The inauguration was exactly 4 weeks ago.
Let’s use the this thread to share real world consequences of this administration’s actions.
Consequences to our own BJ peeps. Consequences to friends and family. Consequences to organizations we are part of.
Let’s document the personal consequences, 4 weeks in.
I’ll start. One of my nonprofit clients had a $50,000 contract cancelled last week – with work already in progress and expenses incurred. That’s not just money lost, that $50k that can’t be used to pay the salary of one employee.
Not an open thread.
Update: I hope that those of you on social media will share a link to this post. Let’s make it easier for everyone to understand the impact this is having on real people, even if they are not yet experiencing the impact personally. I believe this will all trickle down to every single non-rich person in the country.
ExPatExDem
A person close to me had an offer of Federal employment rescinded immediately following the administration change.
NotMax
Open thread?
Happy 97th to MomMax.
97 is the new 95. ;)
Gloria DryGarden
My friend at a university said her grant writer has been cut, and one of the deans there is having his chemical synthesis research cut because one of the very technical words in his research title has the prefix hetero-, so they figure it’s DEI involved.
Suzanne
My projects are getting hit with tariffs. Re-evaluating concrete vs. steel. Extending construction timelines. Exploring prefabrication. Always possible to reduce scope — which means fewer hospital beds, ORs, etc.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
Happy birthday to your mom.
edited
Lynn Dee
I had a doctor’s appointment on Jan. 31. My doctor’s daughter, who was living in Colorado and working for the Forestry Service, had already received her deferred resignation/buyout offer. I don’t know what happened with that or what she decided to do, but as of Jan. 31, she sounded (as related by her mom) resigned to having to leave a job she loved.
Redshift
A friend’s wife is expecting the ax to fall. She’s one of the feds who had worked for the government for ten years but is “probationary in get new job, meaning they think they can get away with firing her but they actually can’t. If it happens, they’ll have to decide whether it’s worth a legal flight to keep a job that’s probably going to be miserable for the next four years.
raven
I posted this yesterday.
I was unjustly and illegally fired from my job along with tens of thousands of other federal employees. (But honestly, if you care about me or the state of our country, please read this.)
In this picture, I am performing a public service. A public service that the National Institute for Food and Agriculture deemed important enough to grant our unit enough money to specifically hire someone to do. The work I’m doing here directly impacts the livelihoods of growers, the production of alfalfa seed and hay, the dairy and livestock industries, and $11 billion of US agricultural production. Do you drink milk, eat cheese, or use butter? My work helps you. Does your horse eat alfalfa? My work helps you. Do you care about “saving the bees”? My work helps you. Do you care about what pesticides are used and how safe they are? My work helps you.
Nevertheless, last night I received an email stating: “Based on your performance, you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest. For this reason, the Agency informs you that the Agency is removing you from your position”.
The agency in question is the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, for whom I have worked for the last 10 months. During that time, I have received glowing performance reviews from my supervisors, including a performance award. I have submitted 3 scientific manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals. I have been awarded $25,000 from stakeholders to continue this research. I spent two months in rural eastern Washington, sweating in over 100° heat every day to collect essential data. This termination is not based on my performance.
My direct supervisors had no say in this termination. My direct supervisors’ boss’ boss’ boss had no say in this termination. They also will not have the opportunity to file, fill out, or sign any of my termination paperwork, as is typical in this process. Instead, all of that will be handled by HR headquarters in Washington, DC. In other words, the paperwork that officially states that I am being fired for poor performance will be filled out and signed off by people who have had no possible way to assess my performance.
My job, as do most jobs, came with a probationary period, during which my performance would be assessed to determine my “fitness or qualifications for continued employment”. In my position this was 1 year. In other federal positions this can be up to 3 years. While this is a probationary period, employees can still only be terminated under specific circumstances related to their fitness for the position. https://www.ecfr.gov/…/subchapter-B/part-315/subpart-H
The President, DOGE, and Elon Musk are saying that these cuts are to increase efficiency and the federal budget. These are blatant lies.
1. If this was about efficiency, they would have taken the time to actually assess people’s performances. Instead, they are unanimously slashing the (typically) most motivated part of the workforce giving little to no notice to employees, supervisors, or even higher-ups. This is causing chaos, panic, and an extreme decrease in efficiency. This is part of their plan. They cause the inefficiency and then point to the agencies and say “Look at how inefficient they are!” For example, because I have been fired and we’re on a hiring freeze, there will be no one to perform the mission-critical work I was doing. The money that NIFA granted our unit over a year ago to do this job will sit in an account and gather dust, because it is legally not allowed to be used for anything else. Yes, I agree this is inefficient. But this is inefficient, because of the way the executive branch + Musk are operating.
2. Which brings me to my 2nd point. If this was about the money, I would still have a job. I was paid by a grant that was already paid out to our unit over a year ago. This is not money appropriated by Congress. This is a very specific amount of money set aside for a very specific purpose on a very specific 3 year timeline. As I said above, it cannot be used for anything else. Additionally, the majority of the workforce that was terminated are those that are lower on the pay scale! Mainly folks that make less than $100k/year and many less than half that. If this was truly about money, is targeting the lower end of the <4% of the entire budget allotted to federal salaries really the way to save “trillions”?
