Trump Is Now Begging Federal Workers to Take His “Buyout”

President Donald Trump is doubling down on his ultimatum to federal employees, sending yet another wretched email on Thursday that practically begs employees to take “deferred resignation” and leave the public sector.

The email, titled “Fork in the Road FAQ,” answered a number of questions clarifying the details of Trump’s “buyout” offer that was announced earlier this week.

The Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, sent an email to more than two million federal employees on Tuesday presenting them with the option to either return to the office full-time and adhere to “enhanced standards” of conduct or resign by February 6 and receive severance pay until September 30.

The offer naturally sparked confusion and outrage, and the “Fork in the Road FAQ” is a feeble attempt to provide federal employees with clarity and supposedly appealing incentives to quit. The memo made clear that employees who chose to resign would not have to work throughout their eight months of severance pay.

In response to a question about vacation, the OPM wrote that employees who resign are welcome to “stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination.”

The email also encouraged employees to get a second job while they’re on leave.

“The greater way to American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” the email reads, insulting the work of millions who dedicated their careers to the civil service.

The message is a blatant and desperate attempt to sweep the federal workforce clear of the president’s adversaries, and is uncannily similar to a memo from Elon Musk to Twitter employees in 2022. Musk encouraged Twitter (now X) staffers to resign unless they could commit to being “extremely hardcore.”

As nearly all of Trump’s promises are, the offer is also fraught with legal concerns. The OPM can’t promise paid leave for federal employees in agencies other than its own, and government funding is only guaranteed through March 14, not September 30.

A New York doctor has been indicted for trying to provide a patient with abortion pills across state lines.

Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical, PC, and an unnamed third person have all been charged with “criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs,” for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill to a patient living in Louisiana, where a near-total abortion ban is in place. A Louisiana grand jury indicted all three.

This appears to be the first time a doctor has been charged with prescribing abortion pills in a state with anti-abortion laws—but it won’t be the last.

The news comes just a couple months after Louisiana reclassified abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances,” making them harder for state residents to access. The new law states that anyone who has mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription can be fined up to $5,000 or face up to five years in jail.

Louisiana’s draconian laws extend beyond the pills. The state has essentially had a complete ban on abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and has zero exceptions for incest or rape. Doctors found guilty of conducting abortions illegally can face up to 15 years in prison and lose their medical license.

“I have said it before, and I will say it again: We will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law,” Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Friday.

This indictment may also result in New York using its shield laws for the first time, which are aimed to protect doctors who prescribe potentially lifesaving abortion care to patients in states where abortion is illegal. The state of Texas has already sued Carpenter on similar grounds.

Most abortions in the U.S. are done via pill as of 2023. Carpenter’s indictment—and the rest that are surely to come—will force physicians to choose between the training and creed they know and the political whims of their president.

In perhaps the Trump administration’s pettiest move yet, multiple federal agencies are ordering federal employees to remove any pronouns from their email signatures by end of day Friday, according to ABC News.

“Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5.p.m. ET on Friday,” read a message from from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief information officer Jason Bonander on Friday. “Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.p.m. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy.”

Workers at the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy received similar messages on Thursday, amid the chaos of the D.C. plane crash.

“In my decade-plus years at CDC I’ve never been told what I can and can’t put in my email signature,” an anonymous employee told ABC.

The messages cited Trump’s recent anti-DEI executive orders. This is yet another attack on Trump’s part, focusing on policing a form of self-expression that has no impact on the ability of federal workers to do the jobs they’ve sworn to do.

Governor J.B. Pritzker is blocking any January 6 rioters pardoned by Donald Trump from working for the state of Illinois.

In a statement released Thursday, the Democratic governor blatantly ignored Trump’s attempt to give the rioters a second chance under his administration, ordering Illinois’s Central Management Service to reject all pardoned rioters and consider their potential participation in government as “antithetical to the mission of the State.”

On his first day in office, Trump issued a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to more than 1,500 January 6 offenders, the first of many moves to reward loyalty above all else over the next four years.

In his statement, Pritzker listed the felonies and misdemeanors of the rioters who stormed the Capitol four years ago, among them members of the far-right militia groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

“The rioters attacked law enforcement officers protecting people in the Capitol, disrupted the peaceful transfer of power and undermined bedrock principles of American democracy,” the statement reads.

“No one who attempts to overthrow a government should serve in government,” Pritzker said, simply stating the absurdity of the president’s mass pardon.

A longtime Trump critic, Pritzker is the first governor to take direct, effective action against Trump’s sweeping list of executive orders. He has slammed a number of Trump’s other actions too, namely a memo that sought to freeze all federal aid, which has since been blocked in court.

A far-right, extremist group has compiled a list of foreign students and teachers that it thinks should be expelled from the United States for protesting against Israel, and turned it over to officials in the Trump administration.

Betar, a Revisionist Zionist organization inspired by European fascist movements, has been using facial recognition and soliciting tips to identify protesters at rallies and encampments opposing Israel’s brutal war in Gaza over the past year.

