#how many dei employees in federal government

[mariacallous]

In his first two weeks of office, President Trump signed several Executive Orders (EOs) to fulfill one of his many campaign promises—to reduce the size of the federal government. He has rolled back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, asserting that the federal government will no longer consider race, ethnicity, or other federally protected characteristics in hiring and retention decisions. In recent days, he announced a financial buyout to federal employees who do not wish to comply with the new Return to Office (RTO) mandate, which requires employees to be in an office for five days per week, despite concerns about available office space. The details of the buyout were outlined in an email with the subject line, “Fork in the Road,” sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on January 28, 2025, to over 2 million federal workers. The OPM also offered deferred resignation where federal employees could resign immediately and still be paid for the next several months. Meanwhile, those who decide to stay are not promised future employment and the memo stated new conditions for employees, that they be “loyal, trustworthy, and to strive for excellence in their daily work”; principles that likely will become benchmarks for future performance reviews.

Under the Trump administration, federal workforce reductions will happen, along with a greater deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and outsourcing to private firms. These new services will cost millions of dollars to design, deploy, and train the federal workforce, creating new national and data security threats as well, given the level of protected information at stake. But the influence of Big Tech leaders, who are formally and informally advising President Trump and his administration, may be accelerating a smaller government workforce based on their own values about corporate governance. Big Tech companies were among those that led the RTO mandates for their own employees after the pandemic with similar terms and conditions, as well as promises made that were not kept. Many of these same companies are making AI more technically advanced without realizing that millions of people are still impacted in the U.S. by the lack of digital access. As Biden era policies were working to address the connectivity challenges faced throughout the U.S., these programs are now being challenged, which will almost guarantee that even the best of AI technologies embedded in government functions may be inaccessible to most people.

[sports45]

Kaitlan Collins details Trump's order to DEI office employees

Read more

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zoë Richards and Caroline Kenny at NBC News:

The Trump administration is ordering all federal employees in diversity, equity and inclusion roles placed on paid leave by Wednesday evening, according to a new memo from the Office of Personnel Management. The memo, issued Tuesday to heads of departments and agencies, sets a deadline of no later than 5 p.m. ET Wednesday to inform the employees that they will be put on paid administrative leave as the agencies prepare to close all DEI-related offices and programs and to remove all websites and social media accounts for such offices. It also asks federal agencies to submit a written plan by Jan. 31 for dismissing the employees. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday ending “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies, with DEI offices and programs being ordered to shut down. “President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of DEI from our federal government and returning America to a merit based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the color of their skin,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Tuesday night. “This is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds. Promises made, promises kept.” It was not clear how many employees would be affected. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump Regime orders all federal DEI employees placed on paid leave, beginning later today. This is all part of plans to close DEI programs and harm marginalized communities.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: Trump Orders All Federal DEI Staff Put On Leave, With Plans To Fire Them

NPR: Trump administration puts federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff on leave

[misfitwashere]

Musk’s dangerous bullying

ROBERT REICH

DEC 2

Friends,

No one better illustrates the sinister consequences of great wealth turned into unaccountable power than Elon Musk. 

Musk, the richest person in the world, is not only claiming presidential authority to fire federal workers, but he’s posting the identities of those whose jobs he wants to eliminate — with the clear intention that his followers harass and threaten them so they quit. 

Musk is utterly unaccountable. He has never been elected to anything, but he spent $120 million helping Trump become the president-elect and is now acting as if he’s Trump’s co-president, calling himself Trump’s “First Buddy.”

After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk turned it into a cesspool of disinformation and conspiracy theories and manipulated its algorithm to give himself 205 million followers, to whom he is now distributing treacherous lies. 

In recent days, Musk boosted posts on his website singling out the names and job titles of four federal employees working in climate policy and regulation who have done nothing other than hold titles Musk dislikes. All four targets are women. 

In one instance, Musk quote-tweeted a post highlighting the role of 37-year-old Ashley Thomas, a little-known director of climate diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. 

Musk’s repost — “So many fake jobs” — garnered 32 million views, triggering a tsunami of taunts against Thomas, such as, “Sorry Ashley Thomas Gravy Train is Over” and “A tough way for Ashley Thomas to find out she’s losing her job.”

Musk apparently took the word “diversification” in Thomas’s title to mean the “D” in “DEI,” which Musk considers “woke.” 

Thomas (who holds degrees in engineering, business, and water science from Oxford and MIT) is focused on climate diversification to protect agriculture and infrastructure from extreme weather events.

Following Musk’s tweet, Thomas shut down several of her social media accounts. 

In another repost, Musk mocked Alexis Pelosi, a relative of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who works as a senior adviser to climate change at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Nancy Pelosi’s niece should not be paid $181,648.00 by the U.S. Taxpayer to be the ‘Climate Advisor’ at HUD,” the original account wrote. “But maybe her advice is amazing 🤣🤣” Musk snarked. 

Musk also singled out the chief climate officer in the Department of Energy’s loan programs office and shared the name of an employee serving as senior adviser on environmental justice and climate change at the Department of Health and Human Services.

IMHO, Musk’s targets should sue him for defamation. 

This is hardly the first time Musk has targeted specific people, and he obviously knows how dangerous such targeting can be. 

After taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, the platform’s former head of trust and safety, who had recently left the company. Musk tweeted, incorrectly, that it looked like Roth had argued “in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services.” Some platform users interpreted this as Musk calling Roth a pedophile, and they posted calls for Roth’s death. 

Roth moved out of his house because of the threats. 

Musk has also singled out specific civil servants. In 2021, he targeted Missy Cummings, a former fighter pilot and senior adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whom Musk claimed was “extremely biased against Tesla” because she questioned the safety of Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system. 

