Meritocracy or random firings? Over in DOGEland, issues are going nearly as you’d count on: more firings, this time on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the place some 800 probationary staff (out of 13,000 whole staff) are being let go. The Social Safety Administration plans to slash its workforce by half. An workplace throughout the Division of Labor tasked with implementing equal employment alternative legal guidelines is reducing workers by 90 p.c, per inner paperwork. In the meantime, Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) head honcho Elon Musk is tweeting about the way it’s not simply reducing that his group goals to do, but additionally a wholesome little bit of selling.
Tons of of federal staff are being promoted each day each time we encounter excellence. The @DOGE group can be extra clear about this.
The purpose is to make the federal authorities a meritocracy as a lot as doable. https://t.co/ThmWMY28V2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2025
However the way in which DOGE has dealt with these firings in all probability is not the precise technique of attending to meritocracy, sadly. A few of it is because their palms are tied: It is rather, very onerous to fireplace long-time federal staff, whereas it’s a lot simpler to fireplace not too long ago employed probationary staff. A part of the issue is that DOGE—or somewhat, the Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM), which has been tasked with finishing up a variety of the worker audits—seems to probably not have the authority to be doing many of those firings.
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“A federal decide on Thursday ordered the Workplace of Personnel Administration to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary staff throughout the federal government, ruling that the terminations have been in all probability unlawful, as a gaggle of labor unions argued in court docket,” reports The Washington Submit. “Congress has given the authority to rent and hearth to the companies themselves. The Division of Protection, for instance, has statutory authority to rent and hearth,” stated U.S. District Choose William Alsup from the bench. “The Workplace of Personnel Administration doesn’t have any authority in anyway, below any statute within the historical past of the universe, to rent and hearth staff at one other company. They will rent and hearth their very own staff.”
In the meantime, “the Justice Division argued that the president has ‘inherent constitutional authority’ to resolve ‘how greatest to handle the Govt Department, together with whom to rent and take away, what situations to put on continued employment, and what processes to make use of in making these determinations.'” Assistant U.S. lawyer Kelsey Helland stated that the unions objecting to the firings have been “conflating a request from OPM with an order from OPM.” It is all very legally thorny, determining who’s allowed to do what.
However, although it could be lovely to see ineffective elements of the federal paperwork completely destroyed, it bears repeating that mass firings are usually not meritocracy: If DOGE desires to fireplace probationary staff as a result of they’ve fewer employee protections, so be it, however in lots of circumstances, that simply means snuffing out the careers of promising youthful or newer staff—not essentially the least productive staff.
The federal civil service might be shifted from union-protected roles, insulated from penalties for unhealthy efficiency, to at-will staff; Congress has the facility to vary this at any time. (Bills to do so have been launched earlier than.) It is odd that the Trump administration hasn’t pursued extra structural change or pressured Congress to make that occur—not solely to make sure they’ve the authorized authority to make the workforce modifications they search, but additionally to ensure these optimistic modifications stick round for years to come back.
Extra folks searching for unemployment advantages: As I used to be saying yesterday, firing folks is dear. Certainly, “the variety of People submitting for jobless advantages rose by 22,000 to 242,000 for the week ending Feb. 22, the Labor Division stated Thursday,” per the Associated Press. Now, this can be a three-month excessive, nevertheless it’s nonetheless throughout the regular vary. It is a spike, nevertheless it’s not a completely loopy spike—simply but. However federal staff laid off by DOGE have not all filed for his or her unemployment advantages, so the quantity is predicted to proceed its upward climb over the approaching weeks and months.
Epstein recordsdata launched, but additionally type of not: New Lawyer Common Pam Bondi had been hyping the discharge of the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata, particularly info the federal government has been withholding concerning the sex-offender financier who died in jail and the highly effective folks he related to on his horrifying rape-island. However the precise launch contained just about nothing new, leaving extra questions than solutions. “The doc dump largely consisted of flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s planes—way back made public—and phone info for a whole lot of associates, together with temporary descriptions of things discovered at his residences,” reports The New York Instances. These white binders have been launched to MAGA-sycophant influencers, who posed for a distasteful photo op with them, and are apparently now fairly pissed off that there is not a lot really there:
The binder-wielding influencers are pissed off with how Pam Bondi dealt with right now, per @RaheemKassam https://t.co/XTlaO86Hpq pic.twitter.com/iCMvdt5S9a
— Jacob Shamsian ⚖️ (@JayShams) February 28, 2025
The federal government made an enormous factor about pursuing transparency, however there’s been no such factor. They most definitely have way over 200 pages price of data on Epstein’s associates; why was such an enormous deal product of this launch, once they’re clearly withholding?
Scenes from New York: How “Huge Window” grew to become a design trend.
QUICK HITS
- Matt Taibbi on Simply Asking Questions: “The Division of Homeland Safety…has this idea, you understand, they name it constructing resilience on the one hand, or pre-bunking on the opposite, which is this concept of introducing a doubtlessly controversial or tough concept to an viewers early so that they’re going to be extra accepting of it later. So, as an example, if it is normally it is completed in a method that is imagined to be prophylactic, such as you warn someone 5 months forward of time that there might be, you understand, Russians may intrude with the election, and that may make folks extra receptive to the concept there’s once you do this story in a while. However typically in addition they wish to introduce an concept. And that is all about how can we defend folks in opposition to sure sorts of concepts and the way can we conditioned them to just accept others, like concerning the vaccine. And both they speak about constructing resilience, which is we would like the the inhabitants to and type of on their very own reject psychologically sure concepts earlier than they’re even posed to them. So there’s a variety of signaling that goes on in media…the 60 Minutes [German hate speech] factor felt to me like a basic seeding of a of an concept.” Truthfully…my favourite episode but. Matt Taibbi is a gem. Please, please, please watch our show on YouTube; I assure you will study one thing from this episode.
- DON’T DIE involves Calabasas:
The Kardashians and @hubermanlab came visiting for dinner.
We mentioned if we could be the first era to not die. @KimKardashian was down. @khloekardashian wasn’t bought. On @hulu tonight. pic.twitter.com/bAkHFXe1tH
— Bryan Johnson /dd (@bryan_johnson) February 27, 2025
- “China warned it will hit again at Donald Trump’s commerce threats after the US president unveiled further tariffs on Chinese language imports, elevating the danger of tensions spiraling between the world’s largest economies,” reports Bloomberg. “Beijing’s response got here hours after Trump introduced a further 10% tariff would take impact March 4, citing drug flows from North American neighbors at ‘very excessive and unacceptable ranges’ and China’s alleged function in its provide. The brand new levies comply with a earlier 10% obligation carried out earlier this month and characterize a part of Trump’s broad salvos that span expertise and funding.”
- Modernizing this course of looks like an clearly good transfer:
Excited to share I am bringing my designer mind and start-up spirit into the federal government. My first venture at DOGE is enhancing the sluggish and paper-based retirement course of.
Since leaving my working function at Airbnb in 2022, I have been on the lookout for the following digital design problem.… https://t.co/P6GoccLcZJ
— Joe Gebbia (@jgebbia) February 27, 2025
