Actually InfuriatingJesus Christ it's so embarassing reading official statements from government bodies playing the blame game like 5 year olds.
It's only a violation if there are consequences. The trump admin has learned there will be no consequences
The Hatch Act Explained
The Hatch Act is a U.S. federal law that was enacted in 1939 to restrict political activities of federal employees, as well as certain state and local government employees, and those working in federally funded programs. The main goal of the act is to maintain a federal workforce that is impartial and free from political pressure.
Key Provisions of the Hatch Act
Prohibitions on Political Activities Federal employees are prohibited from running for office in partisan elections, engaging in political campaigning while on duty, or using their official positions to influence elections.
Permitted Activities Employees can participate in political activities when off duty and not wearing their official uniforms. They may also express personal opinions on political issues or candidates.
Impact and Enforcement
The Hatch Act is enforced by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which can investigate violations and recommend disciplinary actions. Violating the Hatch Act can result in consequences ranging from reprimands to removal from federal employment.
Importance
The act aims to ensure that government decisions are based on merit rather than political affiliation, promoting a civil service that is dedicated to serving the public rather than political interests.___
Republican when addressing the general public: SNAP recipients are fat lazy freeloaders who spend thousands of dollars of SNAP benefits on soda and chips.
Republicans when addressing SNAP recipients: "Mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us"
It has always been the habit of rightists to co-opt leftist terminology in furtherance of their evil deceptions and propaganda. This is why George Orwell called the fascist party in “1984” IngSoc, which stood ironically for “English Socialism.”
It has nothing to do with principles or being 'right'. It has everything to do with being 'right, now'.
It's just a hammer to either hurt people (the GOP way) or to make the democrats look bad for it hurting people (also the GOP way).
Republicans are liars and can never be trusted.
Why are you trying to fight them by arguing how illegal they are? Better to tell people what to do. Who to vote for, who to fund, tips for working against this administration.
We may not be able to resort to violence (legaly, and over social media), but we can still do everything else in our power to bring them down. We can cut into their tax income, steal their voters, sue and report many of their followers.
Yeah! Go get em WorldsDumbestMan!
Why post about what they’re doing when you could be complaining about people posting!
Modern right wingers have literally one question at the center of their morality. "How much do I think that this thing will help or harm me in the goal of getting what I want?" The value of everything hinges on the answer to that question. The extent to which it helps or harms as well as the perspective and priorities of the "thinker" may change the answer to this question at any moment, which makes the answer fluid. There is no other objective morality.
The result is the obsolescence of facts and reality. Is this against the Hatch Act? That's a question asked from a place of ignorance. Right now, would it being against the Hatch Act help or harm these fascist fucks? Likely, in the short term, it might harm them. If that's the mentality of the moment, then it is clearly outside the boundaries of what is covered by the Hatch Act - it does not apply. If next year the roles were reversed and the opposition did literally, in every single way, the exact same action then it's clearly illegal and should be dealt with using the harshest penalties. Actually, it might surpass such quaint rules and be outright treasonous. Perhaps those traitors should be hanged.
Don't the republicans have a majority? How does this work?
It’s actually pretty simple when you break it down; our government is ran entirely by huge pieces of shit.
where’s shooter mcgavin when you really need him?
I'll take whatever shooter I can get...
He's still full from breakfast.
Democrats still want to debate the budget. Mainly over the healthcare plan subsidies. For the federal budget, conclusion of debate can only be forced by 60 votes.
Once that happens, the budget can pass with a simple majority in the senate, assuming the house passes the same version.
Laws only work if they're enforced. Not only is our corrupt government bought and paid for; the Supreme Court is toothless as well.
America has fallen.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? It's a hard problem, but way harder when you rely on unwritten or vague rules subject to interpretation and goodwill of those in power.
USA since 2016 has been a warning to other places. Keep journalism fair, alive and protected (take a hint Australia, UK). Give rights to protestors (take a hint UK, Germany). Make decorum or traditions into acts of law or part of constitution (take a hint world) so those in power have to follow them.
And make it super easy to impeach and ban via popular vote (say by plurality of at least 40% of voting population. None of this super-majority). Better safe than sorry
I'm a veteran and have been getting emails from the VA blaming Democrats for the shutdown; it's very unprofessional.
SCOTUS be like: Nope!
All Republicans must go to prison
The Soviets had the right idea with the gulags. Send anyone with a whiff of Nazi about them as far away from society as you can until they are re-educated or dead.
Then hell
Zone: flooded. Fucks: none left to give.
They won't stop until there's a threat to their unilateral power.
Republicans use the list of things that are illegal as their personal todo list.
It's also how you get a promotion, do enough illegal things and you get to be president even!
are we talking individual charges, magnitude of charges, personal or societal impacts or crimes, like what scale are we using for "enough things". maybe i would like to be president one day in order to facilitate relations with greece, turkiye, and iran in an international kebab tournament with the prize being you get to take home all the leftover kebab and i want to win it committing the most trivial and frequent of crimes, like jaywalking in front of the police station parking lot.
Well, I think magnitude plays a part.
Go fuck a tween and you should be off to a good start.
They didn't even take action when he tried a coup in broad daylight. What do you think they're going to do about this?
What about the 5 billion dollar contingency fund that is supposed to cover things such as a government shutdown?
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snaps-contingency-reserve-is-available-for-regular-snap-benefits-as-usda
Republicans are cowards and are intentionally choosing to hurt those that actually need assistance.
My conspiracy theory, and I'm uneducated in these matters, is that they've done something with that emergency fund. Since the money isn't there anymore they're caught between admitting they misapropriated/stole it or starving people.
Or they want people to starve to incite the riots that allows them to apply more military pressure. I hate that that's a sentence I said with so sense of irony
Yep, this is my belief. Trump has been looking for a reason to enact martial law. He's been making up excuses to extend his enforcement groups throughout the US, and large protests/riots would give them the opportunity.
This isn't to say they shouldn't be done. I'd argue they should. That's their plan, and their hand should be forced if that's the way it's going to go. If it doesn't happen over this, it'll be something else, and the imagery of them clamping down on starving people is about the best we could hope for. There is just about no one who doesn't at least see their plight. It'd be the best rallying cry for all Americans, and potentially to outsiders who would help as well.
They already diverted FEMA aid funding toward building concentration camps, everything Elon did with DOGE was so amazingly illegal that he'd be in jail for centuries if convincted of all of it, Trump refused to send money to NYC/NY, other states...
Yeah, the convicted rapist conman fraudster bankruptor in chief?
Turns out he doesn't give a fuck about rules, he does what he wants because no one has ever stopped him, and our system and society are built to reward and enable sociopathic behavior, or at the very least, are very very far from robust enough to stop him.
They're using it to keep the military on their side in order to launch a dictatorship. Just my conjecture
Nah. They want people to suffer and think that it is the opposition's fault.
My conspiracy theory is they're pulling a coup. Billionaires to donate money to trump to fund ICE and national guard. Every other position can get fucked
It went into the President's new ballroom. They haven't actually spent it yet, nor have they made any building plans, but they've already decided it will be spent.
I bet the money isn't there anymore
Seeing that kind of slanted political vernacular outside of a tabloid and written as a notification on an official government website is incredibly embarrassing.
I'm cringing at how little the Republicans are even bothering to appear like normal people anymore. FFS, run it through ChatGPT or something, you were capable of at least pretending you were not ghouls with fewer tools at your disposal 8 years ago. Who are these government stooges taking Trump and Hegseth instructions for the website banners verbatim?
The saddest thing about it is how many Americans don't see that and immediately have the same reaction. Their minds have been poisoned.
Some people are broken. Some are broken like a bone, where with the right treatment it can heal. It might never be as good as a bone that never broke, but it can get pretty close. Other people are broken like a glass window. That's never getting put back together, and everyone around is in danger of stepping on the glass.
Many Republicans are broken like shattered glass.
I feel like this has Stephen Miller written all over it.
You're talking about dipshits that are murdering folks in the Caribbean because they like how the boats explode on the drone camera.
Laws are just wallpaper to these assholes.
Of course it is.
Fascists do not respect the law.
Wait till you find out that they also don't willingly give up power and what has to be done when they don't.
It’s more fun when they see what giving them 4 years to purge rank and solidify their hold over the country does when you finally decide to actually start to fight back.
You seem like a truly miserable person
You seem like you're the sort who is comfortable doing nothing while fascists take-over.
