Dismissing evidence that a politician might be unfit for office is as much a mistake for the right as it was for the left.

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President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly floated the possibility of Trump running for a third term, even though the Constitution forbids it.

A federal judge has agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration from implementing an executive order that would cancel collective bargaining rights.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fell victim to a thief while eating dinner at a downtown Washington, DC, restaurant Sunday night, the secretary confirmed Monday.

The worsening problems come as Elon Musk’s DOGE team pushes for more cuts at the agency, including in the department that oversees the website.

The president's plans don't rest on the courts. They ignore judges entirely.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is one of the most ironically named offices in Washington. While claiming to streamline government, it’s doing the opposite — leaving taxpayers with an enormous bill and federal agencies in operational disarray. At the heart of the issue is a rushed, legally questionable effort to cut the federal workforce by putting employees on paid administrative leave while their terminations are sorted out — or challenged in court. Nowhere is this dysfunction clearer than at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Career public servants, many stationed abroad, have been abruptly removed from their posts and placed on paid leave. These are not disciplinary actions. These employees haven’t done anything wrong. They simply received deeply flawed Reduction in Force (RIF) notices, many of which were generated using incorrect or outdated information. In some cases, notices were signed not by agency officials but by DOGE operatives. Human resources staff have been unable to correct the errors, and employees have been left in limbo. This costs real money. The salaries and benefits for these sidelined employees are still being paid — millions of dollars a month — with no work being done. Administrative leave, especially when misused at this scale, is a direct drain on taxpayers. The numbers are staggering. A 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report estimated that over $3 billion was spent on administrative leave in just two years. That was under normal conditions. What we’re seeing now — tens of thousands placed on leave across multiple agencies — is without precedent and likely far more expensive. The legal exposure is just as alarming. Since the February executive order triggering mass RIFs, thousands of employees have filed or are preparing to file challenges. Some early court rulings have already found that the terminations violated due process or were procedurally defective. Reinstated employees, rather than returning to work, are often placed right back on paid administrative leave while agencies try to sort out next steps. The Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles federal employment appeals, is now overwhelmed. The backlog — already record-setting under the previous administration — is growing rapidly. Federal agencies must divert time, staff and legal resources to respond. The Justice Department is gearing up for years of litigation. None of this is free. And if the government loses these cases, as early decisions suggest it might, taxpayers could be liable for far more than just salaries. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, successful claimants can recover attorney fees. In cases involving whistleblower retaliation or procedural violations, courts may also award damages and back pay. One recent whistleblower case in Washington, D.C., ended with a $3.45 million award, including emotional distress damages. Multiply that risk by thousands of cases, and the potential cost to the public becomes enormous. What makes this worse is that it was preventable. Federal law outlines a clear, structured process for reducing the workforce. Agencies are required to follow it precisely, ensuring accuracy and due process. DOGE bypassed those requirements, pushed out faulty notices, and used administrative leave as a stopgap. The result isn’t just waste — it’s legal vulnerability on a massive scale. Administrative leave was never intended to serve as a holding pen for mass layoffs. Congress clarified this in 2017, capping administrative leave at 10 days per calendar year. But DOGE’s current strategy ignores that limit. In effect, it’s created a workaround to freeze out employees without completing proper terminations — and to do so while spending public money on people prohibited from doing their jobs. There’s also a broader cost here that can’t be measured just in dollars. DOGE’s actions are eroding trust in the civil service. Long-serving public employees are being treated as disposable, stripped of agency protections, and left without answers. The chilling effect this has on recruitment and morale — especially in agencies that depend on mission-driven professionals — is profound. This chaos isn’t inevitable. The administration still has a way out. It can halt DOGE’s actions, withdraw the defective RIFs, and reinstate employees. It can allow agencies to follow lawful procedures, ensure accuracy, and make reasoned workforce decisions — not political ones. Doing so won’t be easy, but it will cost far less than continuing down the current path. What’s happening now is not reform. It’s not efficiency. It’s a reckless purge of public servants that ignores the law, wastes resources and puts the federal government on the hook for years of litigation and ballooning costs. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for DOGE’s failure to do things by the book. They are already footing the bill for a strategy that doesn’t work, doesn’t save money, and doesn’t serve the public. Every day the administration delays course correction, the price goes up — not just in dollars, but in the long-term credibility of government itself. The question is no longer whether this plan is working. It’s how much damage will be done before someone steps in to stop it. Deborah Grieser is a retired USAID Foreign Service Officer who served in a variety of assignments for USAID both overseas and in Washington D.C.The post DOGE is wasting billions while calling it reform — taxpayers are the ones paying first appeared on Federal News Network.

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CNN is tracking the chaotic and rapidly evolving firings and layoffs at federal offices in Washington and across the United States.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), whose district includes Prince George's County, is helping out his federal employee constituents with a resource fair.

By Kindler In basketball, it’s smart to pass the ball to whichever player happens to have the hot hand, making all their shots for the moment. Politics is not any different. And the hottest hands righ...