Summary
The Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that oversees illegal actions taken against federal workers, ruled that the mass firings of probationary federal workers (those in a trial period after being hired) are likely illegal.
The decision, affecting 6 cases, found that the terminations lacked individualized cause, violating federal rules.
OSC head Hampton Dellinger stated, “Firing probationary employees without individualized cause appears contrary to a reasonable reading of the law.”
This ruling could challenge the legality of nearly all such dismissals, opening the door for broader legal action.
Yeah, but, what are you going to do about it? Trump is above the law and Elon certainly isn’t going to be fined, let alone go to jail, over this. Courts and lawyers can cry all they want, who’s going to enforce it? Nobody, that’s who. So sure, Point out they’re doing illegal things - the law doesn’t seem to matter to those in charge any more.
Get that defeatism out of here. They’re only above the law if we let them be. To date, the Trump administration has backed off when a judge rules against them. Sure, they then try to come up with new, illegal shit to do. But the courts definitely still have a place in putting the brakes on it.
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At some point, all of this is going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money in legal fees and settlements.
I’m pretty sure anyone coming back, or that wants to ever join again will ask for more pay due to the fuckery and uncertainty it causes.
I mean, yeah. Part of the low pay inherent in U.S. government jobs is the baked-in assumption that it’s one of the most stable jobs around. Once that assumption goes out the window, the government will have to pay more to make up for the loss of that major perk.
Even if it does, I am certain that Musk himself will have zero legal liability here. His position is unofficial, all his authority is “because Trump says so”, and I strongly doubt he signing his name or signature on anything. That itself should scare people (even those who agree with what he’s doing), but most Americans are just sleepwalking.
If the USA had a functional justicebsystem, Musk would have been at least detained and bar from tpuchibg government systems… but alas, there is no functional law in the USA at the moment
Who needs the law when you’ve got money!
Oh, you don’t have money. I guess you need the law.
It will either cost a lot in legal fees, or a lot in every fucking thing is broken everywhere and most services that were already busting at the seams to somewhat operate will just pop like melons under a giant truck tire.
Porque no los dos?
Guess who’s getting fired in the morning
Not a goddamn person that needs to be fired. That’s for sure.
Isn’t it a good thing that this bureaucracy, which so many rail against, is what keeps corporate-fascism in check?
It is. That’s why the corporate fascists are trying to demonize and dismantle it. There’s a reason Musk started with the ones that were investigating his companies.
Although keeping it in check will likely require the authorities to obey the findings of these agencies. They’ll be getting conflicting orders from the MAGA admin. That’s the constitutional crisis in a nutshell — if authorities side with MAGA, then it becomes a coup.
Ok. It is illegal. The question is, are they going to do anything about it?
This is the exact problem. Trump and Musk are walking through the forest firing a flamethrower indiscriminately, and there are a bunch of people on the outskirts yelling “Hey, you can’t do that!”
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I feel like using a chainsaw and indiscriminately cutting down trees might be more apt after his CPAC stunt.
After considering this question carefully, I expect the answer is: the square root of fuck all.
At some point all the people fired will likely get some money, some may get jobs. It probably takes at least a year for that to happen though.
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
How amoosing!
I’m sure they’ll stop right away!
Gee, imagine that!
It’s kind of funny (the sad kind of funny) that people with years of legal studies and experience have to meet and formally rule that something blatantly illegal to the point of stupidity is… well… illegal.
“If I have a made-up position that my own government admits is not an official one, can I go ahead and randomly fire thousands of people?”
“A ha! Good question, let’s see what my copy of The Legal System for Dummies says!”
I mean, they know it’s not “legal”, they are just testing the boundaries of judicial oversight. They are going to push boundaries and whenever they get any kind of push back they are going to scream about persecution and claim judicial over reach.
The point is to overwhelm the system to the point of breaking and then claim we don’t need to listen to the judicial system, because look how broken it is.
These people aren’t stupid, they’re just fascist who know things like legal systems are social contracts that depend on good will and trust to operate. If they can break that good will and trust them they can rewrite the social contract.
It is dangerous to assume these people are just stupid.
Just gonna quote the smart relevant alarming resharable parts of this comment
I mean, they know it’s not “legal”, they are just testing the boundaries of judicial oversight. They are going to push boundaries and whenever they get any kind of push back they are going to scream about persecution and claim judicial over reach.
The point is to overwhelm the system to the point of breaking and then claim we don’t need to listen to the judicial system, because look how broken it is.
These people aren’t stupid, they’re just fascist who know things like legal systems are social contracts that depend on good will and trust to operate. If they can break that good will and trust them they can rewrite the social contract.
