In a letter sent on Thurs to employees who had been fired, the #Trump admin cited “the government’s convenience” as a reason for the terminations. The employees were under so-called personal services contracts, making them easier to let go than regular full-time employees with full #CivilService protections.

"Modern civilisation has a number of extremely delicate and highly interconnected components whose graceful degradation is effectively impossible."

It is "much easier to break things than to build them up. The government administrations of Britain, France and Germany for example, were set up at a time in the nineteenth century when the rising middle classes demanded a properly functioning state[…]. It took perhaps a generation for professional, neutral public services to fully emerge."

"Forty years of globalised neoliberalism have broken our societies, our economies and our political systems, and we no longer have the ability to put them back together."

https://braveneweurope.com/aurelien-the-end

Major structural changes to #State would be accompanied by #layoffs of both career #diplomats, known as foreign service officers, & #CivilService employees, who usually work in the dept’s HQ in DC…. The dept would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave & sending out notices of termination….

The draft #Trump EO calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, & it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”

President #Biden rescinded the order after he took office, but after taking office again in Jan, #Trump signed a new EO reinstating & renaming it.

Trump & his allies laid the groundwork for a new admin stocked w/ #loyalists. #ScheduleF was a significant part of that plan.

Many of the Trump allies who pushed for Schedule F now have key roles in the admin, including Dpty Chief of Staff #StephenMiller & #OMB Dir #RussVought.

Such #CivilServants in #nonpartisan roles traditionally have had #JobProtections that shielded them from the political whims of whoever was in the White House.

But #Trump & many of his backers have long believed the #ConspiracyTheories that a "deep state" of Washington bureaucrats was undercutting his agenda.

Toward the end of his first term, Trump signed an EO establishing a #ScheduleF category for federal employees.

#OPM's new rule—dubbed "Schedule Policy/Career"—will allow many career #CivilServants to be classified as "#AtWill" employees, making them easier to remove.

#Trump aides argue they need greater flexibility to fire civil servants who are *underperforming*, engaging in *misconduct* or *undermining* Trump's policy plans.

>2 centuries later, the system…has comprehensively failed. The people & institutions that are supposed to check #ExecutivePower are refusing to restrain #Trump. We now have a de facto #tyrant who thinks he can bend reality to his will w/o taking any facts or evidence into consideration, & w/o listening to any contrary views. Although the economic damage…is easier to measure, he has inflicted the same level of harm to #scientific #research, #CivilLiberties, #healthcare, & the #CivilService.

For that reason, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that #Trump’s lawyers—despite running roughshod over #Congress, the #states, the #press, & the #CivilService—were somewhat slower to defy the federal courts, & have fast-tracked cases to #SCOTUS, seeking a judicial imprimatur for novel #PresidentialPowers. The #courts, unlike the legislature, remain useful to an #autocrat in a #DualState.

"The team is now moving faster than many of the #legal efforts to stop it, making drastic changes that could be hard to unwind even if they are ultimately constrained by the #courts. Musk’s associates have pushed out workers, ignored #CivilService protections, torn up contracts & effectively shuttered an entire agency established by #Congress...

#Musk & his crew... now have about all the #passwords they could ever need"
#GiftLink
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/us/politics/musk-federal-bureaucracy-takeover.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U4.t9r3.sBTAws_GSyV3&smid=url-share

…In one early meeting, #Musk said Smith was being too careful & offering “classic consultant stuff.” In discussions, Musk expressed impatience w/Smith’s caution that the team would need a phalanx of lawyers to help w/ #ExecutiveOrders & #regulations. Musk wanted to tear down the government to the studs, & saw Smith’s approach as incremental.

Allies of #Musk, …fanned out across the govt as part of the transition, extracting #intelligence about computer systems, contracts & personnel.

The team is now moving faster than many of the #legal efforts to stop it, making drastic changes that could be hard to unwind even if they are ultimately constrained by the courts. Musk’s associates have pushed out workers, ignored #CivilService protections, torn up contracts & effectively shuttered an entire agency established by Congress: the #USAID.

The plan for his #DOGE was mapped out in a series of closely held meetings in Palm Beach, FL, & through early #intelligence-gathering efforts in Washington.

Without ceding control of his companies, the richest man in the world has embedded his engineers & aides inside the government’s critical #digital #infrastructure, moving with a swiftness that has stunned #CivilServants.

US Dist Judge William Alsup ordered #OPM to rescind its prior directives to #FederalAgencies including the Dept of #Defense, the #Park Service, Bureau of #Land Management, National #Science Foundation, & others. The ruling is one of the biggest roadblocks so far to #Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce.