a state that exists entirely to serve capital. Which they will use to crush those arrogant communist bureaucrats and their fellow subhuman brown allies.
posted by ropeladder at 5:45 PM on February 1 [10 favorites]


Do Ford or GM get jealous that Tesla has their own department in the US government?

It's hard to imagine Trump being any friendlier towards Telsa than Biden was with his 100% tariffs on all foreign EVs - practically banning any Tesla competition forever. Even more significantly, this tariff (May 2024) freed Ford and GM to focus purely in ICE and ignore the EV market, immediately in July 2024 Ford announced their dedicated EV plant in Canada would be retooled at a cost of $2.3 bil to make Super Duty trucks instead. Biden actually killed both foreign AND domestic competition to Tesla with a stroke of a pen, for the next 10 years.

Trump has actually been less friendly to Tesla eg eliminating Biden's 50% EV sales target by 2030.

My experience in the car industry is that automakers only exist at the whim of the ruling government. The "free market" and honest competition is pure fiction due to the complicated web of subsidies, tariffs, free trade agreements, and the selective enforcement of them. For example, Thailand can ostensibly export cars to ASEAN countries like Malaysia under a free trade agreement given the vehicles meet originating content rules - but who issues the originating content certificates? What vested interests do the issuers have? Malaysia wants to protect their local car industry jobs and balance of payments, Thailand wants to protect their local car industry jobs and balance of payments. Ultimately it's all politics.

"Competing" against state owned automakers is the norm - everyone in Europe has to compete with Volkwagen which is 20% owned by the German government, who have their thumb firmly on the scales.
posted by xdvesper at 5:48 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


The unions have already started suing from what I read, so they have started moving
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 5:49 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


Al Jazeera and Yeutter and Brookings have all discussed the legality of the tariffs that Trump shall impose next week.

Trump already applied tariffs to China last time, which Biden reversed, so everybody knew he'd pull the same trick. Yet, Democrats never revoked those presidential powers, because they're structurally incapable of reducing the power of the Presidency while in office themselves. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 5:50 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


The reality is that Elon Musk actually can't do any of this...Why then is this working? Why isn't anything being done about it?

Congress and the Supreme Court are both in the tank for Trump, so there is nobody to tell him no. Whenever a court finds that one of his executive orders is against the law, then Congress will probably just pass whatever law is needed. This arrangement may fall apart as the public realizes what a mess we're in, but it's what we have right now.
posted by polecat at 5:56 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


> isn't that for the democrats to figure out? They always seem to think they know better than the voters. It's time for them to show us all why.

In the representative democracy as delineated in the Constitution, the minority is out of power. The GOP-voting faction controls the House & Senate (Article I), Executive (Article II), and relevant courts (DC Circuit and SCOTUS, Article III).

There is no Article IV. There is a Fourth Estate, but that has been controlled by big money for many decades now.

These are the FA days of the FAFO cycle. Just like the pre Sherman Act 1800s. The 1920s. Pre-Brown 1950s. Nixon in '72. 1980s before everything blew up in the S&L Crisis. 2000s before the GFC hit in 2008.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
posted by torokunai2 at 5:58 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


Checking my math, I see the DC Circuit is actually not apparently controlled by GOP apparatchiks.
posted by torokunai2 at 6:05 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]


No one thought he would better than Harris on Gaza. They thought he would be no worse than Harris on Gaza. Not the same thing.
You’re very wrong on the first count – many people read what they wanted into his promises to bring peace, which is how he carried places like Dearborn. The second point required lesser but similar self-deception as it required believing everything he said was true and everything she said was false, but there were a lot of people on social media trying their best to make that easier. I wish Harris had been stronger on the issue too, but it really wasn’t hard to tell that the “finish the problem” guy wasn’t the dove.
posted by adamsc at 6:07 PM on February 1 [21 favorites]


hmm maybe Canada should burn down the White House again
posted by Kitteh at 6:08 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


Not only is he an asshole for praising Elon Musk, he's wrong too.

Elon Musk doesn't care.

Elon Musk talks about the planet, but if he cared about climate change, he wouldn't fly a private jet to sports games and social events. And he certainly wouldn't help GOP win election and pull out of the Paris accord.

Elon Musk talks about the importance of procreation (and uses his kids for photo opportunity), but he is not only a deadbeat dad but also a viciously hateful one. And he forces his employees to sleep at their workplaces so they will be deadbeat parents too.

Elon Musk talks about love, but puts all his energy into hate.

This isn't someone who cares.
posted by splitpeasoup at 6:14 PM on February 1 [13 favorites]


ChatGPT has informed me there is an Article IV (but no Article IV power center)
posted by torokunai2 at 6:14 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


>Elon Musk talks about the planet

You didn't hear him right. He wants to escape this planet.
posted by torokunai2 at 6:16 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Several comments removed as the seemed to be two users attacking each other. Yes, absolutely crappy things are going on in the world, but please focus your attention on that instead of fellow community members.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:16 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]


But there's a selfish nihilism to pretending no one cares. You think this is what Pelosi, AOC, Schumer, etc. want!?

I think Pelosi and Schumer are completely unable to cope with the paradigm shift. 90-ish years of confidence in the stability and self-correcting nature of the system has rotted a lot of brain, and people who've climbed to the top of the system are no exceptions. AOC has actually been out there raising the alarm.

Dems have limited power at this time, obviously, but if they really threw themselves into being sand in the gears until someone kicked Musk out of the U.S.'s computer systems they could cause problems, slow everything down, and delegitimize what is going on. How can the voters know to get riled up if all ol' Chuck is doing is posting finger-wagging tweets?
posted by praemunire at 6:21 PM on February 1 [21 favorites]


Is it dooming to say the Democrats will not save us?

Fuck it. I'm saying it anyway.
posted by Lemkin at 6:27 PM on February 1 [10 favorites]


As usual Josh Marshall has a sound take from the savvy Democrat perspective.

"The overarching thing that is missing from what Democratic leaders in Washington are saying right now is a clear statement that this is bad, that it’s likely to get worse for a while. But we don’t accept this; we have power too. We’re going to fight this in the courts; we’re going to gum up the works in Congress; and more than anything we’re going to fight this in the court of public opinion. And we’re going to win. And to do that we need all of you to be on our side. And as we claw back power we’re going to repair the damage and hold the people who broke everything accountable and build something better. "
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:29 PM on February 1 [18 favorites]


> I'm saying it anyway

For them to save us, we have to vote for them. I fail to see why this is hard to understand.
posted by torokunai2 at 6:33 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]


Well, some of them were actually elected. That's why they are there.

I've said it before, but I don't think Trump behaving illegally without check is going to have the endgame that he or any of his people anticipate, should he keep it up. Much of the success of his strategy is based on everybody going along with it. That is mostly based on everybody else continuing to follow the rules. If everybody stops following the rules, on all sides, things are going to end very poorly for everyone. I do not think that anyone would enjoy it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:40 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


you have not one shred of evidence in support of your conclusion

Above Josh Marshall is quoted, writing about the useful resistance that the Democrats could be doing but for some unfathomable reason are not. Whatever can explain this baffling mystery?

The purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of the Democratic Party is to fundraise in the guise of being an opposition party while pretending it has no power whenever it acquires any.

The Supreme Court was stolen on Obama's watch. The man who campaigned on protecting abortion right then, upon being elected, blithely shrugged off the issue as "not my top priority".

The Democrats will not save us.
posted by Lemkin at 6:50 PM on February 1 [21 favorites]


Another quote from TPM:
But in a situation like this, when laws are being broken at such high velocity you’re looking more than anything else to get into court with a live argument. And this is a very live argument. As I noted above, this is fundamentally a battle over public opinion. But critical to a battle over public opinion in an onslaught such as this is slowing things down as much as possible, throwing as much sand in the gears as possible. That stretches out the amount of time people have to get an understanding of what’s happening. It increases their visibility into what’s happening. It also focuses attention, rightly, on Elon Musk who is much more unpopular than Donald Trump.
posted by ropeladder at 6:55 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]


I'm a fed, and a dues-paying NTEU member. All of this is insane, and it's weird as hell to go through the motions of trying to get my work done - work that I genuinely believe is critically important for the best interests of our country! - while also just swimming in a sea of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.

At my agency I think most people decided the "deferred resignation" email was not a credible offer, or even something that made sense. Interestingly it got blasted out to literally everyone, including our Chairman, who had just a week earlier been appointed to the position by the President. He was very open about receiving it and not being really clear on what the implications were. I think that made anyone considering the offer take it a lot less seriously.

