Would you say that a company adding a standard footer to your outgoing emails is taking on your speech?
This isn't a company though, it's the government, and it's generally considered unprofessional if not illegal for federal employees to make partisan statements on the job. There's also the fact that, in my experience, out-of-office autoreplies are generally drafted by the employee while footers are often standardized by the employer.
Additionally, there are strict rules on what federal civil servants can do during a shutdown that don't really apply in private industry, which means whatever official channels would exist to complain probably aren't available. I don't think furloughed employees are supposed to send official email, either, which means they can't clarify who provided this message even if someone is confused by it.
What does the footer say?
Just poison throughout from this admin.
Did congress pass a law I missed? Government communication isn’t a 1st Amendment issue. When you work for any employer, you are subject to the whims of that employer.
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
Which laws? Because every government job I've come across has pretty strict rules on what you can and cannot say in public, or at least they way in which you have to frame it apart from your job.
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
But from the ABA for a more reliable source.
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/yourab...
> The Radical Left Democrats shut down the government. This government website will be updated periodically during the funding lapse for mission critical functions. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.
> Every day that Senate Democrats continue to oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding.
> As a result of the shutdown, we wanted to notify you that many of our services supporting small businesses are currently unavailable. The agency is executing its Lapse Plan and as soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
> If you need disaster assistance, please visit sba.gov/disaster.
> The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.
Just disgusting.
Since the raw text couldn’t serve as proof, an entire article had to be mounted to create the feeling of being appalling. It’s an opinion piece.
And that’s all it always it: People getting hung up over principles and theories. The proof those principles aren’t universal is that they don’t uphold them themselves when they’re in power.
I wish we were able to talk to each other. There are many ways, many paths together. But no, condescension, condemnation, hate, refusal to work on your bad sides, ideas of revolution, of uprising, of disrespect of people’s vote, refusal to communicate or work together, refusal to let working people keep the fruits of their work, and in the end, we have to take over the government, or you will.
There is no sharing when it’s your side in power. So we elect a hermetically sealed government. I wish we didn’t do that.
> Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed HR 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.
Which is obviously factual, regardless of what your brand of politics are. Democrat Senators have indeed blocked the appropriations bill passed by the House. You may disagree with the politics of the bill itself, but this statement is factual and informative.
that said, somehow the Democrats always find Republicans to compromise with them when they have a simple majority, so I do not know why it is so hard for the Republicans to soften their demands enough to peel off some moderates to vote with them
“Unfortunately, Senators have not agreed on the terms to pass HR 5371 leading to a lapse in appropriations.”
Wouldn’t something like this still be factual, informative, and-importantly-NOT misleading?
The question is if the Democrats were justified in doing it. Right now there is a lot of double speak going on.
Ultimately this dynamic always works out the same way. The minority party caves because they have no leverage.
https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy26_dem...
(See, we can both play stupid games!)
Both are obviously factual, as you say.
That's dementia. He's old, it happens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_gov...
This is like something my 7-year old would do.
ck2•1h ago
it's pretty obvious they can now search and replace across most if not all government websites now
let's hope that backdoor is locked down and not available for foreign entities
and this is of course a massive Hatch-Act violation but we're way past law breaking this far into the regime
Alupis•1h ago
Additionally, if you read the actual message (quoted in the article), it's factual, and therefore not political messaging. Hatch Act doesn't apply here.
mikeyouse•1h ago
Come on. The message is overtly political (blaming democrats for the shutdown when republicans control the presidency + the house + the senate) and 100% of the people pretending it’s not would be outraged if the same thing was posted under a different administration.
briandear•1h ago
mikeyouse•1h ago
Alupis•1h ago
The bill already passed the House. The Democrats have a minorotiy in the Senate. 60 votes are required to pass the bill - and Democrats are holding it up, deliberately for political reasons.
It's entirely factual.
sunnyps•1h ago
edit: This is what they would need to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option
lesuorac•36m ago
mikeyouse•49m ago
An equally true statement is that republicans didn’t pass a spending bill that could attract 60 votes in the Senate. But in either case, Republicans are the majority in both houses, they write the bills and have the responsibility to write bills that can be passed and signed.
And it’s a small thing, but this is very obviously a hatch act violation and silly me, I feel like the President should be beholden to our laws.
Jtsummers•1h ago
Alupis•1h ago
lesuorac•1h ago
We went from having government shutdowns all the time due to the rampant spending to just covering up the fact that he's blowing through more money than presidents do in 8 years. It leads to a perception that he's actually fiscally responsible.
