Tore Maras has been infiltrating and recording the Zoom calls of seditious Federal employees for the past decade. She has been monitoring several dozen of these groups from all agencies of the US Government and she has thousands of hours recorded, with chain-of-custody, numbered, by day and year.
The call that Tore’s featuring here is of the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), which is an umbrella network that facilitates the coordination of federal employee labor activism across agencies. There are members of several different federal workers’ unions on the call.
This particular call is important is because there’s potentially enough evidence of illegality here to decertify multiple federal workers’ unions and to fire every last member, which heretofore, the President could not do.
These people are rampantly violating their unions’ bylaws, the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS), as well as the Hatch Act.
The Hatch Act of 1939 to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities is a federal law that regulates the partisan political activities of most executive branch employees, as well as certain state and local employees. The law’s purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.
Federal sector unions must operate under the framework that Congress gave them in the FSLMRS, 5 US Code Chapter 71. The law lets federal employees unionize and collectively bargain over workplace conditions but it does not authorize unions to act as political campaign organizations.
As Tore explains:
“Even if organizers sincerely believe they are improving the government, the law doesn’t give a f***! It does not permit federal workplaces to be used as political organizing infrastructures.
“So, what you’re about to see is labor organizers, and activist figures that are federal employees and heads of chapters of federal employee unions and heads of unions, ‘middle management’ as you call it, or adjacent advocacy networks. Their roles, authority and legality depend entirely on what they actually do, not what the slogans say they do…
“Federal employees can engage in political activity as private citizens but only off-duty, outside of federal property and without using government resources…They may not engage in political activity while on duty in federal workplaces and with federal equipment.
“So, they can’t use the company, the agency that they work at, [and the agency’s] computer, to sit there and sh¡tpost on Blue Sky or promote posts – which they do…And they can’t be in the agency, sitting at their desk, taking a Zoom call like the one you’re about to see, because that’s not allowed. But we’ve got a few Zoom calls, where they’re all sitting in their offices at the NIH, at the EPA, at the DoD, where they’re all having these conversations.
“So, another thing is, they can’t use official authority or influence to affect an election outcome. So, basically, using their weight as a union or as a federal employee to try to influence things. Well, you’re going to hear them talking about how to influence things.
“And they are not allowed to solicit or receive political contribution, even off-duty. And, you know, they’re talking about fundraising…
“What these unions are allowed to do is lobby Congress on behalf of members’ interests, other than, ‘We hate Trump’, or ‘We need to pay Ukraine’ – because they’re really mad about the whole Ukraine thing…
“They can’t coordinate, endorse, or campaign for or against specific political candidates while acting as a union entity. They can’t organize internal union structures to directly influence election outcomes. They can’t plan political strategy aimed at affecting who holds public office.
“They can’t use workplace mechanisms, like meetings while on duty, union officer directives during work hours, or use federal resources to mobilize support or opposition for specific parties or candidates. Those are clearly prohibited and they come from the FSLMRS, from the Hatch Act, and other statutes that govern federal employment and political neutrality.”
Above, I’ve cut out a 37-minute section of Tore’s 3-hour podcast, starting with former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Legislative Director, James Kirwan, who proudly helped to coordinate the Shutdown Showdown campaign. (The full podcast and transcript are HERE).
Kirwan openly boasts that:
“There will always, always be more opportunities for us to pressure Congress to do what’s right. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to hold them accountable. And we will always, always appreciate FUNers’ help in making sure that we do so in the best way possible.”
This statement is astonishing, because until a couple of months ago, Kirwan was an attorney at the NLRB and he should be keenly aware that the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and the Hatch Act 100% prohibit what he is advocating.
Kirwan is followed by Sharon Hartzell, an Environmental Protection Agency worker, a Steward with the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280 and a Federal Unionist Network Steering Committee Member. She is launching what she calls the “Government for the People Policy and Practice Lab”.
I’ll let her explain:
“So what is G4P? As we’re fighting back against attacks from the Trump administration in real time, G4P is a parallel project that looks beyond the next three years and into the future of how we build a government that actually isn’t just going back to the status quo, but works better for us, as workers and as members of the same communities that our agencies serve.
“So here we aim to leverage the knowledge and power of rank-and-file federal workers working in concert with communities that we serve and are a part of to build and fight for a future vision of government that functions better for all of us.
“G4P is being developed with a common good bargaining and common good unionism as our guiding principle. We recognize that our organizing goes beyond the shop floor and must, in order to build the coalitions broad enough to really tackle the threats that we’re under, as well as just the overall authoritarian threat.
“So we recognize that we also, in developing an agenda for a better government, will require multiple instruments of intervention.
“That can include things like union contracts that incorporate community interests, that we collectively design along with people who depend on our agencies, for regulating the toxins that do or don’t go into their water, regulating housing issues, and all manner of things that touch people’s daily lives.
“It also will include policy blueprints that we can use as points of organizing in other spaces. So, our plan is to develop these in collaboration with grassroots organizers, who are advocating for a better government from the outside and be kind of, you know, I think a really powerful coalition of rank-and-file workers and the outside grassroots to transform government for the better for the long haul.
“So far, our first working group, the Environment and Climate group, has been getting off the ground with research and coalition building in the environmental and Climate Justice spaces. We have other working groups on government accessibility getting ready to launch and are exploring more topic areas in housing, public health, and foreign aid.
“And a big part of this is going to be working beyond the confines of different agencies to tackle things from a lot of different angles and find areas of fusion that maybe we haven’t explored before.”
Why is an EPA environmental scientist even talking about exploring foreign aid? This is a litany of intentions to violate Federal Law and her union’s bylaws. She must know this, as the Shop Steward of her local! Also, everything she’s describing would take dozens of acts of Congress – which she apparently seeks to bypass through these “areas of fusion” that she’s trying to “find”.
These people want to overthrow the US Constitution. They do not belong in the US Government. There are hours of these kinds of testimonies in Tore’s latest podcast, which she’s calling a “Christmas Present”:
“What a great Christmas present! If we could decertify all the federal unions, right now with just this video and fire them all, down to the f@cking janitor, every single one of them, here’s the ticket, carte blanche.
“Because what we’re seeing is a core conflict that is structural and not f@cking rhetorical, OK? This is lawful in private, unlawful, unlawful in federal and civic duties. So, federal unions are authorized to exist for one reason only: representing employees in labor management relations.
“EWOC’s model treats the workplace as a node in a political movement and workers as a mobilized base whose collective power should be grown, coordinated, and deployed to force change.
“So, this is exactly what EWOC talks about: Constituents, community alliances, escalation, wins, and transformative action. These aren’t metaphors, guys. They’re operational concepts.
“So, when federal union leaders or organizers adopt EWOC frameworks inside union meetings, trainings, or communications, all the red lines are crossed at once. The minute the union ceases to act within its statutory purpose, it’s no longer negotiating conditions of employment. It’s engaging in movement building. Federal law doesn’t allow it, regardless of their intent, no matter how right they think they are.
“Also, federal employees participating in that structure are no longer acting as private citizens. They’re acting to a federally-sanctioned collective entity, often using official time, protected access, or institutional authority, kind of like they said, ‘Expand in your workplace.’ That is what triggers a Hatch Act and civil service neutrality issues.
“Now, discussing ‘wins’, ‘protests’, ‘scaling actions’, or ‘building leverage’ is not a neutral reflection in all the contexts of what we’re seeing. In EWOC’s own framework, those discussions are part of campaign development…
“Now, ‘constituencies’. You’re going to hear them say that, and then you have to think to yourself, ‘Why would a civil servant, a federal worker, talk about reaching out to their constituents?’
“B¡tch, you’re not elected. You shouldn’t have constituents!..
“We have them organizing to overthrow our government from the inside.”
If you would like to stop paying the salaries of the seditious Feds who are trying to overthrow your country, you may take a moment to help raise the awareness of your representatives about these peoples’ potential violations of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and the Hatch Act and of these federal workers’ unions’ potential violations their own bylaws that may be grounds for their decertitification.
• Contact Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon
Here is a perfect letter created by one of Tore’s followers, that you can use as a guide to write your own letter:
SAMPLE LETTER
Subject: Request for Review of Potential Hatch Act Violations and Federal Union Political Activity
Dear _______ ,
I am writing to respectfully bring to your attention serious concerns regarding potential violations of the Hatch Act by federal employees acting under the direction or influence of federal labor unions.
Specifically, there appears to be recorded evidence suggesting that certain federal union representatives may be coordinating political activity with members of the Democratic Party, including discussions related to influencing or changing federal laws. If verified, such conduct may constitute prohibited political activity by federal employees and union leadership acting in an official capacity.
A recorded federal union Zoom meeting reportedly documenting these activities has been publicly posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). The account username is @idontexistTore, operated by an individual using the name “Chaos Coordinator.” The video, dated December 15 and pinned to the account’s profile, appears to show union-led discussions that may conflict with the restrictions imposed by the Hatch Act.
If federal unions are using their organizational authority, membership, or federal employment status to engage in partisan political coordination or to undermine the lawful authority of a sitting President and administration, this would raise significant legal and constitutional concerns. Such actions, if substantiated, may warrant investigation by the Office of Special Counsel or other appropriate oversight authorities.
I respectfully urge your administration to review this matter and determine whether federal labor unions, or specific union officials, have exceeded their lawful role by engaging in prohibited political activity. If violations are confirmed, appropriate corrective or enforcement actions should be considered to protect the integrity of federal service and ensure compliance with existing law.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter and for your continued commitment to upholding the rule of law within the federal government.
Respectfully,
NAME
TRANSCRIPT
Tore: Hi everyone. I hope everyone has been having a great December so far. I’m pretty sure a lot of you just want to know like what’s going on.
Well, there are a lot of things that we need to talk about today, so I’m going to keep little updates about myself to a minimum. I did receive my mother after 17 years. Seeing her in person was kind of different, but we could talk about that another time only because we have two topics to talk about.
Today, we were just going to talk about one. We’re going to talk about two because it was brought to my attention.
Now, as you know, there was something that I was filing under seal and one of my attorneys can’t file it because he doesn’t want to.
They have other work and don’t want to. So I’ve, um, tapped an attorney that does Quitams.
Anyway, I’m going to get it done. That’s all I have to say. But the one thing that I wanted today to talk about is the fact that we don’t have an office of Special Counsel, obviously, because Ingrassia’s is nomination was pulled.
And that’s something that I need for what we have to show today. So instead, I’m going to kind of put it online. And I tagged Mike Benz because, you know, he likes to take our work that we’ve been doing for years and opines on it. So I thought I can make it clearer for him so that way he doesn’t muddy the waters.
And now it makes sense. There was one thing that I didn’t understand in this, um, Recap of the Year call with the Federal Employee Union.
And, um, they act like USAID is alive and well. And I’m like, “Well, USAID ended.”
So today, in a casual comm with a couple people, I said, “Alright, can we kind of figure out where I go, since I can’t provide this to the OSC, because they’re not there. We don’t have anyone. What do I do?” Well, and then it was like, Hey, what about this? And I’m like, you know what? All your influencers have been telling you to look here and there, but haven’t focused on the important thing. And now, it’s starting to make sense.
Why do they act like USAID still exists or what we call it The Global Engagement [Center]? Why do they act like it still exists? Oh, guess what? Because while we were busy getting told that we stand or don’t stand with Israel, while we were busy looking at all these other things, the GEC is still alive and well, and we still have time to stop it, because President Trump hasn’t signed it into law yet. So Senate and Congress passed it.
So it’ll be interesting for all of you out there to actually look at it and think, “How come is it that all these people that know so many things haven’t talked about it?”
And it’s dangerous. Let me get comfortable with you because we’re going to watch this together. And before we watch it, let me get comfy. I wanted to give you a little bit of background information so that you understand it.
So how do I start? Should I start with the Federal Workers Union? Is that the right thing to start with? I guess, because not a lot of people know this. So there are unions, as we know, for all types of workers and President Trump has made it clear many, many times that, you know, these federal workers, you can’t fire them.
Now there’s a reason for that. Actually, the unions for Federal Workers were created by Congress and that’s basically how they came to existence. And you should ask yourself, well, what’s the purpose of a Federal Employee union? I mean, is it just to pay for what? I mean, they can’t do much, right? So question would be, why do they have a union? Well, there’s one primary reason to balance the power between the individual employees and the federal government as an employer, right? That’s basically it.
Now, considering that the Federal Government is one of the largest employers in the country, right? And individual workers, federal employees have little leverage on their own, when it comes to like working conditions, pay systems, disciplinary actions, or workplace safety. So these unions, this is why they were created in the first place, exists to give these employees collective bargaining power so they can negotiate as a group rather than isolated individuals who can be ignored or replaced, right?
But unlike private sector unions, federal unions are legally limited. So they can’t bargain over wages. It’s not like they could be like, “Hey, we all want to raise or we’re going on strike or benefits or budgets.” Congress controls that, right? But what they can bargain over are working conditions, scheduling, grievance procedures, performance evaluations.
Like if someone says, “Hey, you suck, you’re a Commie,” you know, the union steps in during that performance evaluation and kind of defends them, right? And, you know, basically in how all these other rules apply to them. Basically, that’s what the union does.
But in practice, the unions function as a procedural safeguard. They make sure that agencies follow their own rules and federal law. Now, these federal employee unions also exist to protect employees from political retaliation. So, like if they whistleblow. I mean, I got lost in the cracks, but I digress.
Because federal workers serve under changing administrations, the unions help preserve this continuity and prevent mass firings or punishments, based purely on like political shifts, right? Like you can’t just go in there and say, “I’m firing everybody from Obama.”
I mean, you can, but you have to show that they’re ineffective because these people, once they get into Washington, they’re career servants of the government. And that’s the ideal that they say “nonpartisan”, but we’ve obviously come to realize that’s not true. And today’s show will show you exactly how untrue it is. And this is why something that we should be pushing on Congress is to reevaluate unions for federal workers and how this is done.
So most of these unions actually became really important after the spoil systems, when government jobs were like handed out and taken away based on loyalty rather than confidence, right? So they’re supposed to safeguard the competent people. And civil service protections and unions that have emerged actually stop this alleged abuse.
But another reason that these unions persist is Due Process. See, federal workers generally can’t strike. They’re not allowed to, they can’t bargain for pay, like we said, or, and they face strict ethics and speech limitations.