When Trump, Musk, and their friends are talking about “trimming the fat”, “dumping the waste”, or “lazy federal employees”. They’re talking about me and people just like me.
When the richest man in the world is responsible for tens of thousands of hardworking Americans performing a public service for you and your country losing their livelihoods with less than 24h notice, it’s time to think about if he truly has your best interest in mind.
If you voted for Trump and this upsets you, call your state and local representatives and TELL THEM. Please, it’s the only way we can get this to stop.
If you voted for Trump and this doesn’t upset you, then maybe reflect some more on what they’re doing to our country.
If you have questions or would like further information or clarification, feel free to ask in a respectful manner.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for caring. Please help us stop this.
!
bk
Social Security retirement deposits that are yet to be received.
Redshift
Ms. Redshift is assuming the National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship she’s gotten for the last few years is gone, along with a NSF grant she’d been told her research works be a good fit for, since her research focuses on people other than white men.
There are other threats, but that’s what is definite and concrete at the moment.
Themyscira 4 Ever
My company is wrestling with what to do with a new regulation we were preparing to comply with probably no longer exists, since the federal agency that controls it probably no longer exists.
Themyscira 4 Ever
Also, I’m not sure I will be able to get a new passport with my new legal name, much less with my preferred gender.
dc
The giant, public university where I work has implemented a hiring freeze until it can figure out what’s going on with research grants and all DEI initiatives have been eliminated or reorganized.
Lobo
National security: I know minorities and women are reassessing the service academies. Is it worth the possible harassment and hassle that is probably going to be present. US military eating its seed corn.
me
My cousin, a research doctor at a big public university, was laid off for a day last week as apparently her funding was cut then restored. I’m not sure of the details but it doesn’t bode well for the future.
brendancalling
Oh, I’ve got quite a few.
I’ll start with my usual, which most of you already know: my kid, who is trans and a dual citizen of the US and Canada, recently let her US passport expire due to the “only two sexes” thing. She is also far less likely to visit me in the US, and while I love visiting Montreal it’s an expensive trip.
My best friend’s wife works for USAID. She’s the primary breadwinner, he’s a stay at home dad to their young children. They are seething and worried.
My dad is a programmer for a company that contracts with the FAA. No idea what happens to THAT job. My g/f is supposed to fly out to Utah this summer for her summer job scoring college essays. She’s not sure she’s going to go, because she doesn’t want to die in a plane crash.
I’m a public school teacher. Trump’s DOE cuts will hurt my disabled and low-income kids, which my school has a lot of. This is on top of the fact that already I have to worry about ICE targeting my students and their families. At least one of my Latino is carrying a “know your rights” card in his pocket, and I’m sure many others are as well.
Independence Historic Park in Philly is closed, and I’m sure that means related NPS sites in our city, like the Betsy Ross House, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell, will also shut down too.
I’m on Welbutrin, and Ol’ Brainworms says he’s coming for my meds. And, he wants to put people like me in a camp.
I’m sure I could list more, but I would enjoy it if the GOP collectively were packed into a couple of shipping containers, strapped to some SpaceX rockets, and launched straight into the Sun.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Happy Birthday to your mom.
I wish she could be celebrating it in less interesting times. Lucky girl. Came in with a depression, and about to experience a second. Not to mention: the return of Nazis and all they represent!
Good times. But I do wish her a happy. She may have a very interesting perspective on all this.
humanadverb
I work in special education in California, and immigration sweeps started to impact our kids and their families even before the inauguration. A week or so before, ICE started raising their profile in brown neighborhoods and grocery stores. Since then, there have been sweeps. None of our kids or their parents have been picked up yet, but we’ve got a ton not coming to school out of fear.
I’ve been going crazy at all the “Trump can’t actually deport all of those people” chortling because that was never the real objective. It was always fear. And a bunch of kids are declining to assert their civil rights and get an education because the fear is working.
Oh, and we’re waiting for another shoe to drop when Trump starts gutting education. Even though a lot of education is funded locally, special education relies on the feds for money and for civil rights enforcement so district do the right (often expensive) thing. We hear “you’re really going to spend this much money on one kid?” at school board meetings often. Expect the answer to be “no.”
raven
@bk: I got mine last week.
FDRLincoln
A) A friend who works in autism research lost the grant that funds his job.
B) They just laid off 30% of the workers at Haskell Indian Nations University, a major employer in my town. This included several instructors and will cripple university operations across the board.
C) The funding for the social services agency my wife works for was frozen; so far they are still afloat, but perhaps not for much longer.
Themyscira 4 Ever
@brendancalling: My son found an internship at Valley Forge National Park. Turns out it’s unpaid and is to replace fired employees.
Redshift
@raven: The sheer evil of someone who can think “the regulations say we can only fire them if they’re underperforming, so let’s just make our form email say they’re all underperforming!”
Anyone who still buys that this is about “efficiency” or saving money is being willfully ignorant.
The Crimson Pimpernel
This is a good idea. Sadly, it might need to be a regular feature.