And what have you done exactly?
This is the laziest fucking canned response.
You honestly think laws still apply to this fascist regime? We're long past that
To be fair, the laws on that actually mean jack shit if the individual can't be fired.
ice said there was a criminal in a community and busted down every private residence door, tossed the places, and took everyone into custody. This is exactly the behavior form british military in the colonies that lead to the restriction on search and seizure in the constitution.
Constitution? What's that?
No one is holding the president or republicans accountable, so it does not matter if it is illegal or not.
I have a feeling if George Santos had been elected in 2024 he would still be in Congress today.
"the law" is literally meaningless when no one enforces it
its the same thing the ohio govorner did when the trains derailed in 2023, refused to enact a state of emergency while claiming hes been "asking for help" which he dint do. he knows the dimwitted supporters arnt going to research futher into his claims, as long as he can prolong the disaster it gains them more support.
Huh, so they're against all genital mutilation right? Like circumcision?
I mean, RFK Jr. said it causes autism, so why not
To be fair, it says "gender mutilation" which is a pretty weird choice of wording...
And these hatch act violations are coming from the same people that say that it's illegal for them to fund snap. Clearly the law is only to be used when it is convenient for them politically.
I mean a (Republican)congress member put forward a bill to fund SNAP during the shutdown. Why it didn't fly through.... 100% on Republicans
They don't even need a bill, they have a contingency set aside for this very situation and the GOP is refusing to allow it to be used.
if what I read elsewhere was true, they don't even need to fund it for now. It has a very large emergency fund its legally allowed to use in circumstances like just like this. They're breaking the law by not using the fund or something like that.
This is pretty accurate. It was all on the governments website explaining what you said before they deleted it. They had already anticipated this could happen and had a plan to fund through November.
This is just like the pandemic response all over again. The government had a plan and Trump and company run up and take a giant shit on everything. This administration has to be the most unamerican sociopathic self-dealing weasels I have ever seen.
It mostly certainly is, but the rule of law would need to matter for that to be pertinent to anything. Not sure if you've been paying attention, but...
I've been paying attention. I've been screaming about this shit for almost 10 years now. I don't want to ever get to the point where I let things like this become normalized, though.
It is but who’s going to enforce it?
Yes. But do they care? Do they have to care anymore?
arguably. there are exemptions in the hatch act for senate-confirmed appointees. the secretary of agriculture seems like it would be one such appointee with hatch act exemptions. they could potentially make a case that these messages are communications from the secretary of agriculture, not from any actual experts or public servants. if it is meant to be a communication from the secretary of agriculture, one could argue there is an exemption in the hatch act for this specific activity (even though the actual communication goes through other non-senate-approved government employees/appointeed, many if not most of whom do not have exemptions to the hatch act, but do you punish the gun or the entity that pulled the trigger? (yes both would be nice but let's play a different game instead)
this seems to be what i've picked up on reading
The collateral damage of dick measuring contests.
If we ever get true people's representation in government priority number one will be to prosecute all the fuckwads who have been perpetrating this. Unfortunately, I am not hopeful that this will happen.
It will happen. The question is whether it'll happen in time to hold anyone meaningfully accountable
History has shown that the US does not hold anyone in power accountable. Sometimes we pretend to do so by punishing lackeys like Oliver North instead of presidents and politicians who make the decisions to do horribletand illegal things.
SCOTUS knew Trump was going to do this Project 2025 shit, which is why they said the president is above the law and forced Trump on Colorado's ballot to legitimize an insurrectionist running for office.
I'm not convinced that the US constitution/government will outlive me, at this point.
It wouldn't be the US government (at least not the as we know it) holding people accountable in my imaginary scenario.
My loyalty is to the spirit of the Constitution, not to a king. I might end up serving as a soldier against the crown.
I don't care about the document. If anything I'd say it's fatally flawed in a couple key ways. Not as bad the OG articles of confederation, but pretty bad.
What I care about is making a government that actually serves the majority of the people and represents their interests against the disproportionately powerful
It is my assumption that the Constitution would be overhauled or recreated, depending on how the next ten years plays out.
I'm not convinced that the US constitution/government will outlive me, at this point.
