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Exclusive: USDA inspector general escorted out of her office after defying White House

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.

In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.”
Fong declined to comment.

The White House defended the firing of Fong and the other inspectors general, saying "these rogue, partisan bureaucrats... have been relieved of their duties in order to make room for qualified individuals who will uphold the rule of law and protect Democracy.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/usda-inspector-general-escorted-out-her-office-after-defying-white-house-2025-01-29/

DOGEWontAmountToShit says

- A return to full physical presence office culture

no more work from home boondoggles, especially getting Washington DC pay while living and working in low cost of living area like West Virginia

https://www.ernst.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ernst-getting-remote-bureaucrats-back-to-work

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Phyllis Fong must have been hired under an obscure DEI policy; "Women with pig noses are discriminated against, we must hire one soon."

I love meeting a female with a pig nose and looking at her funny; I wonder if she is guessing what I am thinking.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/frozen-thursday-january-30-2025-c

President Trump’s federal workforce policy is beginning to look, even to his enemies, like 5-D chess. I’ll explain it in two stories. First, yesterday Newsweek ran a defiant story under the headline, “Former USDA inspector general defies Trump order, escorted from her office.” As you probably recall, President Trump fired 17 of 74 Inspectors General (IGs). The 17 former highly-paid inspectors, who are now disgruntled ex-employees, got together over soy latte and explored their options. Sue? File a grievance? Call the Union? The ex-IGs, well acquainted with technical legal arguments, dithered over the validity of their own termination notices and wondered whether Trump had “legally fired” them. Of the 17, only former USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong (fake name alert) has decided to hashtag-Resist. FAFO, Phyllis.

Ms. Fong’s War was not quite the heroic standoff that media has painted. It seems more like she just waited for security to come get her from her office. Nevertheless, a handful of corporate media articles about Fong’s departure tried to paint the 22-year bureaucrat as “apolitical” and super-effective since she once requested a listeria investigation or something.

I don’t know Ms. Fong. But I’ll go out on a limb here. If the President fires you and then you refuse to leave the office, forcing a security showdown, that sort of proves the point of why you were fired in the first place. Inspectors General are classified as Executive Level III or IV, with an annual salary of around $200,000, plus generous benefits.

Because they criticize other officials, Inspectors General are expected to be among the most professional and ethical employees in the federal government.

If Ms. Fong thought her dismissal was wrong, she could have professionally challenged it in several legal and procedural ways. There was no reason to stage an embarrassing spectacle. The way media tells it, Phyllis was a brave Resister. But when security arrived, Phyllis folded like a cheap pair of LuluLemon knock offs. She just walked out. She didn’t chain herself to her desk. She didn’t make them arrest her. Phyllis clearly isn’t martyr material. ...

But Trump 2.0 flipped the script. Now there are real consequences. People are getting fired. There’s real accountability—Trump’s Team seems to know who they are. This time, there’s no guarantee the Resisters can ride out another four years unscathed. The big blue wall is cracking. Now that they’re forced to stand on their principles and take tangible risks, it looks more like a cowardly, disorganized retreat than steely-eyed defiance. ...

The President’s enemies are beginning to awaken to the formidible possibility that Trump knows exactly what he is doing and is setting traps for them to fall into. The New York Times covered the story yesterday under the headline, “Trump’s Firings Could Bring Court Cases That Expand His Power.” (The article even mentioned our beloved Ms. Fong.) ...

Astonishingly, Trump’s mass firings of top-level commissioners from the NLRB, the Privacy Board, and the EEOC, were thought to be illegal and impossible. But even more historic and astonishing, Trump has fired so many it leaves those agencies without quora. They are dead in the water. These now-paralyzed agencies literally cannot undermine Trump’s agenda, even if they wanted to, for the practical reason that there simply aren’t enough commissioners left to vote on anything. They’re frozen. ...

Strikingly, none of the “abruptly fired” officials have yet sued the federal government—even though Trump is trampling on all sorts of precedents, customs, and statutes. Ms. Fong merely staged a bizarre mini-protest rather than assert her legal rights. All this legal restraint is especially strange considering that in at least one agency, the NLRB, federal law expressly limits the President’s ability to fire commissioners except in very limited circumstances.

The Times and the fired officials smelled a Trump trap.

“The prospect of getting dragged into court,” an alarmed Times observed, “may be exactly what Mr. Trump’s lawyers are hoping for.” What terrified and dismayed the far-left Times and its progressive allies was the ghastly prospect that “any rulings in the president’s favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power to control the federal government.”

In other words: Trump is hoping that they’ll sue him.

The New York Times began connecting the dots starting with a Reagan-era constitutional interpretation of broad Executive Branch power. The Reaganites believed “that presidents must be able to fire any executive branch official at will.”

“In recent years,” the Times realized with growing horror, “the Supreme Court’s majority — led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under the Reagan administration — has pushed that idea” of broad executive powers in employment.

