Federal workers fight back
Layoffs and budget cuts are part of a long plan to end civil rights protections, legalize segregation and crush Congressional oversight. Federal workers aren't having it.
Securing housing comes with many hurdles, but discrimination isn’t supposed to be one of them. Decades-old housing laws protect Americans from unfair treatment. It’s illegal to deny someone housing because of their race, religion, gender, disability and more. And when these laws are broken, the American people can count on the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, to go after the offender. Or they could, until Donald Trump resumed office.
The Civil Rights division of HUD is one of the few free resources for people who believe they are being discriminated against, and they get thousands of cases a year. But the work of the agency has been stopped up for months — way before the current U.S. government shutdown. Staff has been slashed by 70% since Donald Trump took office, civil rights cases have been abandoned, and political appointees are allegedly overriding legal findings to allow discrimination. These are all claims in a recent complaint letter submitted to Senator Elizabeth Warren. Two of the four whistleblowers who signed the letter are with me today.
Palmer Heenan and Paul Osadebe are civil rights attorneys and members of the Federal Unionists Network, or FUN. They were fired from HUD just a week after they went public, in what has been called a “stunning act of illegal retaliation.” Their message to other federal workers? Uphold the Constitution, protect the American people and demand government accountability.
Join me on YouTube today at 5:00 p.m. ET for this urgent conversation. What’s happening at HUD and across federal agencies had already created a climate of fear and chaos before the government shutdown. Civil rights protections that Americans worked for for decades are in danger — and so is Congress’s power over the public purse. It’s playing out now, but it is part of a radically reactionary plan that was laid out years ago, as I outline in today’s closing commentary.
Don’t forget: podcast subscribers will receive my full, uncut conversation with Heenan and Osadebe, as well as my commentaries, in their feed, for free. Miss an episode? It’s there for you, whenever you want to listen or watch.
These are horrifying times, but today’s guests will inspire you to be brave in the fight for fairness and against fascism. That’s what Laura Flanders & Friends is all about.
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