Geminid
I was talking to my Atlanta friend yesterday and he said his youngest daughter was laid off last week. She was employed by a small non-profit that has a contract with USAID; they were working on malaria prevention.
WaterGirl
@The Crimson Pimpernel: I thought I might do it once a month. And yes, it is sad.
Seems like it might be more productive in changing “hearts and minds” to document the harm to people rather than just talk about the awfulness of people in power that they like?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I posted yesterday that a gamer friend of mine back in the KC area, one of the few gamers who is not a glibertarian or rwnj, was tossed from Haskell Indian Nations Univ in Lawrence. He was probational, had worked damned hard to get the position, is a great teacher and human being. He didn’t deserve it.
A week prior, another person in that general gamer group had barged into my FB page yammering about how all of this simply represented getting rid of “deadweight and corruption”. What. An. Asshole.
My cousin, really the only one I’m close with, has been a post-doc resurchur at Michigan in Ann Arbor, does a lot of brain research. Their funding stream was one of the first ones frozen. When she announced this on FB, rwnjs either friends she has or family from the other side of the family not related to ours, weighed in with a lot of the same crap. I’m amazed she didn’t block them into oblivion.
WaterGirl
@raven: Thanks so much for that, raven.
What is the source of that? If there’s a link to the source in there, I missed it.
WaterGirl
@Themyscira 4 Ever: I’m sorry.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: That’s a lot.
WaterGirl
These comments are heartbreaking, and enraging, but please keep them coming. We have to talk about the real people who are being hurt.
Phylllis
@brendancalling: I don’t know how we proceed when everything about ESEA/ESSA, IDEA, and to a great extent Carl D. Perkins is predicated on equity and inclusion. Seems like all these programs are illegal based on the Dear Colleague letter sent Friday.
I’ll be interested to hear what folks report back from the National ESSA conference being held in Austin later this week.
Alce _e_ardillo
I have a non binary child.
That in itself should be enough.
Phylllis
I don’t know how we proceed with any of our federal programs after Friday’s Dear Colleague letter, since the premise of Title I, IDEA, and even Carl D. Perkins is…equity and inclusion.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/2/17/2304298/-The-Heroic-Groups-Leading-the-Lawsuits-Against-the-Musk-Coup
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
One positive consequence here.
In multiple recent events with leadership, our CEO and CPO (Chief People Officer) both affirmed the company’s commitment to our diversity initiatives. Our Diversity Coordinator is cautiously pleased with the executive tier’s response to recent events.
Phylllis
I’m at a loss on how we proceed with Title I, IDEA, and even Career & Technology programs after Friday’s Dear Colleague letter, because the underlying premise of all of them is…equity and inclusion.
Also, they’ve gutted the OCR staff; who are folks supposed to complain to?
JoeyJoeJoe
I have a job with the federal government in DC. An opening for a supervisor position was pulled from USA jobs. Admittedly not really a harm, as I do have my job, for now anyway. Bigger deal is that probationary employees just got fired, meaning that there will be fewer people in my office to do the work. In addition, the fired employees won’t get to partake in the chocolates I brought from Utah and will bring to the office on Tuesday.
As for me directly, my office has received a lot of emails from the top of my agency with anti DEI messages and crap. I also have to consider the possibility that I’ll get fired if the mass terminations hit non probationary employees
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Gloria DryGarden: Remember when social media blocked “breast” searches and in doing so walled off breast cancer information? Plus ca change…
Professor Bigfoot
I have a trans grandson that I worry about every day.
stinger
Yes, thank you, WaterGirl.
Jeffg166
@raven:
I thought about that last night and decided your problem was you are a woman and to their minds a DEI hire. If you were male it might not have happen. Who knows at this point.
MobiusKlein
I don’t understand how it is legal to have a mass purge of recent hires, saying the all are underperforming.
SC54HI
@brendancalling: So glad about your kid. So thankful that my spouse is a dual citizen (US & Canada) and especially thankful that our adult kid is now also a dual citizen. Weʻre telling our Canadian family not to come to the US for the duration, if possible. It’s not safe here.
Impacts: friend at the university who had to fire their grad student workers because the USDA grant funds (*already obligated*) they were paid from got pulled. Said students will now lose their tuition waivers, probably causing them to drop out since they can’t manage grad school without them.
Longtime friend in a non-DOD agency here who got the fork-you email and is retiring this month but not before watching hundreds of their co-workers get the ax this past week.
No word yet on the DOD agencies here but would guess that civilian workers in environmental areas are high on the lists.
Waiting to see what happens with the federal contracting money that supplies a lot of work to the private company I’ve been with for years.
SH
@brendancalling:
Hi. Thank you for mentioning the meds. I am also on that med and hope it will continue. We are preparing for other stuff also
I’m glad I got my SS but don’t know if I will get my 500 IRS and the 2000 SS mistake-fix they gave me quickly last year
Shsron
Miss Bianca
Let’s not forget our own lamh47, who’s shared her story of her job being RIF’d out of existence only days ago.
