This weaponization of public resources for partisan purposes is hardly surprising, but given the government is shut down, I would imagine black or even grey hats might feel like it's open season on .gov, so I would be surprised to see much durability in their attempts.
> The Radical Left Democrats shut down the government. This government website will be updated periodically during the funding lapse for mission critical functions. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.
> Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses.
> Every day that Senate Democrats continue to oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding.
> As a result of the shutdown, we wanted to notify you that many of our services supporting small businesses are currently unavailable. The agency is executing its Lapse Plan and as soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
> If you need disaster assistance, please visit sba.gov/disaster.
Just to add some context to this "clean federal funding": a "clean bill" here means "let things expire". Democrats are fighting for a continuing resolution which extends whatever is about to expire.
In this case, the ACA subsidies would expire if a clean funding bill is passed.
The Democrats already lost the battle on those things (cuts to Medicaid + no extension of Obamacare subsidies) and they were already going to happen because Democrats didn’t (and don’t) have the votes to renew them because they can’t win elections. Now they’re using this opportunity to try to get those things back at gunpoint. It’s not propaganda that the Republicans have offered a CR which changes nothing additional. Once again, Democrats expect to enact their own policy goals with 47 Senate seats and find it doesn’t go so well. Maybe some decade they will go back to trying to convince voters to vote for them instead of just ridiculing everyone outside their echo chamber.
(I’m not a democrat or a republican, I’m not rooting for either one.)
It’s barely anything to get a stroke upon: The article didn’t quote the text directly and paraphrased it. It means it is not persuasive per se, or it would have been used as proof.
Since the raw text couldn’t serve as proof, an entire article had to be mounted to create the feeling of being appalling. It’s an opinion piece.
And that’s all it always it: People getting hung up over principles and theories. The proof those principles aren’t universal is that they don’t uphold them themselves when they’re in power.
I wish we were able to talk to each other. There are many ways, many paths together. But no, condescension, condemnation, hate, refusal to work on your bad sides, ideas of revolution, of uprising, of disrespect of people’s vote, refusal to communicate or work together, refusal to let working people keep the fruits of their work, and in the end, we have to take over the government, or you will.
There is no sharing when it’s your side in power. So we elect a hermetically sealed government. I wish we didn’t do that.
We quickly went from "should a woman have autonomy over her body" to "can the president invade a US city" in the blink of an eye. Things are getting continually less compromisable as we edge more to "should the US be a democracy" as a question.
That's ridiculous, and could be illegal, because in changing the response, they are taking on the speech of the named employee. If that's not a first amendment violation, I don't know what is. Federal employees are not allowed to be involved in politics while they are employed by the federal government, I know there's exceptions and everything, but at its core this action is repugnant.
This isn't a company though, it's the government, and it's generally considered unprofessional if not illegal for federal employees to make partisan statements on the job. There's also the fact that, in my experience, out-of-office autoreplies are generally drafted by the employee while footers are often standardized by the employer.
Additionally, there are strict rules on what federal civil servants can do during a shutdown that don't really apply in private industry, which means whatever official channels would exist to complain probably aren't available. I don't think furloughed employees are supposed to send official email, either, which means they can't clarify who provided this message even if someone is confused by it.
Government is not a company. It's less about overriding each person's OOO message (it is about in a small way) and much more about what the message is.
No, because that's a private company. Your first amendment right to the freedom of speech is freedom from government center ship and interference in your speech. It does not apply to private companies. Now with that said, adding a footer, I don't think would be a problem, but if you set an away message and they changed that for a political reason, then it could be said that they impersonating you to broadcast a political message. Then it might be a civil matter.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Did congress pass a law I missed? Government communication isn’t a 1st Amendment issue. When you work for any employer, you are subject to the whims of that employer.
Governments are not limited by the Hatch Act, civil service employees are. And the limitations are mainly around elections, so for example under the Hatch Act a civil service employee may not "use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election", may not "knowingly solicit, accept, or receive a political contribution from any person", may not "run for the nomination or as a candidate for election to a partisan political office", and may not "knowingly solicit or discourage the participation in any political activity" of someone who the civil service employee is interacting with.
The Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law that prohibits "civil service employees in the executive branch"
>The laws are different when you work for the government.
Which laws? Because every government job I've come across has pretty strict rules on what you can and cannot say in public, or at least they way in which you have to frame it apart from your job.
