Whipsawing decisions for chainsawed feds

PRESENTED BY BAD DECISIONS AND GOOD KŌLEAS

The Merit Systems Protection Board yesterday ruled that all illegally fired Department of Agriculture probationers must be reinstated—over 6000 in all, including U.S. Forest Service staff—while the Office of Special Counsel investigates their firing.

However, also yesterday a three-judge panel of the DC Court of Appeals has removed Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger from office, overruling a lower court’s summary judgment in favor of Dellinger pending a decision by the full Court of Appeals. They announced they would hear the case no earlier than mid-April. Dellinger could have made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, but they were not likely to reinstate him. In response to the three-judge decision, Dellinger gave up.

Even though the law says special counsels can be removed by the president “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” the Trump regime acted to remove Dellinger right before it began the Valentine’s Day illegal mass firings. Dellinger sued, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reinstated Dellinger. Trump’s Department of Justice made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, which was not granted (technically it was held in abeyance), but they have now won.

Dellinger had been working with the Merit Systems Protection Board chaired by Cathy Harris—who is also only still in office because of a similar ruling this week by U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras—to restore illegally fired probationary federal employees. The ruling keeping Harris in office has been appealed and is headed to the same DC Court of Appeals.

Now that Dellinger is out, it’s unclear who is running OSC and what will happen with the thousands of federal employees whose jobs he was working to restore.

Send complaints to [email protected].

In other fabulous news, ten House Democrats voted with Republicans to censure Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) for correcting Donald Trump when he lied before Congress about having a “mandate” to destroy constitutional democracy. Those Democrats are: Ami Bera and Jim Costa of California, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Ed Case of Hawaii, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. As the famous patriotic saying goes, “Cowardice over party.”

And 19 Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to overturn a Biden rule protecting Americans from crypto scams: Alsobrooks (Md.), Booker and Kim (N.J.), Cortez Masto and Rosen (Nev.), Fetterman (D-Pa.), Gallego (D-Ariz.), Gillibrand and Schumer (N.Y.), Heinrich and Lujan (D-N.M.), Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), King (I-Maine), Ossoff and Warnock (Ga.), Padilla and Schiff (D-Calif.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Warner (D-Va.). This vote found Democrats who claim to abhor the unconstitutional Trump coup, like Schiff, Schatz, Booker, and Kim, joining forces with coup-curious Democrats like Warner, Fetterman, and Hickenlooper. As the famous patriotic saying goes, “Crypto over party.”

Tonight’s DC Democratic committee meeting featuring new national chair Ken Martin should be a delightful affair.

Elon Musk’s government email is [email protected]. Trump’s EPA air pollution nominee Aaron Szabo says the United States should “adapt to any change” caused by global warming, not fight the pollution. Trump won’t send a delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meetings any more. Cyclone Alfred is already knocking out power in Australia even before it makes landfall.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:30 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Vote on Keith Sonderling to be Deputy Secretary of Labor

• 10 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Nomination of Martin Makary to serve as Commissioner of Food and Drugs

• 10 AM: Senate Finance Committee
  Nomination of Michael Faulkender to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury

• 10:15 AM: Senate Judiciary Committee
  Cancelled: Votes on Nominations of Dean Sauer, to be U.S. Solicitor General, and Harmeet Dhillon and Aaron Reitz, both to be an Assistant Attorney General, all of the Department of Justice

• 11 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
     Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources Subcommittee
  H.R. 471, The Fix Our Forests Act, and Options to Reduce Catastrophic Wildfire

Climate Action Today:

• 9 AM: Our Revolution
  Protect Public Media from Trump & the Oligarchs!

• 2 PM: Center for American Progress
  Congressional Progressive Caucus Center
  Indivisible
  Reconciliation Rundown: Understanding the Basics of Budget Reconciliation

• 8 PM: Rainforest Action Network
  Stop The Money Pipeline
  Mad Dash for Gas: Japan’s Role in the Gulf South LNG Expansion

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.