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The threat was loud and clear: Report your so-called “DEI” employees or else. What exactly “DEIA or similar ideologies” means is up in the air, but the message was out there. And so was the email address of the DEIA snitching hotline. Fake emails quickly started to roll in. ‘I don’t care, fuck these McCarthyite bastards,” one BlueSky user said, with an screenshot attached of an email to the hotline where he ironically reported Donald Trump and JD Vance for being “put in their positions solely because of their race and/or gender despite the fact that they are wholly unqualified for their jobs and, in some cases, have criminal records.” “Anyone have a script to fire off a billion e-mails an hour??” another user asked in the replies. “Anyone can email anything of any size even if it crashes the site,” one X user noted. The scope and effectiveness of this latest phase of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade remains to be seen.

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Elon Musk continues to assert his power and influence with President Donald Trump, and a new report details how the tech mogul and his allies have taken “control” of the Office of Personnel Management and skipped past key officials to release an email asking federal workers to resign.

More than 2.3 million government employees were sent an email last week offering buyouts to anyone who voluntarily leaves their job in an effort to significantly reduce the federal workforce.

The style of the email, entitled “Fork in the Road,” mimics that of one Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 when he bought the company, now known as X.

Officials within the Office of Personnel Management - an HR-type agency for the government - were reportedly “blindsided” by the memo, believed to be heavily influenced by billionaire Musk.

The Office of Personnel Management is a nonpartisan agency that manages the federal workforce, and would typically be consulted ahead of significant personnel changes. They were not informed of this proposal, people familiar with the situation told The Washington Post.

In the weeks since Trump took office, Musk has moved to take control of the office, according to the Post. He visited the office on Friday and put several of his longtime allies in key positions.

That includes Anthony Armstrong, who helped Musk buy Twitter, according to the Post. Others include Brian Bjelde from SpaceX and Amanda Scales who worked at a Musk AI firm. The trio are now in leadership positions in the office.

Musk’s team also built the system that sent the email to federal workers - a system that did not exist before Trump took office, the Post noted.

It is the latest signal that Musk’s role in Trump’s new administration reaches far beyond his position leading the Department of Government Efficiency.

DOGE was initially pitched as an advisory committee to function outside of the government and suggest spending cutbacks but through an executive order. Trump replaced the U.S. Digital Service office with DOGE. Musk was also supposed to co-chair that with Vivek Ramaswamy, but now has sole control.

Musk’s role in upending the federal workforce and reshaping it to fall more in line with Trump’s agenda has transformed his advisory role into something much larger.

In turn, some federal employees are skeptical of the buyout offer.

Musk has encountered legal issues with many former employees. A former Tesla executive is suing Musk after the company allowed him to work remotely but then threatened to fire him if he did not relocate

Thousands of former Twitter employees unsuccessfully sued Musk claiming he did not pay at least $500 million in severance after he conducted a mass layoff at the company.

The Office of Personnel Management offer claims to pay workers' salaries through September 30 and says they do not have to return to work. However, questions remain on whether the offer will hold up to scrutiny.

The Independent has asked the Office of Personnel Management for comment.

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posted on Kate Bornstein's substack

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Reminder to Request Queer Books from your Local Library

If you're panicking about the state of the world, one of the easiest ways to make a difference right now is engaging with your library.

There is a reason that libraries are targetted by fascists. They are sites of immesurable power. Both just on their own, and also because of their patrons. So first step is, if you haven't, sign up for a library card ASAP.

Next, find out how your library takes requests (almost all libraries do), and start filling out the forms. Make it a ritual, go through queer books that interest you (here is an affiliate link for 165 queer books to get you started), and request as many as you can. It also helps if you take queer books out. Both digitally and physically.

Many libraries have a system in place where they have to rebuy the rights to a digital copy of a book after a certain amount of borrows. This is not contingent on you reading every single book you check out. No one will know if you read it or not. Though, I will admit that reading the books is also a good strategy to keep you invested in this very important discussion.

Regardless of your personal reading habits, you have space to make real change in your community with just a small amount of effort. Borrowing and requesting queer books backs up the irrefutable fact that queer stories are worth telling, and it pays queer authors for their work. I will say it until my face is blue, request queer books, read queer books, and engage with your local library.