I think there's two parts of that question. The first is that the law is the hatch act, federal employees may not engage in political activities. But the second thing is, the government is assuming your identity to change your speech and broadcast that speech as if you said it. I'm not a lawyer, but I think that would squarely follow government action to abridge your speech.
This is it. The project of DOGE was always to centralize all the disparate parts of the government to make it easier to control all of its functions by a smaller team
This is a pretty silly manifestation of that power but it's a sign of things to come. The fact that they were able to change government websites, email signatures, and more within minutes after the shutdown should scare us
You are aware this sort of thing can be administratively set on almost every email system/server? No "backdoor", "search and replace" or "f-kery" needed.
Additionally, if you read the actual message (quoted in the article), it's factual, and therefore not political messaging. Hatch Act doesn't apply here.
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 a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse of appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume."
I don't like that it includes "I" and "me" because it looks like someone is putting words in the employee's mouth. I wouldn't consider that factual.
Yes. I also hate this "is it factual" question because it ignores the underlying problem.
It could still be factual and read "Senate Republicans have blocked voting on S 2882" instead, or more extreme "Registered Republicans have lower education rates than democrats". Just because something is factual does not mean it is not a political statement, and one that would not have been made by the employee whose communication was changed. Let's all not play dumb here.
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.
“Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.”
Come on. The message is overtly political (blaming democrats for the shutdown when republicans control the presidency + the house + the senate) and 100% of the people pretending it’s not would be outraged if the same thing was posted under a different administration.
They don’t “control” the Senate. You need 60 seats in the Senate if the other party is willing to filibuster everything, and boy howdy are both parties willing to these days. If the GOP did have 60 seats, then they’d be able to pass that clean bill over the filibuster of the Democrats.
Which part of the statement is false or campaigning? Is it not true Democrats have blocked the passage of the bill? Of course it is.. and people should know that, shouldn't they?
‘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.
Absolutely! All those things could correctly be said, and maybe that’s what would be said now if the Democrats had won the last presidential election! Instead, they ran a candidate who was so unpopular she dropped out before Iowa last time she ran. The DNC still hasn’t processed this reality, though.
The point that everyone is so keen to miss is that those are fine statements to make by political parties or candidates and wholly inappropriate and obviously illegal ones to make by government employees and websites.. That there are two valid opposing ‘truths’ which can be wielded to bludgeon a political opponent is exactly why we made it illegal for the government to make these type of statements.
Turning all of our apolitical institutions into megaphones for the party in power is an absolute nightmare and is illegal for a reason.
Seriously - how can you possibly defend something like this: https://www.hud.gov/
They’re facts. What’s wrong with them? Democrats did shut down the government. One party currently wants a clean CR and the other, the minority, wants to advance their agenda as a condition of not forcing a shutdown. This is an exact reversal of what the republicans did years ago and we all mocked them for it.
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 this out the more excuse the executive branch will have to permanentely lay off people and shutdown departments.
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.
> have broken our government in ways that are going to be very difficult to undo.
The cowardice of both parties to never balance the budget in the last 50 years (Except Clinton!) has done more damage, arguably, in miring us in permanent debt.
I suspect the people who are fine with the government shutting down and who are fine with questionably legal tactics to do away with departments like USAID, feel that even though these things are probably legally wrong, they’re better than just continuing to piss away more and more of future generations’ money, money that we don’t have.
I think the greatest sin involved in all of this is the government’s ridiculous magical, thinking that they can set tax policy and spending policy independently of each other. In my opinion, one of the two should be a fixed function of the other. Either we agree on our tax rates and government benefits, automatically adjust to fit in the budget, or we agree on what we’re going to spend, and taxes automatically adjust to match — either way it should be something everyone can calculate before the bill is voted on.
It is not true that Democrats blocked H.R.5371. The bill was voted on unlike say when Republicans block a bill by sending the representatives home instead of voting on say an Epstein related issue. (Recent vote was 55-45 [1] which not every R voted yay).
The lapse in appropriations cannot singular be pointed at H.R.5371.
If Republicans had stuck to their campaign promises of a balanced budget then we wouldn't be in this situation as we wouldn't need additional borrowing.
Less politically, if 60+ people had input into the bill then it would've passed. Can't be upset that somebody didn't vote for something they didn't have input in.