Cummings said she received death threats and was forced to leave her home as a result of Musk’s posts.

Musk’s current targeting is even more dangerous because he has the apparent authority of the president-elect. Although the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” that Musk is co-heading (with Vivek Ramaswamy) isn’t a real department and has not been authorized by Congress, Musk is acting as if it’s real. 

Cummings says Musk’s personal intimidation is already leading some longtime federal employees to leave their jobs: “He intended for them, for people just like this, to be intimidated and just go ahead and quit so he didn’t have to fire them. So his plan, to some extent, is working.”

**

I worked in the federal government between 1974 and 1980, first at the Federal Trade Commission and then at the Justice Department, and from 1993 to 1997 I served as secretary of labor. 

Most of the federal employees I came to know cared deeply about the common good. The vast majority did their work carefully and thoughtfully. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. 

But ever since Richard Nixon attacked “unelected bureaucrats” as America’s enemy and Ronald Reagan blamed “liberal bureaucrats” for government’s failings, government employees have been scapegoated. And now Trump is preparing to attack the so-called “deep state.”

In fact, America spends less each year on the federal government’s civilian workforce (roughly $200 billion) than we spend annually on federal contractors ($750 billion). 

Much of the “fat” is found in these private, for-profit contractors, who aren’t accountable to anyone except the office that draws up the contracts. 

The biggest waste is in the Defense Department, where many contractors have avoided competitive bidding because they have a monopoly over critical technologies. 

Which brings me back to Musk, whose businesses are fast becoming among the government’s largest contract monopolists. According to USASpending.gov (the government database that tracks federal spending), Musk’s SpaceX and his Starlink satellite division have signed contracts totaling nearly $20 billion. 

I don’t know how much waste and inefficiency are to be found in Musk’s government contracts because I haven’t been able to find any reports on them — which is precisely the problem. 

While Musk seeks to intimidate federal civil servants whose job titles he dislikes, forcing some to leave government because his postings have elicited threats to their lives, Musk is distracting attention from himself and his own profitable dips into the taxpayer trough. 

I invite any of you with an inclination to root out waste and inefficiency to find out what you can about any likely abuses in Musk’s government contracts, and let us know what you come up with.

[brightlotusmoon]

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs can take many forms, but they generally describe efforts to increase access to and remove barriers from things like higher education and jobs for those from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, races, and genders.

The origins of DEI efforts in the federal government can be traced back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in which—among other things—discrimination in employment based on race, religion, sex, color, and origin was outlawed. President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 the next year, which barred discrimination in federal employment and required the government to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Trump has now revoked this executive action, stating that “critical and influential institutions of American society… have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’”

[unrelentingpen]

Pull the the other one, its a little short.

So it has recently (as in just a few minutes ago) been brought to my attention that Payless Putin is blaming the Obama and Biden administration for hiring individuals whose mental capacity, or lack thereof, makes them a DEI hire. That dear readers means he believes the mentally handicapped run ATC....let that sink in. I believe this is an instance in which the joke writes itself. Our DEI President is railing about two administrations that were separated by his own prior administration for DEI hires for ATC.

From my previous post, watch the dog, not the tail. Do not be distracted from what is going on. States not getting their funding for needed programs that not only help the public, but also fulfill contract obligations to vendors/suppliers. Federal employees being told they were not going to be getting a paycheck. All done by the pen of a man who doesn't understand that there are some States that send way more to the Federal government than they receive.

Many of us, myself included, have to be reminded of how federal grants and funding works. But this man is the President. You would think this is something that he should know. Or at the very least something those around him and advising him should know. He should know how even though he said that Social Security wouldn't be effected, what he signed 100% was going to effect programs like Social Security. The Federal government does not pay individuals directly. They pay the States and the States pay the people. The States send money to the Federal government and in return gets the funding needed. You stop paying the States, the States may very well stop paying you. We have to be able to keep up with the programs and obligations some how.

[soloragoldsun]

It's wild. I've been trying to wrap my head around the idea that I might not live through the next four years. It's terrifying to think about. I don't want to die, but I can't act like it's not a possibility when the government is continuously trying to erase people like me from existence. Will they be satisfied by taking the TQIA+ off of the websites and just leaving LGB? Will they be happy with making our passports invalid and making federal employees remove their pronouns? Are they going to take a break now that trans children can't get the gender affirming care they need?

The orange fuck is trying to blame DEI for the deaths of 67 people. Elon Musk has the N*zis pissing themselves with joy. And there are still people who just don't see or don't care, even when the information is shoved in their faces.

Everyone dies. We rarely get to choose how. Ideally, I want to die old, sleeping in my own bed after a long life. I want to look back on this period in history as a darkness we overcame. I want to tell the next generation that I was there fighting rather than hiding.

Because I will fight. I won't hide. And if a death of old age isn't to be, then I want to go down fighting. I want to have my boots on and my fangs bared. I want to claw for each breath and take as many evil fucks with me as I can before I finally can't move anymore. I want people to remember me and keep fighting after I'm gone.

I'm trying to be brave, even though I'm so fucking tired and so fucking scared. I'm going to fight.

[mightyflamethrower]

Many bureaucracies within the federal government are stocked with people who believe they are above being accountable to voters, and one of the worst is the Government Services Administration (GSA). While it ostensibly exists to manage federal workspaces, it has long been run by far-left lunatics who seek to subvert any attempts at reform while pushing woke nonsense. 

During President Donald Trump's first term, the Office of Inspector General found that employees at GSA ignored legal requirements to implement facial recognition and then lied about it, claiming it was a matter of "racial equity." It also made "lived experience" a variable in hiring, meaning the agency became a haven of "trans" and "queer" people hiring each other for roles they had no experience in.

