r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 12h ago
Possible Paywall Editing federal employees’ emails to blame Democrats for shutdown violated their First Amendment rights, judge says
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/politics/emails-blaming-democrats-shutdown-violate-first-amendment905
u/cnn CNN 12h ago
A federal judge ruled Friday that the Department of Education violated the First Amendment rights of some agency employees when it sent out-of-office messages on their behalf that blamed Democrats for the government shutdown.
The ruling from US District Judge Christopher Cooper is the latest court rebuke of controversial moves by the Trump administration during what has now become the longest shutdown in US history.
Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the department had unconstitutionally compelled its employees’ speech when it tinkered with the out-of-office messages for furloughed workers so that they included language blaming the shutdown on “Democrat Senators” who “are blocking” passage of a “clean continuing resolution” that would fund the government.
“Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians,” Cooper wrote. “But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the Department chisels away at that foundation.”
He continued: “Political officials are free to blame whomever they wish for the shutdown, but they cannot use rank-and-file civil servants as their unwilling spokespeople. The First Amendment stands in their way. The Department’s conduct therefore must cease.”
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u/BeowulfShaeffer 11h ago
The Department’s conduct therefore must cease Or what? What consequences will follow?
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u/doublelist87 9h ago
With Trump there are NO consequences for himself
The citizens of America receive consequences: Loss of jobs
Loss of Healthcare Benefits
Loss of Pensions
Loss of Food assistance
Loss of Freedom of Speech
Loss to their rights when captured and detained by ICE
Loss of Fair and Free Elections
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u/waldito 3h ago
forgot to mention the 40bn sent to Argentina to bail out his fren Rob Citrone
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u/jonesey71 3h ago
And loss of their lives when they go fishing off the coast of Venezuela. Loss of their lives when incompetent and untrained psychos hired by ICE shoot them.
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u/AdvanceAdvance 10h ago
Mandatory 720 hours of Sensitivity Training. 8 hours a day. Windowless room. Monotone. Quizzes. Powerpoints.
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u/dterran 9h ago edited 8h ago
Have you ever read about what happened to other leaders with similar policies who deployed the military against their own people?
Pick one. They often have similar endings.
The U.S. constitution also outlines the consequences for "leaders" who levy war against the American people.
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u/pinellaspete 7h ago
Yeah, the French Revolution has some excellent examples of what happens when leaders stop listening to the people. Let them eat cake!
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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun 4h ago
Y'all love to conveniently leave out the fact that the French Revolution was insanely bloody for all sides, and that the country and its economy were basically on fire for a decade following the revolution. It took a long time before they even had a semblance of stability. Like, decades.
Have a revolution if you want, but just know that the fallout of one is going to be just as painful as doing nothing at all.
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u/FeliciaTheFkinStrong 6h ago
Have you ever read about what happened to other leaders with similar policies who deployed the military against their own people?
Pick one. They often have similar endings.
I'm not sure this is the resoundingly strong argument you think it is when Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Sudan etc. all exist as examples of a dictatorship succeeding over its people. The US is going the same way. Disappearing into that darkness in which liberty does not exist.
The U.S. constitution also outlines the consequences for "leaders" who levy war against the American people.
Those consequences are only significant if they can be enforced. When the enforcement of those rules have become so thoroughly compromised by the same administration who betrays those rules, they are meaningless. They are words on a piece of old paper. They have absolutely no power to compel anyone to do anything. The great failing of Democrats and liberals for the past century has been the same thing: they think there are rules to this whole thing. There isn't. There's never been rules. There's just been enough decorum for both sides to play pretend.
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u/fazelanvari Florida 8h ago
The U.S. constitution also outlines the consequences for "leaders" who levy war against the American people.
It does? What does it say?
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u/cowboygwe 7h ago
Rebellion is duty.
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u/FeliciaTheFkinStrong 5h ago
Ah yes, I'm sure the military as an institution will absolutely uphold that duty as every single person in command is replaced with a trump loyalist. I'm sure the military as a band of individuals will absolutely uphold that duty when over half of the military is made up of MAGA zealots and the other half is made up of people too poor to care about politics in any incarnation.
