Our office (part of VA research) offered open-to-the public webinars on almost all of our federally-funded research. Today, the webinar team was told to shut everything behind the VA firewall (including archives of past sessions). Further, registration is no longer open to the public—you must now have "va.gov" email address to register or attend. Another clear effort to suppress the free flow of information.
Appreciate your voice in spreading the word about federal workers and what is happening to them right now. Trump & co will not rest until everything is destroyed. And what’s worse is I have not seen our elected leaders come to their defense. Our MOC should be roaring like lions. Yet it is barely a whimper. It’s a disgrace.
"There must have been a lot of pushback on this, especially at the Department of Veterans Affairs - which made up 25% of the new hires and were mostly essential clinical jobs such as nurses and other health providers. Shortly after the job offers were rescinded, OPM exempted those jobs and have been re-issuing the offer letters."
If your "Welcome to the agency" letter was rescinded and replaced with "Get Lost", I don't think the new letter would seem very attractive. I would absolutely be running in the opposite direction from such a blatantly mismanaged and toxic workplace.
Where are house reps and senators that represent a preponderance of these federal employees? I’m not hearing any reaction to this undertaking. This should be getting more coverage
Allison, is the Hatch Act generally considered too toothless to be of strategic use here, even if just to slow them down? I suspect many of these actions, beginning with the aggressively partisan rhetoric in the DEIA memo, have been or will be clear violations of that federal law.
Thank you for continuing to assimilate and share what you're hearing across agencies for us - it's a great service to us in the federal work force.
Hatch Act doesn’t have real penalties that would dissuade anyone and the law won’t apply to any of these actions. The spirit of the Hatch Act, sure- patronage bad, but the Act itself is focused on campaigning and candidate support, not civil service actions. The language of the statute is more concerned with a letter carrier making a political donation on his private phone while on official time.
And it can even be used to support what’s currently happening- remember the first administration where fed employees were advised that the words resist and resistance shouldn’t be used around the workplace as they could be Hatch Act violations? There are other federal laws that give me some hope in terms of litigation, but the Hatch Act ain’t one of them.
As Kellyanne Conway said with no repercussions when asked by a reporter about her Hatch Act violations, “blah, blah, blah…”
Yeah, thanks. I had forgotten about that Conway episode. Your opinion about Hatch Act seems more or less consistent with a Government Ethics attorney's reply to my inquiry this morning. Frustrating how inadequate the law has been in safeguarding us from these insidious abuses of power.
Thank you for explaining this. I am absolutely terrified of what is to come, but will not waiver on my defense of federal employees. I am an RN and had heard about the hold on VA nursing positions but was unaware they are walking it back.
This is a well written, well supported article, but as long as the Dems just roll over and cannot convince even one goper that none of this is in th best interest of America I feel somewhat helpless and sad for all those losing their jobs. And for America...I was a mid management person in a state government agency and it was very very hard to find competent persons to work for us and in many cases that translates into very poor service for Americans. In my case I was involved with investigating child abuse and prosecuting offenders. Needless to say, many many got off. Now with the GOP, letting pedophiles go free is fine but there will be other areas that will suffer. Obviously the GOP does not care about care for veterans, so letting go any health care personal will be fine but eventually hiring based only on loyalty will prove to be inefficient. We will have to see if Americans care at all.
We all know Trump himself is too mentally compromised to be implementing all these actions on his own. Especially as he has time to travel across the country while ostensibly organizing and implementing all this chaos. What scares me is the army of people who are organized behind him. Not only is this group apparently vast but also well organized and in place for quite a while. At the time of the election I said the country had not really elected Trump but a group of people using him as a front and that shortly as his mental deficiencies become more and more apparent and he becomes a liability, they will push him out.
I believe you are exactly on target! I also had envisioned the extremist right wingers directing Trump (Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 folks, Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, etc etc) were building a shadow team - after all, we knew that Project 2025 was recruiting and training, and likely funding, their loyalists to be ready. And, similarly, I envisioned that once he serves his purpose to the extremists he will be replaced with Vance.
Good point. I was thinking "Vance or someone else.." only because he's younger, super right wing, and easy to manipulate. But I also can envision them installing someone stronger into the president position (also, maybe in their eyes his brown skinned wife wouldn't pass muster as first lady?).
Me, I'm not complying with these directives. I don't respond to "tweets" or "truths" or "memos." I work for my supervisor. When I get an official order, I'll respond to it, or my AFGE union will for me. I will not obey in advance.
Thank you for covering this, Allison. Tragically, my partner was fired by MAGA fascists for protecting our democracy with diversity, equity, and inclusion. I linked to your piece here: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/dei-public-servant-fired
Day 7. We all need to stop looking shocked and begin to act… again…
Our office (part of VA research) offered open-to-the public webinars on almost all of our federally-funded research. Today, the webinar team was told to shut everything behind the VA firewall (including archives of past sessions). Further, registration is no longer open to the public—you must now have "va.gov" email address to register or attend. Another clear effort to suppress the free flow of information.