Betty
One of 700,000 Americans living overseas who had their Social Security benefits stopped, presumably for not filing the annual status form. I most definitely did send in the form on time. So who knows whether it is Elon or some other glitch in the system. It’s still impossible to get through to the international office and the regional office has not responded to my email.
rusty
Found out this morning that my work colleague’s daughter, who was hired in December by the Dept. of Agriculture, moved to Arkansas and signed a year long lease three weeks ago, has been laid off. My second daughter’s plus one who graduated with her PhD last spring, has been doing a post-doc and is slated to start her tenure track assistant professorship, is now worried her offer will be rescinded given NSF funding. Same daughter is guessing her proposed med school/MPH capstone project on health disparities in minority communities won’t be funded. Across the extended family are 4 or 5 professors in various STEM fields (neuroscience, developmental science, agricultural science) that are now uncertain about grant funds. Most are near or at retirement age, so they may just say the hell with it and retire, even though they all wanted to continue at least a few more years. The third daughter will graduate in a year with a teaching degree in music. Her program has had 100% placement for years, but all that is uncertain if federal education funding disappears. The arts will be the first to go in school systems. Finally, in the near and extended family, there are members that include most of the letters in the LGBTQ+ community, including T. They are worried about the ability to marry, discrimination, and harassment.
raven
@WaterGirl: She posted it on the evil FB.
Rose Judson
@Phylllis: This is going to be a massive issue for one of my clients, too.
David_C
Three review papers I am a coauthor on are spiked (hopefully temporarily) but one giant literature paper that took a lot of work and was accepted for publication won’t see the light of day for 4 years, and I’m not allowed to discuss why (but something about radiation and effects on various people).
One colleague lost an analytical chemist who oversees the program that ensures that drugs used in cancer clinical trial meet standards.
I don’t know how the “performance” justification will withstand appeal when employees have had excellent performance reviews (just done in January). It’s worth using appeals as “sand in the gears.”
mvr
When we moved here 30 years ago we shared a duplex wall with a couple and their not quite two year old son. We have kept in touch. We watched him and his sister grow up. They’re both lovely people. The son has some issues with math and it took him a while to get a college degree because of this and he has always had some trouble finding work that suits him. Within the past several years he found a job working with refugees that he loves. This enabled him to move into his own place. Lincoln (I hear) has more refugees per capita than anywhere. I believe he works for that Lutheran Charity that King Elon posted about as a supposed instance of fraud/waste/something-or-other-that-he-doesn’t-like. I’m rather sure that one way or another he loses his job. His mom was already worried last Fall.
I’m sure this is illegal. I suspect the charity has a case, since King Elon seems to have based his accusation on the fact that they were a Lutheran charity. (What other information did he have?) Recently the Supremes have bent over backwards to exempt religious organizations from regulations just because they are religious even when the rationale for the regulation is not. So surely they must affirm old precedent that defunding a group because it is religious when the money is not spent on religious instruction is also illegitimate.
Victor Matheson
My church had $10K in checks stolen from its mailbox and TD Bank allowed the thieves to deposit these checks into their own account despite the fact they were written out to the church. Police reports were filed and the suspect identified but only after they had disappeared with all of the money.
But here’s the kicker. For more than a year, TD Bank refused to refund the money from the checks they illegally cashed. The only thing that got our money back was filing complaints with the CFPB. We still have a $2000 check that was never refunded, and now we have no further access to CFPB.
Another Scott
A work colleague’s SIL is a lawyer with a social non-profit. She was considering a new job offer with the DOJ back in November, after the election. She decided not to take it.
In addition to the horrible effects on people working in the federal government who are victims of these stupid and probably illegal actions, there are long term opportunity costs for the institutions and for people who were considering the civil service. Recruitment costs will increase. People who are interested in public service will have to think longer and harder about the increased risks. And that’s before considering the effect on institutional effectiveness and productivity. It’s very, very damaging.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: There is a new PS-100 Standard. I have no clue what that means. Some architect I know was asked to read the new standard to find out how it differs from the old one. They were clicking on links in the presentation, and the links are dead because the new administration took down the web pages being referenced. And there are references to government employees in charge of the standard. Are those folks still employed? It is all a mystery.
Nina
I have a good friend who’s a sign language interpreter who was fired on Day 1, because Inclusion Is Bad
JaySinWA
@raven: My SS deposit arrived last week as well.
I have relatives that get healthcare through the VA, some pretty strong Trumpers. I haven’t heard from them yet.
@Betty: I wonder if the annual status forms postings are being lost or held up by the DOGE clowns. OTOH any normal glitch in the system will become suspect because of them. What’s the congressional representation for expat Americans? It seems like an appropriate call for constituent services, if you could get through to them.
Pilgrimtraveler
A lawyer friend who has been defending the defrauded at CFPB was told to stop all work. When I last talked with him a couple of days ago, he was not sure how long he would have a job. — My sister, an infectious disease doc and researcher, is uncertain whether a CDC grant funding her work will remain in place.
artem1s
my job is directly impacted by NIH and other federal awards. Cuts in indirect rates and award dollars have the most direct impact on me. We are in budgeting for our next fiscal year and are still dealing with deficits due to downturns in enrollment during COVID and afterwards. We have not formally announced hiring and pay freezes but I suspect those will be coming in the next month or two. ‘Downsizing’ options will be assessed sometime before June 30. I suspect all private and state universities, hospitals, state and local social service agencies, and nonprofits will be going thru a similar process. I’ll probably be ‘allowed’ to retire instead but that will effectively lower my pension payout and I will not be allowed to be vested back in if I’m rehired at any point.