It is dangerous to assume these people are just stupid.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t think they are stupid, just that they are doing blatantly stupid, over-the-top stuff.
On purpose? Yes it’s a really scary thought that this might be a coup in slo-mo. And I mean slo-mo just relative to the more common “army abruptly takes power” approach, but it’s still disturbingly fast.
It’s kind of funny (the sad kind of funny) that people with years of legal studies and experience have to meet and formally rule that something blatantly illegal to the point of stupidity is… well… illegal.
Well yeah - that’s how it works. If you don’t care about law and rules you just do shit. The people who enforce the rules have to follow them and go through processes - and by gum that’s time and work! (And who wants to do work? Definitely none of the judges and lawyers I’ve met lol)
If they imminent domain your house to build a turnpike to siphon off money to foreign investors - that’s on you to put the time and effort into fighting it. If they run voucher programs and charter school scams that benefit their friends - well, they have other friends who often are the ones supposed to enforce the rules. They act, you have to pull yourself together and react. How can you fight an illegal eviction if you’re too busy trying to find a new place to sleep?
It’s that old idea that the state has a monopoly on violence.
And while you’re legally following all the rules they’re already moving on to the next thing and cornering you before you even act.
This is your landlord illegally evicting you and then also lying to get you arrested and then paying someone to murder you in jail.
The double bind too is that people think when illegal things happen that they get stopped, so they don’t believe that the illegal things are even happening. So many levers of justice - in the US at least - are really determined by one’s ability to get access to a lawyer or the ever increasing rarity of getting sympathetic news coverage.
There is no justice, and then no one believes you. If the gaslighting brings you to mental illness - even more justification to pretend these things aren’t happening.
#fuckin’ lol
“oversight”
So, arrest him?
Yeah, his income level puts him on the “petty fine” tier.
I will accept no less than 99.99% of his net worth.
you want to leave him $4.02b?
Wouldn’t that be 400 million? (400bil x 99.99%) Still a lot, and I could retire happily off that much for sure.
Mental arithmetic was never my strong point
Hilariously I think you actually both did it wrong but it’s still a shitload of money that any reasonable individual could comfortably retire with. Billionaires have so much money that misplacing a few decimal places here and there hardly even matters.
400,000,000,000 x .0001 = 40,000,000
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=what+is+.01%25+of+400+billion+
If someone dropped 40 million on me tomorrow I’d be happy to fuck off back to whatever rock I crawled out from under
i did 400,000,000,000 * 0.01 the second time i worked it out.
Not sure what i did to get 4.02 billion though
How about we chop him up into 10,000 pieces, and give you all but 1?
So each fired employee saves, let’s say, $75,000. Then each sues the government and wins a $250,000 settlement, and gets their job back. Of course the government spends $300,000 on lawyers for each case. The savings practically leap into our pockets!
Don’t forget that the money isn’t going to be circulating in the economy either so those taxes are right out.
It’s an ouroborus - a self feeding problem that will always be able to Boogeyman the problem it caused. Those employees will then be painted as wasting money by tying up courts for settlements, decried like the McDonald’s coffee incident all over again.
They deserve to get every penny of that too; it’s a stupidity tax.
While the decision is limited to those six workers, its implication is that all, or nearly all, of the mass firings of probationary government workers by President Donald Trump violate the laws regulating government employment
It’s only for the trainees at present, not sure why the title exaggerated
Excellent username.
At least in four years they can blame the democrats
I found out yesterday the government employees who received a promotion are also put on probation. Someone I know was fired after 20years of service just for the crime of being a good enough employee to deserve a promotion.
So they didn’t even just limit it to new-hire probationary employees, but also included people who just entered a new title after being an employee for years?
So so so fucking dumb.
If we still have a functioning government and legal system after all of this is said and done, the federal government will be paying out billions of dollars in (completely reasonable) lawsuits.
Super efficient.
It’s because there would be an even bigger immediate legal shit show if they fired anyone who wasn’t probationary. They only fired who they could get their hands on right now.
It’s easy to miss that kind of thing without testing. Traditionally it’s been considered a decent idea to spend more than six seconds firing thousands of people.
Was probably put on “supervisory probation” which is for all new supervisors. I.e., its not just an increase in pay due to increased skills/duties.
I know someone in the same boat and I was wondering if they would get caught in all this stupidity as well.
But the DOGE guys are so cool. That guy is the next Tony Stark with a totally huge penis. And those children running the day to day workings of DOGE definitely slay pussy. Not punchable faces at all!
Okay, Adrian Dittman.
Andrian Dittman AKA Andrian Dickman also has a big normal penis that all the ladies love.