You may be wondering what "18F" is. It is a GSA-run tech office that "builds, buys, and shares" technology across all agencies. Of course, their role went well beyond that simple descriptor, with 18F dictating everything from the language used to how all federal meetings were conducted so as to promote "diversity and inclusion." That's how the country ended up with an "inclusion bot" hounding employees about using terms like "grandfathered" and "guys." Yes, you're taxpayer dollars were paying to maintain an Orwellian bot that told people have to speak.

That's all changing now, according to investigative reporter Luke Rosiak. With Stephen Ehikian, an ally of Elon Musk, being put in charge, those left at 18F are rushing to reverse course, including deleting the code for the "inclusion bot" and making wholesale changes to regulations and policies. 

Advertisement

Remember that viral video from 2022 of Kamala Harris telling people at a meeting that her pronouns are "she and her" and that she's "wearing a blue suit?" That was the doing of 18F's policies.

HARRIS: Good afternoon, I want to welcome these leaders for coming in to have this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time.  I'm Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.

Here's a bit more of the ridiculous insanity the GSA and 18F were pushing throughout the entire federal government.

Remember that viral video from 2022 of Kamala Harris telling people at a meeting that her pronouns are "she and her" and that she's "wearing a blue suit?" That was the doing of 18F's policies.

Trump has clearly learned his lesson. GSA emerged relatively unscathed during his first term, able to undermine many of his goals while continuing to implement DEI. That's finally changing, and these agencies are being gutted for good reason. For too long, these bureaucracies have been appropriated by far-left activists who want to use unelected, taxpayer-paid positions to push their ideology without any accountability. No more.

HARRIS: Good afternoon, I want to welcome these leaders for coming in to have this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time.  I'm Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.

Here's a bit more of the ridiculous insanity the GSA and 18F were pushing throughout the entire federal government.

Trump has clearly learned his lesson. GSA emerged relatively unscathed during his first term, able to undermine many of his goals while continuing to implement DEI. That's finally changing, and these agencies are being gutted for good reason. For too long, these bureaucracies have been appropriated by far-left activists who want to use unelected, taxpayer-paid positions to push their ideology without any accountability. No more.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: Jun 12, 2024

Congressional Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that would eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion positions in the federal government and bar federal contractors from requiring DEI statements and training sessions.

The Dismantle DEI Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), would also bar federal grants from going to diversity initiatives, cutting off a key source of support for DEI programs in science and medicine. Other provisions would prevent accreditation agencies from requiring DEI in schools and bar national securities associations, like NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange, from instituting diversity requirements for corporate boards.

"The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division," Vance told the Washington Free Beacon. "It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society."

The bill is the most comprehensive legislative effort yet to excise DEI initiatives from the federal government and regulated entities. It offers a preview of how a Republican-controlled government, led by former president Donald Trump, could crack down on the controversial diversity programs that have exploded since 2020, fueled in part by President Joe Biden’s executive orders mandating a "whole-of-government" approach to  "racial equity."

From NASA and the National Science Foundation to the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S Army, all federal agencies require some form of diversity training. Mandatory workshops have drilled tax collectors on "cultural inclusion," military commanders on male pregnancy, and nuclear engineers on the "roots of white male culture," which—according to a training for Sandia National Laboratories, the Energy Department offshoot that designs America’s nuclear arsenal—include a "can-do attitude" and "hard work."

The Sandia training, conducted in 2019 by a group called "White Men As Full Diversity Partners," instructed nuclear weapons engineers to write "a short message" to "white women" and "people of color" about what they’d learned, according to screenshots of the training obtained by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo.

The bill would ban these trainings and close the government DEI offices that conduct them. It would also prevent personnel laid off by those closures from being transferred or reassigned—a move meant to stop diversity initiatives from continuing under another name.

The prohibitions, which cover outside DEI consultants as well as government officials, would be enforced via a private right of action and could save the government billions of dollars. In 2023, the Biden administration spent over $16 million on diversity training for government employees alone. It requested an additional $83 million that year for DEI programs at the State Department and $9.2 million for the Office of Personnel Management’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility—one of the many bureaucracies the bill would eliminate.

A large chunk of savings would come from axing DEI grants made through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has a near monopoly on science funding in the United States. The agency hosts an entire webpage for "diversity related" grant opportunities—including several that prioritize applicants from "diverse backgrounds"—and has set aside billions of dollars for "minority institutions" and researchers with a "commitment to promoting diversity." All of those programs would be on the chopping block should Vance and Cloud’s bill pass.

Cosponsored by Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), Rick Scott (R., Fla.), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Bill Cassidy (R., La.), and Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) in the Senate, the Dismantle DEI Act has drawn support from prominent conservative advocacy groups, including Heritage Action and the Claremont Institute. At a time of ideological fracture on the right—debates about foreign aid and the proper role of government bitterly divided Trump’s primary challengers, for example, both in 2016 and 2024—Wednesday’s bill aims to provide a rallying cry most Republicans can get behind: DEI needs to die.

"It’s absurd to fund these divisive policies, especially using Americans' tax dollars," Cloud told the Free Beacon. "And it’s time for Congress to put an end to them once and for all."

The bill has the potential to free millions of Americans—both in government and the private sector—from the sort of divisive diversity trainings that have become an anti-woke bête noire. Its most consequential provisions might be those governing federal contractors, which employ up to a fifth of the American workforce and include companies like Pfizer, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and Verizon.

Each firm runs a suite of DEI programs, from race-based fellowships and "resource groups" to mandatory workshops, that have drawn public outcry and in some cases sparked legal challenges. By targeting these contractors, the bill could purge DEI from large swaths of the U.S. economy without directly outlawing the practice in private institutions.