Only 50 votes are needed in the Senate to pass any legislation (per constitution). The whole 60-votes is a requirement that any point can be changed by the Senate and has been recently for federal judges.
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...
I disagree. I think the fact that Democrats let Trump have a blank check-book for his first term was a massive mistake.
We went from having government shutdowns all the time due to the rampant spending to just covering up the fact that he's blowing through more money than presidents do in 8 years. It leads to a perception that he's actually fiscally responsible.
At this point, either political party pretending to care at all about fiscal responsibility is absolutely hilarious.
The standoff is about a component of the Affordable Care Act that is expiring. Democrats don't have the footing to win this battle - so the longer the standoff holds the worse outcome they can expect. Trump's administration seems to have wanted this shutdown... and Democrats walked right into the landmine.
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.
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.
It’s weird to me that any Democrat would be rooting for the nuclear option right now. After losing so badly last year, after demographic trends continue to degrade their ability to win majorities in either house or in to win in most swing states, and with Trump improving his numbers even in blue states last year. Democrats are currently daring Republicans to eliminate their last resort option to block anything, even though they should not be confident that the DNC will ever be in a position to benefit from this new power later themselves.
I think shutdowns are usually pretty stupid, but I’m not reading for “nuclear option” to be the way this one gets resolved.
An equally true statement is that republicans didn’t pass a spending bill that could attract 60 votes in the Senate. But in either case, Republicans are the majority in both houses, they write the bills and have the responsibility to write bills that can be passed and signed.
And it’s a small thing, but this is very obviously a hatch act violation and silly me, I feel like the President should be beholden to our laws.
Saying Dems are blocking it when the GOP refuses to show up for their jobs and negotiate is a pretty big reach. And calling it “clean” when it doesn’t even balance the budget is just bullshit
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
Nobody asked why Republicans, which control every branch of government, need Democrats to cooperate with them to pass a budget, which only requires 50% to pass due to the special process for budget bills.
Oh, right. Because they mislabeled the One Big Beautiful Bill as a budget bill, which means they've used up their one special budget bill for the year and now the actual budget bill has to play by the rules for non-budget bills.
What you are referring to with the "50%" is a reconciliation bill (which is what the OBBB was), which requires a simple majority (50% + 1) to pass, and cannot be filibustered.
Appropriations bills are what keep the government open. Reconciliation bills do not have this effect.
The OBBB could not have been an appropriations bill because those are designed to make changes to mandatory spending programs and taxes, while reconciliation bills are for funding discretionary government operations annually.
Imagine if any one of the dozen outrageous things which have happened in the past 14 days happened under any other president. There would be immediate congressional hearings and likely impeachment proceedings.
I doubt it'd be different if he didn't - this is the sort of thing to which his entire administration is committed. Life's not going to get better if Vance takes his place. Not saying it should be ignored, just int he context of this discussion I don't see it mattering
> Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed HR 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.
Which is obviously factual, regardless of what your brand of politics are. Democrat Senators have indeed blocked the appropriations bill passed by the House. You may disagree with the politics of the bill itself, but this statement is factual and informative.
60 votes are needed to pass so we can agree both parties are at fault when it comes to any individual bill. But the last time Democrats negotiated a bill Trump decided to simply not appropriate the funds Congress passed. Something no passed president has ever done. Republicans are responsible for creating the environment where legislation passed can be selectively implemented
And last time we had this same standoff, Democrats held a majority and Republicans were blamed for not "getting in line". Can't have it both ways guys...
Budget resolutions require 60 votes to pass, so they really can’t. But they know that and their refusal to negotiate is blocking it. Dems are doing what’s best for their constituents by not voting for a budget that would skyrocket healthcare costs for millions of Americans. Meanwhile the GOP is spreading misinformation that Dems want to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants, who have NEVER been eligible for it.
Budget resolutions for quite some time have used the reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority (but imposes some restrictions). The problem is that they shoved through the “OBBBA” using the process intended for the budget, and now it’s no longer available. You can only use the process once per year per subject (spending, revenue, debt limit), and the OBBBA used up all three.
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.
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.
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.
Banners from all of the various affected websites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_gov...
This is like something my 7-year old would do.
This weaponization of public resources for partisan purposes is hardly surprising, but given the government is shut down, I would imagine black or even grey hats might feel like it's open season on .gov, so I would be surprised to see much durability in their attempts.