Potentially we could see double digit unemployment in OH (thanks DeWine for that EO requiring state workers to police co-workers genitals before they can use the state building bathrooms, that will really help the massive deficit you’ll leave us with). Health care institutions will have to shutter operation in rural areas leaving hundreds of thousands with no local healthcare. The last time OH had this kind of unemployment thousands lost their homes during the W Great Recession due to predatory lenders. This time those people will have no homes to mortgage to tide them over and will likely not be able to afford rent and will become homeless. Cities and counties will see thousands of vacant and tax delinquent properties that will be bringing no revenue into their communities via property taxes. Municipalities across the state will have to go into deficit spending and cutbacks.
The health care industry across the country will be impacted by cutting the institutional knowledge of the workforce of the NIH, NFS, HHS, DoD (funded early research into modified RNA), DoE, FDA, CDC, EPA, NOAA, FEMA, SSN, Medicare, Medicaid, and the list goes on. Everyone in the country will be impacted by these cuts. Healthcare (17.6% GDP) and social safety networks in the nonprofit sector (11% GDP) is where the impacts will be felt immediately by most people. I do not think it is hyperbolic to say that if these Federal agencies are razed the whole country, and especially the Midwest, SE, and SW will be looking at double digit unemployment whether they are red or blue.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Yes, I was thinking about lamh this morning. I have been hoping she would chime in here, maybe she still will.
WaterGirl
@Betty: What????
WaterGirl
@raven: But who is the “she”?
I didn’t see it when you posted the comment yesterday, so maybe there was some context there, that I’m missing?
Eric S.
I manage a team at a Midwest utility that facilitates customers receiving LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program). Ninety percent of this fiscal year’s funding has been released to the states.* That last 10% is typically released in the Spring. No one is expecting to get it.
* I get conflicting answers from the various states we work with if they can still access the 90% or if the Muskrats have cut that off. I think it’s related to each state having variations in how they administer the program but I haven’t been able to confirm that hypothesis.
Eric S.
@NotMax: happy birthday, Momma!
Starfish (she/her)
@WaterGirl: I am seeing a number of things like this on LinkedIn.
Eric S.
Also, too #1: my company negotiated a large loan guarantee to build renewable power generation with the Biden admin. That’s in hold and no one knows what’s going to happen. Less clean energy. Less jobs.
Also, too#2: We distributed natural gas to heat homes and businesses. A lot of that gas comes from our northern neighbors. The tariffs are likely to drive up utility bill prices.
ciotogist
My cousin works at the CFPB and was fired last week.
Redshift
@MobiusKlein:
It’s not; they’re counting on people deciding it’s too hard to fight with not enough chance of success.
OlFroth
So far, nothing has happened yet, but I work as a paraprofessional at my local middle school. I’m a classroom aide for 7th graders with IEP’s and 504 accommodations. A huge amount of funding for special education comes from the Federal Government via the Department of Education. We’re all worried, as we’ve seen some commentary that these kids should be warehoused somewhere (like in the bad old days) instead of “the taxpayers” having to deal with them.
Another Scott
@raven: @WaterGirl:
The original was from Michelle Kirchner on FB (reposted by Moms Clean Air Force).
HTH.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
Thanks for this post, WG, and I hope you make it a regular feature.
I hope highlighting the effects of the Trump 2 administration’s actions catches on more widely.
My decent Dem congressperson sent me an email Sunday about the price of eggs. Not disputing that, the struggles of people trying to make ends meet and the real fear of the related bird flu epidemic but FFS, there are thousands of people who are losing their jobs, vets losing their benefits, people being round up, kids afraid of going to school, people worrying about their tax refunds, earned benefits and identify theft…I emailed him asking him to please focus on the real and terrifying things happening in our country the least of which is fucking eating eggs.
Dougboy
My daughter and son-in-law both work in higher ed administration, one at a private school and one at a state school. While the impact isn’t clear right now, there is obviously fear that the Flying Monkey Squad will shut down or limit campus initiatives that both of them work on.
Another family member finished law school less than a year ago and took at position as a staff attorney at a DC agency. This person is not sanguine about the status of the agency or his job, given his “probationary” status.
Redshift
@Jeffg166:
Nope, they were just getting pushback from courts and lawsuits on their “we’ll just fire everyone” actions, so they decided they had found a loophole because probationary employees didn’t have full civil service protections, and set about firing all of them instead.
The anti-civil rights effort (they wrap it in the opaque DEI language, but the real goal is to make discrimination great again) is ongoing, but it’s not the only goal. There are also separate goals to destroy any programs that are against their ideology (climate change and clean energy, helping anyone other than white ‘muricans, etc.), and claim enough “savings” from the cuts to things that are “wasteful and unnecessary” to give them a fig leaf for giving billionaires a big tax cut.
Redshift
@Victor Matheson: I hope you’ve sent that story to all of your federal representatives and Elizabeth Warren.
