Josh Marshall posted this a few minutes ago:
There are probationary employees who are new in government service and those who are labeled as probationary because of a job switch but who have continuous government service prior to their current job. If you are in that latter category and are fired as a probationary employee in these category terminations taking place now there is a good chance your termination was illegal. And it is illegal in a way that courts will vindicate. Obviously there are details and nuances about how this works. But if this applies to you you should at least speak with an attorney who knows this area of law. There’s a good chance you have a case and can receive compensation and/or reinstatement.
When I heard that “probationary employees” are being fired, I assumed that King Elon’s incel army had figured a way to legally fire a good number of employees, but I didn’t know that the Federal Government had such a broad definition of “probationary”. (My experience is at a state university, where once you got past your first probationary period, that was it.)
Josh also reports that 300 are out at the National Cancer Institute. It’s clear that the Muskrats aren’t really abiding by the spirit of the court orders enjoining them from firing everyone in sight, and I’m sure they aren’t really abiding by the letter when they think they can get away with it. And, of course, they can.
One of the many, many pressure points where the unpopularity of these firings/non-hirings is going to be manifest to anyone looking is National Parks, where the hiring of camp hosts was frozen, and National Forests, where 3,400 probationary employees (10% of all employees) are getting the axe. The Muskovite claim is that those employees aren’t in public safety (including firefighting), but those jobs also include people who maintain roads and trails, and maintain watersheds, that are critical to fire fighting. Here’s someone on reddit who works in the Forest Service and says that he’s fought fires with employees not classified as firefighters.
Every bad thing that happens later came from something King Elon and his vassal Trump did now. We just need a functional opposition party to keep hammering that home.
Speaking of home, that’s where the Senate went this weekend, after no fewer than 3 unanimous consent votes yesterday that let 3 Trump appointees move forward. Remember, all that needs to stop unanimous consent is one Senator objecting. The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik, was confirmed with zero Democratic votes. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, was confirmed with a bunch of Democratic votes. (Click the link to see the roll call.) The National Forest Service is under the Department of Agriculture (National Parks are under Interior), so members of our “team” were voting for Trump’s nominee while King Elon was firing 10% of his department. Kelly Loeffler’s nomination to become SBA administration also made it through cloture with zero Democratic votes. Then they unanimously consented to leave town, since one thing all Senators can reach bipartisan agreement on is that they don’t like to work on Fridays. And, as we all know, the best kind of agreements are bipartisan.
Open thread.