I don't know about this shutdown, but in past shutdowns, many non-essential .gov sites just pulled the plug for the duration.
This post from Reddit’s Redding, California community is definitely weaponized. https://old.reddit.com/r/Redding/comments/1nvgu8b/guess_i_wo...
Nothing to do with Redding. It's all over the USDA website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/
> The Radical Left Democrats shut down the government. This government website will be updated periodically during the funding lapse for mission critical functions. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.
SBA message is somehow worse... https://sba.gov
HUD is pretty bad too: https://www.hud.gov/
> The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.
Just disgusting.
> Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses.
> Every day that Senate Democrats continue to oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding.
> As a result of the shutdown, we wanted to notify you that many of our services supporting small businesses are currently unavailable. The agency is executing its Lapse Plan and as soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
> If you need disaster assistance, please visit sba.gov/disaster.
Just to add some context to this "clean federal funding": a "clean bill" here means "let things expire". Democrats are fighting for a continuing resolution which extends whatever is about to expire.
In this case, the ACA subsidies would expire if a clean funding bill is passed.
The Democrats already lost the battle on those things (cuts to Medicaid + no extension of Obamacare subsidies) and they were already going to happen because Democrats didn’t (and don’t) have the votes to renew them because they can’t win elections. Now they’re using this opportunity to try to get those things back at gunpoint. It’s not propaganda that the Republicans have offered a CR which changes nothing additional. Once again, Democrats expect to enact their own policy goals with 47 Senate seats and find it doesn’t go so well. Maybe some decade they will go back to trying to convince voters to vote for them instead of just ridiculing everyone outside their echo chamber.
(I’m not a democrat or a republican, I’m not rooting for either one.)
Forget Medicaid expansions expiring, the Democrat ultimatum should be around Trump's crypto bribes and seizing the power of the purse from Congress.
the hatz are already there, they have been for a long time.
It’s barely anything to get a stroke upon: The article didn’t quote the text directly and paraphrased it. It means it is not persuasive per se, or it would have been used as proof.
Since the raw text couldn’t serve as proof, an entire article had to be mounted to create the feeling of being appalling. It’s an opinion piece.
And that’s all it always it: People getting hung up over principles and theories. The proof those principles aren’t universal is that they don’t uphold them themselves when they’re in power.
I wish we were able to talk to each other. There are many ways, many paths together. But no, condescension, condemnation, hate, refusal to work on your bad sides, ideas of revolution, of uprising, of disrespect of people’s vote, refusal to communicate or work together, refusal to let working people keep the fruits of their work, and in the end, we have to take over the government, or you will.
There is no sharing when it’s your side in power. So we elect a hermetically sealed government. I wish we didn’t do that.
>I wish we were able to talk to each other.
We quickly went from "should a woman have autonomy over her body" to "can the president invade a US city" in the blink of an eye. Things are getting continually less compromisable as we edge more to "should the US be a democracy" as a question.
In this administration only, for the coherent sentences you have written.
That's ridiculous, and could be illegal, because in changing the response, they are taking on the speech of the named employee. If that's not a first amendment violation, I don't know what is. Federal employees are not allowed to be involved in politics while they are employed by the federal government, I know there's exceptions and everything, but at its core this action is repugnant.
> in changing the response, they are taking on the speech of the named employee
Would you say that a company adding a standard footer to your outgoing emails is taking on your speech?
It depends on what the footer says.
This isn't a company though, it's the government, and it's generally considered unprofessional if not illegal for federal employees to make partisan statements on the job. There's also the fact that, in my experience, out-of-office autoreplies are generally drafted by the employee while footers are often standardized by the employer.
Additionally, there are strict rules on what federal civil servants can do during a shutdown that don't really apply in private industry, which means whatever official channels would exist to complain probably aren't available. I don't think furloughed employees are supposed to send official email, either, which means they can't clarify who provided this message even if someone is confused by it.
It's illegal, as it's a violation of the Hatch Act.
The official interpretation of the Hatch act was changed in April of this year, so it's likely not.
Wait was the statute amended or did the judiciary change the interpretation?
Why are you bringing in private companies as an argument in a discussion about free speech, which only applies to government entities?
