President Trusk and his minions are monsters.
I should add that the latest news is that the woman will be released in a few days due to the efforts of her family and the intervention of the Government of Canada. Which only means she will return to Vancouver, but will be unable to carry on her business. And the further point is that she had done absolutely nothing wrong, and the 30 other women in the concrete cell she was initially throw into didn’t have such resources. Most of them still don’t even have any legal representation.
She was an entrepreneur with a TN work visa and was entering the US to attend a business convention, along with paperwork for a visa renewal. This just seems like the worst, darkest inclinations of the US CPB being empowered by the evil raining down from Trump. It’s like watching the Nazi pogrom unfold in 1930s Germany – classic herd psychology is that if evil actions are endorsed by authority and everybody does them, they become normalized.
I think this is the thread in which I previously posted my concerns about fed workers being ordered to return to office in violation of clear language in their collective bargainning agreements. (My concern - warranted or not, was if that valid labor contract cold simply be ignored, that did not bode well for other contracts.)
Yesterday and today we received emails saying the current acting head of our Agency has assured our unions that they would respect the CBA and that we would not need to RTO. So that is at least one minor bright spot for me, others in my Agency, and labor.
I also questioned whether the administration would cease to recognize federal unions. Last week, DHS withdrew recognition of TSA’s union. For those keeping score, DHS is essentially unique. Post 9/11, DHS was established under Title 49 of the US Code, whereas most other agencies are governed under Title 5. 49 USC Sec. 114(n) specifically gives the Administrator rights to manage employees how they deem necessary. Title 5 of the code, where other federal employees land, mandates that an agency recognize employees’ labor organization. So, an agency other than DHS could not remove a labor organization. Only the members of the bargaining unit could elect to change that.
Just a minor point. I now return you to your previously scheduled discussion.
I once worked in a group that had some employees that were incredibly bad. And not just incompetent, but unethical and dishonest. They were very definition of fraud, abuse, and waste.
Management didn’t want to get rid of them. Why? Because firing anyone would make the group - and management in particular - “look bad.” How would it make management look bad? Because if you fired someone, then it means you (management) made an error in hiring them in the first place.
Instead of firing them, these employees were given awards. And they’re still employed there.
There is another aspect. Say an employee is only doing 10% of their expected work. If you are not allowed to replace them, if you fire them you are losing even that minimal production. Yeah, not likely reason enough, but one factor.
When I made it a priority to get rid of the worst employees, in too many instances, our regional office just transferred them to regional - where they continued to be horrible employees. Not a great system.
I told my staff, if you are a superstar, let me know whatever I can do to help you. If you are just doing your assigned work, that’s fine - I’ll stay out of your way and make sure you have what you need. If you are below average, well, don’t think you can call on extra resources or special treatment. But if you are at the bottom of your job category - I will be your worst nightmare. Funny - only the small number of worst employees had any problem with that approach.
We had one guy like that. I managed him a bit as acting section head here and there. He wasn’t great at the job, didn’t produce at the level he was expected to produce, and at one point, I’m pretty sure he was running a side gig out of his office.
But our job is very obscure, you can’t just hire off the street to replace us, so I guess management felt even that substandard work was enough, since it would cost a significant amount to train a replacement (I once roughly calculated it as on the order of $300k to train us, over the course of two years). So he cruised through his career, finally retiring a few years back.
What I was trying to explain is something different. Our jobs were not obscure or difficult to fill. It is just that if you fired someone, or promoted from within to fill a vacancy, there was no guarantee that you would be able to backfill the now vacant position. It was horrible, when you would consider NOT promoting a deserving current employee, because hiring from outside would prevent losing that FTE. I resisted that temptation, preferring to do what was right and deal with the consequences. But it got old pretty quickly.
Actually this was a major point for me, so thanks for sharing. I had previously understood that a contract was a contract, including labor contracts, and couldn’t be unilaterally terminated by an employer. So I was really puzzled when the TSA collective bargaining agreement got canceled by DHS, and I was getting worried that my agency might suddenly decide to do the same. I’m glad to see that my agency is governed by different rules, and is unlikely to be able to cancel my Union’s collective bargaining agreement.
