A post by RedState.com's Erick Erickson that Rush Limbaugh is hyping falsely claims that a memorandum from the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will “purge the federal government of Republican civil servants” and “forc[e]” former Bush administration political appointees who currently have positions in the federal civil service “out of their jobs.”

In fact, the OPM memo does nothing of the sort. It merely beefs up current OPM rules aimed at preventing political appointees from “burrowing in” to the civil service, thereby receiving the job security benefits that civil servants -- but not political appointees -- receive. While the memo states that agencies must seek permission from OPM to hire people as civil servants if they have been political appointees “within the last five years,” nothing in the memo creates authority for anyone to fire current federal employees. Therefore, the OPM memo does not “purge” anybody.