I can say for myself that that email alone strengthened my resolve to stay, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn it was the same for others. My feelings are probably best summarized by what one senior executive said to our top executive in an impromptu all-hands meeting the day after we got the email: "I'm scared, I'm staying, I've got your back." For an agency that was pretty fractious and had a lot of trust and culture issues before this, we closed ranks insanely fast, and it makes me proud and grateful to work here.

> I imagine that the unions are probably advising employees on what to do in private; it doesn't really pay off to broadcast their moves.

I'm happy NTEU, my union, has sued, but I hope and expect them to do more and do it faster. I've gotten some communications from them but they've been relatively vague and high-level -- focused on trying to keep feds from accepting the "deferred resignation" offer and convince us they're going to fight for us. They're not bad communications at all, but they are keeping whatever they're doing in the courts even closer to the chest than that.

It's worth pointing out when talking about federal unions and what they can do to help with this scenario, that it is literally illegal for federal employees to go on strike or for a federal employee union to assert the right to strike. It is a felony and immediate grounds for dismissal from federal service and banning from any future federal employment.
posted by malthas at 6:57 PM on February 1 [49 favorites]


https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Dl4P

I kinda don't know why I'm posting this here, it's just something eating at me. I think it provides something of a factual backstory to what is "REALLY" going on with this Treasury drama.

Blue is real (2024 dollars) per-capita (age 15 - 64) Federal spending (including SSA of course)..

Red is per-capita after-tax corporate profits.

To fix the nation's fisc we either need to cut spending a helluva lot, or lop that latter $16K/yr back down to the ~$5K it was in 2000. I know which side the US Chamber of Commerce falls.

But complicating matters is such new taxation would take stocks back to 2016 or so.

Japan can only get away with its 220% debt-to-GDP by maintaining its ZIRP, which shuts off the pain.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1534920/public-debt-interest-payment-to-gdp-ratio-in-largest-economies/ shows how we're not so lucky, as we've "normalized" the yield curve to pay the pipers their ~4 -5%.

I have zero idea what's going to happen this year or in the longer view, other than it's not going to turn out pretty.
posted by torokunai2 at 6:59 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


We've got TPM. They've got the death star.
posted by torokunai2 at 7:02 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


Interestingly it got blasted out to literally everyone

Contractors as well.

It is a felony and immediate grounds for dismissal from federal service and banning from any future federal employment.

Then you really don't have a union. The power of a union is ultimately going on strike, if you can't actually strike, well what can you do?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:26 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


So far as I know, none of my coworkers even tried to take the resignation offer, but also we were told our agency doesn't qualify for it.

My management has been really good: they are talking to everyone multiple times/week, passing information as they get it, and slow-walking as much as they reasonably can.

However our senior leadership has been radio-freaking-silent other than pushing down the EO directions regarding remote work and telework. Which is a problem, because the cost of living here is really high, and we hired a lot of people remotely or via long-distance telework. People are freaking out, including half my team.

And now we get to worry about Elon Musk having access to our personnel records (rumor has it they're scrubbing through our performance plans looking for evidence of diversity work), and maybe even stopping our pay.

Meanwhile, like malthas, the work goes on. We're understaffed and under-resourced and yet the work is considered critical for national security. And Elon wants half of us to quit. WTAF.

Which is why I bought another bottle of bourbon on my way home from the grocery store today...
posted by suelac at 8:09 PM on February 1 [25 favorites]


There are 140,000 federal workers in Virginia. Many of them moved to SW Virginia after the pandemic for remote work. Many people who live in Northern Virginia populated by federal workers vacation throughout the state, particularly in the rural regions. This is going to hit Virginia, including the very very red parts of rural Virginia very hard. Rural Virginia voted overwhelmingly for MAGA 2.0. In my darkest moments, which are becoming more frequent, I think 'too fucking bad for you'.
posted by bluesky43 at 8:12 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:29 PM on February 1 Thank you for that post. This is exactly my sentiment. The Democratic Party needs to get its shit together and come up with a plan. As the post said, all of the elected democrats on bluesky are getting hammered when they post 'news' or express outrage - people want some leadership and they are nowhere.
posted by bluesky43 at 8:19 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]


Then you really don't have a union. The power of a union is ultimately going on strike, if you can't actually strike, well what can you do?

I don't know, do you see any union names on here?

A lazy cynic who is also deeply ignorant is like a black hole of despair and futility. "You can't do anything. You aren't doing anything. You're useless. I don't actually know what you are or aren't doing, but I am so very sophisticated that I understand how it must be, and I must share."
posted by praemunire at 8:38 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


I don't actually know what you are or aren't doing, but I am so very sophisticated that I understand how it must be, and I must share.

This reminds me of when Democrats would say that it was unfair to accuse Biden of doing nothing to pressure Netanyahu about Gaza, despite the continuing arms shipments and crossed red lines shrugged off, because who of us could know what was going on behind the scenes.

The tree is known by its fruit.
posted by Lemkin at 8:52 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]


Solidarity, suelac. I’m extremely lucky in that my management has been fantastic, up through our senior leadership, and even our Republican political appointees don’t seem to be thrilled with the situation. But we too have been hiring out the wazoo lately, and more than half of the folks in my immediate work group are still probationary. We also have a bunch of remote workers, since it’s pretty much the only way we’ve been able to get anyone more senior.

One new employee I’ve been mentoring, who uprooted his whole life to move to DC for this job, spent a whole meeting talking with me about routine work stuff and then let out a big sigh and looked at me and said “You’ve been through presidential transitions before. Is this normal? Do I need to look for a new job?” I gotta tell you, it fucking sucks to tell a young person who came into this job full of hope and dreams and optimism and who has really dedicated himself to his work, that there’s a pretty good chance he could get randomly fired at any second for no goddamn reason and there’s apparently nothing he or I could do about it. But I guess I decided it’s better to know what you might be in for to prepare for it. And at any rate he’s in a better position than a couple of other probationary employees in my group who moved across the country and just bought houses, and have toddlers.

All of this just makes me angry, and sad.
posted by malthas at 8:52 PM on February 1 [18 favorites]


The federal government is far from ideal, but this attempt to what, wipe the slate clean and try again? It’s not going to get us something magically better. It’s all still people.
posted by Mizu


The Year Zero strategy. Which never ends well.

this is an orgy of destruction but in some ways it’s better than competent perversion of the government. there’s just no way that this can lead to an outcome favorable to the republican party.
posted by dis_integration

I don't think most normal people thought Trump wouldn't be that bad, and I don't think he'll be able to run unchecked forever. The consequences of his idiotic and illegal actions are already killing people. And this is the honeymoon period. Republicans, certainly after the midterms,...
posted by kittens for breakfast


Bold to assume you are ever getting anything even vaguely resembling a free and fair and meaningful election again.

The Repubs are not going face meaningful electoral consequences for this. Oh, what is left of their reputation and legitimacy is going to be completely trashed, and quickly. But if the public, including disaffected Repub voters, do not have the means to put that rage into practical effect via the ballot box then it is utterly impotent, and will do nothing more than provide the 'justification' to Trump et al to invoke a brutal martial law, and trash what is left of the constitution.
posted by Pouteria at 8:53 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]


I mean, he's been president for two fucking weeks. He blundered Kramer-like into the room and immediately flung feces, but this country has been here for 249 years. If Nixon and George W. Bush couldn't kill it, he probably can't. I know people are upset, but give me a break. I'm pretty sure we will have free and open elections again. Real talk, this man is 80 years old, okay? He's not a long-term problem, the system that shit him out is.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:01 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


I think after all these years of fighting Trump and he still won, this thoroughly, nobody knows what to do any more, other than lawsuits.

It sickens me to think that the entire government is getting the Twitter firing treatment, but....who's gonna stop him?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:07 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


Mod note: One removed; focus comments on the issues, topics, and facts at hand—not at other members of the site.
posted by taz (staff) at 9:09 PM on February 1


What's especially alarming is that Musk's Twitter strategy has been, by any measure, an abysmal failure. It's a digital dumpster fire and he's destroyed its cash value. Like Trump, he's a disrupter, but he's not an improver. If you jack off on a Monet, you're not a painter now, you're not the new Monet, you're just a guy who jacks off on stuff.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:19 PM on February 1 [22 favorites]


>the system that shit him out is

Indeed. John Ganz' When the Clock Broke was a very interesting audiobook for my vacation drive last summer. This party's just getting started; I don't expect PPACA or SSA to survive in anything resembling their current forms into 2027.