Reagan called his constitutional interpretation “unitary executive theory.” It is an uncomplicated view of constitutional separation of powers, holding that the president must exclusively control his own executive branch. Any laws passed by Congress (under Article II) purporting to make Article I executive branch officials independent from the president’s sole control must therefore be unconstitutional.

Hahaha! The mass firings are genius! Trump has got progressives doubting their own theory of permanent federal employment. The President has tied these people into pretzel-like political knots. They literally don’t know what to do.

The Times’ reporter spoke to the 17 Inspectors General —Ms. Fong’s cohort— and asked them when are you going to sue the Orange Man? The depressing answer was: we’re not sure. They worry they might be playing right into Trump’s hands:

Several of those officials have discussed filing a lawsuit seeking an
injunction and a declaration that their removals were illegal. But
such a case would give the Trump administration an opportunity to
argue that the statute protecting inspectors general is an
unconstitutional constraint on the president's powers.

Haha! Can you see it now? The sheer brilliance of Trump’s plan? If they do sue him, then Trump is likely to grow even more powerful. Their only other option to just take it.

Fire all of them.

Wait, what? 22 years? What happened to the revolving door?

AD says

DOGEWontAmountToShit says

- A return to full physical presence office culture

no more work from home boondoggles, especially getting Washington DC pay while living and working in low cost of living area like West Virginia

https://www.ernst.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ernst-getting-remote-bureaucrats-back-to-work

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I don't care where the fuckers live or not. With the cushy pensions they get that the rest of us don't, they can at least haul their asses into work.

Is this going to make Colt 45 stock collapse?

From LinkedIn. Note that she was responsible for turning Seattle into a shithole previously.:

On Friday night I was (unjustly, I believe) terminated as an Assistant United States Attorney. Not to denigrate prior employers or colleagues whatsoever, but this was the best job I have ever had, and my coworkers and I were fired not for doing it poorly, but for doing it too well. Professionally, I have never been more proud than when I uttered the words, “Mindy Deranek for the United States of America.” To the victims who protected the Capitol and those inside on January 6, 2021, thank you for your service, then and now, and for trusting us to help tell your stories and create the official record of what happened there that day; that cannot be erased. To my coworkers, I am so honored to have worked with such a talented and dedicated team. We did good and important work, and I love and miss you all.

https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/02/federal-workers-at-a-town-hall-say-they-are-angry-scared-and-fed-up/

Clearly, this is astroturfed:

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

The "Days of Colt 45 and Roses" are over. Hang up the bunny slippers, the bathrobes, and put the soaps on 'record mode', the minor public parasite fleas will have to pound the pavement for jobs. Do they even have a wardrobe any more?

Valentine'

Valentine's Day Massacre!

Per NBC, jobless filings surged to 1,780 for the week ending Feb. 8, and increase of 36% from the prior week.

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

"The potential cuts are coming just one month before the IRS begins accepting tax returns."

?? The IRS is already accepting tax returns. I am sure plenty of folks have already e-filed.

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1891131492207628533

How "bad" will it get? Lol, it's GOOD to fire deadweight government employees.

https://x.com/JuanIsidro/status/1893897608923382230

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1891131492207628533

Isn't paying gov employees unemployment cheaper than employing them to do "gov work?

RC2006 says

Isn't paying gov employees unemployment cheaper than employing them to do "gov work?

Exactly as its cheaper to pay them to stay at home, as they are not award grants and contracts at EPA, Department of Education, Health and Human Services, etc when they are sent home on paid admin leave.

Plus the utility costs may be cheaper by having empty government offices.

They can cancel support contracts like info technology and computer services as everyone is home.

I think Trump is trying to do this for at least 6 months out of fiscal year 2025 (1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025) to show the American taxpayers he can save money and still effectively run the government.
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OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

It’s not about cheap eggs, miss paid at home non-employee. It’s about putting the Fed Gov back in the box that is called the constitution! Limited understanding, teaching, and discipline following the constitution got us to where we are today. People thinking they were in jobs that were “important work”, that some may have been but should have originated at the state level for individuals in each state to decide if necessary or not.

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

I could not find that tweet:

https://nitter.poast.org/juanisidro

Patrick says

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

I could not find that tweet:

https://nitter.poast.org/juanisidro

@Patrick

https://x.com/JuanIsidro/status/1893897608923382230

Black Women and Millennial College Graduate White Girls better learn to cook.

OkDOGEisAmountingToSomething says

Patrick

https://x.com/JuanIsidro/status/1893897608923382230

Thanks!

Part of the chess game, Trump and Elon monitoring emails that ghost employees don’t even open them to read. Forget about replying!
Hope Trump can be a great model for the rest of the world at least for a few decades to come.

The coming Virginia Governor's race may be affected by the anger of all those laid off Federal employees. The Dems are running a White female CIA agent against the Repub Black female ex-Marine.