In exchange for those constraints, the unions help ensure fair hearings, representation during investigations, and consistent application of discipline, right? Without unions, management would kind of retain nearly unchecked authority on many agencies. So in short, the federal unions exist to, not to like increase the pay or the power of the employee, but to enforce rules and to protect against any arbitrary treatment, right? And to provide stability inside of massive bureaucracy where individual employees otherwise would have none, right? So it kind of makes sense why they would have wanted a union. They’re like, “OK, we’re not going to be swapping out all the time, you know, because the government changed.”
It’s like, you know, when you remember that really ugly photo of Obama people when President Trump won, it’s kind of like that, right?
Obviously, the White House is different and it’s the White House, but you know, it’s not like someone walked into the state department and said, you’re all fired. They should have. I said, we should fire everyone down to the janitor, but I digress.
And competence, you know, if they’re effective in what they do, it’s based on their work and the execution of that work.
Well, I’ve been saying this many, many times that we actually have people currently within our military, State Department actively working – and they’re very mad about Ukraine, by the way – who are working against our government, in general. They are advocating for regime change.
They call it “regime change” or, you know, “defending democracy”. And what we’ve been observing, in these high level meetings are, obviously it’s AFL-CIO, but instead they have put out chapter presidents. And so you’re going to watch them talk and what they have to say, because I think we got it.
Like, this is really important. Now there are protected activities that federal workers can do and unprotected activities, especially when it comes from union representatives.
So if a federal employee from the union was to seek to overthrow the Government or deliberately orchestrate election changes, that would be a serious violation, both on the law and the union’s legal authority and it would strip the union of its protections.
Under US law, right, federal employee unions, they exist solely because Congress permits them to exist. Their authority comes from the Civil Service Reform Act and other statutes. But the permission is narrow and conditional. Federal unions are explicitly prohibited from engaging in political control of government functions, election interference, or actions that undermine Constitutional order.
They’re not sovereign entities. They’re regulated participants in the civil service system, OK? So if a federal union or its leadership or chapter presidents, you know, were to plan or coordinate efforts to alter election outcome, subvert local governance, or overthrow constitutional processes, that conduct definitely falls squarely outside the protected labor activity. It would not be shielded as union speech or collective bargaining. At that point, it becomes potential criminal conduct.
So usually when you have evidence of such, you would go to the Office of the Special Counsel and you would provide this evidence and they would, then pursue whatever punitive measures they wish against these people that are doing these things.
Now, having said that, several bodies of law actually apply to them simultaneously. Federal employees, including the union officials, they’re bound by criminal statutes covering conspiracies, sedition, obstruction of official proceedings, election interference, and misuse of official position, right?
The fact that someone is acting under the banner of a union does not protect them. In fact, it can worsen exposure because it involves abuse of an entrusted role. So there’s also a direct statutory prohibition on federal unions that engage in strikes, work stoppages, or political coercion against the government.
And so, any coordinated attempt to destabilize governance or manipulate elections would violate these prohibitions and would…justify that we decertify the union by federal labor relations authority.
So decertification means the union ceases to legally exist as a bargaining entity. That’s something we could think about.
So as I said, these federal employees are subject to also many laws, including the Hatch Act, which sharply limits political activity connected to their official roles, from organizing, directing, or leveraging federal employment to influence elections, especially from within a union structure.
And that would be a clear Hatch Act violation on grounds of terminations, fines, and criminal referral. So DOJ, I mean, I don’t know what to do, here. You know, I’m really trying here. I’m really trying.
So I want you guys to understand that federal unions don’t have a charter that allows opposition to the constitutional order. Their mandate is clearly administrative and procedural.
It’s not ideological and not political. The moment a union crosses from representing workplace conditions into orchestrating political outcomes for regime change, it’s no longer acting as a union, under law. It becomes an unlawful organization operating inside the government.
So the actions that you’re about to see and the discussions that you’re about to see violate their legal authority, void their protections, expose leadership to criminal liability, and justify dissolution of the union, itself. And federal unions exist at the pleasure of the statute, not as an independent power base. So once they act against the Constitutional framework, they forfeit their right to exist.
Now what you’re about to see is discussing organizing protests. But we got to see what, you know, they’re really talking about. And you’re going to see it. It’s a 55 minute video and I’ll play it for you. And this happened yesterday. So that’s fascinating.
Now, if federal employee union members acting as private citizens on their own time participate in peaceful protests, that can be lawful. Federal workers do not lose all First Amendment rights. However, the union as an organization and employees acting in their official or union capacity are heavily restricted.
So let’s make this clear. If a union encourages members to vote, advocates policy positions, or speak generally about governance without directing action, coercion, or disruption, that’s usually protected speech. But it becomes unlawful the moment any of the following may occur:
• The union organizes or coordinates protests during duty hours, or using government resources, or in a way that interferes with federal operations that follow that violates federal law. That’s one way.
• If the union uses its structure to pressure agencies, congressmen, senators, or whatever, or election system through mass disruption, work slowdown, coordinated absences, or intimidation, well that’s kind of illegal.
• Federal unions are absolutely prohibited from strike-like activity even if labeled as a “protest”. Now, if the protest purpose is to alter election administration, like I don’t know, maybe they’ll be like, “Oh we want Swallowell and his, you know, side chick, Fang Fang to run and Johnny Begood is a Republican running against him. We’re going to target Johnny Begood. We’re going to get all the dirt on him, and we’re going to target him.” See, that’s not protected, OK? It’s not.
So if the protest that they’re going to be doing is to alter elections, delegitimize lawful outcomes, or coerce officials, or replace Constitutional processes with activist demands, well that crosses from Protected Speech into Unlawful Interference.
And if union leadership directs its members to act as federal employees, rather than as private individuals, like for example, invoking their agency roles, credentials, or insider access, or saying, “Let’s make a community within our workplace,” well that’s a clear violation of the Hatch Act and Civil Service Law. But you know, how is it that Comey said it? “Intent.” Intent does matter.
So when you hear, “Create a better government,” it’s not a legal shield. If evidence shows coordination aimed at forcing governmental change outside of lawful mechanisms, that can support findings of conspiracy, abuse of position, seditious conduct, depending on the severity.
So peaceful protests by individuals, off-duty, without union coercion, or organization, or operational impact is generally lawful.
Union-organized, union-directed, or job-leveraged protests intended to coerce government functions or election outcomes, well that’s unlawful, decertifiable, and potentially criminal. And the law does not give a f@ck about slogans. It cares about mechanism, authority, timing, and effect.
So that’s basically the things that you are going to see. So if they were to be like, “Let’s find out who’s running for Congress or Senate and let’s get them!” Well, that crosses into clear legal danger for a federal employee union, and in many scenarios it’s actually quite unlawful.
And so grounded in law and not politics, if a federal employee union, its leadership, or its official structures are researching, identifying, tracking, or targeting candidates running against sitting members of Congress or Senate, in order to oppose them politically, well that’s not protected union activity.
And the reason is because federal employee unions are explicitly barred from engaging in partisan political campaign activity, as an organization. Their legal existence is limited to labor management relations inside the federal workplace. Electioneering is outside of the scope.
Under the Hatch Act, federal employees may not use their official authority, influence, or their organizational positions to interfere with or affect the results of an election.
You’d be like, what do you got Tore? Wait, let me just educate you on this, so that way you know what you’re looking at. Because you know what I see? I see a lot of people opining and saying things.
That’s why I tagged Mike Benz. I was like, listen buddy, if you’re going to be stealing my work and pretending you’re an official, you know, source of sh¡t, at least use it right. So I thought I could educate the public on exactly how all this works.
Because that makes more sense, right? Rather than just blurring out, look at them, they’re talking this and that, and then everyone thinks that it’s something else when it’s not.
On the other hand, none of them told you that Global Engagement Center is still alive and well. And PSYOPs are still alive and well. And now, they’re even more alive and well without oversight.
You know, your influence operations are doing their job, keeping you asleep while they get away with sh¡t. Because you should pick a side – of course – not pay attention to the fact that your country is being eroded by the very people in Congress that are illegitimately there.
Unless they were elected in 2016, they shouldn’t be there. Point blank.
So in continuance, because you should understand all these things: when a union uses its actual institutional capacity to identify political opponents and mobilize against them, it’s no longer acting as a labor representative, it’s acting as a political apparatus inside the government.
So and to get this clear to you guys, there’s an important distinction that the law makes. Individual members acting on their own time without union coordination, without using union resources, and without invoking their federal roles, they may support or oppose candidates like any other citizen with some restrictions depending on their job. But a union, as an entity cannot coordinate opposition campaigns, target specific candidates or challengers, direct members’ political activity, collect or disseminate opposition research, mobilize actions intended to influence elections.
So if a union does any of those things, it exposes itself to decertification by the labor, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, right, the FLRA, and it exposes its leadership to Hatch Act enforcement, civil penalties, termination, and in aggravated cases, criminal investigations.
But can get a little bit more serious, see, because if union leadership is using internal government knowledge, access, or data to identify the candidates, well, union communications frame opposition as tied to members, federal employment, or agency missions. Union activity pressures lawmakers through threats of disruptions, regulatory production, or coordinated, you know, internal resistance.Well, at that point, it’s no longer a labor law issue. It becomes abuse of public office and election interference.
So to sum that up, right, if a federal union researching and targeting political candidates to defeat them outside its legal authority is not Protected Speech and grounds for dissolution and enforcement action, right, motivation doesn’t matter.
“We want a better government,” doesn’t f@cking matter. What matters is using federally-protected labor organization to influence elections. That is precisely what the law forbids.
So, when organizers say things like, “Lobbying and lawsuits are not enough, workplace organizing builds power, or bolder transformative actions,” well, that language comes from modern labor movement strategy, not from traditional federal union practice. It’s commonly associated with organizing first models developed by groups aligned with community organizing networks and NGO backed labor coalitions.
FUN organizers. That’s what I like to call them. It’s Federal Unionist Network, the FUN guys, which is a real umbrella network that exists to coordinate federal employee labor activism across agencies.
By itself, FUN is not illegal. Now, individuals that may be tied to AFT, NTU, CFPB, USAID, or DMV, or typically staff organizers, union activists, coalition connectors, right, but not government decision makers. Now, many such people operate in a gray zone between labor advocacy, NGO activism, and political messaging.
But here’s where the distinction legally lies: Workplace organizing inside federal agencies is lawful, only when it stays strictly within labor management boundaries, like complaints, or, “We don’t have any heating,” or “It’s too hot in here, it’s too cold in here,” internal advocacy, like, “I’m getting reprimanded, or asking for continuing education.” Those are the things inside federal agency that they can organize.
The moment organizing becomes a power-building for external political outcomes, like electoral influence, or transforming the government through pressure tactics, rather than lawful processes, well, it crosses out of the protected federal union activity.
Now, using union or federal workplace structures to coordinate political campaigns, targeting candidates, agencies, or election systems, or election rosters, leveraging federal employment as a collective political pressure, well, and coordinating cross-agency action aimed at policy or regime change, rather than workplace conditions, well, when that happens, intent no longer f@cking matters.
Even if organizers sincerely believe they are improving the government, the law doesn’t give a f@ck. It does not permit federal workplaces to be used as political organizing infrastructures.
So, what you’re about to see is labor organizers, and activist figures that are federal employees, and heads of chapters of federal employee unions, and heads of unions, “middle management” as you call it, or adjacent advocacy networks.
Now, their roles, authority, and legality depend entirely on what they actually do, not what the slogans say they do. So, the questions we should be asking ourselves, “Are union resources being used?” Who knows? “Are activities coordinated during duty hours?” Maybe. “Are agencies or elections being targeted?” Yes. “And are members being directed rather than informed?” Correct. And if federal employment is being leveraged for political pressure? F@ck yeah.
So, those are questions that you should ask yourself when you’re determining if it’s legal. It’s not ideology, not rhetoric, and it’s not whether someone works at the agency. That’s how you want to see it, right?
Now, another thing is that federal union bylaws are governed by federal law, not just internal rules like other unions. So, federal sector unions have to operate under a framework that Congress gave them. Specifically… 5 U.S.C. Chapter 71. There we go. And that’s basically how they operate.
The law lets federal employees unionize and collectively bargain over workplace conditions, like is it too hot, too cold, you know, I need a window, we need more than one bathroom, stuff like that. But it does not authorize unions to act as political campaign organizations. So, the bylaws of most federal employee unions – reflect this – they focus on democratic governance of the union itself, meetings, elections of union officers, dues, internal discipline, grievance procedures, and negotiations with the employer, which is the federal government or whatever agency they oversee, right?
So…none of the bylaws authorize a union to act as a political party or to direct campaign strategy to influence public elections. Now, even if a union’s bylaws said something about political engagement, like federal law places clear restrictions on political activity by federal employees and unions. At the federal level, the Hatch Act restricts partisan political activity by federal employees, federal employee organization, including the federal labor unions.
And federal employees can engage in political activity as private citizens, but only off-duty, outside of federal property, and without using government resources. No brainer. They may not engage in political activity while on duty in federal workplaces and with federal equipment.
So, they can’t use the company, the agency that they work at, computer, to sit there and shitpost on Blue Sky or promote posts – which they do – and I hope we’re watching. And they can’t be in the agency, sitting at their desk, taking a Zoom call like the one you’re about to see, because that’s not allowed.
But we’ve got a few Zoom calls, where they’re all sitting in their offices at the NIH, at the EPA, at the DOD, where they’re all having these conversations.
So, another thing is, they can’t use official authority or influence to affect an election outcome. So, basically, using their weight as a union or as a federal employee to try to influence things. Well, you’re going to hear them talking about how to influence things.
And they are not allowed to solicit or receive political contribution, even off duty. And, you know, they’re talking about fundraising. So, is it a PAC? Maybe not, but labor union PACs are separate from federal workplace functions, right? That’s how it has to be done.
So, what these unions are allowed to do is lobby Congress on behalf of members’ interests, other than, “We hate Trump”, or “We need to pay Ukraine,” because they’re really mad about the whole Ukraine thing, but wait. They can file lawsuits over workplace rights, like, “Oh, I want to use the girls’ bathroom, even though I’m a man,” because apparently that’s a right. They can advocate for legislative changes that impact them as federal employees.
They could say, “Hey, the law says that if we don’t clock in five minutes after our time, then, you know, we want to negotiate that, and we want to be able to have an extra five minutes leeway.” Things like that they can do, right? They can do that. That’s why they have those unions.
