OPM changing rules
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ImStillMags Mags
Nov 23, 2025, 10:22:10 PM (23 hours ago) Nov 23
to Political Euwetopia
Apologies for the lengthy post, but we feel this is important to highlight.
OPM is moving to finalize rules that will dramatically reshape the federal workforce, including a revived Schedule F–style classification that reclassifies tens of thousands of career employees into a “policy/career” category with sharply reduced civil-service protections. These changes directly collide with the post-Watergate framework Congress built in the 1970s.
After Nixon’s abuses, the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 overhauled the system to reinforce merit-based hiring, create the Office of Personnel Management and the Merit Systems Protection Board, strengthen the Office of Special Counsel, and embed whistleblower protections so civil servants could report wrongdoing without being purged for political reasons.
The Trump administration’s new rules go in the opposite direction. Draft final regulations on Schedule F describe existing civil-service protections as “unconstitutional overcorrections” born out of fears of returning to the old spoils system, and assert broad Article II authority to remove tens of thousands of career workers in “policy-related” positions.
In a separate rule, the administration is moving to exclude senior, policy-influencing employees from statutory whistleblower safeguards (an estimated 50,000 positions) making it easier both to retaliate against those who speak up and to fire them outright.
At the same time, OPM has injected a controversial “loyalty question” into thousands of federal job applications, asking would-be civil servants how they would advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities, a move that unions and watchdogs say turns nonpartisan public service into a political loyalty test.
Taken together, these steps chip away at the post-Watergate protections that were designed to keep federal agencies independent, professional, and insulated from partisan purges.
You might ask, “Why would Trump want these changes, and how could they come in handy?”
A president gains enormous power when they can hire, fire, or intimidate career officials who normally operate independently. The civil service protections created after Watergate were specifically designed to prevent this, to stop presidents from pressuring agencies to hide evidence, destroy records, stall investigations, or retaliate against whistleblowers.
So when a president pushes for Schedule F–style positions, massive reclassification of employees, weakened whistleblower protections, hiring based on ideological loyalty, firing career staff “at will”, shrinking appeal rights, and politically loaded hiring questions…it naturally raises the question, “What kinds of situations would a president want this control for?” That leads directly to high-stakes issues like the Epstein files.
Let’s think about this for a moment and detail it out. The Epstein records run through multiple federal agencies, including DOJ, FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and FOIA offices, all staffed by civil servants who normally cannot be pressured, replaced, or silenced. If protections are weakened through Schedule F–style reclassifications, politically aligned hiring questions, or the removal of whistleblower safeguards, it becomes far easier for a president to shape how sensitive records are handled.
Officials who manage evidence, redact documents, oversee FOIA releases, or maintain investigative files could be fired or pushed aside if they raise legal or ethical objections. The more vulnerable they are to political pressure, the more influence the president has over what gets released, what gets delayed, and what gets buried in bureaucracy.
None of this means the Epstein files will be altered or hidden, but it explains why dismantling post-Watergate protections matters, and why presidents might want the power to hire and fire the very people responsible for safeguarding politically explosive information.
plainolamerican
Nov 23, 2025, 10:40:18 PM (23 hours ago) Nov 23
to Political Euwetopia
The connection between John Gotti and Donald Trump is one of comparison by legal analysts and biographers, who have pointed to similarities in their business practices and associates. Prosecutors who investigated Donald Trump once considered charging him with racketeering, a law often used against the mob, with one prosecutor stating that charging Trump felt similar to a case against Gotti. Additionally, some sources have highlighted Trump's past associations with figures like lawyer Roy Cohn, who represented both Trump and mob bosses like Gotti.
- Former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz wrote in a book that he and his colleagues once considered a racketeering case against Trump, a charge that was also famously used against Gotti.
- Some observers have drawn parallels between Trump's business methods and those of organized crime bosses, using language and tactics attributed to them.
- Trump's lawyer Roy Cohn represented both Trump and several Mafia bosses, including Gotti.
- Both figures have been the subject of public fascination, with some commentators creating quizzes to compare their quotes
BEZARK
8:23 AM (13 hours ago) 8:23 AM
to Political Euwetopia
“OPM is moving to finalize rules that will dramatically reshape the federal workforce, including a revived Schedule F–style classification that reclassifies tens of thousands of career employees into a “policy/career” category with sharply reduced civil-service protections. “
Remember those 10s of 1000s of applicants as Trump toadies that were being vetted?
Here is how Team Trump will make positions to place them.
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