It wouldn't be the US government (at least not the as we know it) holding people accountable in my imaginary scenario.
im saving this to show my great great grandk- wait lol I'm not having children in this shithole
I for one am looking forward to civil war 2. Im so tired of going to work.
Who's going to tell him?
You honestly think the GOP gives a shit if something is legal?
The Republicans have been playing fast and loose with legality for pretty much ever.
Fortunately, the majority of Americans seem to know this message is a steaming pile of horseshit.
Laws only matter if someone enforces them
Who's donating to enforce the Hatch act? Are they outbidding the Project 2025 folks?
That's all that matters anymore. Government for the highest bidder.
On the plus side, any time some Democratic ideologue tells you a living wage can't happen because of the parliamentarian, you'll now know definitively that their resistance to a living wage was never about law or rules and they had all the power they needed to make substantial change.
I mean probably, but also, this is such a shitlib ass take.
"Oh no not the Hatch act! Won't SOMEBODY think of the norms!?!"
You might add a "sensitive" to the front of that. Man has been ranting for half an hour over two words
I think that for some people, disrupting the comments and slinging random hostility (and making people think that if they express a "liberal" point of view they'll be personally attacked) is the goal.
Obviously this person isn't actually trying to promote the point of view they are saying. Or at least, we can say that sticking around to this point yelling at everyone and making a mockery wouldn't serve that goal very well. However, making the comments section hostile and unbearable is a goal that is currently being achieved pretty effectively for anyone who scrolls down to see this little section of it.
You're probably right on most counts. I don't really mind making the comments section hostile in this way though. It's all relegated to a single comments replies, and that comment is through the floor karma wise, so you'd have to hit the bottom of the comments to see it anyway. My only goal was to mildly annoy someone being insufferably self righteous for my own amusement, which I feel like I have accomplished. Hope it didn't bug you too much, but sometimes people just need to be repeatedly told to fuck off 🤷
Oh I entirely agree. Just ceding the narrative space to them is 100% not the right way to go about it.
If it helps you in any way, I recommend not taking them all that seriously. Dismissing them or laughing at them is usually a better way to go about it in my opinion than letting them get to you. But certainly saying something is better than nothing, I think.
For magats, I normally just use their own bad faith tactic against them. For other brands of douche like this guy, engaging with their arguments is what they want, because they want desperately to be validated by proving to the world (mostly themselves) that they are smarter and the most righteous and virtuous person in the thread. Simply refusing to engage or take them seriously almost immediately causes them to devolve and show their true colors. In this case, "everyone that doesn't agree with me is a fascist bot".
Only cowards, secret fascists, and actual psyops need alts:
Maybe an asshole but not wrong.
How very intellectual of you.
Fuck off twice. I don’t owe you an intellectual rebuttal to your self fellating unhelpful comment.
You don't know what the word liberal means do you?
Seriously, I’m not here to argue with you
They said, while arguing. Seriously, the number of dipshit clowns who don't understand what liberalism is, what a norm is, and probably themselves have never been subject to the Hatch act is fucking hilarious.
Its practically a meme for shitlibs to not even understand the principals the ape for, so thanks for participating.
Just keep telling him to fuck off, apparently he will just keep going 😂
I gotta admit it's pretty funny how butthurt they over getting called out for being a dipshit.
Clown brigade that continuously demonstrates they don't know their ass from a hole the ground is the hilarious part.
Lol. What even is this?
You know who can fuck off?
Every fucking shitlib who spent the previous 30 years making apologies for not passing laws by insisting that the "norms" would hold. There is no law preventing an appointee to the USDA from posting the above message. Do you know why?
::: spoiler spoiler The Hatch act is why. And the only reason the above message is allowed to exist is because of the liberal expectation that the norms would hold. :::
This thread is basically people who have never been subject to the Hatch act, have no idea of its contents or who it apply to, or why it is relevant or irrelevant in this context. I've had to sign the dotted line regarding the Hatch act no fewer than five times, and have had to repeatedly go through tedious training on the Hatch act, establishing what kinds of political speech I can or can't engage in, depending on the position or role.
The downvote brigading is quite literally hilarious, and I revel in their ignorance. It just further and further highlights my initial point. Shitlibs with shitlib takes don't know what they are talking about.
anyone who uses "lib" in the same sentence, is no better than a conservative saying it.