Targeting accreditors, meanwhile, could remove a key driver of DEI programs in professional schools. The American Bar Association and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredit all law and medical schools in the United States and derive much of their power from the U.S. Department of Education, have both made DEI material—including course content on "anti-racism"—a requirement for accreditation, over the objections of some of their members.

Those mandates have spurred a handful of law schools to require entire classes on critical race theory. The transformation has been even more acute at medical schools, which, per accreditation guidelines released in 2022, should teach students to identify "systems of power, privilege, and oppression."

Yale Medical School now requires residents to take a mandatory course on "advocacy" and "health justice," for example. And at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, students must complete a "health equity" course that promotes police abolition, describes weight loss as a "hopeless endeavor," and states that "biomedical knowledge" is "just one way" of understanding "health and the world."

While the bill wouldn’t outlaw these lessons directly, it would prevent accreditors recognized by the Education Department from mandating them. Such agencies, whose seal of approval is a prerequisite for federal funds, would need to certify that their accreditation standards do not "require, encourage, or coerce any institution of higher education to engage in prohibited" DEI practices, according to the text of the bill. They would also need to certify that they do not "assess the commitment of an institution of higher education to any ideology, belief, or viewpoint" as part of the accreditation process.

Other, more technical provisions would eliminate diversity quotas at federal agencies and end a racially targeted grant program in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Unlike past GOP efforts to limit DEI, which have focused on the content of diversity trainings and the use of explicit racial preferences, the bill introduced Wednesday would also ax requirements related to data collection. It repeals a law that forces the armed services to keep tabs on the racial breakdown of officers, for example, as well as a law that requires intelligence officials to collect data on the "diversity and inclusion efforts" of their agencies.

Though officials could still collect the data if they so choose, the bill would mark a small step toward colorblindness in a country where racial record-keeping—required by many federal agencies—has long been the norm.

"DEI destroys competence while making Americans into enemies," said Arthur Milikh, the director of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, one of the conservative groups supporting the bill. "This ideology must be fought, and its offices removed."

==

I don't care who raised it. If the Dems raised it, I'd support it. DEI is absolute poison.

[leafatlas]

How Many Federal DEI Employees Are There in the U.S.? – Hollywood Life

Image Credit: Getty Images DEI federal employees were placed on paid leave by Donald Trump shortly after he took office again on January 20, 2025, as part of a new executive order. The Trump administration is poised to shut down all DEI-related programs in government, in addition to removing all websites, social media accounts and anything related to the DEI office. So, how many federal…

[mariacallous]

If Donald Trump’s first days in the White House, in 2017, were about shock and awe—his haunting “American carnage” speech, the Muslim ban—the 2025 version, at least initially, felt more dutiful, a bit weirder, but ultimately not quite as scary. Trump 45 talked about a “new vision” to “govern our land” and promised his voters “you will never be ignored again.” Trump 47 seemed bored for the first half of his inaugural speech, then rambled on about Panama, Mars, and “the electric-vehicle mandate.” The flurry of executive orders that followed might have made for good headlines because they touched on culture-war topics such as trans rights and D.E.I., but outside of a few notable exceptions—withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and curbing renewable-energy programs—Trump’s first round of legislation mostly seemed like repurposed archival footage from his campaign, chopped up and stretched out into a new, thin form. The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. Denali is once again Mount McKinley, because we’re not cancelling dead white men anymore, especially not for some tribe. D.E.I. is over at federal agencies and in the military. Now please go fight among yourselves about all this culture-war stuff while we deregulate everything.

This period of unhinged, but perhaps not so consequential, Trump theatre lasted until Monday, when his Office of Management and Budget released a memo freezing all federal spending “that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” We still don’t know the extent of the order, its legality, or who, exactly, it will affect, but the brazenness of the move suggests that Trump intends to run the country as a petty despot who values fealty to him over allegiance to the country. (The White House later rescinded the order, while also saying that the spending review remains in “full force and effect.” A judge has paused its implementation until February 3rd.)

Given the potential seriousness of Trump’s freeze, I think it’s good practice, especially after the recurring freakouts between 2016 and 2020, to point out when Trump mostly seems to be doing something for purely symbolic reasons and when he’s actually trying to get something done. The first Trump Administration and the constant stream of stories that ended in Russiagate ultimately desensitized much of the public to the actual bad things he was doing, disoriented the audience’s priorities, and might have even led to a quiet backlash or at least a sense of disbelief that Trump could actually be that bad. The renaming of bodies of water and mountains, for example, is easy enough to cast aside as Trumpian bluster, but what about the handful of executive orders Trump signed regarding D.E.I. which included the end of all such programs in the military and the federal government as well as the repeal of a 1965 executive order that prohibited federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, gender, and national origin? It’s still unclear how many employees will lose their jobs—the executive order calls for a list of everyone who might work in some D.E.I.-related endeavor and a review, which could either mean that everyone who has said a word about racial or gender equality or diversity will be out of work, or it could just mean that after a few high-profile firings of D.E.I. officers this list never really gets made, the review never happens, and everyone moves on to the next dimension of the culture war.