Hope you enjoyed the neoliberal reforms while we had them; movement conservatives are going to blow it all up now.
posted by torokunai2 at 9:21 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]


> by any measure,

?
posted by torokunai2 at 9:23 PM on February 1


Violet Blue, thank you for this post. I care deeply about this issue. Thank you also to the posters I’m learning a lot from this discussion.
posted by LittleLadybug at 9:45 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


> > I'm saying it anyway

For them to save us, we have to vote for them.


And we also have to ask for it.

This reminds me of when Democrats would say that it was unfair to accuse Biden of doing nothing to pressure Netanyahu about Gaza, despite the continuing arms shipments and crossed red lines shrugged off, because who of us could know what was going on behind the scenes.

I get that there are people on this site who are justifiably concerned about Gaza, but for the love of FUCK can we not do that thing where every single US Political thread turns into yet another fine-grained examination of US Middle East Policy?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 PM on February 1 [31 favorites]


They are just pointing out a pattern of behavior from the democrats
posted by Iax at 9:54 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]


I get that there are people on this site who are justifiably concerned about Gaza, but for the love of FUCK can we not do that thing where every single US Political thread turns into yet another fine-grained examination of US Middle East Policy?

Well, I think the odds of it derailing Kamala Harris' glidepath into the White House have diminished considerably, so.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:54 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]


I also should say that I don't think Twitter is why Trump won. I don't think it helped to mobilize Republicans significantly. And if you think a functional Twitter would have given Harris a win, I'm afraid I just don't buy it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:07 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Yes, please don't make this thread about Harris / Gaza; the focus of this post is federal government workers and what's happening on that front. I might also note that even if one thinks their comment is mostly about the topic, and then a brief aside about [very contentious other or unrelated issue], people are going to comment back about the contentious other issue, so let's try to avoid derailing in this way. Thank you.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:19 PM on February 1 [10 favorites]


If Nixon and George W. Bush couldn't kill it, he probably can't. I know people are upset, but give me a break. I'm pretty sure we will have free and open elections again.

Look, I'm not trying to be a downer here, (/s) but neither W. or Nixon were *trying* to destroy this country. Say what you will about the tenets of the Global War on Terror, Dude, but at least it's an ethos...

In all seriousness, my heart goes out to all those who have invested their lives and careers in all of the various important functions of government. This is an insane situation to find oneself in.

I will just note again that unless something has changed recently, all of this continues to be soft pedaled by the NYT and other elite East Cost media. So whatever the plan is, apparently the best proxy voices we have for the collective alumni of Princeton, Harvard and Yale think it's just fine.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:14 PM on February 1 [19 favorites]


Slackermagee - That we seemingly don't even know what the whole plan is drives stress quite a bit

What you have is Project 2025, a joint long term project of the US Council for National Policy (a project of 'Christian' fundamentalist/evangelicalism' and especially US Catholic led Catholic Integralism - some of your Supreme Court judges), and the Atlas Network. Bannon is very heavily involved in this as he is an Integralist, as is JD Vance. Much of this is worked on the ground via the the churches aligned with The New Apostolic Reformation - here is The Texas Observer last June.

This was largely operationalised into the churches via climate change denial, an excellent entre into this is the British criminolgist Ruth McKie and her thesis Rebranding the Climate Change
Counter Movement
[Northumbria U .pdf], in which she located 465 linked thinktanks across the planet. I saw this happening through the 1980's as I was a Pentecostal at the time, and in retrospect the brainwashing is strikingly clear.

For US Christians who've drunk the Kool-Aid salvation is to go along with the worst of Trump, and Hell is accepting climate change and the Green Dragon (Politics & Religion J, .pdf).

Several mefites have written about this, here's doctornemo but mefi is generally liberal/atheistic and refuses to accept political religons as serious threats - this also seems to be the case within US secular society. I've had a post taken down on this topic and it is simply not worth the esfort populating a post with links when that is how it is treated. But this is your situation now - a ~5% of population religious ethno-state (plus accelerationalist camp followers like Musk) and I hate to think what it will take to remove them.
posted by unearthed at 11:16 PM on February 1 [33 favorites]


Putting aside irrelevant tangents, if you don't know much about a particular topic, it is okay not to pronounce on it, truly. If you're going to play "cognoscenti of the facts of life scoffing at the illusions of the naive and earnest," though, you should have some knowledge of what you're talking about. In ordinary times, to do so without that knowledge is merely embarrassing; in the current situation, it's deadly: it disheartens and discourages--and without good reason!

In short, the federal unions, like everyone else, have a role they can play, and, to the extent they aren't seizing the opportunity, they should be prodded to step up. However, they have already begun filing lawsuits.
posted by praemunire at 11:21 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


>soft pedaled by the NYT

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/krugman-leaves-the-nyt

"The Times essentially stumbled into this by accident — he was hired to be a neoliberal economics commentator — but he was a really bracing voice then and never stopped being good..."
posted by torokunai2 at 11:38 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]


"What are the Democrats going to do about this" is why I have a flight fund in a different currency, in a bank not HQ'd in the US, with a renewed foreign passport.

Must be nice to have that as an option. The rest of us who don't have dual citizenship cannot just offshore our finances (having spent time abroad, I can tell you this is impossible without full foreign residency, I cannot just call up SEB or BNP Paribas and ask for an account for funsies) nor can we just apply for another passport.

I don't blame anyone for leaving, but yeah I'm still going to be a little bitter about it. I agree that the US is completely and utterly fucked, and IMO is not recoverable. I've been saying so for a couple of years now. Unfortunately as a federal employee who has the majority of my finances under direct control of the US Treasury (my pension, TSP, SS) I don't exactly have a lot of good options right now.
posted by photo guy at 12:45 AM on February 2 [19 favorites]


Just want to share a little solidarity as a government worker from another country. It’s scary watching this from afar.
posted by raena at 1:06 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]


I'm so sorry for everyone who is directly impacted by this now. And I'm scared for us all, who will eventually be impacted when the US economy crashes and takes the rest of us with it. Between this and the tariffs, a crash is a foreseeable outcome.

BTW, that means I don't really think leaving the US makes much of a difference. I don't know where one could go that wouldn't be impacted by a global depression.

IMO the only hope is that the US can still have free and fair elections in 2026, and that at that point the Democrats are up to the task of restoring the rule of law and all the other democratic institutions. Both are possible but neither are given.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


BTW, that means I don't really think leaving the US makes much of a difference. I don't know where one could go that wouldn't be impacted by a global depression.

I appreciate your point and agree that in the short term, nobody is truly safe - our economies are too interconnnected for that. In the long term though I think other countries are going to fare much better. I personally think an empowered China and more independent EU taking the US's place is very possible - they will recover, the US will not (and Americans will have massively diminished living standards for anyone still around).

The Democrats have been a joke for decades, they aren't saving us. This is generations of hate and shitty culture coming home to roost. Best we can hope for is that the destruction is complete enough to force a cultural shock a la post-WWII Germany or Japan. Although I'm not even holding my breath on that being the fix that is needed.
posted by photo guy at 2:29 AM on February 2 [10 favorites]


We don’t need a cultural shock, we need a more equitable economy, which is why Trump won by a very slim margin. The Democrats ignored that, Trump ran on it, but is now of course ignoring it, too. People like you, who have a pension albeit currently under treasury control, ignore it too: To all appearances, you are oblivious to the fact that 50% of Gen X has no retirement at all.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:50 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Part of the Dems’ current messaging problem is the media has become ever more fractured.

Nonetheless, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy is getting praise for his forceful condemnation of Trump's illegal and king-like behavior.

Link.
posted by Violet Blue at 3:00 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


and more independent EU taking the US's place is very possible

I haven't been paying attention if Musk's push of fascist takeover in the Europe has even made headlines in the US. He's been campaigning for the German extreme right AfD party, giving interviews to one of their leaders and showing up on a big screen at their rallies.

During Trump 1.0, I recall Angela Merkel and the EU often being referenced as the last hope for the free world.

And I remember how lonely it felt. Brexit (another right wing project) just happened. Poland was heading towards something bad (turned around — for now). The "free world" suddenly seemed not like a "world" but, simply, a small region of a continent. Canada, Australia, Japan? There's not a lot left once the USA is out of the picture.

Trump 2.0 is here and even Brazil and India appear to have more interest in working closely with Putin than the EU. We lack real allies.