“The Zionist community in America has had enough, and while we vowed many months ago to build lists and have them deported, we are pleased that this will now begin,” a spokesperson for the group, Daniel Levy, told Salon. “We have already submitted names of hundreds of terror supporters to the Trump administration who proudly support terror and don’t belong in this country as they are here on visas.”

Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that gives federal agencies the power to identify, punish, and deport foreign nationals allegedly prejudiced against Judaism and Jewish people, a blatant attempt to stifle pro-Palestine activism in the United States. Betar wants to make the Trump administration’s attack on the First Amendment even easier.

Levy told Salon that his organization has given its list to attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, U.N. ambassador nominee Elise Stefanik, and other members of the Trump administration. The list isn’t just composed of protesters, either: Betar is targeting academics who advocate for Palestine or who teach an “alternate history” that conflicts with the organization’s worldview.

This, according to Levy, includes people who advocate for a one-state solution: a single, secular democratic state encompassing both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“When they say ‘one-state solution,’ it’s not for the benefit of the truth or for the benefit of the Jews. They want the six million Jews wiped out,” Levy said.

Trump’s executive order ostensibly aimed at antisemitism is straight out of the playbook of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which, along with its political manifesto Project 2025, has crafted “Project Esther” to target pro-Palestine activists. An extremist organization like Betar fits right into that plan, helping with the fascist legwork.

A social scientist who wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times has accused the paper’s Trump-friendly owner of bending his words to suit Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Eric Reinhart, a political anthropologist and psychoanalytic clinician, published an essay in the West Coast daily Friday suggesting that Kennedy’s controversial appointment could “pay off” so long as he “pushes real reform.” But the freelancer claims that the pro-Kennedy argument wasn’t his choice—nor his original intent.

“My first time working with the Los Angeles Times, and I expect also my last,” Eric Reinhart, a political anthropologist and psychoanalytic clinician, wrote on X following the article’s publication. “A vote for RFK Jr is a vote for nothing but chaos, the opposite of the essential public-systems building I argue for in the OpEd, and mass death.”

The original and final versions of Reinhart’s article differ drastically in message. The first paragraph of the published opinion piece takes an optimistic tone about Kennedy’s role in the Trump administration, suggesting that the virulent conspiracy theorist could be an answer and solution to the American public’s bubbling resentment toward the health care industry.

President Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflects anger and frustration at the wanton greed underlying America’s health systems. Major changes are coming. But we must not let those changes leave us even worse off than we already are.

But compare the soft and forgiving language of the published version to Reinhart’s original copy, which he shared on X shortly after the article’s publication. In it, he likens the sociopolitical reckoning of Kennedy’s nomination to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health agencies and the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson are both reflections of the same reality: anger at the wanton greed underlying America’s health systems has reached a fever pitch, and it will not be held back any longer. Major changes are coming, but they may leave us even worse off than we already are.

Additionally, the published iteration of the text completely nixed Reinhart’s closing remarks, in which the social scientist reiterated Kennedy’s blatant disregard for scientific evidence.

Although RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other—via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence—seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.

Reinhart vented deeper frustration on BlueSky, where he pointed fingers at the political interests of the paper’s biotech billionaire owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, as a potential reason for the intervention in his thesis.

“Editing out the most urgent point of an OpEd in the minutes before sending to press while then also assigning a title and image that suggest an argument entirely opposite to the author’s clear intent is pretty shitty,” Reinhart wrote.

It is not unusual for news outlets to edit, trim, change, or otherwise alter copy before it reaches publication—even without the author’s consent. But it is noteworthy that the Los Angeles Times’ heavy-handed pen sliced and diced a new argument out of a piece criticizing Kennedy, days after the paper’s owner formally endorsed him.

Soon-Shiong publicly supported Kennedy’s nomination to head HHS earlier this week. In a post on Twitter, the billionaire said that he had not met Kennedy “until a few months ago” but over time had come to “truly believe” that he had “the American public’s best interests at heart.”

“I have worried about toxins and the cause of cancer my entire career. As a physician scientist I really hope he is confirmed tomorrow,” Soon-Shiong posted on Tuesday.

In 2018, Soon-Shiong took control of the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune in a $500 million deal from Tribune Publishing.

Read Reinhart’s unedited op-ed here.

Republican Congressman Eric Burlison admitted Friday there was no evidence that diversity, equity, and inclusion policies were responsible for the deadly plane crash near Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

Sixty-seven people are believed to be dead after a passenger plane hit a military helicopter midair near Ronald Reagan Nation Airport. The actual cause of the crash remains unknown, but Donald Trump has blamed who he always does: anyone who isn’t a white, straight, able-bodied man.

Trump’s cronies have been quick to echo his harmful theory, but Burlison was forced to admit there was no evidence to prove it, in an interview with Fox News.

“Do you have any evidence that any of those hires were DEI hires?” host Maria Bartiromo asked Burlison after he too criticized the FAA’s diversity hires.

“Not until we get into the investigation,” Burlison admitted.