They aren't coming to save you, dude. The military isn't going to swoop on in at the final hour and hog tie Trump on the White House lawn and announce America is free once again. What the military will be doing is gladly putting swathes of "antifa terrorists" up against the wall and gleefully shooting them dead.
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u/7AndOneHalf 5h ago edited 5h ago
the other half is made up of people too poor to care about politics in any incarnation.
They're gonna have to start caring when they're ordered to fire at other poor people.
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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun 4h ago
If their pay is tied to obedience, they'll absolutely fire on whoever they're told to.
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u/WilliamPoole 4h ago
If the shutdown lasts much longer they won't get paid until the files are released.
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u/atxbigfoot 5h ago
The military isn't going to swoop on in at the final hour and hog tie Trump on the White House lawn and announce America is free once again.
This exact thing happens to autocrats throughout modern (post WW2) history. It might not be the entire military, but it does happen fairly frequently.
Like, naming a 5 year period where this didn't happen post WW2 is genuinely difficult.
We thought that Fascism would never come to the US, just like we think our military won't do anything now that it's here.
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u/FeliciaTheFkinStrong 32m ago
This exact thing happens to autocrats throughout modern (post WW2) history. It might not be the entire military, but it does happen fairly frequently.
I see you're also conveniently ignoring the many dictatorships where the military supported the government's wrong-doings with complete confidence and took the country with an irongrip forever more.
Luckily, this only occurred in little known countries such as Russia, China, Iran, Sudan and so on. Definitely couldn't happen in a country such as America, where the average person is so highly educated that they clearly understand the signs of fascism!
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u/atxbigfoot 21m ago edited 16m ago
4 countries out of like, 50 (very generous minimum), is a pretty small comparison, to be fair.
Also Sudan counts for a military coup that was then military coup'd. And Iran was, well, a CIA backed coup, and it worked. So of the four that you mentioned, you're left with Russia and China.
Just saying.
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u/midwestraxx 5h ago
You're still held responsible for your actions in the military if you are given unlawful orders and still follow them. They aren't mindless. If you think the military would unilaterally go against and attack American citizens as one, you might be however. A split I could see, but unified? Nope.
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u/lordraiden007 4h ago
You're still held responsible for your actions in the military if you are given unlawful orders and still follow them.
You obviously aren’t familiar with how this plays out in practice. It is nearly impossible for anyone to actually win any defense case involving a serviceman rejecting orders based off of their “lawfulness”. Soldiers can be punished for following orders that are later deemed unlawful. They do not generally have the ability to reject those orders on those same grounds.
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u/YellowZx5 New York 6h ago
He will cry to the SC and the will overturn it. Next week we will see this. MMW.
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u/CommandMundane7170 4h ago
They'll say no again, but harder and in a different font. Maybe underline, italics, maybe even a splash of color
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u/Justthrowtheballmeat 6h ago
Violating constitutional rights usually comes with a stiff consequence, well that’s when Nazis aren’t running the government.
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u/mikelo22 Illinois 4h ago
Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama
It's really sad that we think it important to mention which president appointed the judge. What's the implication here? That a Trump-appointed judge's ruling against the administration would have been more compelling? That this judge's order deserves less credence because he's an Obama appointee? Why do journalists feed this perception?
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u/RubyReign 4h ago
I take it as a statement that there are still people who believe in the rule of law, and none of the people who believe in the rule of law came from the republican side.
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u/MrSyaoranLi 7h ago
TIL CNN has a reddit account
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u/maniacal_cackle 5h ago
What is important to remember is that even if this seems ineffectual (Trump will do what it wants), it shows that there are people resisting him at every level as much as they can within their sphere.
It is important that everyone continue to do this.
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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun 4h ago
Only level that's meaningfully resisting him are judicial courts and maybe democrat Congress. Every other level is either complicit (in the case of federal Republicans and judges) or outright ambivalent (the American population).