In any case, I think we'll be seeing the destruction of the European Union as one of the primary goals of Trump/Musk. It's the only thing standing in their way. No wonder they're a absolutely obsessed with it. They immediately went to work testing EU resolve with their Greenland nonsense.
posted by UN at 3:05 AM on February 2 [16 favorites]


People like you, who have a pension albeit currently under treasury control, ignore it too: To all appearances, you are oblivious to the fact that 50% of Gen X has no retirement at all.

Yeah! Fuck me for paying into a system for the last 15 years and daring to expect what I was promised! Fuck me for taking a job in STEM that pays less than the private sector in exchange for job security! Clearly I need to be taken down a peg!

But I should thank you for demonstrating presicely why the US will fail and why IMO it is a lost cause. Musk and his ilk should be the targets of your rage, not a mid-level career bureaucrat who basically has what should be considered the bare minimum. Y'all are so busy shitting on each other to do anything to fix this, and now people like me are paying the price.
posted by photo guy at 3:17 AM on February 2 [43 favorites]


We've afaik always need some cultural shock before a dramatically more equitable economy arises, Violet Blue. We do however have relatively bloodless "transformative revolution" cases like the French revolution.  See The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel.

I'm curious if Elon Musk envisions himself eventually deposing Trump to become emperor. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 3:23 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


In a well-written piece, Timothy Noah frames Trump’s shock and awe campaign as Trumpian trial balloons intended to figure out the limits of his power. Noah points out it was a Reagan-appointed judge who put the breaks on government defunding.

For the federal workers in the thread, he also thinks the government would do better to hire more permanent employees and fewer federal contractors.

https://newrepublic.com/article/190838/trump-funding-crisis-chaos-shutdown
posted by Violet Blue at 3:53 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


But I should thank you for demonstrating presicely why the US will fail and why IMO it is a lost cause. Musk and his ilk should be the targets of your rage, not a mid-level career bureaucrat who basically has what should be considered the bare minimum. Y'all are so busy shitting on each other to do anything to fix this, and now people like me are paying the price.

MetaFilter is obviously better than most, but we’re certainly not immune to the online circular firing squad of point keeping and ego-stroking and single issue monomanias that constitute a left in the US, for the most part. I agree it is in no way up to the task in front of it.
posted by reedbird_hill at 4:30 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


My current employer, a health care organization in Minnesota, has set up an emergency command center to react to the threats from both disruptions to federal payments and sudden changes to federal regulations.

Normally, you'd set up a command center during a major weather disaster, train derailment, chemical spill, what have you. Or a previous example, when a freeway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River several years ago, with many deaths and injuries.
posted by gimonca at 5:07 AM on February 2 [13 favorites]


I don't think that the US is a lost cause that is doomed to fail, and I definitely don't think that, if it is, the reason why is that people on a message board fail to adequately celebrate a system that inequitably rewards employees of the state with a pension while leaving most of its citizenry high and dry. The solution, of course, is not to strip government employees of their job security, pay and benefits -- that's the stupid, vengeful, "do you think you're better than me???" crabs-in-a-bucket "solution" that spreads misery instead of curtailing it, and ultimately benefits the wealthy and nobody else -- but to extend those courtesies to everyone else.

Unfortunately, "I earned what I have," as a defense, is a defense of the status quo that is also bad, and reinforces the resentment that helped reelect Trump. Perhaps you did earn what you have, but did a person who worked retail their whole lives not also deserve the option to live a few years in relative comfort at the end? Frankly, that person probably worked much harder than any civil servant ever has; certainly they worked harder than an Elon Musk ever has or will, done a job that would drive an Elon Musk to tears. Most Americans work brutally hard, and our status quo would have it that most of us just don't deserve better. That's why Americans rejected the status quo. It is, frankly, eminently rejectable.

Please understand that while it's good that you have yours, there is a short path from "whew, at least I got mine" to "fuck you, I got mine," and one sounds very much like the other to a person who in fact does not have theirs. Some of those people are likely right here in this very room.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:09 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


MetaFilter is obviously better than most, but we’re certainly not immune to the online circular firing squad of point keeping and ego-stroking and single issue monomanias that constitute a left in the US, for the most part. I agree it is in no way up to the task in front of it.

I've been on this site for 15 years and, while I don't mean this as a personal affront to anyone, I can't say I agree with the first sentence anymore. Communities on Reddit, etc of all places have been much more welcoming and less judgmental as of late. I mean JFC people are losing their livelihoods and half the responses are dry academia or open judginess against Feds for being part of an increasingly-vanishing middle class. I busted my ass to get what I have and I think EVERYONE deserves the same. Taking it away from me fixes nothing, except to make y'all feel all smug and morally superior.

I do agree that the US left will fail and fail hard at opposing this, just like they fail at everything else. No lessons will be learned from this.
posted by photo guy at 5:13 AM on February 2 [27 favorites]


Please understand that while it's good that you have yours, there is a short path from "whew, at least I got mine" to "fuck you, I got mine," and one sounds very much like the other to a person who in fact does not have theirs. Some of those people are likely right here in this very room.

Please point out where I said "fuck you, I've got mine". And if you'd been paying attention to the news over the last week, you'd quickly learn that no, I do not have mine. But hey, thanks for making snap judgements against a person you know nothing about and have never met.
posted by photo guy at 5:15 AM on February 2 [16 favorites]


I understand that you're angry; I myself have been angry most of my life. Welcome! It's terrible here. I'd like to say you'll enjoy it. You won't.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:17 AM on February 2


This seems like a discussion for email, not this thread.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:23 AM on February 2 [10 favorites]


TL; DR, I'll just say that the resentment many Americans feel toward the comfort of the bureaucratic class fuels the animosity and glee with which our government is now being dismantled. I think we have to address that inequity is why the working class does not necessarily see what is happening as a tragedy, although it is in fact tragic and will have a definite negative effect on the working class, very, very soon. The working class tend to get the worst of everything and, when all is said and done, this will be no different; the absence of any social support structure -- the point of all that "big government" -- will hurt the poorest Americans the most.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:31 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service: "The title of the law was designed to make the legislation seem unremarkable. Opponents of the Weimar Republic [...] claimed that the government bureaucracy had lost its professionalism. They argued that this lack of professionalism had been caused by democratic compromises between political parties in the German parliament (Reichstag). They believed that unqualified candidates had been appointed to the civil service as a reward for political loyalty and not because of their ability. The new government under Hitler claimed the law would restore the professionalism of the civil service by identifying these political appointees and removing them from their posts. In fact, the law served as part of the Nazis’ effort to align the civil service with their aims. This process of alignment was called Gleichschaltung (synchronization). The new law allowed the Nazis to remove their opponents, whether real or imagined, from public service."
posted by mittens at 5:44 AM on February 2 [30 favorites]


This seems like a discussion for email, not this thread.

I am allowed to defend myself. This thread is supposed to be about the dismantling of the civil service, as a member of the civil service I thought my opinions would be of value. But since y'all would rather hate on me I am leaving now. Have fun stewing in your own misery.
posted by photo guy at 6:07 AM on February 2 [22 favorites]


Any word on when Bannon is going to get Musk "kicked out"?
posted by MtDewd at 6:39 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


I imagine that when Musk is done doing the dirty work someone will run a night of long knives. Which of the many factions is holding the knives I don't think anyone can say at the moment. I'd bet Musk, personally, given the number of private security services his money can buy.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:44 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Ok so the Dems lost control of every branch, why even bother talking about them today? Of course the talented ones will absolutely do good things, but so what? All the energy needs to bend the other party into stopping this. And framing them as tyranny loving, income and retirement destroying evil. I think there was a post on here that lead me to a Nolan piece that changed me. There are no good guys or saviours or even allies. There are only Enemies and Cowards. All energy should be put into making it easier for cowards to do the right thing, sometimes by making it miserable to do the wrong thing. I will be looking for those opportunities in political space, and giving aid to persons in local and legal spaces. Suggestions below will be cheerfully accepted.
posted by drowsy at 6:49 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


In polls conducted by quality organizations (i.e. not Rasmussen) since the grant freeze was announced, Trump’s job approval numbers are comfortably in positive territory.

It’s easy for us to forget that half the country likes all this.
posted by Lemkin at 7:29 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


I'll just say that the resentment many Americans feel toward the comfort of the bureaucratic class fuels the animosity and glee with which our government is now being dismantled. I think we have to address that inequity ...

I don't think there is inequity.

Most government jobs come with some benefits, such as more job security and a real, defined-benefit pension.

But most government jobs also pay much less.