Alupis•1h ago
mikeyouse•1h ago
It’s equally true that “Senate republicans failed to put forth a spending CR that could attract 60 votes” or “Senate republicans failed to pass filibuster reform to only require 50 votes on spending measures.” Are equally true statements yet somehow they didn’t make the autoresponders. Weird.
Alupis•1h ago
To summarize, you want to blame the oppositition for not passing your flavor of a spending bill, ie. one that suits your politics. Elections have consequences - and the longer Democrats drag this out the more excuse the executive branch will have to permanentely lay off people and shutdown departments.
mikeyouse•1h ago
> To summarize, you want to blame the oppositition for not passing your flavor of a spending bill, ie. one that suits your politics.
Seems a bit like projection when your summary is based on your weird assumption for who I would’ve blamed previously.
> Elections have consequences - and the longer Democrats drag this out the more excuse the executive branch will have to permanentely lay off people and shutdown departments.
That’s not how any of this works.. the Executive branch doesn’t have the constitutional ability to shut down departments or lay people off when they’re congressional mandated. This level of political science ignorance is a big part of how we got here.
Elections do have consequences and if Republicans feel that they have a mandate to kill USAID or any other department, they can pass a spending bill that zeroes it out. The President doesn’t get to decide to not spend those funds after Congress has authorized them.
It’s inconceivable to me that people don’t understand how much this line of thought and the associated actions have broken our government in ways that are going to be very difficult to undo.
hyperhello•1h ago
Alupis•1h ago
mingus88•1h ago
hyperhello•48m ago
lesuorac•1h ago
It is not true that Democrats blocked H.R.5371. The bill was voted on unlike say when Republicans block a bill by sending the representatives home instead of voting on say an Epstein related issue. (Recent vote was 55-45 [1] which not every R voted yay).
The lapse in appropriations cannot singular be pointed at H.R.5371.
If Republicans had stuck to their campaign promises of a balanced budget then we wouldn't be in this situation as we wouldn't need additional borrowing.
Less politically, if 60+ people had input into the bill then it would've passed. Can't be upset that somebody didn't vote for something they didn't have input in.
Only 50 votes are needed in the Senate to pass any legislation (per constitution). The whole 60-votes is a requirement that any point can be changed by the Senate and has been recently for federal judges.
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5371...
mcmcmc•1h ago
fhdkweig•1h ago
It says: The altered email messages included language saying: "Thank you for contacting me. On September 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse of appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume."
I don't like that it includes "I" and "me" because it looks like someone is putting words in the employee's mouth. I wouldn't consider that factual.
chris_va•1h ago
It could still be factual and read "Senate Republicans have blocked voting on S 2882" instead, or more extreme "Registered Republicans have lower education rates than democrats". Just because something is factual does not mean it is not a political statement, and one that would not have been made by the employee whose communication was changed. Let's all not play dumb here.
Alupis•1h ago
immibis•1h ago
Nobody asked why Republicans, which control every branch of government, need Democrats to cooperate with them to pass a budget, which only requires 50% to pass due to the special process for budget bills.
Oh, right. Because they mislabeled the One Big Beautiful Bill as a budget bill, which means they've used up their one special budget bill for the year and now the actual budget bill has to play by the rules for non-budget bills.
Skill issue.
ranger_danger•25m ago
This is incorrect.
The bill that just failed (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5371), is an appropriations bill.
60 votes are needed, and the final vote was 55-45.
https://apnews.com/article/democrats-republicans-shutdown-ne...
What you are referring to with the "50%" is a reconciliation bill (which is what the OBBB was), which requires a simple majority (50% + 1) to pass, and cannot be filibustered.
Appropriations bills are what keep the government open. Reconciliation bills do not have this effect.
The OBBB could not have been an appropriations bill because those are designed to make changes to mandatory spending programs and taxes, while reconciliation bills are for funding discretionary government operations annually.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/budget-resolution-re...
ck2•1h ago
r/fednews was FULL of warnings about all the unvetted foreign computers being brought in and plugged into the networks, specifically back then to hijack the email servers
remember how they had to harvest all the emails to send out the demands for people to quit?
it's "f-kery" specifically, this has never been done by any other administration, no-one previously would dare, it violates all kinds of laws
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/politics/federal-employees-em...
JohnFen•1h ago
It's not factual, though, because it's telling (at best) a half-truth aimed at demonizing one political position. It's pure political messaging.
culi•1h ago
This is a pretty silly manifestation of that power but it's a sign of things to come. The fact that they were able to change government websites, email signatures, and more within minutes after the shutdown should scare us