Government is not a company. It's less about overriding each person's OOO message (it is about in a small way) and much more about what the message is.
Just poison throughout from this admin.
I would say the Federal Government is different from a private company.
I don't think I've ever worked anywhere that does that.
What does the footer say?
No, because that's a private company. Your first amendment right to the freedom of speech is freedom from government center ship and interference in your speech. It does not apply to private companies. Now with that said, adding a footer, I don't think would be a problem, but if you set an away message and they changed that for a political reason, then it could be said that they impersonating you to broadcast a political message. Then it might be a civil matter.
this is not about attaching a standard footer.
Setting aside first amendment implications; this is a brazen violation of the Hatch act on the part of whoever set the partisan reply.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Did congress pass a law I missed? Government communication isn’t a 1st Amendment issue. When you work for any employer, you are subject to the whims of that employer.
actually, governments are severly limited in compelling or interfering with political speech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act
Governments are not limited by the Hatch Act, civil service employees are. And the limitations are mainly around elections, so for example under the Hatch Act a civil service employee may not "use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election", may not "knowingly solicit, accept, or receive a political contribution from any person", may not "run for the nomination or as a candidate for election to a partisan political office", and may not "knowingly solicit or discourage the participation in any political activity" of someone who the civil service employee is interacting with.
The Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law that prohibits "civil service employees in the executive branch"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_(government)
the only copout is if it is president or vice president doing it, or someone outside the executive branch.
This isn't a 1st Amendment issue.
The laws are different when you work for the government. A private employee can fire you for something you said a lot easier than the government.
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
>The laws are different when you work for the government.
Which laws? Because every government job I've come across has pretty strict rules on what you can and cannot say in public, or at least they way in which you have to frame it apart from your job.
I think there's two parts of that question. The first is that the law is the hatch act, federal employees may not engage in political activities. But the second thing is, the government is assuming your identity to change your speech and broadcast that speech as if you said it. I'm not a lawyer, but I think that would squarely follow government action to abridge your speech.
I added the link in my comment in an edit before you replied to be fair
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
But from the ABA for a more reliable source.
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/yourab...
I meant I added the parent link after you replied. In other words it was on me for not providing a citation
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
This is it. The project of DOGE was always to centralize all the disparate parts of the government to make it easier to control all of its functions by a smaller team
This is a pretty silly manifestation of that power but it's a sign of things to come. The fact that they were able to change government websites, email signatures, and more within minutes after the shutdown should scare us
You are aware this sort of thing can be administratively set on almost every email system/server? No "backdoor", "search and replace" or "f-kery" needed.
Additionally, if you read the actual message (quoted in the article), it's factual, and therefore not political messaging. Hatch Act doesn't apply here.
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 a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse of appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume."
I don't like that it includes "I" and "me" because it looks like someone is putting words in the employee's mouth. I wouldn't consider that factual.
Yes. I also hate this "is it factual" question because it ignores the underlying problem.
It could still be factual and read "Senate Republicans have blocked voting on S 2882" instead, or more extreme "Registered Republicans have lower education rates than democrats". Just because something is factual does not mean it is not a political statement, and one that would not have been made by the employee whose communication was changed. Let's all not play dumb here.
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.
> 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.
“Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.”
Come on. The message is overtly political (blaming democrats for the shutdown when republicans control the presidency + the house + the senate) and 100% of the people pretending it’s not would be outraged if the same thing was posted under a different administration.
They don’t “control” the Senate. You need 60 seats in the Senate if the other party is willing to filibuster everything, and boy howdy are both parties willing to these days. If the GOP did have 60 seats, then they’d be able to pass that clean bill over the filibuster of the Democrats.
Which part of the statement is false or campaigning? Is it not true Democrats have blocked the passage of the bill? Of course it is.. and people should know that, shouldn't they?
‘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.
Absolutely! All those things could correctly be said, and maybe that’s what would be said now if the Democrats had won the last presidential election! Instead, they ran a candidate who was so unpopular she dropped out before Iowa last time she ran. The DNC still hasn’t processed this reality, though.
The point that everyone is so keen to miss is that those are fine statements to make by political parties or candidates and wholly inappropriate and obviously illegal ones to make by government employees and websites.. That there are two valid opposing ‘truths’ which can be wielded to bludgeon a political opponent is exactly why we made it illegal for the government to make these type of statements.
