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Ever wonder how Trump managed to pull together those 200 Executive Orders to sign — on Day One?
Well wonder no longer … Heritage Foundation, please take a bow.
Your puppetry work is astounding … astoundingly efficient, this time around.
Elon Musk's DOGE mandate is updating software and firing federal workers
qz.com/...
[...]
The order outlines a plan to develop a team of at least four employees per federal agency, including a team lead, an engineer, a human resources specialist, and an attorney. Agency leaders will have 30 days to assemble such a team. The USDS [United States DOGE Service] itself will continue its prior mission of modernizing software, network infrastructure, and information technology systems, just under a new name.
“[Musk is] getting an office for about 20 people we’re hiring to make sure these get implemented,” Trump told reporters on Monday, referring to his executive orders, as he signed DOGE into law [by Executive Order].
The department is also tasked to work with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on a federal hiring plan, according to a second executive order. It calls for a plan to put an end to any diversity requirements, which Musk has vehemently opposed, and the use of modern technology to improve hiring.
Trump has already nixed remote work, a key priority for Musk, who has repeatedly lambasted such work. He’s also argued that cutting regulations will allow for fewer staff, as there would be less for employees to do.
[...]
Federal workers placed on leave by Trump's DEI order are angry and fearful of what lies ahead
www.nbcnews.com/...
I’ve put 23 years of blood, sweat and tears into this agency," he said.
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The employee who was put on leave after 23 years had been a DEI adviser for his agency for two years until December, when his office was decommissioned in anticipation of the Trump administration’s policies, he said. While he currently is receiving pay and benefits, he fears that if his job is eliminated he won’t be able to pay his bills, and the career he considers a “central part” of his life will be erased.
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'We've become pawns'
A woman of color who is also a federal worker placed on leave this week said she has been preparing well before Election Day to lose her job. She also requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
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“When you decide to become a civil employee, your goal is to really help the American people. And anyone who’s in this line of work knows that the goal is to always help all people,” she said. “It’s disheartening that we’ve become pawns in this grapple for control. But, again, this is what the American people voted for.”
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Trump administration asks agencies for lists of newly hired federal employees
federalnewsnetwork.com/...
The Trump administration is giving federal agencies until the end of this week to deliver lists of all their employees who are still within their one-year probationary periods, while also reminding agency leaders that newly hired members of the workforce are the easiest to fire.
In a memo sent to agency heads Monday evening, regarding “critical potential personnel actions,” OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell reminded agencies that newly hired federal employees can be terminated “without triggering [Merit System Protection Board] appeal rights.” OPM is giving agencies until Friday to submit a report to OPM that includes a list of all employees currently in their probationary period. [OPM = Office of Personnel Management]
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The memo could pave the way for agencies to potentially remove some newly hired workers while skirting the civil service protections most career federal employees have once they pass the one-year mark in the federal workforce.
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The exact number of employees who may be impacted by OPM’s new memo is unclear. In March 2024, the most recent data currently available in Fedscope, more than 220,000 federal employees were within their one-year probationary period. That number may indicate generally how many newly hired employees are in the federal workforce at any given time.
According to the March 2024 data, about 56,000 — more than a quarter — of the new federal employees were working at the Veterans Health Administration at the time. More than 14,000 employees, or about 6.5%, were new hires at the IRS.
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Project 2025 Seeks to Undermine Public Services with Schedule F
apwu.org/… [American Postal Workers Union]
Americans everywhere depend on efficient government services to support our communities, foster economic stability, and provide a social safety net for neighbors in need. Civil servants, at all levels of government, help make sure public services like Social Security payments, disaster relief, and public education are accessible to everyone who wants them. Keeping high quality public services available and open to the public also means keeping civil servants with expertise in these jobs.
Project 2025 seeks to undermine this expectation of efficiency and expertise in public services by dismantling the Federal Government and reinstating Trump’s 2020 “Schedule F” Executive Order. This would allow the ruling administration to reclassify many civil servants as policymaking or policy-evaluating workers, thereby removing their civil service protections and making them at-will employees. President Trump could then install whomever he pleases based on favoritism and loyalty to his administration.
Deploying Schedule F to replace dedicated civil servants with inexperienced cronies removes the very people who are experts at their jobs and have the knowledge to help our government serve our communities in the best possible way.
Installing employees based on “who you know” favoritism effectively removes the nonpartisan and professional nature of civil service – civil servants should simply be the most qualified for the job. That’s why tests like the ones postal workers must take for employment exist. An unbiased exam means that workers earn their jobs based on their skills, not who we know or what color our skin is.
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Trump: Agencies should fire 'all' bureaucrats
www.govexec.com/...
Ahead of Trump's inauguration, transition officials touted that the new president would sign upwards of 200 executive actions Monday, including an expansion of immigration enforcement, pardons for those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and a hiring freeze for much of the federal workforce.
In the Oval Office Monday night, Trump signed an order aimed at reinstating Schedule F, a proposal from the end of his first term that would convert tens of thousands of career federal workers in “policy-related” jobs out of the merit-based competitive service and into at-will positions, effectively stripping them of their civil service protections.
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“Most of those bureaucrats are being fired, they’re gone,” Trump said at a rally Monday afternoon while referring to his planned signing of a freeze on new federal regulations. “It should be all of them.”
And when an aide handed Trump the Schedule F order to sign on Monday night, Trump remarked: "We're getting rid of all of the cancer, the cancer caused by the Biden administration."
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Having myself recently retired from my Federal career in resource management, I share in the anguish that my fellow public servants must be experiencing right now.
Not knowing if you will be targeted for crass unjust firing — simply because Trump, Musk, Vought and the Heritage Foundation want to score political points. Or worse yet, to assemble an army of political loyalists, dedicated to serving Trump’s irrational self-centered whims — instead of the oath we swore to uphold and serve the Constitution, upon being hired.
Most Federal employees are hard workers, who believe in public service, and fulfilling the mission of the Agency for which they work. Missions decided by Congress, when those Agencies were first established — by Law.
Trump and his wrecking crew seek to undo those missions. At the expense of tens of thousands of livelihoods, and the degradation of countless public services that average Americans depend on.
Public service is a calling, not a scam, not a grift.
Then again, the biggest Grifter of them all, keeps usurping that calling — to embellish himself, his friends and cadre of misinformed loyalists. Something is definitely wrong with this picture … this fading, cynical, power-grubbing American portrait.
The Founders would be cringing if they could see where their experiment has landed …
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More resources on Schedule F — rebranded as Schedule Policy/Career — can be found here: Schedule F
and here: firing federal workers
Thankfully, Employee Unions and Democracy Docket are filing suits to slow-down and hinder Trump’s extra-Constitutional power-grab. We can only hope that the Supreme Court will rise to the occasion — while we still have some semblance of a “functioning government” left, to actually serve the American people.
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Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, from left, and Vice President Kamala Harris place a wreath at the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony where Carter lies in state at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025
www.project2025.org/policy/