A few years ago, when I went from a government job to a private-sector job, my pay increased 45 percent.

Don't make government workers out to be the bad guys or deserving of what's happening here -- not in this thread.
posted by NotLost at 7:46 AM on February 2 [42 favorites]


It’s easy for us to forget that half the country likes all this.

A huge amount of Americans, including some on this site, have no idea what federal government is or does. Remember the people protesters against Obamacare waving signs saying "DON'T TAKE MY MEDICARE" or see right now employees at the FBI and within the military supporting Trump.

Add to that, there is clearly corruption at the highest levels within government, just think of the Supreme Court.

Of course, by far the most federal employees are hard working people who are doing important work for the nation. But people don't know enough about it, and I think both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for this lack of understanding, for different but similar reasons.

So right now, before anyone feels the consequences, half the country are still in the fuck around stage. They will find out.
posted by mumimor at 7:54 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]




Yeah, I can't believe people on this thread attacking a civil service guy for being worried. Why are you even here? I don't think I can take metafiler any more.
posted by maggiemaggie at 8:03 AM on February 2 [31 favorites]


Add my voice to those absolutely astonished that a community that prides itself on its moderation would tolerate "well, if government bureaucrats had managed to fix the working class, people wouldn't be celebrating as a federal government that has openly stated that its desire is to traumatize our civil service into collapse."

For shame. Do you even hear yourself?
posted by sciatrix at 8:17 AM on February 2 [35 favorites]


I'd strongly encourage Americans to get "involved" in some organized effort. I recommend Indivisible. They clearly explain the issue, how electeds think and work, how we can put pressure on them, and so on. It's well researched and well communicated and gives hope. It's the antidote to "Democrats don't do anything" and "Democrats can't do anything about this." They have a plethora of resources, but right now I'm especially liking their weekly Bracing for Impact calls (Thursday, 3 pm ET) on Zoom, and which they've archived on YouTube. Being upset and posting about it is definitely not going to change anything, finding thoughtful leadership who is bringing people together to take action and understanding recent successes is pretty hopeful and empowering.
posted by stevil at 8:19 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


shredding the US federal bureaucracy in real-time with very little pushback in real-time? Especially when it comes to security

So I hear from someone in DC that Treasury employees physically fought Musk’s people as they pushed their way in to take control. It just isn’t being reported, because traditional reporting has hollowed out the kind of reporters we used to have, where you would have hungry reporters camping outside the building looking for a story that they could sell and make a decent payment from.

There is pushback, but it’s not happening fast enough, because legislators are out of DC for the long weekend and hesitant to disturb norms by demanding entry to the building. Unfortunately, by Monday I suspect 8B of payments will just have been stopped and these ghouls will refuse to provide details of who to.
posted by corb at 8:21 AM on February 2 [34 favorites]


Half of this country has been indeed programmed to hate "the Feds". The quelling of the Whiskey Rebellion, Hamiltonism vs. Jeffersonism, The Second Bank of the United States, the War of "Northern Aggression", the pre-realignment GOP's fights against domestic white supremacy (Teddy, Eisenhower), combatting state promulgation of Creationism, Roe v. Wade, it's always been burning since the world's been turning, the militia movement of the 80 and 90s culminating in Ruby Ridge & Waco, black helicopter / anti-FEMA paranoia we saw recently in the aftermath of the flooding in Appalachian NC.

40% of the country are still creationists . . . this is Trump's base. Good luck with that.
posted by torokunai2 at 8:26 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


Don't make government workers out to be the bad guys or deserving of what's happening here -- not in this thread.

I'm talking about the perception that has led to the, to me, rather startling lack of outrage on the part of most Americans when it comes to what is happening to the civil service. I am not someone who is excited to see this happen. I am saying that if you lean into the idea that you are entitled to special rights and privileges as a federal worker, whether you believe that to be true or not, you are handing ammunition to the people who say you are getting an unfair shake. This idea is part and parcel of why public opinion is not needling toward outrage -- yet; it will when the effects of what Trump is doing become more obviously a problem for the people who benefit from the work of the civil service, which is a larger group than the average American understands (it's everyone).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:35 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


So are you trying to deliver an admonishment based on what civil service workers "should have done" to keep themselves from being targeted? Or what? What is the point you want to make here in this incredibly traumatic moment?

Do you think the victims of this bullshit need to suffer more prettily? What is the point of insisting that really, the failure belongs to the people doing their jobs? What is your goal in this conversation?
posted by sciatrix at 8:50 AM on February 2 [21 favorites]


It taken for granted every where that the government is bloated, lazy spoiled etc etc because that's what people have been hearing for the last what 40 years? Since regan at least. it's so soaked into us as background noise that it's going to take a lot for people to realize the damage that Trump and co are doing to the country and alot won't realize it until stuff that's always just worked stops working
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 8:58 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


My goal is to get people to see that upper middle class white collar workers who are complaining that their (let's be real, enormously secure in a way that is just not true for the average American) jobs are under threat are not going to be read as sympathetic to the underprivileged who, generally, could never have gotten those jobs themselves because they lack the resources to gain the education they need to qualify for them, among other things. Those people will react to your sadness with happiness. If this seems unfair, it is unfair, because actually government workers are doing a lot, FOR THEM. The consequences of disrupted services, to the American people, are what people should be focusing on, because that is how you get people to understand that the problem is not that a guy with a lot of money is afraid he might lose his pension, but that normal people will literally die because the government isn't functioning right.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:58 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Civil service jobs don’t always require degrees: VA jobs are civil service jobs and many just require a high school diploma. The thing about civil service jobs is that unlike retail jobs, they can be regulated by the federal government in ways that not everyone believes is appropriate to regulate private industry jobs.

We should always have been pushing back on the image that government jobs were bloated bureaucrats, and always should have been arguing that everyone deserves similar protections from firing without cause, etc.

Now is not the time to say “ha ha, you were safe before, white collar fuck.”
posted by corb at 9:03 AM on February 2 [30 favorites]


I'm not saying that, but I am saying that a lot of people are. What is needed is to show them that destroying the federal government imperils they themselves. They don't care if it imperils some abstract rich person they've never met but that they've heard about on cable news. They don't even care enough to find out whether that person really exists or is just a convenient fiction.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:05 AM on February 2


Further, how can you even put the civil service in the same sentence with "inequity" when it is billionaires who are driving things?
posted by NotLost at 9:06 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


"I'm not repeating slurs and propaganda about federal workers! I'm just saying that lots of other people are saying that, and I think it's reasonable for credulous people to believe propaganda! Here, let me repeat it again for you."
posted by sciatrix at 9:07 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]


Well, feeling attacked when people tell you things you don't want to hear has worked out so well so far, let's keep it going, I guess.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:10 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


And there is no way that civil service workers are the same as rich people, either.

Do you know any government workers?

I do agree that the public needs to better understand what government workers do.
posted by NotLost at 9:13 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


the kind of reporters we used to have

Since you mention it:
In its heyday, The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s longtime paper of record, boasted the nation’s largest State House bureau, an enviable circulation and enough editorial clout to alter the trajectory of the region’s defining infrastructure projects and environmental preservation efforts.

Reporters were well paid and often remained at the paper throughout the arc of their careers, imbuing The Ledger’s news coverage with institutional memory and gravitas, even as its thick, zoned editions were crammed with mundane dispatches from the state’s quilt of tiny towns and big cities.

On Sunday, The Ledger’s nearly century-long run as New Jersey’s dominant newspaper will come to an end when it prints its final edition and shifts to an online-only format. Its editorial board will vanish, as will its clippable sports photos and pages of printed obituaries.
posted by Lemkin at 9:17 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


"People feel bad when I repeat propaganda at them in the middle of a historically unprecendented as approach to literally traumatizing them out of the workforce and they yell at me. :( it must be that they feel defensive when I insist that no one in the working class can read the papers or educate themselves. :("
posted by sciatrix at 9:20 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Ok, everyone. This sucks but let’s agree this is a derail and let’s move on.

I’d like to point out one influential piece driving a lot of billionaire thinking from that smug libertarian “philosopher” Yarvin that is absolutely the belief behind Musk, Thiel and the rest: The Butterfly Revolution

I am working on some thoughts about what, exactly, are some good steps we can take here while this is going on. But first I think it is important to gather context and understanding of what they believe and have fantasized about since around 2009.
posted by glaucon at 9:25 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I'll just say that the resentment many Americans feel toward the comfort of the bureaucratic class fuels the animosity and glee with which our government is now being dismantled

Oh really? Not the resentment towards the black people, brown people, gay people, and trans people (and on and on) that featured in all the ads and whom the administration has already dramatically attacked? The people who voted for Trump who even have an opinion on "bureaucrats" hate them because the government is perceived as helping those outgroups instead of "rightfully" persecuting them to help the Trump voter feel better. Here in 2025, you're going to have to get your mind around the idea that your imagined virtuous white working class friends are low-information people who basically voted randomly at best, and, more often, just bigoted assholes. They voted for MASS DEPORTATION NOW and tariffs (which, by the way, are only going to raise prices).

