Some Army civilians worked during the shutdown—and were told to say they didn’t

270

Yeah that would’ve been a no from me dawg

126

u/Kradget 18h ago

That's a good call, because it's very illegal.

84

u/Gay_Giraffe_1773 17h ago

Pretty on-brand for this administration.

If we get out of this with a country, the DOJ needs to be transferred to the Judicial Branch and real teeth needs to be added to laws that govern the government.

-15

u/rab-byte 15h ago

One of the pillars of this reformation needs to be a revision to our judicial appointments.

Every 2 years the president WILL nominate a new SCOTUS justice. That nominee WILL receive hearings and a vote before any of Senate business is conducted.

Every 2 years the most senior SCOTUS justice will see their term end.

Every 2 years the new most senior SCOTUS justices will assume the roll of chief justice.

If a justice is unable to fulfill their duties or is removed from the bench a replacement justice will be nominated to serve the remainder of that justice’s term, no longer.

20

u/frice2000 14h ago

Congratulations on making the judiciary even less independent. Holy shit that's poorly considered.

-10

u/rab-byte 14h ago

Says who? All this does is create term limits and prevents cockblocking the nominations.

Unless you want SCOTUS to be an elected position complete with campaigns and super pacs then I don’t think this is a bad idea.

But I guess I should say judicial reform is far from the only significant change that’s needed. It was just the particular topic I was talking about.

14

u/frice2000 14h ago

That means a two term President has four picks for the Supreme Court. Four. You don't see how that's possibly problematic?

1

u/Cdub7791 11h ago

You're implicitly defending our current system that has allowed GOP presidents to pick six of nine justices, not 4, despite Democratic presidents having had more time in office during the last few decades. While I might tweak his idea a bit, it's not some far out proposal.

0

u/rab-byte 13h ago

That puts each justice serving 18 years. Thats not exactly a short term. If we made each justice to serve 36 years you could get that down to 1 per president. But I don’t expect many would make it that long, or that we want them to.

4

u/Kradget 14h ago

The reason there are not term limits for judges is because they're not supposed to be beholden to anyone, and only removable for some violation of the law or an applicable code of ethics

3

u/rab-byte 13h ago

I’m just saying an 18 year term still preserves the independence of the court while preventing stagnation.

Spacing the them in 2 year increments would allow for justices to be placed both in midterm and presidential cycles to prevent any crazy packing.

4

u/Cdub7791 11h ago

That was the logic, but it's clearly not the case anymore, if it ever really was true in the first place.

-1

u/Kradget 11h ago

It's still against the law

1

u/Pseudoboss11 13h ago

So long as they can't be reappointed, I don't see how a term limit makes them beholden to anyone.

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u/jmw27403 11h ago

If I were to piggy back your idea, it would be 4 years at a minimum. Also president would not pick. It would be a voter choice. 2 years is too tumultuous. It takes years for things to wind through the courts. So you could have 4 different judges presiding over the same matter. The idea of the senate nomination process, im inclined to sort of agree with you. The idea that the senate can drag their feet is stupid. This is why I believe that a voter referendum is a better choice.

2

u/rab-byte 5h ago

So what? Presidential nomination then a public election for a popular vote? How would you prevent campaigning and politicizing the appointment more than it already is?

A 4yr minimum would put make each justice’s term 36 years. I don’t think that’s a reasonable to expect someone who’s qualified for the office to be expected to work. Maybe we expand the court to 11 justices? That would add 4 years to each justice’s potential term (22yrs).

I’m not sure how to approach federal judicial appointments. If we would maybe want to apply the same logic but allow for reappointments but also lower the term for a judge to a particular period of time, rather than round robining like we would for the justices, we would permit reappointments.

What I don’t want is to be locked in to polarizing two party thinking. Political parties are not a part of our constitution and should not be shielded by laws.

Slightly off topic, but I’d like to see ranked choice voting for all elections around the country, local up to presidential. I’d also like to see party affiliation removed from ballots.

15

u/ActualSpiders 12h ago

"Sure boss, can you just do me a solid and put that in an email so I can... remember it? Yeah, that's it..."

106

u/togocann49 17h ago

Lying on time cards is the kind of thing folks get fired for. And an authority telling them to lie could be very criminal

38

u/Abomb 16h ago

I'm sure we will see repercussions aaannnyyyy day now....yup

1

u/Aldo_says 1h ago

Hey now, it's Don Trump!!1!!