Appreciate your voice in spreading the word about federal workers and what is happening to them right now. Trump & co will not rest until everything is destroyed. And what’s worse is I have not seen our elected leaders come to their defense. Our MOC should be roaring like lions. Yet it is barely a whimper. It’s a disgrace.
Aren't most of FFOTUS' nominations DEI hires themselves? The hypocrisy is overwhelming.
"There must have been a lot of pushback on this, especially at the Department of Veterans Affairs - which made up 25% of the new hires and were mostly essential clinical jobs such as nurses and other health providers. Shortly after the job offers were rescinded, OPM exempted those jobs and have been re-issuing the offer letters."
If your "Welcome to the agency" letter was rescinded and replaced with "Get Lost", I don't think the new letter would seem very attractive. I would absolutely be running in the opposite direction from such a blatantly mismanaged and toxic workplace.
Where are house reps and senators that represent a preponderance of these federal employees? I’m not hearing any reaction to this undertaking. This should be getting more coverage
Trump is above the law, but his minions aren’t. They can be prosecuted for failing to abide by current laws
Allison, is the Hatch Act generally considered too toothless to be of strategic use here, even if just to slow them down? I suspect many of these actions, beginning with the aggressively partisan rhetoric in the DEIA memo, have been or will be clear violations of that federal law.
Thank you for continuing to assimilate and share what you're hearing across agencies for us - it's a great service to us in the federal work force.
Hatch Act doesn’t have real penalties that would dissuade anyone and the law won’t apply to any of these actions. The spirit of the Hatch Act, sure- patronage bad, but the Act itself is focused on campaigning and candidate support, not civil service actions. The language of the statute is more concerned with a letter carrier making a political donation on his private phone while on official time.
And it can even be used to support what’s currently happening- remember the first administration where fed employees were advised that the words resist and resistance shouldn’t be used around the workplace as they could be Hatch Act violations? There are other federal laws that give me some hope in terms of litigation, but the Hatch Act ain’t one of them.
As Kellyanne Conway said with no repercussions when asked by a reporter about her Hatch Act violations, “blah, blah, blah…”
Yeah, thanks. I had forgotten about that Conway episode. Your opinion about Hatch Act seems more or less consistent with a Government Ethics attorney's reply to my inquiry this morning. Frustrating how inadequate the law has been in safeguarding us from these insidious abuses of power.
Thank you for explaining this. I am absolutely terrified of what is to come, but will not waiver on my defense of federal employees. I am an RN and had heard about the hold on VA nursing positions but was unaware they are walking it back.
This is a well written, well supported article, but as long as the Dems just roll over and cannot convince even one goper that none of this is in th best interest of America I feel somewhat helpless and sad for all those losing their jobs. And for America...I was a mid management person in a state government agency and it was very very hard to find competent persons to work for us and in many cases that translates into very poor service for Americans. In my case I was involved with investigating child abuse and prosecuting offenders. Needless to say, many many got off. Now with the GOP, letting pedophiles go free is fine but there will be other areas that will suffer. Obviously the GOP does not care about care for veterans, so letting go any health care personal will be fine but eventually hiring based only on loyalty will prove to be inefficient. We will have to see if Americans care at all.
We all know Trump himself is too mentally compromised to be implementing all these actions on his own. Especially as he has time to travel across the country while ostensibly organizing and implementing all this chaos. What scares me is the army of people who are organized behind him. Not only is this group apparently vast but also well organized and in place for quite a while. At the time of the election I said the country had not really elected Trump but a group of people using him as a front and that shortly as his mental deficiencies become more and more apparent and he becomes a liability, they will push him out.
I believe you are exactly on target! I also had envisioned the extremist right wingers directing Trump (Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 folks, Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, etc etc) were building a shadow team - after all, we knew that Project 2025 was recruiting and training, and likely funding, their loyalists to be ready. And, similarly, I envisioned that once he serves his purpose to the extremists he will be replaced with Vance.
I think you are correct is all but I don't think Vance would be the choice. He has turned out to be a sort of a dud.
Good point. I was thinking "Vance or someone else.." only because he's younger, super right wing, and easy to manipulate. But I also can envision them installing someone stronger into the president position (also, maybe in their eyes his brown skinned wife wouldn't pass muster as first lady?).
As a retired fed, I am beyond angry. The end game is the privatization of these agencies for the benefit of the controlling billionaires.
So my child and their spouse will both be fired… Both are career civil servants, and have dedicated their life to helping others.
Me, I'm not complying with these directives. I don't respond to "tweets" or "truths" or "memos." I work for my supervisor. When I get an official order, I'll respond to it, or my AFGE union will for me. I will not obey in advance.
Some federal employees could bring civil suits opposing their firings. They would need help raising funds to pay lawyers? How?