Burlison is taking a page from Trump’s book. In a press conference on Thursday, Trump said the Federal Aviation Administration’s efforts to hire “workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions” in air traffic control centers led to the crash. Trump admitted he had no evidence to back his claim but said he believed it to be true because he has “common sense.”

It’s yet another ridiculous attempt to blame literally every problem on DEI efforts enacted by Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Ironically though, it was Trump’s own first administration that launched a diversity program to hire air controllers with the very criteria he claimed were responsible for the deadliest U.S. plane crash in 25 years, The Washington Post reported Thursday evening.

Republicans’ new Senate majority leader, John Thune, is being forced to choose between his fearless MAGA leader and the constituents who chose him to represent their interests. 

Trump on Thursday confirmed his plans to levy aggressive 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, after complaining about “the people that have poured into our country,” “the drugs, fentanyl and everything else,” and “the massive subsidies we are giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits.”

While Trump and his base cheer on the strongman isolationism, Thune’s constituents in his home state of South Dakota could potentially suffer. The state’s entire economy is reliant on agriculture—it exports soybeans, corn, and beef primarily, according to a Politico analysis. And it just so happens that China and Mexico are the biggest export markets for U.S. agriculture. 

Tariffs against these countries would cripple South Dakota’s economy, as they did in 2018 when Trump enacted the very same tariffs during his trade war. Senators in similar precarious situations are looking to Thune to talk the president down.  

“Obviously the president is somebody who sees great value in the use of tariffs as a tool and we’ll have, I’m sure, lots of conversations,” Thune told Politico, striking a diplomatic chord. “People up here have different views about how and when to use them but I see value when they are used in a targeted way.”

Meanwhile, Thune has been pushing the president’s Cabinet picks through, even after Trump overruled Thune’s plan to split the GOP tax bill in two, signaling that he won’t be open to the Senate majority leader’s hesitations. We’ll see if Thune finds the guts to speak up.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to senators late Thursday that there was at least one incident in which he settled a case over inappropriate behavior.

The revelation came by way of a series of follow-up questions Democrats sent to the Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee. Senators wanted to know if Kennedy had ever reached a legal settlement over accusations of misconduct.

Two questions in the list, obtained by Mother Jones, read as follows:

“Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?”

“Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?”

Kennedy answered yes to each one but offered no follow-up details.

Mother Jones reached out to Kennedy to elaborate on the answer, querying if the 71-year-old’s settlements had to do with previously reported allegations, such as claims that he allegedly groped his children’s babysitter, Eliza Cooney, in the late 1990s.

A spokesperson for Kennedy, Katie Miller, sent a brief reply to the publication: “As a matter of policy, we don’t respond to Mother Jones.”

Kennedy had denied Cooney’s accusation when asked about it during his Senate confirmation hearing. And when Senator Patty Murray asked if there were other instances where Kennedy made “sexual advances toward an individual without their consent,” he said, “No.”

Kennedy, a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist, was tapped by Donald Trump to run the country’s health policy.

His private life has given pause to a number of lawmakers responsible for confirming him. Kennedy has publicly admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park, believed the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democrat John Kerry, peddled conspiracies that the CIA killed his uncle, chainsawed off the head of a dead whale (per his daughter Kick Kennedy), and last week was described by his cousin Caroline Kennedy as a “predator” who is “addicted to attention and power.”

“I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,” the former ambassador to Australia and Japan wrote in a letter to lawmakers obtained by The Washington Post.

“His basement, his garage, his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks,” she continued. “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

And Kennedy’s history in public health is questionable, at best. His stances, which include unscientific beliefs that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that a large number of vaccines should be stripped from the market, could have major impacts on the agency designed to protect America’s health, especially as bird flu outbreaks begin to dot the country.

On Wednesday, a career official at the U.S. Agency for International Development was placed on administrative leave after he undid an order from Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” to immediately fire several career employees at the agency.

Nicholas Gottlieb, the USAID’s director of employee and labor relations, sent an email Thursday reversing the terminations of dozens of senior USAID staff, calling the firings “illegal” and a violation of “due process.”

“You may receive another email within the day reinstating your leave status. However, that notice will not come from me,” Gottlieb wrote. “I wish you all the best—you do not deserve this.”

Gottlieb later emailed the rest of USAID’s staff to notify them that he was being placed on leave, telling them that “it is and has always been my office’s commitment to the workforce that we ensure all employees receive their due process in any of our actions.

“I will not be a party to a violation of that commitment,” Gottlieb wrote.

The Trump administration on Monday fired more than 50 senior USAID officials after accusing the agency of attempting to “circumvent” the president’s executive order freezing all foreign aid. Gottleib then intervened, and has been sidelined for his efforts.

Trump and Musk, through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” have attempted to overhaul and slash the federal workforce, with poor results. What happened to Gottlieb is an example of the consequences for opposing the tech mogul and fascism enthusiast, as well as the president’s ill-thought-out executive orders. And just like the president’s firing of several agency inspectors general last week, it’s probably illegal. Will there be any consequences?