So, as times change, they can change whatever their work environment is. And they can encourage member participation in civic life. Like, they can go on voter registration drives and general issues on education, right? General sh¡t.
But not saying, “Oh, I work for the DOD, so I need you to take signatures so we can vote.” They can’t do that. They could say, “Hi, my name is Amy, and I’d like to register you to vote,” but they can’t say, “Oh, I work for the DOD, or the EPA,” or whatever.
Now, all those things that I just told you aren’t illegal, as long as they’re not tied to promoting or defeating specific candidates, which you’re going to hear. They want to defeat. And they don’t have partisan outcomes using union authority or federal resources.
Now, let’s go into what they can’t do, before we put this in: They can’t coordinate, endorse, or campaign for or against specific political candidates while acting as a union entity.
They can’t organize internal union structures to directly influence election outcomes. They can’t plan political strategy aimed at affecting who holds public office. They can’t use workplace mechanisms, like meetings while on duty, union officer directives during work hours, or use federal resources to mobilize support or opposition for specific parties or candidates. Those are clearly prohibited, you know, and they come from the FSLMRS, from the Hatch Act, and other statutes that govern federal employment and political neutrality.
Now, federal union bylaws do not and cannot legally authorize election targeting or regime change coordination. Such activities are governed by federal law. Especially the Hatch Act and statutes that define what federal sector union is and isn’t allowed to do.
So, participating in partisan political campaigns with union authority or union federal resources, I guess, it’s prohibited, and engaging in such activities risk legal penalties and union decertification.
So, if they’re meeting up and they’re having these conversations and identifying, “Hey, I’m with this union, we should go into our workplaces and chit-chat with people so we could do all this stuff.” Well, there’s a lot of Red Flag language, and we’ll get into that as I play it for you.
Give me a second. Let me see. Alright…
I wanted to put subtitles…so, there may be some misspelling, because I used AI to transcribe it, and I’ve watermarked the f@ck out of it. So, maybe they could go look for sh¡t. But it’s very important you guys pay attention to what they have to say.
Remember, federal unions, like EPA federal unions, AFT, DMV unions, Post Office union, you know, this is not OK. OK? So, let’s get this started. Enjoy the show.
(Roll video of Zoom call)
Melanie Vant: My name is Melanie Vant. I’m the new-ish organizing director for the Federal Unionist Network (FUN). We’re so thrilled that you’re joining us for this FUN Year in Review.
If you haven’t already, please introduce yourself in the chat. Please share your name, your department or agency, your union, if you’ve got one, your location, and one wish for 2026.
I am seeing folks who are joining us from all over the country, from Long Island to San Francisco to Charleston to Seattle, from my old agency, USAID to the Grand Canyon National Park, which just filed their paperwork to become a union, which is extraordinary.
And this is why we’re gathering, because there’s so much to take stock of, and that brings us together. So, with that, we’re going to kick this party off. Again, please keep introducing yourselves in the chat. Look for your co-workers. Look for people who are in your department or agency and make those connections. We are going to share some highlights about what’s been cooking at the network.
Then we’re going to hear from some really inspiring unionists who have been organizing their workplaces. Then we’re going to hear a bit about some agency-wide organizing that’s happening, and some of the campaign work and collective action that unionists have been doing all over the country to fight back in spite of all that we’ve been facing. Talk a little bit about the government for the people, then looking ahead to what’s coming next.
So, thank you all so much for joining. With that, I am going to kick it over to one of our co-executive directors for the many of you know, who is very involved in actually starting this whole thing, over to Chris.
Chris Robledo: Thanks, Melanie. It’s great to see everybody and to celebrate a year that’s mostly been awful, but I’d say the big fat silver lining to this year for me has been meeting many of you, fighting alongside many of you, and kind of injecting a real fighting spirit into the federal sector labor movement, which for those of you who were active in our network more than a year ago, was the primary theme of all of our discussions, which was, how do we wake this sleeping giant up?
It turned out to be something that, you know, nothing organizes quite like a bad boss, and Donald Trump kicked awake the sleeping giant. I think we, as the FUN, should take a lot of pride in having been the folks, there who delivered the first blows back against the Administration.
It was February 19th when our National Day of Action put the FUN on the map and attracted the interest of thousands of federal workers who we’ve spent the last 10 months or whatever it’s been organizing with, trying to maintain morale among, and we’ll hear many of those stories today from folks who are on the front lines. This map gives you a sense.
(Stop video)
Tore: You guys did hear him, right? So this is where they’re organizing. They clearly said it. So we’re just paying attention, now. They’re very comfortable. “FUN” stands for the Federal Unionist Network.
These are, as you notice, if you’re looking at the chat on the side, we have Naval Research Laboratories, we have Military, EPA, we have all these agencies, and they also let you know that other agencies just got qualified to have a union, which means we’re going to have an even bigger shizzo. So let’s keep going. A sense of, you know, where we are.
(Roll video)
Chris Robledo: We’re literally in every state, every congressional district. We’re everywhere across the country. These are people who are in one way or another affiliated with the FUN in our network, doing work in their locals to strengthen federal sector unionism and, you know, it may be uneven here or there, but we are everywhere, and the more we organize, the more we expect to grow and to continue to grow everywhere, despite the attacks and use those attacks to feed the energy that people have.
This whole year, you know, a year ago, we were a 200-person WhatsApp community, and now we are a couple tens of thousands of federal workers trying to figure out how to, not just survive these but also turn the momentum against this administration.
And as you’ll hear from folks, you know, it’s been funders at the front lines of, you know, introducing the integrity and humanity in our federal workplaces when they’ve been used to terrorize immigrant communities. It’s us who’ve been reaching out to, you know, community groups to stand, you know, federal civil servants alongside the people who receive federal services to broaden the coalition, beyond just a labor coalition but a real labor community, you know, people’s coalition in defense of the democracy, itself.
And ultimately, you know, there have been a number of high points. We’ll hear all about it this evening, and looking forward to 2026, continuing to deliver blows against this administration.
One of the major highlights, I think, has been the narrative shaping that we’ve managed to do. Despite being a small and new and relatively unestablished force, we have been, at some periods throughout this year, the majority source of federal workers’ voices in the media narrative nationally.
We saw that most clearly during the shutdown in October and into November. We’ve seen it all year long, and here are some of the photos. There are some screen grabs of many of those of you, many of you are here, who have been the voice of your co-workers of the federal sector, delivering the message to the public that federal workers are not going to go away quietly.
I think there’s some numbers on the next slide that give you a sense of how much of a reach we’ve had. I don’t know how these numbers are crunched, but apparently the value, as media people value these things, of the voices that have reached the public is upwards of half a billion dollars worth of media engagements, just through the direct…
(Stop video)
Tore: Alright. I just want you guys to see here on the chat, so you’re paying attention. We’ve got Michael Ryan, retired FAA, New Jersey NARFE Chapter President.
We have their middle management. Obviously, this is an AFL-CIO. We can’t show you those calls, because we can’t redact information, but they’re on WhatsApp. They’re using their little Zoom places. They even have Microsoft Hangouts, Google Hangouts. We’re in all of them.
This is why I said, “Hey, if you guys are going to be reporting on the shit we do, at least get it accurate.”
Here is where we caught them engaging in activities that decertify the Federal Worker Union. Hopefully, the DOJ is paying attention to this and can get it because unfortunately, there’s no Office of Special Counsel that I can bring this to.
You can see “EPA Headquarters”. She’s part of the Federal Unionist Network in South Carolina. They’re stating their titles. I hope you guys are going to be paying attention to all of them and what their titles are, so you can actually see who these people are. Now, let me tell you about Ms Vant, who also is b¡tching about other things. I called her out because of some “flag”.
She worked at USAID. She was working in Africa, Ukraine. Ukraine’s a big deal right now, but what we have is a very big problem. I urge all of you to write to the President and tell him that we need to not get the NDAA signed. I’ll tell you about that later. But I want you guys to actually realize what they’re talking about, here because we see a lot of these personas online, like – no shade – Mike Benz is entertaining, a little bit cheesy on the piano, but he’s entertaining. He’s for laymen that think this dude knows what he’s talking about.
Don’t forget, he was a producer for, was it Mr. Beast or Joe Rogan? I don’t remember and then, he became a Proud Boy and now, he’s an expert in USAID. OK? Enough said. I would have preferred the Smoothie King to come out as an expert – who also went to Mars and was part of an alien program – because, I guess the people of the United States focus on those things.
We’re going to focus on the law and hopefully, I make it clear enough so they can take notes and not fuck it up, this time. Because every time they take our work, they skew it and they make it bullshit.
So I want to be as thorough as possible today, OK? And I want you to be paying attention, how we have VA clinicians on here, saying that they’re Active and they’re Federal Employees and they’re engaging in these activities.
All these chapter presidents that you’re going to see rolling around through your screen, because every single one of them will decertify every f***ing agency!
Oh, and at some point you’re going to hear them b¡tching about how we got them fired at the EPA. But let’s continue.
(Roll video)
Chris Robledo: To engagements and interviews that so many of you did. 350 million views. Some of our viral content, focusing on the retaliations that the administration has delivered against those who have been brave enough to stand up for the public interest in this moment.
And we’ve basically been on every major national news outlet. We’ve been in many, many, many local markets, where we have strong hubs that have been a repeat presence at many of the demonstrations for organizing informational pickets to highlight the attacks on the federal service…
So it’s been impossible to ignore us. And that’s true for not just the Administration who has to deal with the fighting spirit of the unions where we’re present, but also for the public who’s looking for some hope and inspiration from a sector that’s otherwise seems to be just taking it on the chin all year long. So what’s next? I think, is that the last slide I’ve got?
Female Voice: (Off-camera) We’re out of time. Sorry, but maybe we could do another minute, Melanie? Would you prefer that?
Melanie Vant: (She has a Tweety Bird voice, similar to AOC’s) Yeah! I think, Chris, do you want to do the put your hands up in the air activity real quick? Just so we can get a sense of how all the folks on this call actually participated and drove so much of the work you just talked about.
Chris Robledo: Yeah. If everybody could get your your hands up, get your fingers on the hands up button quick. We’ll go up and down. I’ll ask you to put your hands down after each one. I want to see how many people here have joined a meeting that your local union has convened this year. So let’s see how many people. Alright. Looks like a lot of you. Probably all of you. Alright. Take them down. Take them down. Take them down.
How many people have led, you yourself have helped lead a local or chapter meeting? Lots of leaders in the room. There we go. Now we can see. Alright. Alright. Take them down.
How many have had at least five one-on-one organizing conversations with your co-workers?
Melanie Vant: This is my favorite one.
Tore: (Interjecting) It’s my favorite one, too, because they’re just raising their hands and telling us, “Yep, I’m violating the Hatch Act!” Let’s go! Let’s go!
Chris Robledo: How many of you have mapped your workplace? And I don’t just mean where the nearby Starbucks you’re boycotting. I mean, where are your co-workers? You all know how to map. Alright. Cool. Good number. Alright. Take them down.
How many of you have helped recruit somebody else to get involved in the FUN? Alright. Lots of recruiters. We need that. Alright. Take them down.
How many of you have participated in an organizing training? OK. Some room for growth. Got more on the books in 2026. Take them down.
How many of you have led a training, yourself? OK. We’ve got a “Train the Trainers” program that’s going to be rolling out. So expecting to see a lot more hands in a couple of months.
And how many of you have spoken to a journalist? Done any kind of media work with the FUN or with your union this year? Alright. Recognize a lot of you.
And lastly, how many of you have participated in one way or another in a public action in defense of federal workers? That’s what I thought. Cool. Alright.
Well, that’s 2025. Hopefully we’ll all be at it this next year, too. And I’ll pass it on to who’s next, Melanie?
Melanie Vant: Back to me. Back to me. Thanks, everybody. It’s really awesome to see just all of the ways in which you have been stepping up in leadership. I feel so grateful that I get to be a part of this.
And that is actually what we’re going to Someone talking? OK. If y’all can make sure that you mute your mics, that would be glorious.
OK. So what we’re going to do right now, appreciating that it has been a f***ing year and feels like a goddamn decade, we’re going to take a moment to get a little grounded and to take a moment to arrive together. So this is just a really quick rounding and gratitude exercise.
And consider it my gift to you this holiday season. So put both feet on the floor. Relax your shoulders. You can see I’m like already sitting like a gargoyle, but I’m gonna sit up straight. Relax your shoulders. Take in one deep breath. Let it out. This year has been a lot for each of us. And for all of us. And before we look ahead, it’s good to pause and notice what has sustained us and who has sustained us.
I invite each of you to take a moment just to think about one thing that you are grateful for, something that helped you to keep going. It can be a co worker or a team that you have that had your back, it could be someone that you organize with, it could be some small win that reminded you why this work matters, something or someone in your personal life that carried you through; a podcast, a movie, a song, whatever it is, take a moment to think.
Now, I’m going to challenge you to think of one person, someone in your orbit, big or small, who like just made this year livable for you and hold that person’s name or face in your mind for a moment.
(Stop video)
Tore: Just remember, you guys, this idiot was in Africa negotiating our money and handing it out to overthrow governments they don’t like. And she really hates President Trump. And she hates anything that’s conservative. And she’s a stickler about pronouns – has been for a while, actually.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: Notice what comes up next, when you think of them. And now we’re going to take a 30 second break from this call and actually text whoever that person is. So there’s nothing that fills my cup more than being able to actually thank other people.
And so, take 30 seconds, send a text to the person whose name or face you were just holding in your mind that you want to express that gratitude towards. This could be someone from your union, someone from your family, someone from the FUN; send them a quick message.
Alright. Thank you so much for going through that exercise with me. I hope that there are ways in which in your workplaces and your locals or chapters and with your hub, everyone is taking a moment to ground themselves and to express some gratitude towards one another. We have a lot to be grateful for, including our unions. And so I am going to turn it over to Mark Smith, one of the steering committee members and one of the first FUNners around, out in California to lead us into our next section, which is all about workplace organizing. Over to you, Mark.
Mark Smith: Hey, everybody. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about workplace organizing, why it’s so important. Workplace or shop floor organizing is the basic unit of worker and union power. Lobbying and lawsuits are critical tools, right? But they aren’t enough on their own, as we’ve seen very clearly this year. Court wins can be reversed. Laws can be ignored and we can’t rely on Congress.
