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.