Resistance, Protests and Rallies

On Friday evening, Trump henchman Sergio Gor tried to remove Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of the Special Counsel, which protects federal whistleblowers. Dellinger, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a five-year term in 2024, promptly sued to reject his purported firing.

On Monday, a judge agreed with Dellinger, granting him immediate relief and requiring the Trump administration restore Dellinger’s access to his office. Also on Monday, hundreds gathered with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and many members of Congress, in support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, unconstitutionally shuttered by Trump’s goon Russ Vought. The House Rules Committee pushed forward a bill to allow for the Biden administration’s late-term rulemaking to be overturned en bloc. Senate Republicans invoked cloture for Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as Director of National Intelligence on a party-line vote of 52-46—Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) did not vote.

Snow is coming to the nation’s capital Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday night. Flakes will start to fall as workers stream in for a massive rally to save the civil service in the park between the U.S. Capitol and Union Station at noon, wearing the blue and gold of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The Elon Musk-poisoned Office of Personnel Management has announced that federal offices will close early Tuesday afternoon at 2 pm, just in time for the emergency rally to save the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Our lawless president Donald Trump plans drastic planned cuts to the vital agency, including the destruction of climate science and the decimation of the National Weather Service, and the Musk lieutenant Nikhil Rajpal has invaded the agency to perform a racist witch hunt.

Wednesday is pretty much guaranteed to be a snow day, at least for schoolchildren. After a morning of sledding and hot chocolate, kids and their parents and teachers can join the rally to protect students and public schools from the Trump woodchipper, organized by the National Education Association on the U.S. Capitol grounds at 4 pm. The weather is expected to turn to a wintry mix Wednesday afternoon, so bundle up.

Last week, 22-year-old DOGE lieutenants Akash Bobba and Ethan Shaotran were granted administrator access to the Department of Education, bringing a team of over a dozen stooges, including Musk hanger-on Jehn Balajadia, to feed the Department’s sensitive data into machine-learning software. On Monday, the coup officers illegally shut down the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Department of Education, cryptically announcing the shutdown on X.

After a night of sleet and rain, the clouds will scud away on Thursday. Skies will start to clear as activists gather at noon in front of the Office of the D.C. Attorney General to protest AG Brian Schwalb’s failure to join other Democratic attorneys general in fighting Trump’s unconstitutional ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Organized by the Bodily Autonomy Working Group of the Metro DC branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, the rally will demand the AG uphold trans rights and the law.

It’s unknown how much the snowstorm will disrupt the Congressional schedule.

Nominations

Senate Democrats have finally begun to slow down confirmations of the Trump cabinet.

Tuesday, February 11

The full Senate continues debate on Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence—with Monday’s cloture vote, debate is limited a maximum of 30 hours.

After the clock is run out on Gabbard, Senate leadership plans to move forward on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce, Brooke Rollins for Secretary of Agriculture, Kelly Loeffler to be Administrator of the Small Business Administration, and Elise Stefanik to be U.N. Ambassador are waiting on deck.

Wednesday, February 12

It is possible these hearings will be pushed back to later in the day.

• 10 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Nomination of Lori M. Chavez-DeRemer to serve as Secretary of Labor
  On Friday night, a federal judge rejected a bid from labor unions to block Musk’s DOGE lieutenants from exfiltrating sensitive information from the Department of Labor, the site of a mass protest last week.
  

• 10:15 AM: Senate Judiciary Committee
  Nomination Hearing

  The nominees have not yet been named. Nominees before the committee include:

  • For Assistant Attorney Generals: Gail Slater, Antitrust; Aaron Reitz, Legal Policy; Harmeet Dhillon, Civil Rights

  • For Solicitor General: Dean Sauer

  • For US Attorney for New York Southern District: Jay Clayton

  • For Deputy Attorney General: Todd Blanche

Thursday, February 13

• 9 AM: Senate Judiciary Committee
  Vote on the Nomination of Kash Patel to be Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
  Last week, Democrats invoked their right to delay the committee vote by a week. In that time, yet more news reports have emerged about Patel’s dangerous levels of foreign corruption.
  

• 10 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Nomination of Linda McMahon to serve as Secretary of Education
  

Hearings

Tuesday, February 11

• 10 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
  Business Meeting to Consider Pending Authorizing Expenditures and Subcommittee Assignments

• 10 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee
  Mexico-U.S. Water Treaty Obligations for the Rio Grande

• 10 AM: House Agriculture Committee
  Examining the Economic Crisis in Farm Country

• 10 AM: House Judiciary Committee
     the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Subcommittee
  Regulatory and Administrative Law Reform

• 10 AM: House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
     Water Resources and the Environment Subcommittee
  Clean Water Act Permitting and Project Delivery

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee
  Promoting Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling

• 2 PM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Federal Lands Subcommittee
  Industry Priorities for Federal Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land Management

Wednesday, February 12

Wednesday has a very busy schedule of committee hearings, which may be heavily disrupted by the snowstorm.

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee
     Energy Subcommittee
  From Transformative Science to Technological Breakthroughs: DOE’s National Laboratories
  Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren has sent letters to the heads of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requesting answers about the administration’s unconstitutional assault on federal science.

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
  The Arctic and Greenland’s Geostrategic Importance to U.S. Interests

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  Advancing Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration Technologies and Ensuring Effective Implementation of the USE IT Act

• 10 AM: House Financial Services Committee
  The Federal Reserve's Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report
  Fed chair Jerome Powell, who pointedly announced he would ignore any attempt by Trump to fire him, is scheduled to testify.

• 10 AM: House Judiciary Committee
  Elon Musk's Conspiracy-Theory Attack on the Biden Administration

• 10 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
     Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee
  Improper Payments
  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) “DoGE” subcommittee has its first hearing.

• 2:30 PM: Senate Indian Affairs Committee
  Native Communities’ Priorities for the 119th Congress
  The Trump’s administration’s unconstitutional funding freeze is disrupting “funding streams through multiple federal agencies including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service, Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Native American Programs.” Among the programs illegally frozen by the Trump administration are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s tribal assistance programs and grants for Tribal Historic Preservation Offices.

Thursday, February 13

There are two hearings on U.S. foreign aid:

• 8:30 AM: House Foreign Affairs Committee
  USAID

• 10 AM: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
  U.S. Foreign Aid

Additionally:

• 9:30 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
  Perspectives from the field: farmer and rancher views on the agricultural economy (Part 2)

• 9:30 AM: Senate Armed Services Committee
  The Posture of U.S. Northern and Southern Command

Markups

At 9:30 AM on Wednesday, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee holds a markup of disaster loan bills and legislation to cut SBA headquarters staff, and at 10 am, the House Natural Resources Committee holds a
markup of water, conservation, and grazing bills, with a discussion of the Republicans’ planned agenda for the year.

The Senate Budget Committee is marking up its version of the Fiscal Year 2025 budget resolution over Wednesday and Thursday. On the chopping block is the fracking industry methane fee.

1  With the sometimes exception of John Fetterman (D-Pa.)