(The National Pulse)—U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole has reinstated President Donald J. Trump’s buyout offer to federal workers under the “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation program. The judge ruled the government unions who filed a lawsuit seeking to block the program lack legal standing and that his court lacks the judicial jurisdiction to even rule on the matter.
Last week, Judge O’Toole delayed the deadline for federal workers to accept the buyout offer, originally slated for February 6 at 11:59 PM, until he could hear arguments from both the plaintiffs and the Trump administration on the matter. The “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation program offers government employees eight months of pay and benefits in exchange for their voluntary resignation at a preset date in the Fall of 2025.
“The plaintiffs here are not directly impacted by the directive. Instead, they allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects including a diversion of resources to answer members’ questions about the directive, a potential loss of membership, and possible reputational harm,” Judge O’Toole wrote in his decision. He continued: ” The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient.”
In addition, addressing the court’s legal jurisdiction, Judge O’Toole wrote: “Second, this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ pleaded claims. While not binding on this Court, the decision in Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v. Trump (‘AFGE’) is instructive. 929 F.3d 748 (D.C. Cir. 2019)… The two APA claims alleged in this case are the type of challenges Congress intended for review within the statutory scheme, which provides for ‘administrative and judicial review.’”
An estimated 65,000 federal employees have already accepted the buyout.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker