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The Trump administration has placed all federal workers in its crosshairs — from executive orders on DEI and return to office, to mass layoffs, destruction of teams, and shuttering of departments — with more to come. It’s easy to feel demoralized, but many workers just like you are stepping up.

The chaos induced by Musk and friends ripping off essential (often lifesaving) departments and services is already leading to mass popular outrage. Millions of ordinary people know they benefit from the protections and service that DOGE is slashing. All of those people can become allies alongside the power of workers and their unions acting collectively. With those two factors together, the battle may be long, but workers can win. Here are some ways to join the fight.

-What is the NLRA: https://workerorganizing.org/what-is-the-nlra-9318/

-Am I covered by the NLRA: https://workerorganizing.org/am-i-covered-by-the-nlra-9620/

-We can still organize and win under a weakened NLRB: https://workerorganizing.org/we-can-still-organize-and-win-under-a-weakened-nlrb-9578/

Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR’s Dean Baker about China trade policy for the January 10, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Article from January 2025:

The United States Health and Human Services Department (HHS) published a landmark report on intersex health equity last week, calling for an end to medically unnecessary non-consensual surgeries on children born with intersex variations.

The report, based on a literature review and listening sessions with intersex people, ethicists, and medical professionals, states that “the over 5 million intersex people in our nation deserve to live healthy and fulfilling lives free from stigma and discrimination.”

Children born with variations in their sex characteristics, sometimes called intersex traits, are often subjected to “normalizing” surgeries that are irreversible, risky, and medically unnecessary. Approximately 1.7 percent of people have an intersex trait, meaning intersex variations are not uncommon, but often misunderstood.

Nearly half (47%) of all clinical trials remain unpublished.

Whether a trial is published and how long it takes is influenced by whether there are positive results, how large the trial is and if it is single- or multi-centred, and which type of organisation has funded the trial.

Publication bias is a problem because it means that the information available to people making important health-related decisions for themselves, their relatives or their patients is not complete and may even be misleading. For example, if negative results have not been published, there is a danger that the decision-makers may not be aware of possible harms linked to the intervention.

In 1856, decades before the term “greenhouse gas” was coined, Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated the greenhouse effect in her home laboratory. She placed a glass cylinder full of carbon dioxide in sunlight and found that it heated up much more than a cylinder of ordinary air. Her conclusion: more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in a warmer planet.

(Eunice was also a suffragate)

Just wanted to share the servers Gardenfence has identified as hate sources so you can curate your fedi experience better.

https://github.com/gardenfence

Taken from the 50501 reddit...

US : Request your private data obtained by DOGEUS News (self.50501) submitted 8 hours ago * by Vivid_Midnight_1066

Representative Jamie Raskin is encouraging all U.S. citizens to join him this week in filing formal demands for access to their personal data obtained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has issued an injunction commanding DOGE to comply with citizen requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This law encompasses the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which entitles any citizen to access personal information held in any U.S. government records system.

https://jamieraskin.com/doge-privacy-act-requests/

Please spread the word so we can inundate DOGE with requests for our personal data.

Edited to add a direct link to the form letter: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ak-raskin/images/Raskin_DOGE_Privacy_Request.pdf

Taken from the 50501 reddit...

US : Request your private data obtained by DOGEUS News (self.50501) submitted 8 hours ago * by Vivid_Midnight_1066

Representative Jamie Raskin is encouraging all U.S. citizens to join him this week in filing formal demands for access to their personal data obtained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has issued an injunction commanding DOGE to comply with citizen requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This law encompasses the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which entitles any citizen to access personal information held in any U.S. government records system.

https://jamieraskin.com/doge-privacy-act-requests/

Please spread the word so we can inundate DOGE with requests for our personal data.

Edited to add a direct link to the form letter: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ak-raskin/images/Raskin_DOGE_Privacy_Request.pdf

Curious what the general consensus is on what we should do with our savings. My friend just liquidated 1/3rd of his portfolio. Wondering what I should consider for my 401k. What are you all doing?

I just signed up for the RSS feeds that tell you what bills are going through the senate, congress, and the oval office. I recommend this subscription.

“For the working class, these policies have made ownership of housing” next to impossible “as every cruel cycle of interest rate hikes brutally strips them of houses, cars and other assets they are forced to sell.” In the absence of an emergency public housing program, masses of the working class are crammed into slums, sheltering in shacks built of easily inflammable materials. Lacking electricity supply, candle lamps are often used for lighting in these settlements.