My agency did announced last month that they were going to rescind telework agreements. My rescission goes into effect in about a week. Telework matters to me, so I’m really hoping the collective grievance that the union has filed gets some traction. Although I have no idea how long that’ll take…
The interesting constitutional question is: are there things that a citizen can say but a green-card holder can’t? Or, in other words: does the constitution cover all residents, or just citizens?
I think the answer is obvious but with this SCOTUS, who the hell knows.
Yeah - it is so challenging, when this administration takes so many bold actions which seem contrary to everything we thought was etched in stone. We have to scramble to try to ascertain the specific bases for various basic rights and relationships.
Our agency also announced they were rescinding telework. Then they clarified that it did not apply to some components. Now this. I have every expectation that it could - likely will - change tomorrow.
Will be interested in hearing whether your agency respects its contracts. But for today, I’m one more day closer to my 12/27 intended retirement. Yay me! 
I think I saw something recently implying that this administration views naturalized citizens as potentially second-class citizens (depending, of course, on whether the Orange Fuhrer agrees with them or not) and it wouldn’t surprise me if said felon moves to have their citizenship withdrawn the same way that visas and green cards have been cancelled without cause. Unconstitutional? Sure, but watcha gonna do about it?
This reminds me of someone or something… I’m getting the colour orange for some reason…
Top headline here in Luxembourg: one of our people was roughed up by US border control assholes for no reason.
Arlington National Cemetery stops highlighting some historical figures on its website
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/14/g-s1-54054/arlington-national-cemetery-dei-website
Arlington National Cemetery has begun wiping from its website histories highlighting Black, Hispanic and women veterans. The change is in line with President Trump’s directive to remove references to and support for diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government.
A U.S. official not authorized to talk to media told NPR the removal of links and sections about these groups have been dubbed a “digital content refresh” by top Pentagon officials.
The story was first reported by Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin on his Substack newsletter and by Task & Purpose, a publication focused on military news.
Articles, photos and videos that are seen as promoting DEI will be removed under the new approach.
For example, Gen. Colin Powell was the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the first corps comprised only of Black women to work overseas during World War II. Their stories are no longer prominent on the website, but can still be found using the search function.
…
“Digital content refresh.” Ri-i-i-i-ight.
Can the back of the bus be far behind (definitely no pun intended)??
Today’s closure of the Voice of America is under discussion in another thread, so I will just put this afternoon’s shutting of venerable Radio Free Europe here:
U.S. ends funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The Radio Free Europe web site is still up, but is no longer being updated.
Their home page still says this:
Even this morning, the above wasn’t quite correct. Radio Free Europe was also providing news in the home language of a 24th country where a free press is under threat, that being the United States. Their English language news site was an outstanding free source of reliable news regarding many countries insufficiently covered in American media.
Putin must be kvelling.
Someone was still working at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last night, as I now see them reporting on their demise:
Just a trivial addition to all the horrors, but the Orange Boor has been transforming the formerly tasteful Oval Office into something resembling his gilded chintzy Mar-a-Lago. He had apparently been planning to install a gilded chandelier, too – the kind he has in his bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago – but was talked out of it.
The only upside of it is that world leaders meeting with him there are immediately aware that they’re dealing with an ignorant, tasteless boor.
Aside: I didn’t realize CNN was paywalled now! Grrrr… I never liked them anyway. This is sure to make more friends.
These New York Post shots don’t look all that bad. Surely CNN didn’t try to mislead? 
That CNN article isn’t paywalled for me. If you can’t access it maybe it has something to do with article view count.
As for the pics posted in the New York Post, sure, the right-wing rag posted pics that don’t look bad. But behold the gilt here:
And JFC, give me a break with the raging narcissim (that’s a gilded paperweight on the Orange Felon’s desk) …