JetsamPool
I work for an organization that receives funding from the federal government as a private contractor. Our funding was restored a week or so after the injunction, but our contract is up for renewal and the government agencies we work with are also set for steep cuts. So we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the anvil to fall, pick your metaphor. I’m not optimistic.
That goal of a $2 trillion funding cut exceeds the entirety of the discretionary spending part of the federal budget (based on 2023 numbers), so it would be a safe bet that they are going after mandatory spending next.
This whole business reminds me of McCarthy’s speech: “I have here in my hand … a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party”. Just substitute DOGE and DEI! waste! fraud! abuse! for Sec of State and Communists.
Kelly
@Redshift: I am not a lawyer but the mass “you fired for poor performance of your job” letters might not be the loophole they think it is. The Muskovites probably think all those junior employees will lack the money to sue or will not want to go back to the unreliable federal job.
raven
@Another Scott: She works with a friend who also was fired as research entomologist at the USDA Forest service.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Thank you!
Belafon
@Sure Lurkalot: They’re not appealing to you. The price of eggs is what people who aren’t paying attention to politics see.
moops
Are any of these “severance” packages actually going to get paid? We have no budget item for such a thing in the federal government unless it is appropriated.
Emily B.
I work as an administrator at a large research university. Not sure yet how much the various federal funding cuts will affect the particular school I work in, but I am concerned about whether I will have a job in six months—and if I do, how much the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion efforts will affect how I do my job.
My church has an affiliation with a local immigrant support network. We’re trying to prepare for potential ICE raids on the food pantry or during the weekly Spanish service.
WaterGirl
@Emily B.: Can ICE legally raid a church? What about sanctuary?
Glidwrith
I have a non-binary adult child who has official CA ID with an X gender marker. They are required as part of their college degree program to travel abroad. No passport, no travel, no degree.
Husband oversees multiple after school programs- they’ve already had multiple raids by ICE, but knew the fuckers weren’t allowed to access student records and got lawyers involved.
Me? I’m facing the destruction of my entire industry. My company supplies reagents and cells for academic and private research. All that grant money pays for the supplies we sell.
My own personal projects concern supplying dopaminergic neurons for Parkinson’s disease, GABA neurons for everything from ADHD, autism and schizophrenia, and a therapeutic to protect cancer patients from kidney damage and hearing loss during chemotherapy.
God damn these fucking insane small-minded whiny bigoted little shits.
Thor Heyerdahl
Friends and friends of friends working in NIH or doing medical work in USAID. Such heartbreak for those trying to provide care to the sick who live in desperate situations of poverty, war, or as refugees.
OlFroth
@WaterGirl: IIRC, there is no actual “sanctuary” law. Its just that historically, law enforcement has generally respected the sanctity of places of worship.
Emily B.
@WaterGirl: Trump has revoked a longstanding ICE policy against making arrests at places of worship, hospitals, and schools. Here’s a case where a man was detained at his church during services.
lamh47
@WaterGirl:
@Miss Bianca:
Thanks for thinking of me. I won’t burden you all with my story again, but I will give an update to it from today.
I emailed my mgr over the weekend (a series of emails actually, but the first 2 I apologized for because the tone was a bit harsh, especially knowing that she likely had no idea it was happening so soon). She called this morning from her personal cell to let me know she had no idea about it until she saw my email with the notice attached.
Not surpringly, like many managers, she had no idea that the notices were going out and in fact did not have any idea of the content of the notice. Even she was appalled at the language in the letter… basically the claim that my skills and experience and performance was lacking.
She had no new information, but she did provide me with an email for HR to find out the next steps. She also said that she did not agree with what the notice was saying about my performance and that I could 100% use her for a reference and gave her personal cell to use for contact information.
Really though, I just wanted to let her know I will not be working “on duty” during the remaining 5 business days (the letter dated 2/14 meant I had 10 days, but with the federal holiday, 10 days turned into 7 really quickly, and 5 if you count business days). I didn’t want her to so don’t expect me to be working for the next 5 days. The letter said I will get paid through 2/24 and would be placed on administrative leave until then…so I told her that’s what I plan to do.
Right. Anyhoo gonna be another day of applications and calls to bill folks so I can have some grace periods. It’s good that now I can add the mgr for references. Also tomorrow I may no longer have access to my work stuff including email so I’ve got to send emails today.
prostratedragon
I know people who have lost new hires, and possibly valued administrating team members; a major added insult to these injuries is the lack of clarity about some of the latter situations. They are also being hampered by the blocks on certain internal communications.
@NotMax: Many happy returns to your mother! Anyway!
strange visitor (from another planet)
oy. ok.
1) my partner is flying out on a vacation right after they put the axe to hundreds of FAA employees in the midst of a rash of air-disasters. terrified that her planes might crash.
2) she’s a public school teacher. i’m worried that she might lose her job.
3) i’m disabled, bipolar, dependent on medicare and medicaid for meds and treatment. i live on (a meager amount of) SSI. every day of every month is going to be an existential crisis for those programs and those who DEPEND on those programs for the ENTIRE length of this horrendous regime. like, every month from now on is going to be a visit to high-anxiety city.