When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions two years ago, the outrage from liberals and Democratic elected officials was relatively muted. There are many possible explanations for this, most notably that perhaps the people who were the maddest about the decision didn’t have the same platforms as the people who either shrugged or cheered it on. But over all it seemed like much of the public agreed with Sandra Day O’Connor who, in an earlier ruling on affirmative action in 2003, famously said that affirmative action should not really be necessary in twenty-five years. The clock, it seemed, had run out. Similarly, I suspect most Americans won’t miss D.E.I., which has become another digital training you have to finish before you get your first paycheck and a way for management to control what their workers say. (I doubt they’ll cheer on its end, either, largely because I don’t think most Americans really care one way or another. A recent poll by YouGov, in fact, found around half of Americans had a somewhat or very favorable opinion of D.E.I. programs, and less than thirty per cent said that they had a very unfavorable opinion.) This isn’t really the fault of the employees who work in these programs. I’m sure most of them envisioned something a bit more radical or at least useful when they signed up, but, if you’re a college graduate with a humanities degree and want to make a salary while still vaguely doing something that deals with reducing racism in America, D.E.I. is one of the few possible career paths. The problem, at a grand scale, is that D.E.I.’s malleability and its ability to survive in pretty much every setting, whether it’s a nearby public school or the C.I.A., means that it has to be generic and ultimately inoffensive, which means that, in the end, D.E.I. didn’t really satisfy anyone.

What it did was provide a safety valve (I am speaking about D.E.I. in the past tense because I do think it will quickly be expunged from the private sector as well) for institutions that were dealing with racial and social-justice problems. If you had a protest on campus over any issue having to do with “diverse students” who wanted “equity,” that now became the provenance of D.E.I. officers who, if they were doing their job correctly, would defuse the situation and find some solution—oftentimes involving a task force—that made the picket line go away. A couple years ago, a D.E.I. officer at Stanford Law School went viral after she supported students who were shutting down a conservative guest speaker. I recall watching the video and feeling both a bit annoyed at yet another instance of pointless and ultimately counterproductive “resistance” and also a bit sad because it was clear that the officer didn’t understand the point of her job. She wasn’t hired to actually join the protest against the conservative speaker. Her job was to intervene, give the students a “space” to vent, and, ultimately, find a solution that didn’t end with Stanford Law going viral for an instance of campus cancel culture.

There’s also the argument that the growth of D.E.I. offices, especially after the George Floyd protests, led to an aggressive and potentially illegal push to hire racial minorities throughout corporate America and academia, which, in turn, led to an overextension and corruption of the original goal of enforcing fair hiring practices to insure that people of all kinds would not be discriminated against. But this narrative also fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of D.E.I. within large institutions. What happened in many workplaces across the country after 2020 was that the people in charge were either genuinely moved by the Floyd protests or they were scared. Both the inspired and the terrified built out a D.E.I. infrastructure in their workplaces. These new employees would be given titles like chief diversity officer or C.D.O., which made it seem like it was part of the C-suite, and would be given a spot at every table, but much like at Stanford Law, their job was simply to absorb and handle any race stuff that happened. D.E.I. didn’t hire itself at Meta. It was embraced by the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who gleefully ended his company’s program earlier this month, signalling to the White House and investors that the days of wokeness at Meta were over. This was the final purpose of D.E.I. programs in corporate America—when the political winds changed this past November, D.E.I. became the convenient fall guy; the best way to signal that you never wanted to do all that woke stuff in the first place was to fire your D.E.I. staff and blame them for forcing you down the wrong path.

Trump, I believe, is doing something similar at a grand scale. He is taking a relatively powerless program, vilifying it, and using its dissolution as proof that he has single-handedly ended the woke era. The clearest example came on Thursday when he outrageously blamed “diversity” for the tragic airline crash in Washington. When his O.M.B. gambit turned into a legal and political disaster this past week, Trump’s Administration retreated to a familiar, safe space. The funding freeze, they said, was only for the parts of the federal government directly affected by Trump’s earlier executive orders, the most prominent being D.E.I. He and his Administration are wielding the word “diversity” both as a slur and an excuse for everything that goes wrong in this country.

I suppose it’s possible that the elimination of D.E.I. might take away what was a dead-end solution and recommit people to more fruitful forms of protest and dissent, but politics rarely follows such a linear and satisfying script. I also do not think the end of D.E.I. will derail the desires of employers and their workers to have diverse workforces, nor do I think Trump will pay much attention to any of this down the line. On Wednesday, Tom Malinowski, a former congressman and diplomat, pointed out that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had just bragged about ending “DEI scholarships for Burma.” The scholarships in question are through U.S.A.I.D. and granted to young people who are fighting against the dictatorship in Burma, which, as Malinowski noted, has long been a priority in Washington for Democrats and Republicans, including the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. “It looks like these geniuses are just going through grant awards and killing anything that uses words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion,’ even though in countries where ethnic and religious minorities are murdered and persecuted, these have long been American goals,” Malinowski speculated.

One can imagine Musk and his staff hitting Control+F on a database of grants for the word “equity,” cancelling any search returns without reading what they’re actually for, and then screenshotting the paperwork to post on Twitter. But this snickering for clout doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a great deal of alarm. These first two weeks of Trump’s Presidency have made it clear that his main priority, at least for now, is controlling federal funding and using it to enrich his allies and to harm his political enemies. In California, he told Gavin Newsom that he would make aid for cleaning up the devastating fires in Los Angeles conditional, in part, on the development of a voter-I.D. program. This past Friday, seventeen inspectors general were fired, which effectively removed independent oversight at a multitude of federal agencies. On Monday, the Department of Justice fired around a dozen employees who had worked with Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to prosecute Trump, saying that they could no longer be trusted. Trump’s endgame has started to reveal itself and it will not be coming through the tired culture war we have all been fighting for the past decade but rather through the bureaucracy. Whatever rises to enforce or resist it will not sit nicely in a corporate or academic office, nor will it be neatly summarized through words like “woke” or “anti-woke,” or the endless campus wars. The next four years, instead, will be filled with true extremism on both the left and the right that will make supposedly out-of-control D.E.I. feel like a quaint company retreat in comparison.