So, by organizing with our co-workers, where we do our jobs every day, we can build that real durable –
(Stop video)
Tore: Wait a minute. Did he just say that they’re not going to engage in lawful activities because they don’t work and that we should engage with our co-workers within the workplace? OK. Just clarifying, just putting it out there. For anyone trying to find a way to indict these f***ers and decertify these agencies, CFPB is on the chopping block! Let’s go!
(Roll video)
Mark Smith: Full power and a solid foundation for those bigger, bolder collective actions that we will need to win transformative demands in the future. So by doing all those things, mapping our workplaces, connecting with our co-workers around our shared issues, having those critical one-on-one organizing conversations, that workplace organizing helps us to build relationships of trust and confidence with our co-workers. And it’s these relationships that are going to allow our movement to grow and to succeed at every level in the years to come.
So, we’re going to hear from a couple of FUN organizers about what that shop floor organizing can look like in practice. And first we’re going to hear from Corrie Wilson, Vice President for AFGE and AFGE Local at the USAID about a union reform effort and a fight for justice and accountability over there.
And then, we’re going to hear from Gabe Hopkins, treasurer of NTEU 335 at the CFPB about some of their efforts in the DMV hub to organize local workplaces. So take it away, Corey.
Corrie Wilson: Great. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for being here. Just briefly, when USAID was being dismantled in January-February, I joined very quickly and I tried to get very smart, very quickly in terms of how to engage with AFGE local 1534, which represents USAID, State Department, and DFC. I reached out to my local leadership and very quickly realized how unprepared our local leadership was and how unresponsive they were in many ways. That led to a lot of problematic kind of interactions with them when we really needed real time, very quick responses to things.
And so I got smart, very quickly with a lot of union members at USAID who wanted accountability, who wanted representation from AFGE. I worked very closely with some of the national staff to kind of understand what was going on and how to navigate and work through the system.
And in many ways was able to organize, self-organize all of the USAID union members to be each other’s resources as our local leadership were not as super-responsive to the ongoing issues that were happening. And so, through a lot of different conversations, a lot of one-on-one relationship building with union members, with AFGE National, I was essentially able to organize and demand a local election that had not happened for Local 1534 in many years.
And because of that, we were able to get some new leadership in place that could really meet the moment and meet the issues that were happening at USAID, at State Department, at DFC and so it was an election that was very long overdue, but because of that, we were able to get rid of the sitting, sleepy local president and have a new local president who understood kind of the moment we’re in and through that, have new local leadership, as well as some of the existing local leadership to kind of carry on as we’re in this really crappy year.
And so in many ways, this has been a very hard year, but a year where there was a lot of solidarity and a lot of the USAID members, in particular, who we were a hundred members. And then –
(Stop video)
Tore: Can we just pay attention that they’re using DMV hubs to organize these workshops? I just wanted to point it out. Wait till they get to the election portion of it, right? Where they’re actually discussing going against specific candidates. It’s going to be glorious.
This is Christmas! This is – literally – because, we just gave the Department of Justice and President Trump carte blanche to fire the f@ck out of all of them and decertify all the labor unions. And the AFL can go pound sand, because you’ve got your foot soldiers and there’s definitely communications between both of y’all, because we’ve got some of them, because we’re in those, too.
So, I keep seeing someone asking, you know, “Are they organizing the No King’s protests?” Now I want you to pay attention carefully, right? The No King’s protests are not being organized by these people. They’re promoting them, right? They’re actually promoting them, but they are not running them.
We are waiting for a George Floyd-type thing to start around April-May. That’s actually foreign funded completely. That’s Ukraine kickbacks to United 24. So when you hear “USAID”, they’re not lying, but they’re lying because USAID shot the money out. We’re using a lot of cryptocurrency now and that’s how it’s happening.
So this is a really important call. This was a fantastic call and I’m really excited to share it with you. And unfortunately, there’s no actual way for me to get it to the Office of Special Counsel, because like I said, Paul Ingrassia’s nomination by President Trump was pulled. So we don’t have anyone there. So I’m going to rely on the people to do their job and let the President know and let the DOJ know, because I’m only one person and I can only do so much.
I’m trying my absolute best, but a lot of people I want you to understand, throughout these years have just decided not to fight anymore. And I’ve seen it. People that I once had high esteem for and they’ve maintained their ability to, I don’t know, keep their jobs after everything they did and even get into better circles, because of what they were doing.
But now that they’re not doing it, those people are going to be dropping down and not understanding why. And the “why” is because, “You’re no longer a fighter. We have no need for you.”
I want you to pay attention to what I’m telling you. President Trump has always said, never give up. The minute he sees you give up and that you go into self-preservation mode, you’re out. So let’s continue.
(Roll video)
Corrie Wilson: Because of the end of the year, we’re now almost a thousand members at USAID who’ve joined the Local. And so it’s just been really amazing to see people come together. People really appreciating just what the union and what members can do for each other through this crazy time. Thanks so much.
Mark Smith: Incredible. Thank you, Corrie. That’s just an incredible example of how that member-to-member organizing can really transform a local and just make incredible waves. Alright, so now, we’ll hear from Gabe Hopkins at the NTU 335 at the CFPB. Take it away, Gabe.
Gabe Hopkins: Hey, everybody. As has already been said, I’m at CFPB and NTU 335. I’ve been involved in the DMV FUN. And in October of this year, the DMV Hub got together and organized or planned and held a day-long workplace organizing training specifically focused on federal workers.
We called it “Organize to Win Federal Worker Training Academy”. We had 150 federal workers come in and spend an entire Saturday learning the basics of the Secrets of a Successful Organizer training curriculum. We had over 25 local federal worker chapters sponsor and support the event, financially.
We had fantastic support from AFGE District 14, from Labor Notes, and from other community organizations. And we have been following up that work with informal worker circles that we’ve been doing with EWOC, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, I think is the term. And we have been, monthly having these worker circles for people to get together, brainstorm, share, collaborate, ask questions, and come up with new ideas for how to get workplace organizing and their agencies and their locals done.
(Stop video)
Tore: Alright. Before we continue, I want to educate you guys on things. So we want to talk EWOC. So, EWOC is not something that unions should be doing. It’s under workerorganizing.org. It’s not a federal union site. It’s not a government program. It’s an activist organizing hub associated with modern organizing first labor movements, right?
And it explicitly treats workplaces as platforms for broader political and social power, something that the union bylaws and the laws that govern federal unions say is a big no-no.
So this site actually promotes a model of organizing that goes well beyond traditional union activity. The language and materials emphasize concepts like building power, expanding movements, forming coalitions, winning transformative change, and aligning with other workers and community groups, campaigns, and causes.
And this approach comes from the community and political organizing tradition. It’s not civil service labor law, OK?
Now, in the private sector, nonprofit world, this model, EWOC, that he just, the link is on the chat there, is lawful. In state or local government context, it can be lawful, depending on jurisdiction.
Inside the federal- or civil service, it’s fundamentally incompatible with how federal unions are allowed to operate. The problem is not the website existing. The problem is that these federal unions – these FUN f@ckers – right, and federal employees are using its framework.
Federal unions are permitted to organize around workplace conditions and internal labor rights. They’re not permitted to use their federally-protected status as organizing engines for political movements, protest infrastructure, coalition-building with external communities, or power-building aimed at governance outcomes, which you’re going to hear them say they’re going to be doing, OK?
Now, the philosophy promoted by workerorganizing.org assumes exactly that kind of outward-facing constituency-based action. They don’t even have constituents. They’re just employees. They shouldn’t be even talking about that.
So, to be clear, using materials for workerorganizing.org is not illegal, by itself. Talking about it as private citizens is not illegal. Believing its philosophy is not illegal. What is prohibited is embedding that model inside federally-protected union structures: meetings, trainings, official time, internal community, or coordinated action by federal employees, which we are watching right now, acting in their roles, especially when it connects to protests, elections, or political pressure.
So, when we put that all together, federal unions, cross-agency organizing, DMV trainings, talk of “constituencies” and “communities”, debriefs on “protest wins”, and language identical to activist organizing.
Well, we’re not imagining this mismatch. We’re identifying a category error. It’s political organizing model being imported into a space where the law only permits labor management representation.
So, that is a big deal. Now, what is EWOC? EWOC is a political organizing training project, not labor relations program. It was created rapidly to train workers to organize campaigns, escalate pressure, build power, win outcomes, and through normal channels that are deemed insufficient.
Its own materials are explicit about this. EWOC teaches organizers to identify targets, build leverage, create escalation paths, coordinate public action, and align workplaces with broader movements.
So, obviously, they’re not hiding and they plainly told you what they’re… I mean, could you imagine? What a great Christmas present. Stop me for a second and just hear me out. What a great Christmas present! If we could decertify all the federal unions, right now with just this video and fire them all down to the f@cking janitor, every single one of them, here’s the ticket, carte blanche.
Because what we’re seeing is a core conflict that is structural and not f@cking rhetorical, okay? This is lawful in private, unlawful, unlawful in federal and civic duties. So, federal unions are authorized to exist for one reason only, representing employees in labor management relations.
EWOC’s model treats the workplace as a node in a political movement and workers as a mobilized base whose collective power should be grown, coordinated, and deployed to force change.
So, this is exactly what EWOC talks about: Constituents, community alliances, escalation, wins, and transformative action. These aren’t metaphors, guys. They’re operational concepts.
So, when federal union leaders or organizers adopt EWOC frameworks inside union meetings, trainings, or communications, all the red lines are crossed at once. So, just saying, like, the minute the union ceases to act within its statutory purpose, it’s no longer negotiating conditions of employment. It’s engaging in movement building. Federal law doesn’t allow it, regardless of their intent, no matter how right they think they are.
Also, federal employees participating in that structure are no longer acting as private citizens. They’re acting to a federally sanctioned collective entity, often using official time, protected access, or institutional authority, kind of like they said, “Expand in your workplace.” That is what triggers a Hatch Act and civil service neutrality issues.
Now, discussing “wins”, “protests”, “scaling actions”, or “building leverage” is not a neutral reflection in all the contexts of what we’re seeing. In EWOC’s own framework, those discussions are part of campaign development.
Inside a federal union, that becomes “unlawful coordination”. I’m just giving you the laws, just in case, you know, influencers come out and they’re going to, obviously, they won’t use the video because it has my name all over it, and they just go look and find other ones that don’t have this.
Now, “constituencies”. You’re going to hear them say that, and then you have to think to yourself, “Why would a civil servant, a federal worker, talk about reaching out to their constituents?” B¡tch, you’re not elected. You shouldn’t have constituents.
So, I’ll keep that for a moment. Let’s continue.
(Roll video)
Mark Smith: Thanks so much for that, Gabe. I think we’re going to have a poll. Are we able to pull up this poll on the screen here?
Anna Bakalis: Mark, I’m going to post the poll survey in the chat for folks to fill in.
Mark Smith: Great. So, this poll is looking at one skill, asking folks to identify one skill that you grew in this year as an organizer. You know, whether we are new to organizing or we are, you know, old hands at organizing, there are always skills that, you know, maybe we are developing or learning or growing in, you know, whether that’s the one-to-one organizing conversation, leading meetings, mapping your workplace, mapping the power in your workplace or in your agency or in the broader community, building relationships with allies, speaking with the media, any of those things. Just pop into the survey poll there and select the skill that you grew in this year as an organizer. Sounds like we need access to the poll.
Anna Bakalis: Yes. Apologies. Chris is getting access, right now.
Melanie Vant: Thanks, everybody. Thanks so much for sharing, Corrie and Gabe. Really incredible just how much everyone has been able to do, in spite of the odds.
I am going to turn it over next to Maddox, another one of the Fund’s Steering Committee members who is going to lead us in a conversation with unionists who are working across their entire department or across their entire agency to build and wield their power. Over to you, Maddox.
Maddox: Cool. Yeah. Hey. So, we’re going to talk about organizing across locals and across work sites to build power within whole agencies. Building power in your workplace means coalition-building. And the next sort of scale-up from your local is the whole body, right? And as we sort-of network as a series of federal unionists building power, both within and across agencies.
So, we’ve got Steph Hung from EPA and Rich Couture from Social Security Strong. I guess in that order, Steph, do you want to kick it off?
Steph Hung: Yes. Hey, everybody. I’m Steph Hung. I am a Steering Committee Member of FUN and I’m also Second Vice President of AFGE Council 238, representing about 8,000 EPA workers. So good to be here with you all.
Honest, I was a little put on the spot because Justin Chen, our President, had to catch a flight. So, he actually couldn’t take this part. So, I didn’t come super prepared, but I’ll just tell you a little bit about what we’ve been doing.
Just one example of agency-wide organizing. So, I don’t know how many folks on this call have heard about the upwards of like between 140, 160 individuals at the EPA signed a letter urging our Administrator [Lee Zeldin] t0 –
(Stop video)
Tore: Hold on. Let’s get my tiny violin. (Brings out a tiny violin that blasts loud violin solos). Like it? They got fired, because of us, OK? Now, let’s continue.
(Roll video)
Steph Hung: Follow science and protect the environment and public health, you know, our agency mission. But shortly after folks signed in their personal time and exercised their First Amendment right, the agency chose to retaliate against these workers. So, most people were put on Administrative Leave, that turned into Investigative Leave and then, some were, unfortunately suspended for this act and some were returned to work and had a Letter of Reprimand and some –
(Stop video)
Tore: Just so you guys all know, we’re the reason they got fired. We’re the reason. And we sent the emails. We showed them colluding. And I really do love my tiny violin that they play all the time. “Oh my God, we got fired for trying to overthrow the Government!”
So, just so you know, your subscriptions to me actually hold water, because we are trying to get things done. Unfortunately, no one is not under an NDA to work with us. So, that’s fantastic, too.
Because that actually separates the wheat from the chaff. Just saying. They’re all conducting operations. We’re actually getting work done.
(Roll video)
Steph Hung: Were terminated, actually. Outright terminated for exercising their right to speak up. So, Council 238, you know, this is never… We’ve never really dealt with something like this and to this extent and this gravity.
So, what we did was we quickly mobilized union locals. The first thing we did was to plan a coordinated action rallies in several locations across the country, to show our colleagues that we’re not going to back down from this. That when an injury to one is an injury to all, we are a union. When our co-workers are under attack, we are going to stand together in solidarity with them. So, that was the first thing we did.