Turning all of our apolitical institutions into megaphones for the party in power is an absolute nightmare and is illegal for a reason.
Seriously - how can you possibly defend something like this: https://www.hud.gov/
They’re facts. What’s wrong with them? Democrats did shut down the government. One party currently wants a clean CR and the other, the minority, wants to advance their agenda as a condition of not forcing a shutdown. This is an exact reversal of what the republicans did years ago and we all mocked them for it.
Anyway, they’re facts.
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 this out the more excuse the executive branch will have to permanentely lay off people and shutdown departments.
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.
> have broken our government in ways that are going to be very difficult to undo.
The cowardice of both parties to never balance the budget in the last 50 years (Except Clinton!) has done more damage, arguably, in miring us in permanent debt.
I suspect the people who are fine with the government shutting down and who are fine with questionably legal tactics to do away with departments like USAID, feel that even though these things are probably legally wrong, they’re better than just continuing to piss away more and more of future generations’ money, money that we don’t have.
I think the greatest sin involved in all of this is the government’s ridiculous magical, thinking that they can set tax policy and spending policy independently of each other. In my opinion, one of the two should be a fixed function of the other. Either we agree on our tax rates and government benefits, automatically adjust to fit in the budget, or we agree on what we’re going to spend, and taxes automatically adjust to match — either way it should be something everyone can calculate before the bill is voted on.
Sure, the entire thing is false and campaigning.
It is not true that Democrats blocked H.R.5371. The bill was voted on unlike say when Republicans block a bill by sending the representatives home instead of voting on say an Epstein related issue. (Recent vote was 55-45 [1] which not every R voted yay).
The lapse in appropriations cannot singular be pointed at H.R.5371.
If Republicans had stuck to their campaign promises of a balanced budget then we wouldn't be in this situation as we wouldn't need additional borrowing.
Less politically, if 60+ people had input into the bill then it would've passed. Can't be upset that somebody didn't vote for something they didn't have input in.
Only 50 votes are needed in the Senate to pass any legislation (per constitution). The whole 60-votes is a requirement that any point can be changed by the Senate and has been recently for federal judges.
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5371...
It is also a well-known right wing tease to call them Democrat as opposed to Democratic, like calling someone Jew instead of Jewish.
"Democrat" is a slur now? Come on people...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
Absolutely absurd in a modern setting. Everyone, including the news/media colloquially refers to Democrats as "Democrats" and "Democrat".
Jew is not always a slur either. It’s all about how it’s used.
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...
I disagree. I think the fact that Democrats let Trump have a blank check-book for his first term was a massive mistake.
We went from having government shutdowns all the time due to the rampant spending to just covering up the fact that he's blowing through more money than presidents do in 8 years. It leads to a perception that he's actually fiscally responsible.
At this point, either political party pretending to care at all about fiscal responsibility is absolutely hilarious.
The standoff is about a component of the Affordable Care Act that is expiring. Democrats don't have the footing to win this battle - so the longer the standoff holds the worse outcome they can expect. Trump's administration seems to have wanted this shutdown... and Democrats walked right into the landmine.
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
Its weird how restoring congress to how the framers intended (majority vote) is called the "Nuclear option".
It’s weird to me that any Democrat would be rooting for the nuclear option right now. After losing so badly last year, after demographic trends continue to degrade their ability to win majorities in either house or in to win in most swing states, and with Trump improving his numbers even in blue states last year. Democrats are currently daring Republicans to eliminate their last resort option to block anything, even though they should not be confident that the DNC will ever be in a position to benefit from this new power later themselves.
I think shutdowns are usually pretty stupid, but I’m not reading for “nuclear option” to be the way this one gets resolved.
Voting ‘no’ on a bill isn’t blocking it!
An equally true statement is that republicans didn’t pass a spending bill that could attract 60 votes in the Senate. But in either case, Republicans are the majority in both houses, they write the bills and have the responsibility to write bills that can be passed and signed.
And it’s a small thing, but this is very obviously a hatch act violation and silly me, I feel like the President should be beholden to our laws.
Saying Dems are blocking it when the GOP refuses to show up for their jobs and negotiate is a pretty big reach. And calling it “clean” when it doesn’t even balance the budget is just bullshit
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...
> It's factual.
