USDA inspector general escorted out of her office after defying White House
28 comments
·February 2, 2025jacobn
3eb7988a1663
Given the preceding quote that she did not believe the terminations were lawful, that would be a complete reversal of her decision from days prior.
Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.
In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.”
Fong declined to comment and the Office of the Inspector General did not respond to multiple requests for comment.juujian
Is that a Ministry of Truth official or a credible spokesperson?
andrewinardeer
So the headline is flat out incorrect?
freitasm
And it's flagged.
fzeroracer
> The White House defended the firing of Fong and the other inspectors general, saying "these rogue, partisan bureaucrats... have been relieved of their duties in order to make room for qualified individuals who will uphold the rule of law and protect Democracy."
Grim tidings when combined with Elon's cronies taking over payment systems and the incoming trade war.
BadCookie
I have wondered why there is so little discussion of these things on HN compared to other social media.
jfengel
Half of HN thinks this is precisely what's needed. The other half would like to talk about it, but it's flagged as being irrelevant politics.
freitasm
Truth. I follow the RSS and there are so many flagged or dead posts that never make the front page.
There seems to be a hard right turn in the tech circles.
xor-eax-eax
Half crazy, half too pure to get their hands dirty. 0% sensible discussion of absurdity that can only be explained by actions undertaken extremist ideology that benefit the ultra-rich and harm everyone else.
unethical_ban
HN standards typically avoid political discussion that doesn't intersect with technology. But it's hard not to talk about seeing the far-right seizing total political control of the executive branch and destroying the entire bureaucracy and the concept of fact.
rectang
See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and search for "politics".
Additionally, political discussions on HN are hamstrung by the guideline to "assume good faith", which doesn't work well for political topics because there is a lot of bad faith commentary.
_kb
That’s a feature not a bug.
We congregate here, from all over the world, to discuss tech adjacent nerdy and learn from each other. Not US politics.
mullingitover
Hacker News might try to ignore politics, but politics isn't ignoring tech.
You have impending tariffs on chips on the way to wreck tech businesses, and incoming xenophobic immigration policies coming to kick out the talent pipeline.
But sure, let's flag any posts that might hint at everything not being totally awesome. Did you hear that some build tool got open sourced?
DemocracyFTW2
That is the, shall we say, more light-hearted take on it.
FpUser
If you mean that trade war, what is here to discuss? We (Canada) just got fucked royally by our "best" ally and trading partner. There is not much we can do in return tariff wise without causing even greater harm for ourselves. I think our demented government should just learn the lesson, and develop our own independent trade and foreign policies. There is a whole world out there. Just stop bending over.
lylejantzi3rd
You're kidding me, right? It seems like every other post on the front page is a discussion of this topic and nothing else. It's getting old.
Supermancho
You can look right now. This story + a related one at the bottom of 3rd page. Not sure where you get that sentiment from. Maybe under submissions?
BadCookie
No? I see under 10% of the HN front page stories being related to U.S. national politics at the moment, which feels very low compared to Reddit and Facebook for me (which are well over 50%, but I realize that each person sees something different potentially).
> After this article was published, a USDA spokesperson said Fong left the office Monday on her own accord.
> "She was accompanied by two friends who she paused to take selfies with on her way out. Security officials did not play any role in her departure,” the spokesperson said.