Elon Musk bragged this group had been 'deleted' when DOGE shut it down - now they're appealing

Former employees of the US government's 18F tech modernization team have filed an appeal of their termination, arguing that the DOGE-led shuttering of their entire unit was illegal. The 18F team argued in an appeal [PDF] to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) filed Wednesday that all 80 of them deserve to be reinstated …

[Anonymous Coward]

Leftist policies

According to GOP dogma, effective government and usable government technology are in itself a Communist ploy to disparage Honest Libertarian Free Market fundamentalism.

Any honest conservative should stay away from any activity that might result in better government for the people by the people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Leftist policies

I would like to add the wise words of former Colorado City Mayor Tim Boyd who summarized the philosophy of the Republican party with respect to effective government so well.

Tim Boyd wrote these memorable words in a Facebook post during the trying times of the Texas Freeze when hundreds of Texans froze to death because of ruefully inadequate power grid infrastructure:

No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the week will perish.

Emphasis mine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Leftist policies

It doesn’t take much thinking about that quote to appreciate Tim Boyd was just another clueless politician. I note he deleted the post, pleaded forgiveness in the typical US evangelical way (ie. Big insincere show), and resigned.

I’m sure he actually did nothing like he was suggesting, and simply called “the office” and government employees were dispatched, so his cocoon wasn’t disturbed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tim Boyd

"I’m sure he actually did nothing like he was suggesting,"

Actually, he did nothing, just like all of Texas politicians did nothing.[1] That was the point.

His words were right from the hearts and minds of the GOP. Every policy and every action of GOP politicians screams Don't help the weak and poor, never give them a break.

Tim Boyd simply brought this heartfelt message so eloquently to the people.

[1] Ted Cruz did something. He went on holiday with family to warm Mexico. Though, due to the media attention, he had to stay in Texas.

[Bbuckley]

Re: Leftist policies

The exact opposite anonymous fool.

[Tom 38]

Re: Leftist policies

I'm quite glad the week will perish, its been dragging on a while

[Ropewash]

Re: Leftist policies

"the week will perish"

Reading this on a Sunday, I am inclined to agree.

[Bbuckley]

Re: Leftist policies

I totally agree with EVERYTHING in parenthesis.

[Wang Cores]

hmmm I think I seen this movie before

Fun thing is the international populist movement based on resentment of minorities and elites, repression of the (useful idiot) intelligentsia leading to an illiberal regime with red as an aesthetic hasn't changed, just the players. One might argue this is just right-wing communism.

Personally I liked it a lot more when the red guys were promising to topple traditional power to entrust it to the workers. Silly me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

"One might argue this is just right-wing communism."

Sounds like you don't know much about Communism, do you?

If anything, the current breed of US extreme right have very little in common with Communism, but almost completely overlap with good old fascism.

It's like "Christian Nationalism". You cannot be a Christian if you are a Nationalist.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

The hard right and the hard left have a huge amount in common. Take our own unlovely Socialist Workers' Party, which ...

* Has an unchallengeable leader

* Allows no internal dissent

* Rejects democracy and elections

* Calls for the mass slaughter, through revolution, of their political opponents and whole classes of society

* Believes that Jews are behind all the world's problems

and has the nerve to lecture the rest of us about fascism. True, they are not explicitly nationalist, but they are a misogynist rape cult, which I thinks makes up for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

"Socialist Workers' Party"

Which party of which country are you talking about?

[Ian Johnston]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

The UK Socialist Workers' Party.

[Irongut]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

Not communists.

In my experience the leaders of the UK Socialist Workers Party like to turn up to demonstrations, meetings, etc in the Merc, BMW or Audi their Labour MP father bought them.

Eventually they become a Labour MP themselves and the cycle continues.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

Well, obviously true communism has never been tried. And yes, the SWP are overwhelmingly middle class tossers who would shit themselves if the revolution actually happened. I used to work alongside one of their senior people in Scotland. He makes a lot of his income as a private landlord ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

"The UK Socialist Workers' Party."

I must admit I have never heard of them. Did they actually made an impact on UK politics? Or the lives of Britons?

[Ian Johnston]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

On the whole no. They have never dared stand for election and content themselves with making trouble by cuckoo's-egging other groups. The Scottish Green Party, for example, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the SWP, following the takeover and destruction of the Scottish Socialist Party.

[Bbuckley]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

Don't you mean the Scottish No-balls Party?