And then afterwards, we had a letter circulating in Congress. We got a ton of congressional support in the Senate to urge our Administrator to return these workers back to work. We had a slew of strategy meetings with people who signed the letter, to fight back legally and challenge that, legally. And it’s not over. We’ve also been speaking to every major media outlet on this.
(Stop video)
Tore: Yeah, but see, they can’t win this. She was actually on the email, because we have the email. It’s like I was in that. I was in their Slack, where they were discussing it. And obviously, I’m sending it to the right people, because I’ve tried to give it to journalists so it can be a story, so people can see that we are gutting them. But none of them want to gut them. They want to misdirect you.
And you’ll understand more, as we go. But this was one of our biggest achievements. So, like I said, all your subscriptions and tips, they go to this type of work, because we have to monitor all of them. These aren’t the only groups. There’s a ton of groups. I mean, we could get into California. It’s state-by-state. It’s a lot.
And now, I’ve actually offloaded most of it, because I am the point of contact to be able to share this information. So, if it gets into the hands of federal agencies, they can’t claim they “needed a warrant” so we can continue our activities. We’re everywhere – if they can’t infiltrate – I mean, spying goes both ways. And since this is a Spy vs Spy game, what better than to just be people against the bad spies game? And this is what happened. She’s really defeated, here.
She was on that email too, by the way. Just thought I’d let you know.
(Roll video)
Steph Hung: We’ve gotten a ton of traction and we’re still continuing this fight, even after some people have been returned to work, because this is setting a very dangerous precedent and this is one of our top priorities, at the moment. Thanks, and I’ll return it back to Maddox.
Maddox: And next we have Rich Couture from Social Security Strong.
Rich Couture: Hi, thanks. I’m Rich. I’m president of AFGE Council 215, representing Social Security Hearings and Appeals Employees, Support Staff in our Hearings and Appeals offices, as well as Spokesperson for the AFGE Social Security General Committee, which represents over 38,000 Social Security employees nationwide.
Through 2025 – and I agree with Melanie – it’s felt like a decade, Social Security workers pushed back against cuts to services, which would actually constitute backdoor cuts to your paid benefits, based upon the contributions that you make each and every paycheck, through your FICA taxes.
When DOGE threatened to close up to 50 Social Security field offices nationwide, Social Security workers took a stand to protect America’s access to community-based field offices. When the Administration threatened to cut up to half of Social Security’s workforce, which would have been over 20,000 employees, we spoke out to protect the workers that serve the American People every day. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately, but I’m limited to two minutes.
The highlight of our activism was through our new Social Security Workers United brand campaign, basically, because General Committee is a mouthful and doesn’t resonate as well. But we had our National Day of Action on August 14th, which commemorated Social Security’s 90th anniversary.
Over 1,000 Social Security workers at 50 events, nationwide, from Maine to California, from Florida to Wisconsin, Baltimore, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and everywhere in between, demanded that our agency be fully-staffed and fully-funded to guarantee high-quality service to the American People.
Many held or participated in their first demonstration or rally ever, their first picket line ever. And for many, that was also their first-ever opportunity to speak to the press.
So not only was this our single biggest activist turnout in our history, but it has also served as the springboard for more activism that we experienced during the shutdown with town halls, with food pantries for our co-workers and with other federal agencies, as well as serving as a springboard for continued activism into the coming year.
We look forward to our next National Day of Action, which is scheduled for Wednesday, January 14th, where we will be demanding, again, for full staffing, for pay justice, especially for our lower-graded workers who are overworked and, again, as I already stated, understaffed, and full funding for our agency. And I’m really excited to see where that goes. Great working with everybody. Thank you.
Maddox: Thank you. And we’ve got a poll coming up. I want to talk about what one challenge within your agency we need to tackle in 2026 together. So I guess you’ll be answering agency/department and then what your challenge is.
Melanie Vant: Thanks so much, Maddox. Thanks so much, Rich and Steph – especially Steph for jumping in at the last minute, since Justin had to catch a flight. Really grateful to both of you for just all the extraordinary leadership that you have shown and the important work that you all are doing to defend your agency’s core functions.
Alright, next up, we are going to go over to Thomas, another member of the FUN Steering Committee and an OG of the FUN, to lead us through reflecting on some of the campaigns and collective action that we’ve been able to take together. Over to you, Thomas.
Thomas Topi: Thanks, Melanie. So, I’m Thomas Topi. I’m president of IFPTE Local 97 and a federal worker with the Army Corps of Engineers. And we’re going to talk a little bit here or hear a little bit here about kind of the offensive and defensive perspectives, when it comes to our organizing.
Obviously, in the last year, we’ve had to play defense on a lot of fronts, as we’ve been under attack and we’ve had to deal with things kind of as they’ve come up. We’ve had to respond, but at the same time, we’ve also had energy, I think, at least from what I’ve seen, energy that we haven’t seen previously from our fellow workers, that we can use to kind of build those connections for the efforts ahead. So I’d like to –
(Stop video)
Tore: You guys did hear he said US Army Corps of Engineers, right? I just wanted to clarify. Just thought I’d bring it up, just in case you missed it. Thanks.
(Roll video)
Thomas Topi: Pass it to James from NLRB PA for a story about the shutdown showdown.
James Kirwan: Awesome. Thank you so much. Great to see everybody. Solidarity forever. My name is James Kirwan. I’m at the NLRB, part of the NLRB PA or Legislative Director and I was one of the folks that helped to coordinate the Shutdown Showdown campaign. And I’m really excited to tell you all about that.
Tore: (interjecting) Please do!
James Kirwan: So, back at the end of September, a group of FUNdiers realized that a shutdown was probably going to happen. And this was going to be an opportunity for us to urge Congress to “hold the line”.
(Stop video)
Tore: Wait a minute. What did he say? Let’s just rewind that. I just want to go back. Alright. Just listen to what he said because the transcription was a little bit off, OK? It’s great to use their words, OK? Please listen.
James Kirwan: And I was one of the folks that helped to coordinate the Shutdown Showdown campaign. And I’m really excited to tell you all about that. So back at the end of September, a group of FUNdiers realized that a shutdown was probably going to happen. And this was going to be an opportunity for us to urge Congress to “hold the line”. Hold the line for federal workers. Hold the line for those that were facing skyrocketing health care costs. Hold the line for democracy and for the rule of law.
And so, we wrote a letter and we then urged unions across the country to support it. And in only four days, 36 unions, representing more than 50,000 federal workers and more than 250,000 private sector employees signed on to our effort.
The press from that initial letter really, really liked it. We got a lot of really good coverage. And here’s something from The Guardian you can see. And in the following weeks, many FUNners across the country engaged in lobbying efforts. The Baltimore Hub did so. The DMV Hub did so. The Atlanta Hub did so. Many others did, as well. And those were really important and central for urging Congress to hold the line and hold out for a resolution that would help working people everywhere.
Early on in the shutdown, only about two weeks in, we ended up actually being so successful in our media efforts that the FUN Comms team was really central in because we created a great team of media spokespeople. Over 20 folks that gave over hundreds of interviews to really notable media talking about the importance of holding the line.
We were so successful in those efforts that Hakeem Jeffries is on.
(Stop video)
Tore: OK, before I continue, I just wanted to clarify. There’s two times that they refer to DMV. One means the DMV, and that comes later. The next one is DC-Maryland-Virginia Hub. Got it? DC-Maryland-Virginia Hub.
And the chick that’s running the place, Miss Vant, with the squeaky voice that needs to woo sah, that was wearing the GAO sweater, right, that one. She’s from Tacoma Park, and we know that Tacoma Park has a group that Raskin and his wife – Ratskin, right? I dubbed him that years ago – coordinates, which are the ones that protest in front of SCOTUS’s house, go to the Congressional ballgames, you know, where they were shot at, and whatever, right?
I just wanted to clarify, so everyone’s on the same page, so you don’t get some influencer telling you what it is. I’m telling you what it is, because we’ve been doing this for almost a decade. We know them inside out.
So, Hakeem Jeffries talked about him, while Data Republican and Michael Benz were telling you it was somebody else. I want you to pay attention, please.
(Roll video)
James Kirwan: – office actually reached out to FUN and said, “Hey, we like what you are doing. We love federal workers. We want to put you all inside the Capitol. We want to hear from you all!”
And so FUN was able to place three FUNers to speak in front of the House Democrats during a policy committee meeting, which you’ll see. You’ll see a little screenshot from on your left. So thank you to Paul, James and Danny for participating in that.
Then, a few weeks later, at the end of the shutdown, when SNAP benefits were paused – illegally paused – and millions of Americans faced hunger, FUNers across the country stood up. They stood up for the right thing. They opposed this action and they did what the government wasn’t doing.
They put on food drives. They put on service projects. This image in your bottom right, that was one that the DMV put on, People’s Pantry.
Altogether, these efforts across the country raised tens of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of pounds of food. And also, just made the message clear that federal workers care about the public and we want to serve the public and we want to support the public.
So that was the main thing that I think all of us tried to get across in the shutdown, that federal workers were here to serve and we’re here to help them. And the efforts continue, because we’ll see, there might be another shutdown in the future, but there will always, always be more opportunities for us to pressure Congress to do what’s right. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to hold them accountable. And we will always, always appreciate FUNers’ help in making sure that we do so in the best way possible.
I will now go ahead and pass it off to Ben. Actually, I think Ben is not here, but do you want me to talk about the Baltimore Hub?
Melanie Vant: I can do it real quick. Unless you want to, James. OK. Well, so thanks, James. Like, truly epic. So if you go to the next slide, Chris, this is just some highlights from another hub that is very close geographically and in spirit and solidarity with the DMV Hub. So the Baltimore Hub, for those who haven’t heard of it before, is essentially just a group of federal employees from at least two workplaces who come together to get shit done to advance FUN’s mission. And so the Baltimore Hub thinks of itself as punching above its weight.
This year, they organized two trips to Washington. They teamed up with the DMV both for the Organize to Win training that Gabe spoke about earlier and then also did Lobby Congress. They had 10 Happy Hour Heat Checks.
They call them “Heat Checks” there. They did three service projects and participated in and organized five protest actions, which is just extraordinary. And I know is just scratching the surface. And we’ve got lots of other hub leaders that I see joining us from Philadelphia to Boston. And next up, we’ve got New York.
Hi, everyone. My name is Alexis and I’m here from FUNNYC. I’m also a worker at EPA and one of the letter signers that Steph mentioned. So, shout-out. Thank you. AFGE Local 3911. If we can move to the next slide, that would be great. I just have some photos.
So a lot of things that New York City Hub has done over the past year. We really just started, you know, really revving-up this past year. So, it’s been really great to be a part of that. I wanted to start with what started it all, which was our Save Our Services campaign, as part of the National Day of Action on February 19th. These are some photos from our picket, which started every week for every week until June.
So for about four months, we had weekly pickets in front of our federal buildings on Broadway. And here are some photos from that as well as an evening rally that same day where it’s some speakers like Zohran Mamdani, who is our future Mayor on January 1st, as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
So that was really great. Helped us build labor solidarity as well as get connected with so many groups and really plug people in for the first time who had never done organizing before, much like myself. So, yeah, that’s just a highlight just for the Save Our Services campaign. But, yeah, I’ll turn it back over to you guys.
Thomas Topi: And do we have a link to a poll?
Melanie Vant: Yeah, it’s the same poll. So we’ll keep pasting it in the chat, especially for those who might not yet have clicked on it. But, yeah, there’s a poll in the chat. Yes.
Thomas Topi: Alright. And I think with that, I can pass it to Sharon.
Sharon Hartzell: Hi, everyone. So glad to be here. My name is Sharon Hartzell, and I’m an EPA worker, a steward with NTU Chapter 280 FUN Steering Committee Member.
And I’ve also been working with an incredible team to build and launch the Government for the People Policy and Practice Lab. So what is G4P? As we’re fighting back against attacks from the Trump administration in real time, G4P is a parallel project that looks beyond the next three years and into the future of how we build a government that actually isn’t just going back to the status quo, but works better for us, as workers and as members of the same communities that our agencies serve.
So here we aim to leverage the knowledge and power of rank-and-file federal workers working in concert with communities that we serve and are a part of to build and fight for a future vision of government that functions better for all of us.
G4P is being developed with a common good bargaining and common good unionism as our guiding principle. We recognize that our organizing goes beyond the shop floor and must, in order to build the coalitions broad enough to really tackle the threats that we’re under, as well as just the overall authoritarian threat.
So we recognize that we also, in developing an agenda for a better government, will require multiple instruments of intervention.
That can include things like union contracts that incorporate community interests, that we collectively design along with people who depend on our agencies, for regulating the toxins that do or don’t go into their water, regulating housing issues, and all manner of things that touch people’s daily lives.
It also will include policy blueprints that we can use as points of organizing in other spaces. So, our plan is to develop these in collaboration with grassroots organizers, who are advocating for a better government from the outside and be kind of, you know, I think a really powerful coalition of rank-and-file workers and the outside grassroots to transform government for the better for the long haul.
So far, our first working group, the Environment and Climate group, has been getting off the ground with research and coalition building in the environmental and Climate Justice spaces. We have other working groups on government accessibility getting ready to launch and are exploring more topic areas in housing, public health, and foreign aid.
And a big part of this is going to be working beyond the confines of different agencies to tackle things from a lot of different angles and find areas of fusion that maybe we haven’t explored before.
So it’s a really great effort. We are still seeking people to be involved in volunteering with this, both as members of working groups, as well as our ongoing and developing political education that can help to ground this work in bargaining for the common good approaches.
Yeah, really happy to connect with anyone offline if you’re interested in this sort of project and finding ways to do that.
(Stop video)
Tore: So before we continue, we’ve got about 10 minutes left. They’re admitting to all these things. She clearly said “for the common good.” The only bargaining they should be doing is for working conditions and if they’re whistleblowers.
But I can tell you this, just so that you understand, we have them. We have people that are Active Military. We have people with TSSCI clearance.
“How do you know, Tore?” Because we have pictures of them with their CatCards. We have to authorize their entry into these chat rooms, right? They are discussing things like sabotage, destroying equipment, slowing down the way the government works. They’re anticipating the next lockdown, shutdown.
Wait, didn’t the previous guy say that they moved on the Shutdown Showdown? I’m sorry. Unions aren’t supposed to be doing that. I think the federal laws are pretty clear.
I mean, President Trump, why don’t you make Congress decertify the f@cking unions? It’ll be done in a heartbeat. We’ll get rid of them!