My goal is to get people to see that upper middle class white collar workers who are complaining that their (let's be real, enormously secure in a way that is just not true for the average American) jobs are under threat

Again, there is no compulsion to speak about that which you lack knowledge of, including the composition of the federal civilian workforce. Are the firefighters who fight fires at national parks upper middle class white collar workers? Are the nurses working at the VA? Are the people hauling boxes and setting up tents for FEMA? Did you know that about 30% of the federal civilian workforce is veterans, and around half of those have service-related disabilities? Your actual goal is to convince yourself that somehow the people cheering for the cutoff of gender-affirming care for minors and the firing of people trying to make sure that disabled employees can do their jobs and the nuking of basic lifesaving aid to brown people overseas, to say nothing of firing the people who were involved in prosecuting the literal, physical attackers of the Capitol in an attempted coup, aren't awful people with terrible beliefs. They are.
posted by praemunire at 9:27 AM on February 2 [30 favorites]


Hopefully you'll be here for all of the Trump threads to let people know how much they're hated and how we need to adjust our rhetoric to convince Trump supporters that they might be directly impacted by Trump's actions. I guess folks who can be hated without consequences are just SOL.

It's not like Trump's targets can't figure out that they're hated without someone "on their side" to tell them. Sort of like women couldn't possibly figure out the dangers of the world without a kindly stranger to tell them how to dress.
posted by Wood at 9:29 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


I think one thing we can do is talk/post more on reddit or in the local community on how these random orders can hurt people and start raising the issues now and not expect people to be paying attention to them
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 9:30 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Is there an actual difference between Schumer Pelosi Durbin Jeffries Booker Connelly et all not caring (fyi I think they kinda care in an abstract way) versus being so pathetically spineless and obsequious sycophants ?

I think I’d rather they not give a shit and at least do well, anything, for optics and to keep those of us left of center engaged ?

Cause I think their rock solid fealty to the Garland Doctrine (comity and one sided bipartisanship over all) is a whole lot worse.

Their uselessness is consent. And I’m sure the far right fringe of that party is thrilled with how this is playing out. Finally some well earned hippy punching.

The dem party as it’s current run needs to die if they cannot muster ANY will to fight.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:36 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


"We don’t need a cultural shock, we need a more equitable economy, which is why Trump won by a very slim margin. The Democrats ignored that, Trump ran on it, but is now of course ignoring it, too. People like you, who have a pension albeit currently under treasury control, ignore it too: To all appearances, you are oblivious to the fact that 50% of Gen X has no retirement at all." - Violet Blue

What was the point of posting this concern about what's happening to federal employees and then attacking one in the comments?
posted by SillyShepherd at 9:38 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


"and also to transmit its folkways to the next generation without hindrance or penalty" from the free part of that Yarvin piece. This aligns with my above comment closely.

It's also the current jurisprudence of the SCOTUS majority. Devolve liberties to the Several States; and to the Posse Comitatus movement, to even more local – i.e. white Christianist – government. Actually not government per se, since at that point it's been reduced to just law enforcement.
posted by torokunai2 at 9:39 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


One suggestion I thought was interesting was to have Wyden and Warren show up Monday morning at treasury and make a massive stink about the Trumpists handing over the federal government to Musk.

It seemed like an interesting way to maybe break thru the major political medias enthrallment to trump and musk. Who know but worth a shot.

They won’t though. Easier to have a staffer send out some Bluesky posts about how concerning this all (Wyden) is and how pharma = bad (Warren)

Better than Schumer and his laser focus on the price of tomatoes I guess
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:51 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


I think I’d rather they not give a shit and at least do well, anything, for optics and to keep those of us left of center engaged?

This is the only kind of "engagement" that is going to matter:
Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country.
That's when people are going to realize that they slept through the alarm that was the post-9/11 militarization of US police forces.
posted by Lemkin at 9:54 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


My tiny org is has the honor of working with USAID, probably the most pure thing the US Govt does (although there are millions of people in staggering areas of expertise doing wonderful work that will now stop and die).

Those USAID people are amazing and so valuable to trying to make a decent world.

And Power is just about finished destroying that work.

So if anyone thinks these people are ‘elitist bureaucrats’ you’re not only wrong, you’re complicit in the fascists efforts in demonizing those folks. I’m stunned that anyone on Metafilter would actually do such a thing. Even in the guide of “telling it like it is” - reminds me of TERFs telling the trans community to die under the guise of ‘protecting our girls’ bullshit.

Best wishes photo guy to you and all your colleagues. I hope you can stay strong.
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:04 AM on February 2 [16 favorites]


This thread is about federal workers, not the general enshittification of all things. Persons who did accept, for whatever reasons, work well below market pay and who are now feeling a collapse, are very much in scope here.

Assuming knowledge of the persons' income/situation is a fail. Repeatedly hitting the 'acktually' button on someone who might be thinking 15 years would have been better spent at a hedge fund and not in relative service to their fellow citizens, at the very moment of crisis in a thread devoted to the crisis, is a fail. Because we do need people who are qualified to work at hedge funds to instead work for the government just like we need all the other talent pools to function. Quants who know what no retirement means, as well as letter carriers who know the risk of dying in the heat. All of them.

And this is very much a crisis. The emails that each fed got in their inboxes are incredibly aggressive. They actively demand that workers snitch each other off for any action that may retain a productive person who was previously tasked with efforts that are ideologically unpure. These emails make action demands (snitching, resigning), and are sent directly to you, but may or may not apply to you. But that is your problem; not taking action will will be looked down upon in future considerations. Bullying, in a word. These emails are mindblowingly bad and stressful to get.

It's a shit show and seems like we would do well at minimum to say "word, that sucks, solidarity" instead of adding to the sense that their reality does not have substance.
posted by drowsy at 10:07 AM on February 2 [35 favorites]


I personally appreciate the comments of solidarity and support, and it genuinely helps me feel a bit better that there are people who have my back at least at some level. However, as a fed who has spoken about his experiences in this thread I think I understand that it can come off as whining for us to complain about losing protections and benefits that most of the rest of the country doesn't enjoy. I get that, and it's part of the reason I've deliberately tried to avoid talking about how I worry, for example, about losing my sweet telework arrangement. Even though it would be a significant inconvenience for me it wouldn't turn my life upside down, and it's something a lot of folks in private industry don't have.

What I will talk about though is the systematic dismantling of federal civil service protections the administration seems to be attempting to execute. These are, for sure, a privilege of working in federal service that simply doesn't exist in the private sector (in the US, at least). But while they give our jobs a measure of stability, that is really not their point - the point is to make it so the federal workforce as a whole remains (relatively) unbiased, ethical, and free from undue political influence.* There are very good reasons why these civil service protections were instituted in the first place in the 1800s and strengthened significantly following the Nixon administration. The new administration seems to want to force a patronage- or spoils-based system, and people have been so reliant on a competent, unbiased federal workforce for so long that I don't think they really know what they're in for if that happens.

* YMMV with all of these characteristics. No organization is free from bias, and there are always some unethical actors though instances of public corruption in the federal bureaucracy generally tend to be rooted out and severely punished. When you think of large-scale US government corruption it's pretty much always actually an elected official or political appointee. Nor should there be no political influence; elections should have consequences and the winner should have some power to shape the federal bureaucracy. But we swear an oath to the Constitution, not the president or any other official.
posted by malthas at 10:40 AM on February 2 [28 favorites]


Philip Low discusses Musk at length (via bsky). Snopes discusses Low.