[katrinab]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

They turn up at other people’s demonstrations with a load of placards. Other than that, not really.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

"The UK Socialist Workers' Party."

I must admit I have never heard of them. Did they actually made an impact on UK politics? Or the lives of Britons?

Having known a few of them when I was a student (back in the 1980s) the answer is "no" and "mostly no". No, they've never made an impact in politics (being mostly concerned with propping up the bar while declaiming the inequality of labour) and "only when they join in with the national pastime of looting and rioting".

On the whole they were mostly a bunch of wild-eyes revolutionaries who were young enough and inexperienced enough to be manipulated by older, much more cynical hardliners (who would, of course, *never* expose their precious selves to anything as risky as public protest.)

[ChrisElvidge]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

When I was at college, we used a different W word for them.

[Bbuckley]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

Ha ha ha. What a complete idiotic statement - do you realise you are stating untrue and fake boundaries of your own feeble mind as if they are statements of fact! Idiot!

[Bbuckley]

Re: hmmm I think I seen this movie before

The BEST response! Well said!

[Jedit]

"Any honest conservative"

Ah, I begin to see the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Any honest conservative"

We must leave room for the possibility that there are indeed honest conservatives, somewhere.

Think Sodom&Gomorra, they also were saved if there was one honest man/woman.

What? OK, bad example.

But at least Lot and his daughters were saved and he was a decent man.

What? OK, bad example.

What are the odds there are no honest conservatives among the 330M Americans?

[Ian Johnston]

Re: "Any honest conservative"

There is a strain of conservatism in Britain which is intelligent, well-intentioned and honest. I disagree with a fair bit of their policies, but I can respect their positions and like them as people. That's some way from the idiots in the current Tory Party (supporters of Brexit who supported Boris and then supported Liz Truss, so stupid³) and a million miles from the antidemocratic fascists running the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Any honest conservative"

God agreed to save Sodom and Gomorrah if there were five good people. There weren't.

As for Lot himself, his specifically listed sins appear to be limited to living in Sodom and getting plastered at least twice (after losing his wife and home). It was his daughters who had the, er, ill-conceived plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Any honest conservative"

"It was his daughters who had the, er, ill-conceived plan."

Yeah, this is most certainly what all these men claim when they are put in front of a court. That never holds up.

He was plastered all right, but what dronken men do and what they say happened is seldomly the same.

And we know how it is with men, alcohol, and "performance". If Lot really was plastered enough to be semi conscious, he would hardly be able to sire children.

In short, I am very suspicious about how the blame is portioned out here.

[Bbuckley]

Re: Leftist policies

Government for the people by the people is the diametric opposite of communism. Idiot.

[ChoHag]

> the Agencies were acting at the behest of Elon Musk and others who sought to eliminate 18F because of the group's diversity, adherence to DEI principles and whistleblowing.

I think it's far more likely that the group was staffed by people who saw right through Musk and his "IT Geniuses".

[tonique]

I think it's probably both.

(Posted this to the wrong comment originally, that's why there's a deleted post below.

[Anonymous Coward]

18F - like the Government Audit Office - can see through the DoGE Tech Tween bullshit.

‘Adherence to DEI and Whistleblowing’… <cough> you mean upholding the Constitution by following applicable laws and legislation in effect at the time ?

18F and GAO are literally the people DoGE should be working for… or just give them some additional funding to do what they are and we’re already doing.

FFS.

[DownUndaRob]

Musk?

So, according the Marco Rubio's latest emission he will block people entering the country that deliberately censor American Citizens online comments, does this include Elon?

[DS999]

Re: Musk?

Elon is censoring the people who SHOULD be censored, so he's fine. It only if you censor people on the right (no matter how far to the right they are or what sort of illegal things they are trying to incite or saying they want to do) that it is wrong.

In fact it is so wrong that even if they carry out those things (like the people who tried to kidnap and planned to kill Michigan's governor, or those who stormed the capitol and injured over 100 police officers) that they get full pardons because they're on the "right" side.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Musk?

Defund Musk

Revoke his US Citizenship

Deport Musk

South Urfrica can have him back.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Musk?

Seth Effrica has enough problems. Send him to CICOT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Musk?

Can one tie him up to the next SpaceX rocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pride comes before a fall

And let’s just hope the fall is significant.

[Jan 0]

Doge purges.

Have they had time to destroy the USSF, yet?

[Bbuckley]

They can appeal all they like ... but they actually, yes,really *are* DELETED. Fuck off and die communists!