And for clarity, I have reached out to people that allegedly have big microphones and they don’t want to put this out, because they’re part of an operation. They have to stay within the confines of what they’re given to report.
I don’t. I’m just clarifying so people understand this. I don’t. Right? I didn’t come fuddle and make it all mixed up with the No King’s Protest, that had nothing to do with f@cking George Soros. Right?
They did. They bucketed everything into Antifa. They did. There is that umbrella that they’re using. Are these motherf@ckers right here? This is middle management.
Above them is AFL-CIO, which the late, great Lieutenant Scott Bennett was the one that got the document from the leadership. And with that document, we were able to penetrate their high ranks and clone one of their profiles. And you’d be surprised what AI can do. I can look like a dude – or another chick.
See, this is real work. It’s not what you see online. This is real work. So, just pointing it out.
She already told you it’s not for the union that she represents. Oh, and she did say she’s a federal worker in present tense – not fired. Just clarifying, in case anyone was wondering.
(Roll video)
Sharon Hartzell: In the chat, I see a question. Is G4P connected with FUN? Yes, it is a project of FUN. It’s really part of the same thing and we are continuously iterating and finding ways that we can align this effort with the shop floor organizing that others have talked about and have this be also a point of connection that local hubs can be building with local community groups, as well.
Yeah, so really look forward to talking with anyone who is interested in getting involved. Thanks.
Melanie Vant: Thomas, any last words?
(Stop video)
Tore: Can we just look at this slide? Government for the People, G4P, “A platform for federal workers to apply their expertise –” You know, overthrowing governments they don’t like, you know, sh¡t like that, whatever. Using pronouns, you know, all that stuff. “To building a more effective, equitable, democratic federal government that better serves the people.”
Bitches! It’s not your job. You got a job. You’re supposed to do it. It’s not your job to be the Mommy of the world, in your vision of “Everyone can be whatever they want and identify.”
And we don’t take orders from NATO, because I’m going to tell you something, you’re going to see a CCP asset. I don’t know if you saw him before. He’s going to pop up in your screen, a little bit later, who’s just flanking one of the union guys who’s yap, yap, yap. They’re totally admitting.
Now, could this CCP agent be nannying him or encouraging him to just say more sh¡t? Because what better thing for the enemies of our country to sow issues, distrust, and completely decimate the operational structure of our government?
If your government’s not working, then you can’t function. And then I can come in and take over. Do you see where I’m going with this? Because this is actual war.
See, these aren’t fun and games with a bunch of idiots that have blue hair and use pronouns. This is – I’ve said this before. What’s that line? “How do you destroy a tank?” I’ll wait for the chat to answer that question.
Because as you’re seeing, these motherf@ckers are in the tank. How do you destroy it from the inside? That’s the best and most efficient way. And we have a lot of little f@ckers inside our tank right now. And they’re blowing it up!
And instead, we’re busy watching bullsh¡t. Wait for it.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: OK, I’m going to kick it over to Steph, next. The EPA is like repping large here, which is pretty awesome. Over to you, Steph.
Steph Hung: Thanks, Melanie. Hey, everyone. I’m back. I just wanted to take a moment to kind of really express how thankful I am to FUN. Like, I never imagined there would be this place for us to connect with each other across all of our different departments and agencies and offices, across all of our unions and different locals within a union. That’s really what makes us super-powerful. And I know that this past year has felt like a decade and we’re building the plane, as we are flying it. That’s been constantly said in like every single meeting because it’s true. So thank you, Melanie. Thank you, everybody, for putting this on.
I think that as we’re celebrating all of the accomplishments that we’ve achieved this past year, we also really need to do some deep reflection on, like what’s worked, what has supported workplace organizing, what could be better in the future and what else is needed. This is an iterative process. We want it to be a transparent process, where everybody in this network is working together and moving in a single direction, to build a stronger sectoral labor movement.
So with that being said, I just want to say that we will plan a meeting January 11th. I think that’s the date, where we will especially dedicate a meeting to get people’s feedback, to get all of your feedback, to hear from all of you on what can be different, what has worked for you, what hasn’t.
And instead of coming to this meeting kind of as yourself and just representing what your thoughts and feedback are, I would really encourage that everybody go to their hub and have a series of conversations with people in your hub and then bring your hub to this meeting.
What was the process of getting involved with FUN in the first place? What initially made this connection feel worthwhile? Can you give an example of when the network was useful for organizing? Where did this organizing take place? Was it in your workplace? Was it outside of it? There’s so many good reflection questions that I think that we will send out later.
(Stop video)
Tore: So, hey, Mike Benz and all of you other “experts”, I just gave you when the meeting is and the link is in the chat, so you guys can go and do that. And I’ll make sure to try to not kick you out whenever you guys penetrate those, because you all get made. You’re not good at what you do, especially when you try to pick up where others left off. We need your CatCards to get in there and we need your identification. But I digress. Let me continue.
(Roll video)
Steph Hung: As we solidify the details of this meeting, but I just want to come on here and give everybody a heads up that that’s happening. So as we’re like celebrating, we also will hold space for a deeper reflection. And the Steering Committee, many of us on here would love to hear from all of you and receive that feedback directly. So, yeah. Thank you.
Melanie Vant: Thanks, staff. We put in the chat a link to sign up for that meeting on January 11th. We’re going to be organizing these all funner meetings the second Sunday of every month, moving forward. Today was our first one. And so the next one is January 11th. And then as Steph has shared, it’s going to be really focused on just creating some space for folks to share input and feedback about how we’re all doing and what more and what differently you need from us and how you want to be contributing to the FUN moving forward.
So please do sign up to join us. We also put in the chat a link to sign up for the Government for the People Policy and Practice Lab that Sharon talked about. So please do take a look at that link.
Before we wrap up, I’m super excited to introduce you all to some of the newest FUNners on staff. We have been able to bring some additional capacity to the FUN really oriented towards supporting all of you and the organizing that you are doing. And so I’m going to turn it to each of them to introduce themselves to you.
Let’s go first to Chris, who has been just doing a brilliant job of managing all this tech during the meeting tonight. Over to you, Chris.
Chris Robledo: Thanks, Melanie. Hi, all. I’m Chris Robledo. I am the new communications manager at FUN, and I am just really honored to be a part of this movement with you all.
Prior to this, I fought for public school educators at California Teachers Association. And prior to that, I was on the communications team at United Teachers of Los Angeles. So, really happy to be able to bring some of those skills over to FUN for our fights. So thank you for having me. I’ll kick it off to Oren.
Oren Kadosh: Hi, everyone. I’m Oren Kadosh. Just very privileged to be supporting fun organizing for the coming six months, helping FUNners create organizing infrastructure and tools they hope to develop. And with an emphasis on the Western region, I was most recently an organizer at the Labor Network for Sustainability for several years.
And I’m just really grateful to be able to stand with federal workers, leading the charge to protect public services and defend the rights of workers everywhere, to organize together in unions, to speak out and preserve democracy. I’ll pass the ball to Erica.
Erica Jupiter: Hi, everyone. I am Erica Jupiter, and I am coming on as one of the regional organizers for the FUN. I’m based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I have been a longtime community organizer, working at the various intersections of social justice. My time in the labor movement, I worked with public and private sector service employees with SEIU and I also worked with teachers and educators organizing with AFT.
So I am super excited to get to work and to really build some strength in the South. We want to put the South on the map and really get some FUNners working and moving, down here.
So I am excited to learn from all of you and to work together. And this is going to be a FUN ride. No pun intended.
Chris Robledo: Melanie, I think you’re muted.
Melanie Vant: Ah, nuts. Did you hear anything I said? I was just saying thank you to Chris, Oren and Erica for joining us. I feel so privileged that I get to work with and learn from them and for the whole FUN network. We are stronger together. We’re going to wrap-up by just showing you a few things, cooking and with some reminders. So first off, rest, recover, recuperate, rejuvenate!
We know December is like a pretty intense time and want to just remind you that like –
(Stop video)
Tore: I want to just remind you that you’re looking at these federal unions that are all meeting here. And you’re going to experience an all federal union network discussion. We’re all the way on there. It says EWOC training series.
Come on, DOJ! I just gave you like a carte blanche. De-certify every single one of them and fire the f@ck out of them!
There’s evidence, right there. Evidence right there. And then, you can pull their communications and see how they’re working with the AFL-CIO.
AFT, by the way, is the American Federation of Teachers. I showed you a video from like June a few weeks ago, right? Kadosh is really weird. And the previous guy, the Hispanic that was in California.
Now, Kadosh actually has training from the Agency. And we’re talking about the intelligence Agency [CIA]. So, I just wanted to throw it out there. Just wanted to say that. Oh, and he has a clearance – or is that a secret? Sh¡t. Let’s continue.
Wait, before we continue. It’s almost like when I was saying that the Mayor of New York was a CIA asset, while he was campaigning and no one talked about it. But then Mike Benz said it after he was elected.
So crazy. It’s almost like you weren’t supposed to know! So I just thought I’d throw that out there. Just for clarification, because I like to be salty, like that.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: In order to fight, we’ve got to take care of ourselves. In order to take care of other people, we’ve got to take care of ourselves. So do that and do it for real. Gabe is taking care of a whole household who’s sick. We’ve got multiple folks on this call who I know are sick and are losing their voice. So we need you healthy. So focus on that, please. Pretty please!
Next up, as Steph mentioned, this January 11th all funder meeting. It’s on a Sunday. Same time. Sign up with the link. We’re going to be asking for your feedback and your lessons learned and what we could be doing better or differently, as the FUN to support you all and how you want to stay engaged.
We are also going to have a workshop in January. The date is almost confirmed, but it’s going to be in mid-January. And in that workshop, we’re going to be doing three things:
1 We’re going to be focusing in on how do we help our locals and unions set up organizing committees or how to strengthen the ones that we’ve got. 2 Secondly, we’re going to talk about how our locals and unions –
(Stop video)
Tore: I mean, I can’t stress this enough, to read the chat, but if you look at the chat under my face, it says, “We might have to do a sleep-in at the VA Secretary’s office, dropping thirty five thousand job cuts on us over the holidays.”
See, this is where you get your news. I know most of this sh¡t, because they talk about it. It’s insider information, sh¡t you’re not supposed to know.
So obviously, journalists know about it, too – well, real journalists. But I just wanted to point that out. That’s why I kept telling you, “Look at the chats and what they’re saying.” Just pay attention.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: And can set up or strengthen legislative committees. And last but not least, 3 How our union locals and chapters can set up mutual aid committees.
The reason why this is so important is because we could be facing another shutdown at the end of January, because most of the government’s funding ends and runs out, then. And we need to steel ourselves for what could come.
And getting these committees organized is going to enable us to put more of our members into action with one another and build our power to influence what happens, not just within our workplace, but across our departments and agencies. So stay tuned for the sign-up for that.
If your union local or chapter has a legislative committee, an organizing committee, or a mutual aid committee, if you can please just share that in the chat, we’re going to be looking to FUNners to help facilitate breakout sections. So please go ahead and just put in the chat your info so that we can follow up with you as we get that workshop organized.
As you all know, January 20th is the typical State of the Union address and what a time for us to also be taking stock of our own unions. And so one of the things that Oren is working on, with the help of lots of others is putting together an assessment tool, to help us all take a bead and reflect on the status of our unions, what’s going well, how are we doing with our membership, our engagement, our organizing. And so stay tuned for more information on this, but we’re really excited to partner with locals on that assessment effort.
And then lastly, for many of you who maybe are new to organizing, we highly –
(Stop video)
Tore: So, I want to say something. Raccoon said mutual aid is self-funding. That’s exactly what happened with No King’s Protest. They were using money from United 24‘s crypto wallets [The Ukrainian Government’s Official Fundraising Platform] and then everybody bought their own T-shirts.
So anyone telling you bullshit like “Soros paid for sh¡t”, he didn’t pay for sh¡t. They all funded it. It’s called “mutual aid”, self-funding. Everyone chipped into a big pool, where the crypto couldn’t cover sh¡t for communications and buying people off.
So I’m just trying to point this out.
Now, they’ve already talked about elections a few months ago, in other calls because there’s multiple of these factions, right? It’s not “Antifa”. It’s a lot of these factions and they’ve already targeted elections. I think I showed you one where they were talking about the elections.
I showed you another one where they’re talking about doing George Floyd protests this summer. I mean, they got to kill the 250. America 250 needs to be sh¡t for them, right?
So while we’re all enthralled in drama, “Who said what, who says who’s that?” They’re destroying our government from within. And we have people running cover for them. Complete cover for them. Complete and utter cover for them.
So let her continue on her final three minutes, advising you of what else they’re going to do.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: Recommend participating in a training series that’s going to be starting on January 6th. Rough date. It’s going to be every Tuesday night for about a month through EWOC, which you’ve heard a little bit about earlier. So an EWOC training series that is geared towards people who are a little bit newer to organizing or have maybe taken –
(Stop video)
Tore: And like I told you, EWOC is against federal laws and federal union rules and therefore, we should decertify all the f@cking unions. How about that?
Just throw that sh¡t, Bondi. F@cking Congress, just do it. And let them fight us, when it’s clear as day. Use their words. Why are we playing these stupid games? Annihilate these f@ckers and take them out! Just get rid of them. No unions, no protection. You’re f@cking fired. How about that? That’s what we need to do.
(Roll video)
Melanie Vant: One round of these types of trainings before. It’s very discussion-based and will help you just connect with other coworkers and unionists in the private sector. And to an extent, in the public sector too, who are trying to organize. So if you go to the EWOC website, you’re going to be able to sign up for that. There’s clearly a lot that we’ve got cooking.
And we’re really excited to work with you all to support your organizing, build more power, and win next year. The only way through is together. And we just feel so privileged that we get to do it with you all.
So with that, we’re going to end here. Please, please, please fill out the poll. We’ll put it in the chat one more time. We want to hear from you about what organizing skills you built. What’s a lesson you’ve learned this year? What is the top issue affecting your department or agency that you want to be working on?
And this information is so important for us. And we’re going to figure out a way to share some of the results now, actually. So please, please, please go ahead. Respond quickly.
Chris, do you want me to turn it over to you to just flash the results that have come in so far?
Chris Robledo: So I don’t have access to the data. So we won’t be able to show some of those results in real time.
