By Jake Johnson
House Democratic lawmakers reportedly used a closed-door meeting earlier this week to vent their frustrations with progressive advocacy groups that have been driving constituent calls and pressuring the party to act like a genuine opposition force in the face of the Trump administration's authoritarian assault on federal agencies and key programs.
By Natalia Marquez
Following a legal response by organized labor, one of Trump’s early attacks against the US federal workforce have been temporarily halted. On Thursday, February 6, Trump’s deadline to furlough millions of federal workers if they did not accept a buyout offer was paused following an injunction by a federal judge in Boston. This pause came less than 11 hours before the deadline for workers to accept the buyout offer, which 65,000 federal workers did—agreeing to leave their jobs in exchange for eight months of pay and benefits through September.
Judge George O’Toole Jr., who halted Trump’s offer of buyouts, said the administration’s plans would pause until a Monday court hearing, in which he would determine the merits of a lawsuit filed by four unions which represent federal workers. On Tuesday, February 4, nonprofit legal services organization Democracy Forward filed a legal challengeon behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFGE Local 3707, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, (AFSCME), and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE).
According to the legal nonprofit, the unions are “seeking to halt the Trump-Vance administration’s ‘Fork Directive’ Feb. 6 deadline and require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, rather than an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.” Democracy Forward claims that Trump’s “Fork Directive” buyout offers are part of a larger plan to “remove career public service workers and replace them with partisan loyalists.”
Democracy Forward is also representing a coalition of unions and the think tank Economic Policy Institute in filing a lawsuit which successfully halted the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive Treasury Department payment system information—a power grab that had prompted mass protests outside of the Treasury Department in Washington, DC.
Represented by the legal nonprofit, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFL-CIO), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute filed a a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order in the US District Court of the District of Columbia. This motion successfully halted DOGE’s access to sensitive federal information. These labor unions together represent over four million workers.
“The lawsuits filed by federal workers are an important initial step in a showdown over the future of the federal government,” Walter Smolarek, editor of Liberation News, told Peoples Dispatch. “Elon Musk and his DOGE team are attempting to obliterate any program that is of any benefit to working people, and leave intact only the activities that help enrich the billionaire class, like massive government spending on weapons. No one elected Elon Musk, and as the lawsuit correctly argues he has no business accessing the sensitive personal information stored in government databases. What will be decisive is whether or not the protest movement in the streets intensifies and puts pressure on the courts.”
Meanwhile, mostly Black federal health workers have been targeted through a watchlist published by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) on January 28. AAF, which published the so-called “DEI Watchlist” as well as an earlier “DHS Watchlist” in July of 2024 targeting “America’s Most Subversive Immigration Bureaucrats,” is a member of the advisor board of the infamous Project 2025, a collection of ultra-right policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation. The “DEI Watchlist” included the names, photos and work history of 57 mostly Black federal employees.
This article originally appeared in the People’s Dispatch on February 7th, 2025
By Christine Zhu
Defense Secretary Pete Hedgseth has approved reverting the name of military base Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.
Hedgseth approved a memorandum on Monday to change the name, but with a different namesake.
Located just west of Fayetteville, the base was initially named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. It’s one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with more than 52,000 military personnel.
By Greg LaRose
A Rapides Parish man could be the first person Louisiana puts to death in 15 years after the district attorney there obtained a warrant Monday for his execution.
Larry Roy has been on death row since his 1994 conviction for double murder in Cheneyville. Police said Roy attacked his ex-girlfriend, Sally Richard, and her ex-husband, Freddie Richard Jr., with a knife in front of her two children. The woman and her children survived, but Roy killed her aunt, Rosetta Salas, and Freddie Richard Jr.
By Jake Johnson
New York officials, lawmakers, and activists expressed fury on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department instructed prosecutors to drop federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a move seen as an overtly corrupt deal aimed at giving the White House free rein to attack the city's immigrant communities.
words by Charles Brooks
There is an opportunity for state legislators to fundamentally shape the criminal justice system in Maryland after years of high rates of racial disparities caused by mass incarceration, and the over-criminalization of Black folks. Consider that Black people make up an incredible 71% of the prison population while 30% of the state population are Black folk.
By Sasha Abramsky
With President Donald Trump’s pardoning of more than 1,500 people charged with offenses relating to the January 6 insurrection, and his description of them as “hostages” rather than as insurrectionists, paramilitarism is now firmly back on the national agenda.
By Julie Hollar
When President Donald Trump announced an unprecedented freeze on federal grants and loans last week, some of the most prominent US news outlets proved themselves largely uninterested in whether it was legal. Meanwhile, a few braver journalists called out the move as the constitutional crisis that it was (FAIR.org, 1/29/25)
By Nathaniel Cline
With millions flowing from speed camera fines, Virginia lawmakers are pushing to curb potential profiteering and increase public oversight of the devices. A bill to bring more transparency and accountability to speed camera operations cleared the House this week and is now headed to the Senate.
According to Virginia State Police data, the state collected nearly $24 million from speed cameras in school zones and almost $10 million from highway work zones last year. The cameras, approved by the General Assembly in 2020, were intended to reduce traffic fatalities and encourage safer driving near children and construction workers. But growing concerns over the financial windfall for local governments and law enforcement have put the program under scrutiny.