4) i have crohn’s, so i’m immuno-compromised thanks to the treatment- putting idiots in charge of the health agencies while cutting the staff at the same time means i’m masking up everywhere there’s even a hint of a crowd.
5) i’m ridiculously poor painfully under-employed and looking for work. the economy is about to writhe and twitch like a falling snake thanks to these buffoons and their firing sprees which are going to cause just MASSIVE ripple-effects as the fired people stop spending or SEVERELY curtail it, contracting EVERYTHING at the very worst time imaginable…
unless you’re putin or have been having long fireside chats with him.
Steve in the ATL
@Redshift:
Luckily for union employees (did I really just type that?!) is that they have arbitration rights, and arbitrators are sticklers about progressive discipline. If there is no documented record of performance issues, the government won’t win many of these cases.
So in a few months you may see a lot of these people going back to work and made whole for the time off.
Hmmm…maybe I should switch sides….
ETA: assuming that federal arbitration works like private sector arbitration
Sister Golden Bear
@Themyscira 4 Ever: I’m so sorry. I know that pain.
Sister Golden Bear
@MobiusKlein:
It’s not, but it’s the Silicon Valley way all too often. Musk used the same rationale when gutting Twitter, and other companies have as well. It works there because the “you’ll never work in this town again” is a credible threat for those who fight unjust firings. For the federal employees, most of they will have recourse, but it apparently it can take years to fight and win an illegal firing case.
Phylllis
@OlFroth: Education funds are forward-funded, so (as of now, anyway) states and districts have their FY25 funds thru 9/30. If there is no continuing resolution or budget on March 14th, then next year is up in the air.
la caterina
The non-profit where I work depends on direct and indirect federal funding and is an anti-poverty, anti-racist organization. We’ll lose at least a big chunk of our federal funding, which may cause layoffs and reduced services to our clients: tenants, immigrants, DV survivors, homeowners, disabled people, veterans, etc. in need of civil legal services. We are already being investigated for our DEIAB policies.
Sister Golden Bear
The efforts to erase trans people is definitely a reason I ended up going to the ER and then an overnight hospital stay for stress-induced heart issues. (Seeing the cardiologist tomorrow.)
I’m fortunate enough to not feel the direct effects yet — I was able to get my passport and other federal ID (Global Entry and my drone pilot license) processed between the requirement that they use my sex assigned at birth. The ban on trans people using bathrooms on federal property hasn’t affected me yet, but it means I’m on a urinary leash any time I want to visit a national park or forest. The NPS removing any references to trans people at Stonewall is an obvious personal affront, but doesn’t affect my daily life. Threats to put trans women into men’s jails (temporarily blocked) are a reason I don’t feel safe protesting anywhere near federal property.
But… seeing the administration vowing to ban trans people from bathrooms at all private companies, and seeing their plans to ban trans healthcare for adults… yeah, that’s definitely not helping my stress levels.
ceece
My parents’ neighbor has a kid in the Foreign Service, about 10 years in. They and their partner both work for the US govt in a small Asian country (One for State Dept, one for USAID). Since they’ve only been in that country about 1.5 years, they must have some level of probationary status.
As of last week, no jobs, no govt sponsored housing, no govt sponsored schools for their kids, no work phones or computers, no work visas to stay in their assigned country. They’re not even sure if they can bring their adoption-in-process kid back to the US with them right now, if they have to return.
One niece works for the Forest Service, associated with wildfire management. Half her team is gone, they can’t hire seasonal (fire season!) employees, can’t do winter-only fuel management projects. Soon her national forest will be closing campgrounds and trail access, since the camp hosts are seasonal too.
Another niece is in public health, all this year’s epidemic intelligence postdocs (MD/PhD or PhD virologists) just got canned. Probably all the CDC postdoc positions, since they are 1 or 2 years long by definition, but I haven’t heard details about that yet.
prostratedragon
Not necessarily people I know personally, but Emptywheel has a number of bluesky posts today about real consequences, including the firings of inspectors general who had found actual corruption and fraudulence in use of billions in government funds for COVID relief by private entities.
She also links to this op-ed by a former intel community person, from Wisconsin farm country, who saw firsthand how USAID helped protect national security by reducing the incentive for young men to join terrorist militias to eat and feed their children, and also how USAID workers learned methods abroad that now help US farmers cope with environmental change.
ronno2018
Young relative of mine just started in another country with USAID. Has been fired. He will recover and have a great life, but what a loss to our country and the programs he worked on.
It is all so senseless and bad. Sigh.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@raven: I do so hope you will sue to protest your unlawful termination. We need your expertise!
Thank you for everything you have done for all of us whatever you decide.
Karla
I live in a deep red state. All of my state and national representatives are republican. Two of my daughters chose jobs and worked 4/5 days from home instead of on base for the DOD in HR because it saved commute child care time. That ended. Instead they are standing around at the office because there’s not enough space, chairs, or monitors for them on base. A nephew (computer programmer) also worked for the same base from home. His team of 11 now has 9 people actively looking for new jobs since the changes. He is also looking. Supposedly DOD jobs are not being cut. Yet.