Musk is not a Nazi; they believe in a master race. Low suggests that Musk believes in a master race of one — Musk himself.
posted by zaixfeep at 11:04 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Guys I cannot talk enough about the other danger of these civil service firings: they are firing or placing on leave people who try to stop them from doing dangerous shit. They put the USAID officials who kept them out of the SCIF on leave.
posted by corb at 11:29 AM on February 2 [25 favorites]


i have no doubt musk is fundamentally a narcissist, but that doesn’t mean he’s not also a white supremacist.
posted by dis_integration at 11:31 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


via LGM, the Network Coup has started.
posted by torokunai2 at 11:33 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


I think I'm not understanding who exactly is enforcing law on a Federal level right now. Musk demanding classified information at gunpoint is itself grounds for him to lose his security clearance, if not his liberty. I know that he somehow has a security clearance, despite his known history of abusing drugs, but he has no need to know and he also does not represent any department that exists in real life. If they had surrendered class information to him, they would be in the wrong.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:34 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


It's also important to recognize this as a union busting measure to follow up on the dismantling of unions as a whole. There is a reason that union jobs have better protections and it is something that has been eroded significantly.

Many private sector jobs in the past that had unions and enjoyed benefits such as pensions and that is no longer the case in many many circumstances. Workers rights are a huge issue for this country, and dismantling one of the few examples of what it looks like when it works well is not good for anyone who is currently employed anywhere in the United States.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:39 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


At the risk of sounding doomer, Kittens, I'd say the answer is that we've abandoned law in the sense of a set of rules that apply equally to all. Musk is part of the inner circle, laws don't apply to him. Musk is the Hand of the King and to interfere with him is lèse-majesté and will be punished appropriately.

Apparently DOGE does exist, in that Trump renamed a preexisting government agency DOGE.

I'd say we're back to the spoils system, except I doubt that if we do get to have real elections again the Democrats will institute a purge of the Trumpers.
posted by sotonohito at 11:39 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


the call is coming from inside the house
posted by torokunai2 at 11:41 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Okay, but. Musk wasn't confirmed to be the head of anything...uhhhhh...hm.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:43 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Speaking of "The Butterfly Revolution", this video probably shouldn't be watched by anyone who wants to maintain a positive attitude.
posted by Slothrup at 1:00 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Few comments removed that were off-topic and against the guidelines that are written right under this box. Carry on and please re-rail things? Thanks.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:36 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


CNN article on the DOGE vs. USAID conflict mentioned by corb above: Senior USAID security officials put on leave after attempting to refuse Musk’s DOGE access to agency systems (by Jennifer Hansler and Alex Marquardt).
The DOGE personnel wanted to gain access to USAID security systems and personnel files, three sources said. Two of those sources also said the DOGE personnel wanted access to classified information, which only those with security clearances and a specific need to know are able to access.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:42 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Thinking about all those little programs out there that have been quietly doing their jobs for years or decades that are going to stop and no one is going to notice until screw flies start burrowing through your flesh or whatever is keeping me awake at night. Then I remember that the US forgot how to make nuclear weapons (*simplification I know) and how much knowledge will be lost and it makes me nauseous.
posted by Mitheral at 2:10 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


Musk is not a Nazi; they believe in a master race. Low suggests that Musk believes in a master race of one — Musk himself.

He might not fall into the bucket of the Nazi paraphernalia collecting worshipers of Hitler's ghost, but he's absolutely in the "he had some a lot of good ideas" bucket, and sure walks and talks like a Nazi duck.
posted by Pryde at 3:00 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Part of the Dems’ current messaging problem is the media has become ever more fractured.

or is the problem that they seem to be completely fucking choking
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 3:24 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


Thinking about all those little programs out there that have been quietly doing their jobs

"Oh god, why did we fire everyone who knows COBOL?!"
posted by mittens at 3:33 PM on February 2 [10 favorites]


Part of the Dems’ current messaging problem is the media has become ever more fractured.
...
or is the problem that they seem to be completely fucking choking

or have they decided to be the Washington Generals and cash their checks?
posted by kokaku at 3:38 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Clarification to my previous comment: Agreed, Musk holds supremacist views. However, his public Nazi-ness is performative to manipulate believers into supporting him. His core belief appears to be that he is the most superior being, is therefore entitled to be god-king of the planet, and none of us dare question him.

It will be interesting to see what happens when he decides it's time to politically take out Trump.
posted by zaixfeep at 3:44 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Multiple lawsuits have been filed alleging that DOGE is illegal. Couldn't the litigants in these cases request an emergency injunction halting its activity? Federal judges have blocked other executive orders. Couldn't municipal police in DC or wherever then arrest people like Elon Musk, Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran for violating a court order, improperly accessing government systems, etc., if they don't desist?
posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:32 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


>his public Nazi-ness is performative

as performative as San Leandro being a "Sundown Town" in the last century.

The apple often doesn't fall far from the tree
posted by torokunai2 at 4:42 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


From Politico:
What Musk, and Trump’s ideologue appointees, should also grasp is that the president may say he supports cutting government workers or programs, but he doesn’t really mean it. The moment such efforts prompt anger from congressional Republicans, GOP governors or, again, a wave of bad coverage, Trump will disavow what Musk thought was his mandate. Remember this: The only true meaning of Trumpism is Trump winning.
posted by Violet Blue at 4:42 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


"If only the Tsar knew!"
posted by torokunai2 at 4:44 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


I feel at this point it would be useful to make a list of what everyone in this unholy alliance wants from Trump's second administration. In that way, we can perhaps better understand its complexities and contradictions and figure out how to proceed.

TRUMP wants to be truly rich, something that had evaded him until he became president. He also wants to avoid jail and other legal consequences. He wants to see his perceived and real enemies suffer. And for obscure reasons, he wants tariffs and more death penalty which are his only known policy goals.

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT wants The Handmaidens Tale in real life.

THE TECH BROS and STEVE BANNON want to dismantle all governments and create personal libertarian-anarchic fiefdoms.

PUTIN wants to dismantle the all the liberal democracies and the post-WW2 world order.

THE FOSSILE FUEL INDUSTRY wants to uphold and expand our dependence on fossile fuels.

THE REPUBLICAN POWER wants to remain in power for ever.

These are just what I could think of now, there are more
posted by mumimor at 4:53 PM on February 2 [18 favorites]


Indeed mumimor, and the cruelty is for keeping the brittle coalition together at least as much as it is 'the point'.
posted by zaixfeep at 4:56 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


>The Handmaidens Tale

plus repeal of Lawrence, Brown, Edwards. Loving, why not junk that too while we're at it.

Now, if the cons were smart (vs smrt), they would grandperson everyone 50 and over into the existing SSA as-is, plus maybe a little sweetener, and then divert everybody else into Trump Coins etc. But the general fund – i.e. rich people – owes past FICA payers ~$2.8T and ~$2T of this needs to be converted to cold hard greenbacks over the next decade. This is +$200B/yr of taxation to be found when all together corporations are currently paying $450B/yr.

I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem
posted by torokunai2 at 5:13 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


as performative as San Leandro being a "Sundown Town" in the last century.

To clarify further: Musk sees his white supremacy as superior to mere Nazism and himself as superior to Hitler. Nazi sympathizers are just another tool in his bag and his words and salutes are just to keep them in his service. In fairness, I concede this may be to some here merely a distinction without a difference, but it is the point I'm trying to make.
posted by zaixfeep at 5:23 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


In an earlier thread the question of where exactly our metaphorical Rubicon was and when it was crossed.

I think the invasion of USAID by Muskovite forces and all US spending now being at Musk's personal discretion sounds like a good point to consider.

I looked at the Twitter, Facebook, and Congressional web pages of Hakeem Jefferies and Chuck Schumer. They have nothing to say about it.

Re Musk and Nazism: I'd argue that if you're splitting hairs over whether he's really a Nazi the point is that he's enough of a Nazi for our purposes.
posted by sotonohito at 5:35 PM on February 2 [14 favorites]


Gift link for people: Should you take the Musk buyout? Here’s a test. A decision expert explains how to make a good decision. Annie Duke advises.

There are legal questions swirling around the program that could remain unanswered by the deadline. That’s why I recommend first working through these prompts imagining that the terms will be met in full. Then, I recommend running through them again imagining the terms aren’t fully met.

We have a tendency to discount the chances things will change. If you reject the offer, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will keep your job. Ask yourself what the chances are that you’ll still be in your position in a year. Put a probability on it.

If you are leaning toward accepting the offer and you assumed the terms were met in full, I recommend running through the prompts again and assume they were not met in full. See if that changes how you feel.

posted by jenfullmoon at 6:38 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


the president may say he supports cutting government workers or programs, but he doesn’t really mean it

i mean, we’re all hoping, but i doubt any political journalist actually knows, or we wouldn’t be here in the first place. they’ve spent ten years acting like they know what his moves are and they don’t. full faith and credit in politico, sure.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 6:45 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


THE FOSSILE FUEL INDUSTRY wants to uphold and expand our dependence on fossile fuels.
posted by mumimor


And/or nuclear fuels.