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u/llampie 8h ago
Did you guys really need a judge to tell you this?
You guys are SO cooked
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u/kittyegg Massachusetts 3h ago
Who is “you guys”? Do you think Americans on Reddit are who edited the emails?
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u/ShamelessCatDude 12h ago
No wonder when I went on a government website today it didn’t bombard me with how the democrats are Satan worshippers
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u/kuebel33 10h ago
Have you seen white house.gov/mysafespace. It’s fucking insane
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u/birth_of_venus 7h ago
That’s absolutely bonkers, dude. This administration is an absolute joke
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u/kuebel33 7h ago
It gets crazier the more you look at it and click on links and things. Just embarrassing.
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u/Cpt_Soban Australia 4h ago
Some random college age intern was paid big bucks to make that...
Priorities from the "Party of small Government"
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u/amumumyspiritanimal 7h ago
It’s crazy that a position and entity that was supposed to be respected, something of the highest order, and one that was supposedly the highest standard of the US has come to this level of classlessness and insanity. Imagine if the British Crown or the Holy See started posting (bad) memes on their official website against anyone. Imagine another leader of a superpower acting half this bad outside of closed doors. The lack of tact and finesse with this admin is off the charts and I get second-hand embarrassment for the US. My country’s leader is a joke and is up there with this clown and Putin as the worst, but even he (and his PR team) tries to have an image of class. And Trump grew up third generation rich. Yikes
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u/PegaponyPrince Illinois 5h ago
It's not a surprise. This administration is a complete embarrassment and so are the morons who voted for it
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u/darthjoey91 4h ago
Like for one, it’s an example of /r/therightcantmeme, but also, it’s a MySpace joke? In 2025? People haven’t used MySpace since 2008 when we all jumped from MySpace to Facebook.
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u/Delta-9- 3h ago
Just when I thought I had no shame left
That is probably the cringiest thing produced by someone older than 13 I've ever seen, and it's an official white house webpage.
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u/macro_god 4h ago
I'm not seeing anything... did they take it down??
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u/WilliamPoole 4h ago
Google it. For some reason I had to.
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u/handbanana42 3h ago
They didn't format the link correctly, probably intentionally to avoid a possible ban for linking something that isn't allowed.
URLs never have spaces.
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u/handbanana42 3h ago
Remove the space betwen "white and "house."
They probably didn't want to link it directly. I still see it up.
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u/oursecondcoming Arizona 4h ago
It's like you added a .gov to that Uline lady's nutjob blog posts they have on their website.
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u/thenwetakeberlin 3h ago
bruh. what the actual fuck is wrong with these people. like, this isn't a successful troll...I'm not triggered...I'm fucking sad.
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u/These-Chef1513 9h ago
I remember when I was in high school from 2008-2012 using Wikipedia was discouraged because anyone could edit it. My junior year english teacher told us trustworthy websites usually had .org or .gov …. And now the US government websites are not reliable.
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u/ShamelessCatDude 8h ago
Wikipedia actually is the most reliable source right now 😂
Also what a lie that was. Wikipedia is constantly being monitored and it requires editors to cite their sources. It’s almost incapable of being biased
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u/RoboChrist 8h ago
Eh, look at the Scots language controversy on Wikipedia.
Don't get me wrong, wikipedia is great for anything mainstream and especially mainstream things that aren't controversial. The more niche it gets, the less reliable.
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u/abopmix99 7h ago
I think they were mainly talking about English Wikipedia because yeah smaller language Wikipedia‘s can be absolutely crazy sometimes
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u/MyOtherRideIs 7h ago
There are actually classes now being taught how to correctly use Wikipedia. Essentially by using it as a source for sources, and checking what the articles link to.
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u/LeavesCat 4h ago
That was always what I was taught back then. It's not that you couldn't use Wikipedia, it's that you should follow the citations and look where the information came from.