Melanie Vant: OK. All good. Oh, I’m just seeing that. My bad. More to come soon on that front. We will share it out in a way that’s anonymous so that folks’ info is not being put on blast. Cathy, is there something else I missed on the learning sessions?
Cathy: Only that, well, Sharon can speak to it. We’re also launching political, nonpartisan, but political education and learning sessions at the end of January.
Sharon, you want to share a little bit about it? Are you still here? Nope. And the first one will be on the history and frameworks for bargaining for the common good. It is being organized by the G4P kind of effort because you can’t be developing recommendations if you don’t, you know, have that deeper work. But it is also, you know, available to all the work, right? Because we all need to understand the approaches, history, and frameworks if we’re going to do one step set and kind of all row in the same direction.
Melanie Vant: Thanks for that. Super excited. So January is going to be a full month, so we’ll reiterate the importance of resting, recuperating, rejuvenating, right now. There are so many fights ahead of us, including a big one at the VA. Mark put some info in the chat. So stay tuned also for some opportunities to show up for vets and the VA right now. Here’s some outro music so we can dance our way off of this call. Happy Hanukkah to those of you who celebrate.
(Stop video)
Tore: I had to turn off the music so YouTube doesn’t ding me because it usually does do that.
So that’s it, folks. That’s it. This is what we got. We have them planning from the inside things that I’ve been saying for a while. We have them organizing to overthrow our government from the inside.
I’ve always said this: ‘How do you destroy a tank? From the inside.’ And you are observing just that.
But, you know, this call was interesting, because we got them. We got them at that leadership of these federal unions discussing how to organize, how to use that to structure these – completely out of their scope. So that’s one of the most important things to take away, here.
We’ve just given our administration the tools to decertify these unions. I mean, at the end of the day, the unions could be like, “We’ll fire them all,” but they’ll… Federal government, please reach out to us. We’ve got tens of thousands of names, nationwide.
Oh, and we do have US Cybercom, US Army, US Navy, NIH, EPA, CIA. Which then, you know, sometimes I’m kind of wondering, when I see a few of them. Are they our guy or somebody else’s? Are they really idiots or are they doing what we’re doing? But then, if they were doing what we were doing, they wouldn’t be able to do it, because they’d need a warrant, because it’s a private activity.
I’m just saying. To collect evidence, it would be thrown out. But I am not a federal LEO or anything like that. So. Neither are the rest of us, that are actually on these calls.
So again, I thought I’d show you some groundbreaking, because I can pretty much show you, I have a barrage of calls. Actually, we have them numbered, as chain-of-custody by day and year, in order.
So, you know, when I see people pulling out low-level calls and pulling out, “Oh, this is how they do it. And Soros is funding,” and they stick to these talking points. This is where I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, who is funding you and who’s running this operation? Another digital operation we actually don’t need.” So, interesting!
So let’s take a break. I’m going to show you guys a song. Now, this song was written by me. It was actually a chapter in my personal book, a portion of it. But instead, I thought it made more sense, as a song and the music came out perfect. So I do have the lyrics on screen for you guys to watch and read because it’s I think it’s important for us to remember some things.
So let me break with that for a hot minute. And we’ll continue right after this break, just for a short period of time, not too long. So let’s clock it.
(Musical break)
Tore: Those were actually words that I had put in a chapter that I cut out and kind of, toward the end on the realization when my life went tits-up and I had absolutely no one. In fact, while I was down, I had people like hawks picking at me, to the point, where I was walking around 2020 and 2021 with upper GI and prolapse and Stage Three liver failure and was so busy working for my country that I didn’t even see it.
Well, I did, I was in pain, but I was like, “Oh, I’m fat, that’s why I can’t breathe.” No, it was my organs pulling down on my diaphragm. But God has helped me a lot and taught me to love.
Speaking of forgiveness, something I’m not going to forgive is the fact that no one’s talking about the NDAA, and I’ll tell you why. And we’ll do a show about this the day after tomorrow in detail, but I just want to bring it up to you so you can start pounding those f@cking phones to your Congress and Senate.
Well, no, actually to your President, because they already passed it. Write the sh¡t out to your President, right, because he tried to protect us. And again, we have a bill that has sh¡t snuck in.
But allow me to say, you know, all of us are in positions in our life where we have to forgive and we think of forgiveness like, “Oh, you’re sorry,” but no, we’re still fucking salty. Right. And we’re not sorry.
And so there are a few people in my life that I thought I forgave, but didn’t. And I realized I did because I felt, “Holy crap, because they did XYZ, look at where they are now. So I have to let it go.”
And, you know, it’s almost like, you know, when the Attorney General of North Dakota was coming after me because, you know, before anyone talked about Venezuela and China, I was all over that sh¡t, OK?
Because I actually know what the threats are to my country. I was not, you know, a producer. I was not a. A Proud Boy [Mike Benz]. I was not a Smoothie King [Jordan Sather]. I was not hired under an NDA to facilitate in the psychological operation of a “Great Awakening” bullsh¡t [Flynn Network influencers], right?
I knew this and it made a lot of people uncomfortable because usually people that know things are pretty much contained and they’re threats. But I guess, the best way to protect me is to minimize my contributions and I appreciate that. So I forgive the saltiness that I have.
But it’s about the people and about us, as humans, as the MI6 lady keeps saying, she keeps talking about “humans”, as if she’s not. You should watch her.
But it’s more about the people realizing exactly what’s at stake. I mean, we hear so many things. I could tell you that this weekend was extremely difficult for me and for every parent that has a child deployed or a loved one, a husband, a wife, right? A grandchild, you know, when the explosion happened and the ambush happened in Syria, I knew that there’s a blackout in comms for anyone serving in the regions, right? Neighboring Iraq, Iran, wherever they are, right?
And so I can tell you I was a hot mess, because I woke up to phone calls from my daughter’s husband and I knew that we just have to wait to see, you know, what’s going on and God has been great for me, but not unfortunately for Tovar, who, I actually spoke to him once years ago that did not.
So little young guy, I think he was from like Iowa or something. This is not OK. We should be telling the American people what’s going on in the Middle East. We should be honest with them, because that is how we get the support. And this is how we stop factions from rising. And I do realize that a lot of people say “The truth hurts,” right?
And that people can’t fathom the truth. But unfortunately, we’re so focused on the Clinton and Epstein files, that we’re not paying attention to a lot of things that are happening in our country and on a global scale.
It’s actually quite terrifying. We have a lot of revolutions, right now brewing in many nations. I said this years ago that the EU should have been dissolved a long time ago. It stripped nations of identities and purpose.
I can tell you what is coming. These subversives that are actually being trained by Harvard professors. So weird. They’re all sitting there and training them. Openly. They’re all under the impression that USAID still exists in these NGOs.
And through casual conversation, you know, it was like, “Hey, they changed the agency name, didn’t they?” Well, they did. But President Trump shut it down. Allow me to elaborate on that one.
OK, so the Global Engagement Center is where we did a bunch of these operations. This is how we got the whole censorship, the Jankowicz singing bullsh¡t and everything. But Congress actually did rebuild the same machinery of the GEC but under a different label in the 2026 NDAA.
But see, the record with, you know, with the actual handoff points inside the final House Amendment, which is S. 1071, is the vehicle carrying the 2026 NDAA. The GEC’s statutory authority didn’t quietly fade.
And the CRS is blind. The legislative authority for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center terminated on December 23rd, 2024, after Congress declined to extend it. So that was the first death it had.
But then came an attempted afterlife, right? So the State [Dept] rebranded and relocated the mission into Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub, the FIMI, right?…And that second entity was explicitly shut down on April 16th by President Trump. Actually, Marco Rubio was told to.
And you can see it on the reporting on the State Department’s own statements. But it has been repackaged into the final House bill that passed. And the packaging isn’t even hidden.
It’s written right into Division E, the Department of State Authorization Act for 2026. It’s under Title IV, Public Diplomacy. Instead of recreating a standalone hub named the GEC or the FIMI, the NDAA pushes core GEC FIMI-style responsibilities up into the job description of the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy.
So now, all those NGOs, the censorship, the “Mind your words”, the Woke sh¡t is, you know, all these operations, psychological operations and other influence operations that are happening are under the job description for the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy.
Now, in a specific Section, 5401, the NDAA actually amends the State Department Basic Authorities Act. So the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy is actually tasked to, get this: “Lead, synchronize and coordinate efforts to recognize, understand, expose and counter foreign information manipulation and other malign activities, including limiting foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
We’ve got speech Gestapo coming! And they’re coordinating those efforts across federal departments and agencies. Now you can go read it.
That’s actually under the House Armed Forces Division. Now, that is the functional center of the gravity shift, the hub. So the GEC is no longer a standalone. There’s no agency. They’ve distributed these functions under job descriptions, right? So your Jankowicz would be the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy, right? Just so you understand where I’m going with this.
So that’s a functional center now, and it becomes a leadership mandate that’s embedded in the Undersecretary’s statutory responsibilities, rather than a discrete office that can point targeted by, you know, authorizers, appropriators, litigants and watchdogs.
In other words, you won’t know jack sh¡t and you won’t be able to FOIA sh¡t. So when you go into Section 5404, it goes further and effectively recreates the mission set, as required by a government wide strategy product.
So it orders a comprehensive strategy to combat Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference. So that has explicit elements that mirror the old model of the GEC with the NGOs and USAID, et cetera, et cetera. But analyzing adversary narratives and tactics, working with allies to expose or counter them, right. That’s what they’re saying. That’s basically what the GEC was saying, too.
But it supports foreign non-state actors abroad, independent media – and get this: civil society and coordinating efforts across federal enterprise while also writing in to protective clauses that are politically important in the post GEC environment.
Hold on. Let me pull it up. So I don’t want me to speak. 5404. OK:
“Protecting the First Amendment rights of the United States Citizens and creating guardrails, so the state does not provide grants to organizations engaging in partisan political activity in the U.S.”
Now, they threw that in there, hoping that it prevents them from shutting us up, right? And I want you guys to understand they’re going gung ho on 2026 and 2028. They’ve already infiltrated your election authorities in every single state. They have already fought that DMV fight.
By the way, wasn’t I talking about that in 2015? Holy sh¡t. How they were registering non-U.S. Citizens to vote. Go figure. So we’re going to have them in prime positions already, because they have been countering us.
And so this NDAA has actually distributed those responsibilities to other agencies. Now, one might say, “Well, it has a language to protect us. And, you know, this is a good thing,” right? And blah, blah, blah. But let me elaborate on this.
How do I describe this accurately? It’s been repackaged. Section 5404 doesn’t pretend our FIMI never existed. It names it and it forces an accounting. The bill requires to report, including what actions the State [Dept] took to preserve institutional capability, right? To counter adversarial operations; like how they called everyone a “Russian Bot”. You know, stuff like that or that you’re “misinformation” and they shadowbanned you or blocked you or banned you.
Now, since the termination of the RFIMI hub, it also demands a list of like active and canceled projects from countering PRC influence fund and countering Russian influence fund. These are NGOs since January 21st, 2025.
Now, that means the successor in the final text is not presented as, “Hey, we’re resurrecting RFIMI. No, it’s presented as “The hub is terminated. Now the Undersecretary role is this statutorily expanded and the Department must deliver formal FIMI strategy and retrospective accountability report on how capability was preserved after the shutdown.”
So the cleanest framing that I can give you is that the GEC/RFIMI, as a named office was indeed terminated. There is no office. The NDAA rebuilds the capability architecture by actually embedding the same operational purpose inside the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy statutory duties and by mandating a department wide strategy and reporting regime tied to foreign malign influence and disinformation.
So, excuse me, I’m going to sneeze. So oversight, this is where I have a problem. We have to define what oversight means because, this actually reroutes the oversight, rather than eliminating it. The NDAA language itself points to where Congress wants formal oversight to land.
Section 5404 defined the “appropriate congressional committee as the House of Foreign Affairs and Appropriations.” You mean, the one that we had Ilhan Omar, who I told you came into this country as an adult, who I actually found federal records in 2018 that she had federal school loans, as married to her brother. But now it’s news, of course, right, that had all of these people on that committee and the Senate of Foreign Relations and Appropriation where we have people like Hoeven and whatnot. Well, that’s the official funnel strategy for reporting.
But here’s where the tension lies. When Congress kills a distinct office like the GEC and then what they labeled is the FIMI, right, it’s easier to oversee because there’s a single organization chart box. Basically, you know, Jankowicz is sitting on top of it. You’ve got all these people under it. You’ve got Joe Schmo, all these people, right? They’re in a single budget line cluster, a single leadership change and a single program identity that inspector generals, GAO, appropriations, litigants, pressure, audits, subpoenas, FOIAs go to.
When Congress pushes the mission up and across a broader bureau and into senior officials, general authorities to lead, synchronize and coordinate. Well, the work diffuses into many like, you know, subawards, interagency working groups and program vehicles that don’t wear the old brand.
So that diffusion doesn’t mean that there’s no oversight. It means that oversight becomes extremely hard to do clearly, because now you’re chasing a function, not a f@cking office. So you can see Congress anticipating this problem in the way it wrote the section.
Specifically, it was either subsection D or E where it’s essentially demanding a continuity of capability narrative after the shutdown and a project list for two influence funds during a specified period. They actually asked for that. Now, that is Congress trying to force the diffuse function back into concrete paper trail, but it’s not going to work.
It’s like, you know, it’s like someone steals your credit card. You know that, you know, Joe Schmo stole your credit card. Right. But what if Joe Schmo isn’t Joe Schmo? It’s like this anonymous company. And then that anonymous company took their hundred dollars and split it into a thousand pieces, like pennies here, a dollar there, everywhere. You won’t be able to locate where all that money is, because it’s been dispersed.
This is the same way, right? When, you know, you’re dispersing the capabilities of influence operations, which should be deemed a weapon of mass destruction, in my opinion, because it targets the mind of the people, in whatever nation they are and including ours.
And it makes it extremely more difficult for you to be able to demand information. Say, Hey, so can you tell me if this like Candace Owens thing is an influence operation? Yeah, you got to be more specific, like, Who would be in charge?” Like, “I don’t f@cking know who’s in charge of operations. Tell me. “Tell me about Erica Kirk. Can you give me information? I don’t know what agency is running it. You got to tell me.
Do you see where I’m going with this? So this is – and I’m not saying they’re influence operations – but I’m also using them as an example, but whatever.