My daughter-in-law works as a research faculty member at a university/medical center complex studying diagnosis and treatment of brain cancer in children. NIH grants (now cut) have funded much of her income.
My son-in-law works as a web designer for another university/medical center, creating patient education programs for diagnosis and treatment of genetic issues. His work is funded to an even greater proportion by NIH grants.
My brother-in-law, nearing retirement, works for the Cooperative Extension Service, sharing research info from land-grant universities to farmers and homeowners. His work is funded both federally and locally, and is subject to the cuts.
My sister works in HR for a private company which is now subject to federally funded lawsuits from anyone in the public who notices anything that could be interpreted as DEI in employment or training. The individual who brings the suit is assured all proceeds from a win (same as lawsuits re: abortion).
My husband and I are retired, thank god. Much of our “secure” “conservative” savings is in US Treasuries, recently threatened by the Trump/Musk administration.
Of my immediate family, the only ones NOT directly impacted by the chaos, are our two musician sons, who depend on gig-income, and our attorney son who runs a nonprofit to help immigrants become documented, and defend them in court. He has told us over the years how awful US immigration is, but even he says, this is much worse. He is not grateful for the extra panic and horror experienced by his clientele.
Incidentally, I have been a lurker for decades, and deeply value this community, even if I haven’t contributed for years.
Karla
We also have two non-binary grandchildren. That would be enough to set us implacably against this regime.
The Red Pen
One of the top military guys on my current project retired a few years ago and took up a civilian position doing the same thing he had been doing in uniform.
This is a project that has been plagued by chaos. My company picked up the contract after the original contractor was fired. This meant that we started our project 6 months behind schedule. He decided “for personal reasons” to take the buyout. That means that not only are we losing continuity on a project that needs it, but we won’t be getting a replacement for this function.
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: Oh, Glidwrith. Fuck these fucking people who are playing with people’s lives without any thought or concern.
Karla
One of the reasons I retired a year early (three years ago) was to help care for my 92 year old farmer father, in the mid-stages of dementia. He is a veteran and a life-long Republican. He was very skeptical of Trump from his first term in office. My sister and I realized a couple of days ago that we have to be careful not to express our outrage and sadness around him. We had been doing so, forgetting we weren’t the only ones in the room, when I looked over and saw the tears seeping from under his closed eyes.
Glidwrith
@ceece: As an FYI, post-docs are the backbone of a good research lab. The Principal Investigator gives direction to the lab and gets the grants, but the post-docs teach the graduate students how to conduct experiments and the protocols to run them. Lose the post-docs, no more lab.
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: And I forgot, son is studying to be an engineer, good enough that the DOD might pay for his education. I haven’t the heart to express any cynicism to him that the scholarship will happen or that as an engineer, the kind of evil a fascist government might require.
The future isn’t set, we will endure, but….fuck.
WaterGirl
@ronno2018:
It really is. They are looting the country.
WaterGirl
@Karla: It’s heartbreaking to read all of these, but I am grateful for every comment. We have to tell our stories.
WaterGirl
@Karla: That’s heartbreaking.
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: You are so right about that.
sxjames
This tread is probably long dead, but I will add my story:
I sit on the board of a non-profit that provides home repair to low income / disabled / veteran homeowners. The purpose is to keep them safe and in their home. We do everything from installing grab bars & smoke detectors to minor repairs & emergency fixes (Help! my furnace quite and its 10 degrees below outside), to large projects like remodeling a house for a new wheelchair user. Once a year we get many community organizations together and do a day of service, mostly painting houses so that home owner associations or mobile home parks don’t serve eviction notices. Anyways, at our last board meeting (just when this sh*t started to go down) out executive director informed us that the freeze would affect at least 25 home owner projects we had lined up. Its maybe a 1/3 of our total projects. Not much we can do until this is resolved. Even then, I full expect that we are going to have to start asking our applicants about their immigration status.
Grrr….
Kayla Rudbek
I’ll report on the estimates from the Patent Office. Someone on r/patentexaminer ran their back-of-envelope calculation of how many patent examiners would quit and how much the patent backlog would go up. Reddit currently isn’t letting me copy the link.
For baseline, there are currently over 8000 patent examiners, attrition rates for new hires in the first two years (probationary period) are about 50% thanks to the production/quota system. Current backlog is about 2.5 years from filing to issued patent (depending somewhat on the technology area).
Back-of-envelope calculation is that about 30% of the senior examiners would quit if forced to return to office, as they currently telework from across the continental USA, and have been doing so for over a decade. The senior examiners handle more cases, train the junior examiners, and frequently sign off on the junior examiners work when the supervisory patent examiners don’t have enough bandwidth. So the backlog would probably double in length of time and go up dramatically in total numbers, and the Patent Office would be wrecked for about a decade thanks to the senior examiners leaving, standard attrition rate for incoming hires, and fewer incoming hires being allowed in the first place.
Of course, Elon would be more than happy to sell the USPTO AI patent examination, which if it’s as crappy as other AI tools in the legal field, would produce absolute garbage patents being awarded. And who knows where all the data from the unpublished patent applications is going with Musk?
WaterGirl
@sxjames: What a great non-profit. Thanks for sharing your story.