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I stopped standing for it in 2nd grade because I just didn't want to and when the school called my parents in for a conference about it, my mother told them that she didn't like that I was doing it, but that I had a right not to and that if they bothered her about it again she was going to raise hell. My parents were career military, and this was back in the 80s. Never got bothered about it again. Later I'd learn that West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette protected my right to do this. It is flat out unConstitutional to insist you pledge allegiance to a flag and you should absolutely refuse. Oddly enough I don't think my high school did the pledge at all. Or no one paid attention to it.

dear usamerican high schoolers looking for a way to resist fascism: sit through the pledge of allegiance.

no getting up. no looking at the flag.

everyone will be looking at you. you'll be sweating like a fucking hippopotamus. your teacher will sternly tell you to get up. you'll feel stupid and that maybe its not worth it because you're just a kid in a classroom. but I'm here to remind you that there are no real life consequences to detention. there are however real life consequences to resisting a thoughtless performance of nationalism.

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I couldn’t reboot it for some reason

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make it make sense

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So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

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I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.

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re: the dead wife trope, scavengers reign is truly the only show that did it well, simply because they made it as fucked up as possible. not only is your wife dead but your own hubris killed her and now you are going to have a symbiotic relationship with a psychic alien salamander who feeds you hallucinations of your dead wife. perfection

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hate to be posting about this but so far any "summaries" of the shit trump did already fail to mention this detail, because americans are once again self-centered and dont give a shit about how their actions might influence the rest of the world, so i suppose i have to share it instead

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Successful trans men

I wish I knew about men like these growing up, I wish I knew that trans men could be successful after a lifetime of never seeing anyone ‘like me’ excelling in life. So here are some trans men - some that you may have heard of, some that you may not - that are successful in a range of careers. Never let being trans hold you back, never think you can’t do something, never think there is not a place for you.

Ben Barres American neurobiologist for Stanford University and advocate for women in science. Barre’s research on the interactions between glial cells and neurons changed the way that we understand the brain and opened up a whole new field of research.

Stephen Whittle Professor of equalities law. Founder of FTM Network in 1989 and Press for Change in 1992. Whittle has been heavily involved in trans activism since joining the Self Help Association for Transsexuals in 1979. His research and activism has been instrumental in ensuring the rights of trans people in the UK.

Michael D Cohen Actor, teacher and coach. Making his break in award-winning Nickelodeon sitcoms Harvey Danger and Danger Force he was the first series regular actor to publicly come out as transgender. Cohen has a BSc in cell biology and a masters degree in adult education, teaching at his own acting studio and providing workshops.

Chris Mosier American triathlete and award-winning coach. Six time member of Team USA in both duathlon and triathlon, Mosier also won two national championships in racewalking and was the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic trials to compete against other members of his gender.

Yance Ford African-American film producer and director. Ford received an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for an Oscar for his part in producing and directing the documentary Strong Island which follows the death of his brother.

Kael McKenzie Canadian judge. Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for several years, McKenzie later attended law school and and worked as a lawyer before being appointed as a judge to the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 2015. 

Shane Ortega Native American former flight engineer in the US army, former marine and professional bodybuilder. Throughout his career Ortega has served in Iraq and Afghanistan in over 400 combat missions. He has a long history of advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the recent banning on transgender service members in the US army. 

Drago Renteria Chicano photojournalist and deaf and LGBT activist. Renteria founded the Deaf Queer Resource and is CEO of DeafVision - a webhosting and development company run by deaf people and the founder of the National Deaf LGBTQ Archives. Renteria has been instrumental in both creating and hosting many online deaf/queer spaces online along with being heavily involved in real-world activism for decades.

Phillipe Cunningham Elected city councillor for ward 4 Minneapolis and previous special education teacher, Cunningham holds a masters degrees in Organizational Leadership & Civic Engagement and in Police Administration and is passionate about tacking inequalities in his community. 

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I cannot believe that Andor exists.

If you like Star Wars; if you don't like Star Wars; if you've watched every star war or none; you should watch this show.

Its message is timely, relevant and poignant. It's not pulling its punches literally at all when it talks about the rise of fascism, police brutality, the prison industrial system, and what it takes to resist authoritarianism. It's not all storm troopers and laser guns, it's cops in riot gear tasing and shooting civilians. And regular people figuring out that they can't keep ignoring what's going on; they have to do something.

It's also extremely engaging if you like political dramas at all (or heists or prison breaks or whatever).

Plus it's got Diego Luna's big doe eyes.

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Perfect Day for an Andor rewatch