Nobody asked why Republicans, which control every branch of government, need Democrats to cooperate with them to pass a budget, which only requires 50% to pass due to the special process for budget bills.
Oh, right. Because they mislabeled the One Big Beautiful Bill as a budget bill, which means they've used up their one special budget bill for the year and now the actual budget bill has to play by the rules for non-budget bills.
Skill issue.
> only requires 50% to pass
This is incorrect.
The bill that just failed (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5371), is an appropriations bill.
60 votes are needed, and the final vote was 55-45.
https://apnews.com/article/democrats-republicans-shutdown-ne...
What you are referring to with the "50%" is a reconciliation bill (which is what the OBBB was), which requires a simple majority (50% + 1) to pass, and cannot be filibustered.
Appropriations bills are what keep the government open. Reconciliation bills do not have this effect.
The OBBB could not have been an appropriations bill because those are designed to make changes to mandatory spending programs and taxes, while reconciliation bills are for funding discretionary government operations annually.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/budget-resolution-re...
[flagged]
Imagine if any one of the dozen outrageous things which have happened in the past 14 days happened under any other president. There would be immediate congressional hearings and likely impeachment proceedings.
It's pretty clear the president has dementia.
I’m skeptical. I think he’s just always been pretty nonsensical.
He took a dementia test and couldn't remember the questions the next day and instead just made up words like Man, Woman, Person, Tv, Camera.
That's dementia. He's old, it happens.
We’ve seen him on narcissist rage, but I think we are only beginning to witness the sundowning aggression
I doubt it'd be different if he didn't - this is the sort of thing to which his entire administration is committed. Life's not going to get better if Vance takes his place. Not saying it should be ignored, just int he context of this discussion I don't see it mattering
That's the longest pronoun signature I've seen.
The actual message:
> Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed HR 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.
Which is obviously factual, regardless of what your brand of politics are. Democrat Senators have indeed blocked the appropriations bill passed by the House. You may disagree with the politics of the bill itself, but this statement is factual and informative.
Why not phrase it as "The Republican-controlled Congress is blocking things by not presented a bill amenable to a supermajority of the Senate"?
Both are obviously factual, as you say.
60 votes are needed to pass so we can agree both parties are at fault when it comes to any individual bill. But the last time Democrats negotiated a bill Trump decided to simply not appropriate the funds Congress passed. Something no passed president has ever done. Republicans are responsible for creating the environment where legislation passed can be selectively implemented
The party in charge generally decides the content of the bills they choose to vote on.
It's the party in charge that wrote a bill they knew that no Democrats could accept.
And last time we had this same standoff, Democrats held a majority and Republicans were blamed for not "getting in line". Can't have it both ways guys...
Speaking in first person does feel like impersonation and completed speech though
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.
Budget resolutions require 60 votes to pass, so they really can’t. But they know that and their refusal to negotiate is blocking it. Dems are doing what’s best for their constituents by not voting for a budget that would skyrocket healthcare costs for millions of Americans. Meanwhile the GOP is spreading misinformation that Dems want to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants, who have NEVER been eligible for it.
Budget resolutions for quite some time have used the reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority (but imposes some restrictions). The problem is that they shoved through the “OBBBA” using the process intended for the budget, and now it’s no longer available. You can only use the process once per year per subject (spending, revenue, debt limit), and the OBBBA used up all three.
There is no law requiring 60 votes. Only a senate rule, which can be overturned with 51 votes.
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
There is no law requiring 60 votes. Only a senate rule, which can be overturned with 51 votes.
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.
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.
The question is not if Democrat senators stopped the bill from passing. Republicans have 53 seats and needed 60 votes.
The question is if the Democrats were justified in doing it. Right now there is a lot of double speak going on.
Ultimately this dynamic always works out the same way. The minority party caves because they have no leverage.
No actually the Republicans blocked the Democratic bill:
https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy26_dem...
(See, we can both play stupid games!)
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.
It's deliberately incomplete. You can be completely factual and, simultaneously, intentionally deceiving.
You realize that a sentence can be both factual and misleading, right?
“Unfortunately, Senators have not agreed on the terms to pass HR 5371 leading to a lapse in appropriations.”
Wouldn’t something like this still be factual, informative, and-importantly-NOT misleading?
And yet even here it's not entirely factual -- the correct term is Democratic Senators. "Democrat" is a shortening often used for partisan purposes.