A core requirement for the industry's ongoing profitability is that energy generation remains centralised, whatever the means of generation. They are probably ultimately agnostic on the means itself, as long as it is centralised and they control it. The one thing they want to avoid is it becoming in any way decentralised, particularly via solar panels on residential homes.

Which is a serious problem because decentralising energy generation is one of the most robust protections against attacks on the energy system by malicious forces.
posted by Pouteria at 7:57 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


In case no one else mentioned it here, here's the link to JustSecurity's LegalTracker site. "This public resource tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions. If you think [they] are missing anything, you can email [lte@justsecurity.org]."
posted by zaixfeep at 8:45 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


USAID is being actively destroyed by the Musk Junta, in a "its happening right now" way.

Is this a trial balloon for the Junta? Are other, similar operations happening simultaneously? Which security services are working for the Junta (US Marshalls, seemingly) and which are resisting (FBI NY office, seemingly).

Seems like news stories which should be dominating all channels, since the constitutional order is being broken down and restructured sans new governing document.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 AM on February 3 [7 favorites]


Well, our elected Democrats have decided they don't care if Muskvite Commisars from DOGE are destroying the government so we have really only two questions:

1) Do they get to wear the wikked kewl looking Soviet/40k style Commisar outfits yet? And if so has Musk overplayed his hand and decided to have htem put X badges on their caps or has he decided now's not yet the time to make his move so their hats will say MAGA instead?

2) Are they enforcing "Donald John Trump Thought"? Or "Great Leader Donald John Trump Thought"? Sen Schumer really ought to figure that out before he writes his speech praising DOGE and it's efforts.
posted by sotonohito at 7:23 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


hey chat, I'm not quitting, I'll take a temporary 9k cut because of the RTO but I'll be here long after TFG
posted by numaner at 9:00 AM on February 3


Donald John Trump Thought

Or, as we like to call it, the Little Orange Book.
posted by mittens at 9:15 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


> USAID is being actively destroyed by the Musk Junta, in a "its happening right now" way.

Is this a trial balloon? I think the executive order was the trial balloon. This is the real balloon, or whatever. (I'm realizing I don't know what a trial balloon is a trial of). US AID was established by congress, so it's illegal to shut it down without passing a law. We're in a genuine constitutional crisis and the open question is whether the Congress itself has the spine to defend its own power and prerogatives. The assumption of people in the 18th century was that Congress would be jealous of its own power and defy efforts to neuter it. With the republicans in control, they might just give their power up to the executive branch by giving it the right to decide which laws it wants to ignore. I dunno how we go back if that happens. Certainly we'll have a midterm election, and I predict the republicans to be absolutely destroyed. Midterm swings are normal, but the midterm swing after an absolutely ravaged economy will be devastating. The question is whether they can get the courts to intervene before then.
posted by dis_integration at 9:16 AM on February 3 [7 favorites]


Anecdotally, it already matters much less if USAID gets shut dow, because the media outlets USAID supported have already started shutting down, likely they need their remaining funding to flee, go to ground, etc. Adversaries could more creidbly claim all those media outlets were US propoganda all along, which casts down upon their past and future coverage. Anecdotally all alternative media in Russian has already shut down.

Ideally, Biden should've converted the media functions within USAID into something jointly controlled by Eeuropean nations of course, but forsight is always limited, and the State Dept and CIA really do love their inside track to journalists.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:30 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


I saw the Should you take the Musk buyout? article this morning and thought it was a perfect example of Betteridge's law.
As if Trump would pay them after they left.
posted by MtDewd at 10:37 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]


Elected democrats currently pushing their way past security at the USAID office after calling the press. Video here.
posted by corb at 10:55 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]


I'm glad at least some are fighting back in a public way. I really hope they can stop this, but I worry about how much damage has already been done.
posted by sotonohito at 11:02 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]


Not having a lot of hope: apparently they were blocked at the inner doors.
posted by corb at 11:35 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]






Chris Wright Is Confirmed to Be Secretary of Energy

The former fracking executive said in confirmation hearings that his top priority would be to “unleash” American energy production.

I'm cautiously hopeful the peak oil guys like Arthur Berman turn out correct about how quickly American shale oil declines. Trump & Wright could drill more close wells, increasing rate & costs, but decreasing total oil recovery, well lifespan, EROI, etc. It's possible they simply pump the enconomy by sell off the SPR like Biden did, probably the best case scenario.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:02 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Thiing is, hte US is already producing more oil than anyone else. And the oil companies don't want to increase supply, for fear that the price would drop.

So, like so many of Trump's pledges, this is a performative action that would have no real value to anything.
posted by suelac at 5:08 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


For those who watched the confirmation, did there seem to be any procedural holdups? Some senators have promised to delay until USAID is unfucked.
posted by corb at 5:10 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


The US refines other people's oil, suelac.

"In 2023, the United States imported about 8.51 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum from 86 countries. .."

"In 2023, the United States exported about 10.15 million b/d of petroleum to 173 countries and 3 U.S. territories .."


It's complex because so many oil products and flavors of crude exist, but I'd think China or India could build out similar refining capacity, and weaken America's oil situation.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:25 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Can we start calling him President Musk again, so Trump will feel humiliated and reel him in again?
posted by TheHouseFinch at 6:05 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]


Traitors on the Wright nom: Bennet (CO), Gallego (AZ), Hassan (NH), Heinrich (NM), Hickenlooper (CO), King (I-ME), Luján (NM), Shaheen (NH)

The nom passed cloture last week (by an even more embarrassing margin), so I don't think any procedural maneuvers would have been effective. (I mean, unless Schatz et al. had realized there was a coup going on before this weekend.)
posted by Not A Thing at 6:30 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]


Federal workers sue Trump administration over email blasts. [YouTube video]
posted by Violet Blue at 11:34 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]


This seems like the “burn the boats” approach to firing people:
Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email shared with The Associated Press by a GSA employee.

The order seems to contradict Trump’s own return-to-office mandate for federal employees, adding confusion to what was already a scramble by the GSA to find workspace, internet connections and office building security credentials for employees who had been working remotely for years.

But it may reflect the Trump administration’s belief that it won’t need as many offices due to its efforts to fire employees or encourage them to resign.
posted by adamsc at 6:19 PM on February 4 [6 favorites]


"If we terminate the leases faster than the courts can issue injunctions then it won't matter!"
posted by corb at 6:44 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]


Almost nobody mentioned the CIA here yet, maybe because they delayed offers to most national security roles until this week, but yes the CIA just got the offers too: Guardian, CNN, New Republic.

All those GSA lease terminations have some complexities: Trepp, PillsburyLaw.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:18 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]






Wait, Medicaid is frozen? I'd missed that..
posted by jeffburdges at 7:31 AM on February 6


Wait, Medicaid is frozen?

As the very Reddit thread you linked to says - no, it was just a very poorly-timed IT outage.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:51 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]


Wait, Medicaid is frozen? I'd missed that..

That was from a week ago. Fortunately--unless something has changed in the past few minutes!!!--the payment portals are working again. However, DOGE has indeed implanted its ova into CMS, looking for waste. (As someone who has to take a yearly and exceedingly boring class on Medicare Fraud, Waste and Abuse, I don't know what they expect to find that CMS isn't already investigating.) (I mean, I know what they expect to find--money going to the poor, disabled and elderly that would be more fun in Musk's pockets.)
posted by mittens at 7:53 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]


WaPo: Federal judge pauses deadline for Trump administration’s buyout program The Trump administration had given most of the country’s federal employees just nine full days to decide if they want to resign with pay through the end of September. A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily paused the Trump administration’s buyout program’s deadline, which had been set for 11:59 p.m. Thursday, and set a new hearing for Monday.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:37 AM on February 6


^^ ungated
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 12:05 PM on February 6


In case this is useful and has not been posted:
Rep. Raskin’s On-Demand Webinar for Federal Workers Facing the Trump-Musk Assault on our Government
from Feb 4, YouTube 41:57
posted by Glinn at 1:45 PM on February 6




That "interesting article" has something of an air of histrionics about it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:54 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]




30 hour filibuster fails to prevent confirmation of Vought to OMB.

But I was told all a Republican Senator had to do was gently whisper the word "filibuster" and the Democrats would disappear into a puff of sulfurous black smoke?
posted by mittens at 7:18 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]


I am 0% surprised that nothing Democrats could do could stop anyone.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:52 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]












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