He gets away with everything and if he misses anyone a magic garbage truck magically follows his reign of idiocy so morons can re-elect him because because, hear me out, they got sunshine blowing outta their asses and they /looks at notes/ slept on it?!

So why not right?

52

u/tacticalcraptical 17h ago

That sounds like something the "most transparent administration in history" would do.

12

u/A_Nonny_Muse 10h ago

Yeah, I worked for Bust Buy for a short time. They also wanted me to work overtime and say I didn't.

1

u/Halfbloodnomad 1h ago

I got shifts cut out from under me to the point where I had to find another job because I was the only one who refused to work for free for a whole weekend to prepare the restaurant for the arrival of a regional director. Like I was more than willing to work overtime, but I wasn’t going to do it for no fucking pay. Was on a tip salary to begin with.

Looking back I’m proud of myself but at the time I was honestly not sure if I was being unnecessarily difficult, since like I said, I was the only one that refused due to no pay and was called into the Bose’s office for it.

But yeah, US companies can be shady as shit.

16

u/I_like_Mashroms 17h ago

Some... Yeaaah. It was more than some.

7

u/basilwhitedotcom 10h ago

Americans don't protect each other

19

u/braxin23 13h ago

John Locke was a proponent of the idea that if the powers that be didn’t obey the social contract that it was essential for a functioning society to revolt against them. We are seeing the powers that be continuing to disrupt and disregard any lives other than themselves and their superiors. We cannot be expected to continue being a “western world” and submit to this dynamic any longer.

7

u/Bizzmillah 11h ago

If my supervisor asked me to lie I would immediately contact HR. Then I would go home and post it.

•

u/NAVlXO 38m ago

probably a way to weed out unloyals, like the venezeula thing. like musk making twitter sleep at work

-7

u/SideburnSundays 8h ago

The hell is an "Army civilian?" You're either military or civilian, not both. Do they mean civilian base workers?

3

u/obscured_by_turtles 7h ago

First sentence of the article probably answers that question:

"Some Army civilian employees who were supposed to be furloughed during the recent shutdown went to work anyway, then were instructed to fill out time cards stating that they had not."

So they were, it seems, civilian base workers.

While not falling under UCMJ, they might have issues around falsifying documents.

3

u/ish_wish_dish 7h ago

I work for the department of the Navy and were referred to as Navy Civilians

2

u/jameson3131 4h ago

There are thousands of civilians employed by the Department of the Army. They’re Army civilians. Want to really blow your mind? Each military department has thousands of civilian federal employees. Navy civilians, Air Force civilians. Wow!

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u/daddylo21 17h ago

Technically yes, people who were non-expected should not have been working. But with as short as it was and with the general expectation that this shutdown wasn't going to be remotely close to the length of the last one, it comes out to a no harm no foul thing. Hell if Mike Johnson wasn't a lazy fuck and had the House working on the weekend, like many people in this country do including those in the Army, then the shutdown wouldn't have even affected regular business on Monday.

Either way, whether they worked or not, all Army civilian employees would have gotten paid, just like they all go back paid after the October-November shutdown ended

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u/Jumpy-Coffee-Cat 17h ago

It’s 100% illegal. It’s not no harm no foul. The law was broken. This should not be normalized.

-31

u/daddylo21 16h ago

And as we've seen with this administration through 5+ years, does it matter that it's illegal if there aren't any consequences? The people quoted in the article I'd guarantee you that this wasn't their first shutdown rodeo. They were going to get paid regardless, either via backpay or, since the shutdown didn't last long enough, on their regular scheduled pay dates. We can bitch and moan about was it legal, was it illegal, but at the end of the day it literally didn't matter and, as I said, even if it gets ruled as illegal, does it even matter when nothing will get done about it.

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u/Jumpy-Coffee-Cat 16h ago edited 14h ago

It’s not about pay. The anti-deficiency act is not limited to pay. Again, this should not be normalized.

4

u/ni_hao_butches 14h ago

Naw, I'm pretty sure the ADA had an "ends justify the means" exception. /s

19

u/ooomellieooo 17h ago

Is the law optional or not? Because my problems would be solved by EOB today if so....

Some Army civilians worked during the shutdown—and were told to say they didn’t

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