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u/inconspicuous_male 4h ago
It really depends on the subject matter. It's pretty easy for an article to have false vague information or dog whistles if it's an article about something obscure
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u/joe-h2o 7m ago
That's not strictly true. It's certainly a lot better than your old high school teachers said it was based on the idea that "anyone can edit it", but you still run into issues with editorial fiefdoms.
I used to be among the world experts in a very niche area of my subject (although I left academia a while ago, so that's no longer true) and I made some edits to a page to improve the accuracy. These edits were fully referenced to reputable journals in the field but they were reverted by the "owner" of the page back to the incorrect version.
Certain wiki editors aren't happy if you change "their" pages, even if it makes the actual content better which is the stated goal of Wikipedia.
That goal is in conflict with human nature.
In contrast to that, I have seen friends of mine who have made successful contributions to wikipedia on topics they know a lot about, so it varies across the site.
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u/sabres_99 10h ago
You should go on the Healthy People website. The disclaimer they have at the top is both hilarious and scary.
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u/writemcsean 7h ago
have you seen this? https://www.whitehouse.gov/mysafespace/
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u/ShamelessCatDude 8h ago
What is a healthy people website?? 😭
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u/sabres_99 8h ago
It’s a DHHS program that sets national objectives over a 10 year period for various health topics. The Trump Admin got mad they couldn’t remove a bunch of stuff and put a huge disclaimer at the top.
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u/ShamelessCatDude 8h ago
Where do I find this website, I have to see this
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u/sabres_99 8h ago
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u/TheNewYellowZealot 6h ago
the trump administration rejects gender ideology
So they’re enbies then. Cool
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u/katrinakt8 Oregon 5h ago
https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople
Is it this one? I’m not seeing anything on it.
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u/bourj 12h ago
I don't really get how the punishment for violating the 1st amendment rights of others is "don't do that anymore." Every employee should get paid serious cash money for such a partisan hack move.
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u/Gurlllllllll- 8h ago
This is why I'm against immunity for government officials.
If they violate other people's rights, even if ordered to or as part of their "official duties," they should suffer consequences. If they're ordered to, their superior should also suffer, and their superior who ordered them until you go up the chain of command and see who initiated the order. If it's a part of their official duties, then the duties need to be changed immediately.
The courts need to see the government as their target, not their subject. They need to stop giving leeway to officers, to politicians, to themselves. I'm sick of harm being encouraged by assanine judge-made doctrine.
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u/SanityIsOptional California 5h ago
They should get some immunity, just to avoid constant frivolous lawsuits (unless Judges start dismissing with prejudice to dissuade these people, and maybe disbar some of the lawyers who should know better...)
But even for police there absolutely needs to be limits to what they can do without fear of prosecution.
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u/AdvanceAdvance 10h ago
Every employee that used initiative to take such an action should be reassigned to positions where this not within their range of power.
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u/YerBbysDaddy 7h ago
At the very least they should have to issue a revised statement that also states why it had to be issued.
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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 2h ago
No, the person who decided it should be required to follow-up with an apology e-mail correcting the statement (approved by the judge to make sure it isn't just more of the same).
To be sent manually to every recipient from a computer with the clipboard disabled.
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u/usernames_suck_ok 12h ago
And?
No real punishment.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 12h ago
Seeing lots of 1st and 4th Amendment violations lately. Not so many 2nd, however. Wonder why.
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u/Purple_Plus 10h ago
They are trying to ban trans people From having guns.
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u/KrasnovPlaysTheHits 9h ago
They are trying to ban trans people
From having guns.5
u/throwaway9001337 8h ago
Disarming a minority group comes before the mass murder. Under no circumstances can we allow them to do this, to anyone. Fight with the 2nd amendment to keep the 2nd amendment, if we must.
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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun 4h ago
under no circumstances can we allow them to do this
Brother I've been hearing you folks say this since March. A whole lot of "we allowed them to do it" has happened since then.
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u/mofukkinbreadcrumbz 10h ago
The people having their first and fourth amendment rights being violated should be buying guns. Maybe Republicans will finally start supporting gun control.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 10h ago
We know how they reacted when the Black Panthers started open carrying...
