Quoted from article:
[ā¦] all our activities have come to an abrupt halt in the past few days. Last Thursday, the Senate confirmed Russell Voughtāan avowedĀ Christian nationalist and architect of Project 2025āto be head of the Office of Management and Budget. Within a day, Donald TrumpĀ appointedĀ him to simultaneously be theĀ acting director of the CFPB. As this was unfolding, the administration permitted billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency underlings to enter the CFPBĀ headquarters,Ā where they reportedly accessed internal systems including personnel rolls and financial records.Ā Musk, itās worth remembering, has previously said he wanted to ādelete CFPB,ā which is the regulator that would have oversight of hisĀ reportedĀ plans to turn X into a digital wallet app.
SinceĀ the DOGE takeover, and in the past 72 hours, Vought and Musk have worked hand in hand and with unnerving speed to strip the CFPB for parts and bring its work to a screeching halt. On Saturday night, Vought sent an email to all CFPB employees,Ā building on guidanceĀ that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued during his four-day tenure as acting director of the CFPB earlier in the week. Vought directed all CFPB employees to immediately cease issuing rules or guidance, suspend all effective dates of all final rules that have not yet come into effect, not open new investigations, stop all supervision activities, halt enforcement actions, and not issue public communications of any type. Soon afterward, VoughtĀ posted on XĀ to proclaim that he would not be requesting the next draw of CFPBās funding from the Federal Reserve, effectively eliminating CFPBās customary budget. On Sunday afternoon, CFPB employees were informed by email that headquarters would be closed for the week but that āemployees and contractors are to work remotely.ā
Despite these unnerving developments, my colleagues and I remained committed to doing our jobs. So it came as a shock when, a few minutes after we logged on to telework on Monday morning, we received yet another directive from Vought, now repeatedly ordering all employees to ānot perform any work tasksā and to āstand down from performing any work task.ā
As a result, the CFPB now stands as an ineffective watchdogāchained, muzzled, and left to starve in its kennel so that it can no longer guard the public. This is profoundly sad for the employees like me who have worked zealously to protect the American public from frauds and scams, day in and day out. Now, nobody is allowed to respond to consumer complaints that come in, let alone investigate them.Ā This has all been extremely frustrating, confusing, and shocking.Ā Ā My colleagues and I are complying with the fiat handed down by Vought while trying to wrap our heads around these unprecedented actions happening in real time.Ā Ā But weād really rather just get back to the work we are so proud of doing.
My colleagues and I are complying with the fiat handed down by Vought while trying to wrap our heads around these unprecedented actions happening in real time. But weād really rather just get back to the work we are so proud of doing.
But what is most upsetting is that this is all blatantly illegal.
What the author needs to understand is that their job is now to fucking stop complying! If they actually care as much as they say they do, they need to ignore the illegal orders, work anyway, and literally fistfight anybody who tries to stop them. Thatās where weāre at now.
Itās easy to say, but the author and his colleagues are not in a position to just āstop complyingā.
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We donāt know the authorās exact work. It could just be administrative or something that wound not make sense to be worked on if they arenāt delivering anything.
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Iām not sure what work you expect then to do if their bosses are complying. If they are expected to be watch dogs, but the part of the organization that enforces the rules simply wonāt enforce them, then what do you want to be done? Send stern warnings to rule breakers knowing itās pointless?
Itās a shitty situation that needs to be solved elsewhere.
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Honestly, I think the author did the most important task of all ā exposing this to daylight. Letās face it. For at least the next 2 years, and probably for the next 4, and maybe even beyond, this is what the government is going to do. Unless and until we can replace Republicans with Democrats and take back control of the country, this is what weāre getting. This is what 77mln people voted for. This is what 90+mln people voted for by not voting. And 2mln people voted third party, which was also a vote for this indirectly. And Trump does have the right to implement the agenda he was elected on, of course, within the guidelines of the laws.
I suspect thereās illegality here. But it has to be proven. This is a good way to prove it ā leak all orders, especially the ones that smell of illegality. Then trust Democratic AGs to bring court cases and hope that the worst of it gets tied up in legal limbo until we can finally flush the Republicans. By reporting this bullshit, this worker has enabled that to happen. Weāll see what comes from it.
This is frankly impossible to do in the modern workspace. Access to everything needed to do the work can be switched off almost instantly. Also, good luck getting financial institutions to comply or even meet with you when they know youāre going rogue and donāt have the force of government behind you.
Then make them switch it off.