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Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

wired.com

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Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#51

Post by ck2 »

Alupis wrote: post #5
ck2 wrote: post #2

DOGE f-kery it's pretty obvious they can now search and replace across most if not all government websites now let's hope that backdoor is locked down and not available for foreign entities and this is of course a massive Hatch-Act violation but we're way past law breaking this far into the regime

[flagged]

the very first thing DOGE did way back in February was take command and control over the email systems (so they could also feed into machine-learning)

r/fednews was FULL of warnings about all the unvetted foreign computers being brought in and plugged into the networks, specifically back then to hijack the email servers

remember how they had to harvest all the emails to send out the demands for people to quit?

it's "f-kery" specifically, this has never been done by any other administration, no-one previously would dare, it violates all kinds of laws

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/politics/federal-employees-em...

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#52

Post by Alupis »

fhdkweig wrote: post #34
Alupis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I couldn't read the article on Wired, but I found this one at MSN https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/education-department... It says: The altered email messages included language saying: "Thank you for contacting me. On September 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to…

The DOE already had a standard auto-responder text, which also included "I" and "me". The text was changed - and a handful of employees are making a stink of it. They didn't get a choice in messaging either way. In fact, the ending is nearly identical between the two.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#53

Post by estearum »

dingnuts wrote: post #38
plantwallshoe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not factual that democratic senators are blocking the bill. Republicans have a majority in both houses and can pass the bill at any time.

not true, they do not have a super majority in the Senate and need a handful of Democrats to vote with them to achieve the 60 votes they need. that said, somehow the Democrats always find Republicans to compromise with them when they have a simple majority, so I do not know why it is so hard for the Republicans to soften their demands enough to peel off some moderates to vote with them

Because they’re in a cult. I mean this as an actual functional explanation. Compromise in the modern GOP is seen as disloyalty and you will immediately come into the crosshairs of literally the biggest bully on the planet and his hordes of enablers.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#55

Post by allturtles »

Alupis wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Whether it's factual in content is irrelevant, the purpose for communicating this particular fact is clearly partisan and political. It's also a fact that Donald J. Trump has been impeached twice by Congress and indicted on criminal charges four times. Yet adding those particular facts to every government communication would be a partsian, political act.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#56

Post by JohnFen »

Alupis wrote: post #5
ck2 wrote: post #2

DOGE f-kery it's pretty obvious they can now search and replace across most if not all government websites now let's hope that backdoor is locked down and not available for foreign entities and this is of course a massive Hatch-Act violation but we're way past law breaking this far into the regime

[flagged]

> if you read the actual message (quoted in the article), it's factual, and therefore not political messaging.

It's not factual, though, because it's telling (at best) a half-truth aimed at demonizing one political position. It's pure political messaging.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#57

Post by sunnyps »

Alupis wrote: post #33
mikeyouse wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No.

Can you elaborate on which part you believe isn't true? The bill already passed the House. The Democrats have a minorotiy in the Senate. 60 votes are required to pass the bill - and Democrats are holding it up, deliberately for political reasons. It's entirely factual.

Republicans can end the filibuster in the Senate with a simple majority after which they can pass the funding bill with a simple majority. But of course, they won't do that since it opens up other bills to be passed with a simple majority too in the future. So it's not factual.

edit: This is what they would need to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#58

Post by Alupis »

Jtsummers wrote: post #19
briandear wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it factual?

The Republicans can end the shutdown today. They don't want to, they're letting it continue and that's their choice. They need 0 Democratic or independent votes to pass the funding bill if they change the rules, which requires a simple majority vote and they have that.

The longer the government is shut down, the better excuse/cover the executive branch has to permanentely layoff and shutdown departments. Democrats are going to lose this standoff either way...

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#59

Post by Jtsummers »

nonethewiser wrote: post #37
plantwallshoe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not factual that democratic senators are blocking the bill. Republicans have a majority in both houses and can pass the bill at any time.

The Republicans have 53 votes. They need 60. They got 55.

They need 50 + Vance. They can change the rules for the funding vote to only require a simple majority, they've elected not to. If they did this, the shutdown would be over. Alternatively, since they're just 5 Democratic votes away they could have offered some compromise to sway a few more Democrats than they got (they only got two so far). They don't need to win the entire party over, just enough.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#60

Post by mikeyouse »

Alupis wrote: post #40
mikeyouse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘People should be lied to by the government out of political convenience’ is a theory I guess. Though not one I’d endorse. It’s equally true that “Senate republicans failed to put forth a spending CR that could attract 60 votes” or “Senate republicans failed to pass filibuster reform to only require 50 votes on spending measures.” Are equally true statements yet somehow they didn’t make the autoresponders. Weird.

Always finding a way to blame the Republicans... last time they were in the minority and were blamed for shutting down the government. Now they're in the majority and you still want to blame them for shutting down the government. To summarize, you want to blame the oppositition for not passing your flavor of a spending bill, ie. one that suits your politics. Elections have consequences - and the longer Democrats drag…

Whoever’s to blame (the party that controls all three branches), it’s still wildly inappropriate and illegal to put political messaging on Federal websites (www.hud.gov for one glaring example) and in email signatures.

> To summarize, you want to blame the oppositition for not passing your flavor of a spending bill, ie. one that suits your politics.

Seems a bit like projection when your summary is based on your weird assumption for who I would’ve blamed previously.

> Elections have consequences - and the longer Democrats drag this out the more excuse the executive branch will have to permanentely lay off people and shutdown departments.

That’s not how any of this works.. the Executive branch doesn’t have the constitutional ability to shut down departments or lay people off when they’re congressional mandated. This level of political science ignorance is a big part of how we got here.

Elections do have consequences and if Republicans feel that they have a mandate to kill USAID or any other department, they can pass a spending bill that zeroes it out. The President doesn’t get to decide to not spend those funds after Congress has authorized them.

It’s inconceivable to me that people don’t understand how much this line of thought and the associated actions have broken our government in ways that are going to be very difficult to undo.

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