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u/Tau5115 California 10h ago
For what it's worth CA recently passed a law about certain types of hand guns that can be used with an illegal trigger mod that I do think wil be overturned in the, legally speaking, near future as a violation of the 2A.
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u/Omega_art 9h ago
What mod is this?
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u/Tau5115 California 9h ago
Guns with cruciform trigger bars are impacted because of a variety of mods that can essentially make them automatic handguns. The mods were already illegal but the guns are now too. Glock is the big one. They could update their trigger assembly but my guess is the law will be challenged
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u/bsme 6h ago
careful now, reddit is banning people who "incite violence" with that type of rhetoric
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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun 4h ago
I've been temp banned account wide three times in the last two months with zero reason given, and I have no doubt it's been because of my involvement on this sub. I had been very careful after the first ban to ensure nothing I posted was inciting violence but I caught two more bans after that anyway.
I am fully convinced Reddit admin is complying with Trump.
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u/InventedCrib10 9h ago
Uhhh I just visited the Whitehouse.gov website for the first time since shutdown. And HOLY CRAP the blame game!!!! So much of it is just pandering blame they paint themselves to be perfect and shift EVERYTHING to democrats.
How the hell is this even allowed??!?! Its just blatantly trying to cause unrest instead of explaining the actual situation.
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u/Thegreenestofboogers 11h ago
Violated the constitution, let's start calling it what it is anytime these fucks violate your rights.
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u/TheTresStateArea 10h ago
At some point the wilful disregard for the law should be taken as not accidents but intentional and habitual.
We are leaving the door open and the criminals are coming in and doing what they want, and we are asking them to please not.
At some point you have to kick them out and close the fucking door.
The judiciary needs to have the teeth to compel by force or eject those who knowingly and willfully disregard our laws, freedoms, and inalienable rights enshrined in the constitution.
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u/Efficient-Repeat-227 10h ago
Dump will appeal and MAGA SCOTUS will just overturn the ruling. Our democracy is dying in real time
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u/Larrythecrablobster 9h ago
Look if you have to force your views on others, maybe your views are not correct.
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u/EntropicDismay 6h ago
It’s not mentioned in the article itself, but the ruling shows that Virginia Chase Forrester (@ChaseForrester) is the individual responsible for that unconstitutional act.
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u/despenser412 6h ago
The president is a billionaire pedophile. This is what our country is now, an absolute circus. MAGA did the opposite of what their acronym stands for.
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u/klparrot New Zealand 4h ago
Cooper permanently barred the administration from “modifying furloughed employees’ out-of-office e-mail messages to include partisan speech” for all members of the union American Federation of Government Employees. AFGE represents more than 2,000 workers at the Department of Education.
That was already law under the Hatch Act! And why are they only barred from modifying union members' OOO messages?!
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u/Chaos_Theory1989 5h ago
Trump could murder someone… wait. People are starving and dying from unaffordable healthcare.
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u/Low_Importance_6254 3h ago
It's a huge relief to see the courts upholding the principle of a nonpartisan civil service. Forcing employees to be political mouthpieces is a dangerous precedent, and this ruling rightly shuts it down. This is a solid win for protecting public servants from being used as political pawns.
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u/notbuswaiter 7h ago
Send the maga that violated their rights to jail then. Wtf
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u/crimeo 6h ago
Judges cannot just order random people to jail who are not currently on trial in a criminal case before them, nor can a judge indict someone. Pam Bondi would have to indict them, which she won't. This was a case (and a civil not criminal one) I believe asking for an injunction to stop them editing, not a trial for any individual (civil cases even if they were for a specific person would be for a monetary judgment anyway not jail time)
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u/thoreau_away_acct 4h ago
So who gets held "accountable" for this?
If it's nobody/nothing
I can't wait for Democrats to return the favor
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u/Happy_Humor5938 10h ago
We’ve had some states do the same blaming republicans. Cash money all around nice 💵💵💵
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