So, yes, the war on D.E.I. is almost certainly a catchall scapegoat meant to distract from Trump’s larger plans to gut the federal government, but I also can’t imagine it will hold the public’s attention, just as a similar focus on racial politics in academia and élite corporations did not work for Ron DeSantis during his failed run for President. The American public elected Donald Trump, but between social-justice warriors, “woke,” and D.E.I., the right has now been fighting the same tired culture war for more than a decade, and it has largely lost the capacity to outrage anyone outside of a small set of terminally online, mostly conservative activists. Trump is going to need a better distraction, but one thing we know about him is that he stubbornly sticks to a theme. He might not be able to credibly blame diversity for everything from plane crashes to children’s reading scores, but I imagine he will try.

[bllsbailey]

Federal Workers Are Melting Down Over Trump's Return-to-Office Executive Order

It's a circus, but it’s so much fun to watch. Not long after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump signed an executive order mandating all federal workers return to office. It’s something that most Americans have done since time immemorial. Most people do this, you know. And yet, these workers have acted as if they’ve been handed a death sentence.  

Oh, the reactions are gold. Some are considering quitting over being forced to come into the office. The social media mayhem that’s ensued is one of the reasons why Democrats got their faces beat in; these aren’t real problems. These workers worry about childcare, daycare, etc., to which most reply with ‘Welcome to the party, pal.’ Do you think working families don’t go through the same hurdles? The urban Democrat is an entitled, coddled, unhinged, and detached mess of a person who cannot comprehend that most must go to an office to work. And these are the people lambasting the working class for being as educated as them or financially solvent. If this is the class who view themselves as philosopher kings, they’re soft and unworthy of such a silly title.  

Trump’s executive order clarified that these do-nothing staffers aren’t special, and their complaints and concerns aren’t new. Most will brush all of them off with a shrug, as they should (via Politico): 

President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the federal workforce have injected a fresh wave of anxiety among employees across the bureaucracy — stoking fears the president is coming for their jobs.  […]  “Trump version 1.0 was bad,” said the EPA employee. “I’m already done with version 2.0.”  Trump, within hours of returning to power, issued a slew of executive orders seeking to overhaul how the federal government operates, from removing job protections to ending remote work to implementing a hiring freeze. The reception inside the federal government has been uneasy. But especially worrisome to some employees was the White House’s decision on Tuesday to eliminate diversity programs, subsequently placing those staffers on administrative leave. At the State Department, the shutdown of those programs was something many saw coming. But some were startled by the directive that they report individual cases of people’s job descriptions being changed to “disguise” the DEI element to a special Office of Personnel Management email address. Some saw it as an order to snitch on colleagues. Others, who prepared for Trump’s return to office, had begun working months ago with outside nonprofits to archive websites they feared would be taken down by the Trump administration — including information on ending gender-based violence around the world.  “I would love to leave, but I don’t know where I’d go, and I am terrified of not being able to pay rent and not having healthcare,” one State staffer said.  […]  An Environmental Protection Agency staffer said they plan to file a grievance with the union if their remote work arrangement is rescinded. In the meantime, they’re preparing to find a job outside the government.  Another EPA employee predicted that no major changes would occur until March, when the short-term spending bill runs out. “After that, it’s a toss-up,” they said. 

What a bunch of babies. Someone is mulling a union grievance over this executive order—are you kidding me? If they’re looking for empathy from the masses, they won’t get it. We don’t care. Most Americans navigate going to the office just fine and don’t need to file grievances over something that isn’t controversial.  

Sarah will have a post later this afternoon about a meltdown from one worker who claims the order makes her job harder. 

No one wants to hear it.  

‘Oh, no, I need to go back to work’—do these people know how they sound to the normies? Pathetic. 

Part of this order is undoubtedly to cull the herd of anti-Trump staffers in DC. It looks like it's going to accomplish that objective partially. 

Trending on Townhall Videos

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ahmed Baba at Ahmed Baba's Newsletter:

A flurry of incompetent policy decisions and abuses of power spark chaos and immediate court injunctions. Unhinged, divisive, blame-seeking press conferences that try to exploit a crisis or disaster. Democratic lawmakers and pro-democracy groups jump into action to oppose the latest unlawful maneuver. GOP lawmakers twist themselves into either defending the latest ramble or evading questions from an eager press demanding answers.

To the surprise of no one who has been honest with themselves, Trump’s second term is unfolding much like his first, but with higher stakes. This week, the Trump Administration's federal funding freeze sparked confusion and chaos before they rescinded it after public pressure and court injunctions mounted. After a plane crash in D.C. killed 67 people, President Trump sought to exploit the tragedy by baselessly blaming DEI, sparking media fact-checks and public outcry. Trump’s team has tried to sell the public on the idea that they would be more competent this time. That they learned from the failures of Trump’s first term. But it’s clear that Trump 2.0 has many of the same shortcomings as Trump 1.0. Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions is his own incompetence.

I documented every day of Trump’s first term in real-time and later organized it all in an index where you can click into every week. For me and many Americans who have been warning about what could happen in a second Trump administration, this was déjà vu. For others, this week was a stark reminder of why Trump is unfit for office. How Trump has behaved in office thus far is exactly why he lost as an incumbent in 2020. Trump's outrage-bait nonsense works in a campaign, but it's toxic in government, especially during a tragedy or crisis. During the 2024 election, many Americans appeared to have collective amnesia about Trump's first term. I wrote about this in my newsletter last year. The truth is Trump's governing style is defined by self-interest, chaos, incompetence, and divisive depravity. Now, Americans are being confronted with the real-world consequences of his re-election.

Even before the events of this week, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that many of Trump’s executive orders are wildly unpopular, and Trump’s approval rating has dipped to 45%. The poll found that 77% of Americans oppose Trump ending requirements that make government employees report gifts or investments, 62% of Americans oppose pardoning the January 6 rioters, 60% oppose implementing new tariffs on imports from Canada, 59% oppose ending birthright citizenship, and 59% oppose ending federal efforts to hire women and people of color.

[...]

The first major commercial plane crash since 2009 had just occurred above D.C., and bodies were still being pulled from the Potomac River. The American public was in a state of mourning as we learned more about the passengers, which included American figure skaters. At this moment, Americans needed calm, deliberate leadership and credible information. Instead, they got the Donald Trump we remember from the unhinged COVID-19 pandemic press briefings. President Trump repeatedly sought to blame Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Biden Administration. Trump also cited people with disabilities. Multiple reporters pushed back, including NBC’s Peter Alexander, who pointed out the fact diversity policies were also in place during Trump’s own administration. [...] The fact this policy was in place during Trump’s own administration takes down one part of his argument, but the notion generally that this was somehow the fault of DEI, aka the presence of more people of color and women in these roles, is asinine and depraved. Even Senate Republicans were caught off guard by the comments.

[...] President Trump later signed a memo that blamed the crash on DEI. First off, it’s not clear whether there were any people of color or women flying either aircraft. So, that undermines his point. I feel terrible even talking about the race or gender of these people who have lost their lives, but Trump has forced that into this discussion. This was a tragic accident, and the skills of these individuals should not be thrown into question. They go through rigorous training and are highly qualified for their roles. [...]

This crash came days after Trump made sweeping changes at the FAA as part of his efforts to downsize the federal government. Trump removed several key officials and implemented a hiring freeze. It’s not clear if Trump’s actions contributed to the circumstances that caused the crash, but Trump received online criticism for the changes after the fatal accident. Faced with criticism, Trump did what he always does: deflect blame. This time, he scapegoated DEI.

[...]

On Monday, the Trump Administration made its most chaotic move so far this term and ramped up its distortion of the federal government by ordering a freeze on federal assistance programs. Unilaterally freezing congressionally approved funds is a direct violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. This funding freeze came as Trump has made several unlawful moves to test the boundaries of the law and this Supreme Court’s appetite for further expanding executive power

The incredibly vague 2-page memo, written by Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Matthew J. Vaeth, threw the country into a state of confusion. The freeze on federal assistance was set to take place on Tuesday evening at 5 pm EST and was for the purpose of reviewing if the funding complies with Trump’s culture war executive orders. The initial memo made exceptions for Medicare or Social Security and “assistance provided directly to individuals,” but there were widespread reports of Medicaid portals being down in all 50 states on Tuesday, in spite of a second “clarifying” memo from the White House claiming Medicaid was unaffected. There was confusion among nonprofits who administer aid and healthcare providers. Lawsuits began flying from nonprofits, health groups, and Democratic state attorneys general.

Then, minutes before it was set to take effect, D.C. District Judge Loren Ali Khan temporarily blocked Trump’s funding freeze. By Wednesday, the public backlash had grown so great that the White House rescinded the OMB memo, attempting to avoid further court injunctions. But Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent a tweet trying to save face, claiming the funding freeze was still on. Hilariously, the Trump Administration was heading into another court hearing moments later. A federal judge, citing Leavitt’s tweet, said that they intended to grant another injunction. Talk about a self-own.

[...]

Trump’s Overreach Could Backfire Politically, Too

In November, I wrote an article claiming that Trump was going to overreach when in office and predicted that instead of focusing on lowering prices, he would bring about Project 2025 extremism, incompetence, culture wars, and cruel policies.

It’s all going exactly as expected, and it could backfire on Republicans. As I noted at the beginning of this piece, polling isn’t looking good on Trump’s executive orders. And when it comes to Trump’s approach to his billionaire allies, that’s also not going over well with Americans. An AP/NORC poll earlier this month found that Elon Musk only has a 36% approval rating, DOGE has a 29% approval rating, and only 12% of Americans think it’s good that billionaires are advising the president. The Musk poll came even before he made that arm gesture at the inauguration many are calling a Nazi salute. It turns out that oligarchy is unpopular. Who knew? The data indicates that if Democrats lock in on a consistent anti-corruption message while pointing out that Trump’s moves are directly impacting Americans (like they did with the funding freeze), they could be well-positioned to win in the 2026 midterms.

After almost two weeks of Tyrant 47’s reign that has tattered America at the seams, he is repeating his first term on steroids: authoritarian overreach, causing legal headaches, and embarrassing lies out of his mouth and social media posts.

See Also:

HuffPost: Inside Trump's Second-Term Torrent Of Chaos

[worldbytenews]

How Many Federal DEI Employees Are There in the U.S.?​on January 22, 2025 at 4:51 pm

Donald Trump issued an executive order when he took office in January 2025, removing Joe Biden’s DEI programs in the government.Donald Trump issued an executive order when he took office in January 2025, removing Joe Biden’s DEI programs in the government.    Image Credit: Getty Images DEI federal employees were placed on paid leave by Donald Trump shortly after he took office again on January…

[mastcomm]

5 years of Buhari: We’re glad he got here our method

Buhari is 5 right now in workplace

By FEMI ADESINA

Who’re the ‘we?’ Converse for your self solely, some cynics would say on merely seeing the headline of this piece.

They might add: “You’ll be able to speak since you are in authorities, incomes ‘fats’ wage and having fun with different perks of workplace, so why gained’t you be glad?”

Okay. In order that there’ll be peace, I agree that I take pleasure in all of the belongings you declare, and extra.

However is that any motive for anybody to hold anger round in his bosom? What then occurred to goodwill in direction of all males, and malice to none?

However we’re not speaking about skeptics who conjure all types of improbabilities right now. We’re speaking of tens of millions of Nigerians who consider in our President, Muhammadu Buhari, and who’re glad he got here our method, because the administration he leads clocks 5 years right now.

Hundreds of thousands? Sure, very many tens of millions, a large number that no man can quantity. No marvel the margin of his victory retains multiplying at each election. In 2015, he scored 15, 424, 921 votes, defeating the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, with 2, 571, 759 votes.

In 2019, the Atikulators got here in a tough method. However the tougher they got here, the tougher they fell. Buhari chalked 15, 191, 847 million votes, profitable with a margin of three, 928, 869, a lot increased than that of 2015. Thanks, good Nigerians.

Can anyone, regardless of how she or he feels, want away these tens of millions and tens of millions of voters? Not by any stretch of the creativeness. Over the hills and the valleys, in clement and inclement climate, they trooped out to vote for the person they liked. And as he marks 5 years in workplace right now, we’re glad he got here our method. ‘We?’ Sure, ‘we.’ We’re in tens of millions upon tens of millions, much more than went out to vote, as there are lots of quiet disciples, who didn’t vote, or who didn’t even register to vote.

President Buhari completes the primary 12 months of a second four-year time period right now. And regardless of all of it, regardless of all of the challenges; insecurity, poor financial system, deliberate sabotage, poor well being at a time, evil needs from some quarters, foul language, and all types, we’re glad he’s right here.

When he rode triumphantly to energy in 2015, the typical Nigerian was uninterested in the state of the nation. Huge looting of the treasury by the celebration in authorities, and nobody was being known as to order, as a result of there was no ethical will to do it. Horrible insecurity within the nation, with no less than 17 native governments already annexed within the North-east of the nation by insurgents. That they had planted flags of a humorous kind of caliphate, and had been sitting in palaces of the emirs, who had proven clear pairs of heels. Do you blame them? Cities, cities, villages , mosques, church buildings, colleges, motor parks had develop into killing fields, and the slaughter was merely horrifying. But, authorities was helpless. The financial system was nosediving, certainly, primed for recession. Humongous quantities created from oil, which worth rose as excessive as 143 {dollars} per barrel the earlier 12 months, had been stolen. No funding in infrastructure, agriculture, training, healthcare, nothing. Money owed had been even piling up, and authorities was borrowing to pay salaries.

There was no willingness to avoid wasting, a key driver of the financial system confessed later about that authorities. So, when Buhari got here in, it was to fulfill a looted, badly vandalized treasury.

We’re glad he got here our method, I repeat once more. Although it was no tea celebration, no picnic.

Initially, it was like The Journey of the Magi, as described by the poet T.S Eliot:

A chilly coming we had of it, Simply the worst time of the 12 months For a journey, and such a protracted journey, The methods deep and the climate sharp, The very useless of winter.

President Buhari battled with insecurity. With the financial system. With a badly polarized polity, divided alongside ethnic and spiritual traces. With a badly overwhelmed and bruised political opposition, which was decided to not see any good in him. There was additionally the tiny however vociferous minority on social media, the wailing wailers, screaming all day as if pepper had been put of their delicate components. After which, well being challenges. Simply the worst time of the 12 months for a journey, for such a protracted journey.

Nevertheless, 5 years down the road, with recession knocking loudly on our financial doorways once more, for no fault of ours (the entire world stands within the throes of financial challenges, attributable to an enormous illness with small title; COVID-19), we’re nonetheless pleased Buhari got here. For regardless of all of it, issues are usually not the best way they was once. The descent into abyss has been checked, arrested, and issues are wanting up. Regardless of the looming Incubus of one other recession, the federal government continues to work, fulfilling its obligations to the nation. In February, when it grew to become obvious that the financial system of the world can be in hassle, with Nigeria possible worse hit due to overt dependence on income from oil, the financial advisory group held a briefing with the President and his group. The auguries weren’t good, under no circumstances.

Having taken all of it in, and the possible survival measures to be taken enumerated, the President advised the Minister of Finance, Price range and Nationwide Planning , Zainab Ahmed: “It doesn’t matter what occurs, salaries of employees should not fail, pensions should not fail, and funding of key infrastructure tasks should not cease.”

I say it once more. We’re glad this President got here our method. Within the top of world well being and financial challenges, with revenues already abysmally low, authorities continues to do the needful. A directive has been given to fund the primary section of the Presidential Energy Initiative, being completed in collaboration with Siemens of Germany. Work on the Second Niger Bridge just isn’t stalled, highway tasks are to restart because the financial system reopens progressively, and salaries and pensions are being paid. Promise made, and promise being saved.

We have to depend our blessings as a rustic, as an alternative of dwelling on issues that haven’t been completed. No authorities accomplishes the whole lot begging for consideration in a rustic. We at the moment are doing much more with quite a bit much less earnings. Issues we couldn’t do when oil costs stabilized at common of 100 {dollars} per barrel for a very long time, at the moment are being achieved. We’re glad this President got here our method.

For a chook’s eye view of issues President Buhari has completed for Nigeria, throughout totally different sectors in 5 years, please seek the advice of the Truth Sheet as launched by the media workplace of the President. You’ll then have trigger to be grateful, and never sit completely on the criticism counter.

To understand President Buhari on this season of celebration, allow me to borrow from the unique and impressed tune Duduke, not too long ago launched by Simi.

You realize say on a regular basis I dey pray for you Oh, in my coronary heart oh there’s a everlasting place for you, That’s why my coronary heart dey beat like duduke, du du ke ‘Trigger na you I select oh, ayanfe mi a yan fe I sing for you and I be like duduke du du ke.

President Muhamadu Buhari, we’re glad you got here our method. The previous is however a narrative advised.

The long run will nonetheless be written in gold, by the grace of God.

*Adesina is Particular Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity

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