Now, there’s a lot of reporting available in regards to what I’ve been telling you right now. But the House passed the final 3086-page package about five days ago. And the Senate was up next. Reuters described it as expected to pass the Senate and be signed. But that’s not the same thing as signed.
The Senate’s own Daily Press showed that on December 11th, the Senate was scheduling votes that concurred with like this House amendment that they were doing, 1071, which is the final Senate disposition of the motion, at the moment. That’s what I see. But now it’s passed, right? So what’s happening here in plain terms, right? Without pretending something is mystical?
Congress did not resurrect the GEC by name. It did something more survivable. It reauthored the job of the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy to carry the same counter foreign malign influence responsibilities as a permanent part of the public diplomacy leadership portfolio.
And it required a FIMI strategy plus a report explicitly referencing the terminated RFIMI hub and demanding visibility into related influence funded projects. This is where all the NGOs are. This is where USAID runs through. This is everything.
Now, my concern here is that oversight gets extremely weak when you dissolve an office and spread its powers. And the easiest way to say it is that this NDAA creates reporting guardrails, but it also makes the mission harder to isolate, because the statutory authority now sits inside broader leadership duties, rather than a single branded entity, right? There’s no Disinformation Division. It’s under his job.
And this isn’t a conspiracy sentence. It’s an organizational design sentence, the way they made it. So I need you to understand just how scary this is, right? Because this is not a resurrection of the GEC. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not even particularly novel. It’s a federal government deciding, “We believe influence operations are part of modern warfare, but we no longer want a civilian-facing office that looks like it manages speech,” basically. “We just don’t want you to know we’re managing speech.”
So they killed the GEC. They killed the successor brand, the RFIMI. And they kept all the tools and they moved them deeper into defense and avoided explicit language and passed it through a must-pass bill. That’s how they repackaged it. And this is how all of you were duped.
And all your so-called experts that talk to you about policy, right, are sitting there analyzing things that you really don’t give a f@ck about, except for the fact that they’re going to be censoring speech, again. And, you know, it might not be done under this administration as blatantly, but it will happen. And now, you won’t be able to point it out. You won’t be able to say “That division silenced me.”
Before it was DHS. Now it’s like, “Oh, we don’t know.”
“Hey, Mr Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy, did you silence Joe Schmo on YouTube?”
“I don’t know. FOIA.”
“Yeah, no, he didn’t do Joe Schmo.”
Well, OK, you read FOIA and you’re like, “Yo, so Undersecretary didn’t do it. Maybe his First-in-Command that oversees, I don’t know, X, Facebook, Instagram, whatever.”
“Yeah. Can you be more specific? Like, do you know like who the person is in there?”
“No, I f@cking don’t. Because we don’t have a list of all the career employees that work there and yeah, so I can’t help you. Thanks.”
And then, when your Congress wants to be like, “Yo, are you guys, like doing this to the people?” Like, if you actually get someone good in there to say something, it’s like, “Yeah, I don’t know. Like, can you ask us more specific questions? Because it’s like, I’m not understanding. It’s like, my job is so broad and I got all these departments.”
You see, these are real problems that we’re not discussing, right?
And this is why it’s important that President Trump actually make an agency. We need one, because this way, the people have the right to point the fingers. And that’s the way it is.
And it’s so appalling to watch all your media influencers sit there and pretend that they’re policy experts, that they’re all about America and Freedom of Speech. And none of them is f@cking touching this.
Now, to be fair, to be fair. The Undersecretary position was something that I’m writing an article about. And so today’s conversation with that friend of mine actually was like, you know what, I should talk about this.
Because in 2016 and 2018 and 2020, there were a bunch of influence operations that were run under DHS, right? This is why Obama created the CISA division to “counter misinformation, disinformation or hostile attacks from Russian Bots”. We were all “Russian Bots” and we couldn’t unlabel ourselves and the tech companies were getting a shit-ton of money to do it.
So what stops public diplomacy from doing the same thing, especially when you can’t check and see what they were doing? So I would actually urge that such activities be sequestered into one agency, that can be held accountable, that can be seen, because it was a hot mess.
Now, if there are influence operations that the Pentagon has to conduct or the military has to conduct, that’s out of the purview of civilians.
But when we have divisions of influence operations within our own government that are being deployed, and these are weapons of mass destruction within our borders, we have every right to be able to audit and see, because as we have seen, most of our Congress and Senate are bought and paid for by foreign lobbies. So how do we know they’re not silencing you for things?
Speaking of foreign lobbies, I want to show a video to end this. And we’ll get into all this stuff the day after tomorrow.
When I saw the attack in Australia, I said to myself, wow, the guy took a selfie. I saw that there was already a push from the night before, right, to push forward. What was it? The whole anti-Semitic rhetoric.
We need laws so people can talk about Jews. We don’t have laws to not talk about Christians or Muslims, right? They’re free game, or Buddhists. But we need to protect them. You know, like we protected them in World War I by creating World War II. And people forget that Hitler’s job was to actually bring all those Jews to the location that the British brought them to in World War I, which forced all the Arabian nations to get borders.
Now, do I hate Jews? F@ck no. They have every right to have whatever religion they want and everything. But here’s the thing. They’re conflating religion with a state that some people consider legitimate, others do not.
Now, when I see the rhetoric flying within the United States and then, in the United Kingdom with another rhetoric of anti-Semitism, then I see a shootout – you know, all this Hanukkah.
And then we saw in our country, “Oh, this agency didn’t let people have a Hanukkah celebration!” Like, you could see the writing on the wall.
So let me show you this video that I saw from, who was it? From JustCallMeSpicy. She did a great job and she’s been censored because of, I don’t knowm because it’s graphic, I guess or something, because the guy took a picture.
But wait till you see how he took the picture. That’s what’s important, because I obviously have been preoccupied with my mom being here, so it’s been extremely hard and difficult but I want you guys to see this for a second.
Let me um put it up let me make it a little bit bigger, if I can, because it’s in Portrait Mode. You guys need to see this. This is good. Here we go.
(Roll video)
JustCallMeSpicy: OK, I’m gonna say it. I don’t know if anybody else has said it but I’m gonna say it, because this is really bizarre.
The attack yesterday in Australia, you know I’m saying? Have you seen this picture? This picture, right here, right during the attack in Australia.
Well, then I saw this: He’s wearing the same t-shirt and someone is putting makeup on him. There’s fake blood and cameramen all around him and I mean – I’m not saying for sure – but that looks awfully suspicious to me, as if I don’t know, the whole thing could have been staged or something. Because it’s not like things haven’t been staged before, many, many times, you know?
When we see the Craigslist postings for actors for these types of things, where they plan in advance and they make it look like something happened, when it really didn’t?
And I’m not saying that these things don’t happen, because they do but in this case, it makes me wonder if this wasn’t real; if they wanted it to look real for some reason, maybe to push a certain agenda, maybe?
Because, right after it happened, we had everybody coming out saying, you know that the 2A thing needed to get locked-in, again, you know what I’m saying? For taking our 2As away from us.
And considering, you know the guys that did it; the dad and son this video, real quick – and I’m not saying that the casualties weren’t real, because apparently there were like several people that were there [died], right that video of the guy using the 2A could have been real and he definitely looked experienced, because he was shooting that thing pretty quick, right?
He looked definitely like he had been trained but the picture of that guy that I just showed you, that wasn’t real. So what’s up with that? Weird. Possibly possibly staged event, to make things look much worse than they really are to, you know limit the 2A situation but it’s because in Australia, they don’t even have 2A’s and this still took place.
Weird, as if, you know people can get their hands on pew-pews, if they want to, but then what happens is the people that live there don’t have any way to defend themselves. Convenient.
But the United States and different countries will use what happened there as an excuse to limit ours, here, as well.
So like Clandestine said:
“Time for 40 000-foot view this rise in left-wing terrorism is not an accident.
“What we are witnessing is manufactured chaos as part of a broader Color Revolution regime change operation to prevent Trump from succeeding in destroying the Deep State.
“This problem cannot be solved by asking nicely. Unprecedented circumstances require unprecedented action. It’s time for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.”
I agree.
“Deploy the US military to every city in America. Safeguard the public. Completely uproot the Left-Wing terrorist network. Deport the illegals. Secure elections. Arrest the traitors who are responsible for all this and save the Republic.”
Because the fact of the matter is we still have a lot of people in our country that shouldn’t be here that are here to cause destruction to our country.
(Stop video)
Tore: I just want to say something. She’s citing people that I know, for a fact are operators under NDA. So, I don’t agree with this.
So is she an operator? I don’t know. But I’m going to clarify that, as we move along in the video.
(Roll video)
JustCallMeSpicy: For example, did you hear about what was stopped in Los Angeles, right? The DOJ announces they’ve arrested four Leftist terrorists who plan to blow up targets in New York and Los Angeles?
They were found with materials reading “Death to America.” “Death to ICE.” “Free Palestine.” “America is fascist” and more.
They’ve been identified as Audrey Carroll, Zachary Page, Dante Gaffield and Tina Lai. Make examples out of these terrorists.
Here’s the video:
Bill Essayu, 1st Asst US Atty: The four defendants are: Audrey Carroll, 30 years old. The pictures, I think we have them somewhere we’ll put them up, here. Audrey Carroll, 30 years old. Zachary Aaron Page, 32. Dante Gaffield, 24 and Tina Lai, 41, each from the Los Angeles area.
Each is charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, in violation of Title 26 United States Code Section 5861 d.
We intend to file additional charges in the coming weeks, as we finish reviewing the evidence. The defendants are all radical anti-government members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which according to their own social media is an anti-capitalist, anti-government movement, that calls for their associates to rise up and fight back against capitalism.
One of the leaders of the organization, defendant Audrey Carroll helped organize an even more radical faction of the group called the Order of the Black Lotus. Each of the defendants charged today was also a member of the Order of the Black Lotus. Carroll described this group to her “co-conspirators” as “everything radical”, as detailed in the federal complaint which we will now make public.
In november 2025, defendant Carroll created a detailed bombing plot to use explosive devices to attack five or more locations across Southern California on this upcoming New Year’s Eve. Carroll and her co-defendant, Zachary Page led the effort to obtain and build the bombs and to recruit others to join in their plot.
Carroll’s bomb plot was explicit. It included a step-by-step instruction to build IEDs or Improvised Explosive Devices and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles. Carroll also made clear her desires. She said quote, “What we are doing will be considered a terrorist act.”
Carroll and Page also discussed plans for follow-up attacks after their bombings, which included plans to target ICE agents and vehicles with pipe bombs.
JustCallMeSpicy: Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there were IEDs found in Australia, too at that scene, almost as if you know all of these things are just coordinated, you know they they use the same type devices and make things look really, really bad, so that it not only frightens the public right but it holds the politicians hostage, as well, because God forbid they do what is right, you know. They could be held accountable later by the people that are committing these atrocious acts.
I’m just saying that it’s important to really be careful what you believe from all of these different events, because again, I’m not saying that they are all staged but a lot of them are to push an agenda to frighten the public to hold governments hostage with Color Revolutions.
They want us in a constant state of fear, fear, fear, because how do you keep a society compliant without it? Please be cautious with what you take seriously. This is all designed and orchestrated with a very specific goal in mind. It always is PSYOP after PSYOP after PSYOP after PSYOP. Just saying.
(Stop video)
Tore: So, he cited people like Clandestine, which is an actual operator, Nick Sorter, who stole my credit card. He’s a f@cking drunk thief, so he’s been elevated to operator. So, I don’t really trust him.
But allow me to just say this on that matter and this is why I haven’t spoken on any other events. It’s important for us to understand something about these types of things. The grim truth about modern power and that people are – very few people are willing to say, in a very plain fashion: violence doesn’t only terrorize bodies, it reorganizes meaning.
In the age of information obviously ignorance is a choice but the most consequential fact of a mass casualty event is often not the immediate tragedy, itself but the narrative shockwave that actually follows. The attention collapses inward and fear simplifies thinking. Moral panic becomes a solving that dissolves complexity and into that vacuum, new meanings are poured.
This is where the concept that I’ve discussed many times before, manufactured consent becomes relevant, not as a conspiracy but as an actual structural reality of mass media systems. So, when populations are emotionally overwhelmed they don’t deliberate, they defer. They look for authority, for framing, for explanation.
The question becomes not “What happened?” but “What does it mean?” and “What should we do?” Those questions are answered quickly, repetitively and often without any room for you to dissent – and just so you know, historically, social and political movements rely on moral clarity, momentum and legibility and they actually require the public to hold multiple truths at once. Justice, casualty, responsibility, reform, blah blah blah.
In a mass casualty event, regardless of origin, destroys that cognitive space the discourse shifts instantly from systemic critique to emotional triage and then, the movement is no longer discussed on its own terms it’s referred through a lens of fear, security and suspicion, OK?
So, a movement may have been gaining visibility sympathy or leverage like to pass laws to protect one class of people in the whole world and after a catastrophic event, however the same movement may be implicitly associated with the instability even if no factual connection exists, language changes subtly. There’s heated rhetoric rhetoric radicalization dangerous polarization and the public is now told that “It’s not the time to protest, not the time for disruption, not the time for structural demand, stability comes with moral priority and order replaces justice and organizing value.”
So, when you see the same guy in the same t-shirt getting makeup, you know you have to understand that if this crisis is revealed to be staged what would that do for the agenda it was meant to advance? And at the level of power dynamics, it would be catastrophic for the agenda; far more damaging than the failure of the agenda, itself.
So, for example some people are saying, “Oh it’s to push anti-Semitic laws,” which is exactly what Australia said that they would do, even though they’re trying people under hate crimes and all this stuff, they were like, “We need a more centered thing.”
So if the goal of this event was to create these laws and then, suddenly it’s discovered that it was a bullsh¡t f@cking event, then, that law is not going to pass but on the other hand, they’ll silence you and tell you, “How dare you!”
It’s almost like the Pulse Nightclub. I mean, I haven’t seen any graves, did you? And there’s a few people that died and didn’t have funerals, I’m just saying.
So the agenda depends on credibility and not fear, alone. So, manufactured consent only works when the public believes the moral premise of the response, a fear accelerates compliance but the legitimacy sustains it. So if people discover that the event was staged, meaning deliberately simulated or fabricated to provoke an emotional response, the entire moral foundation collapses and the agenda stops being necessary and becomes fraudulent.
At that point, it’s no longer security, safety, order and form, it becomes betrayal and betrayal mobilizes people far more intensely than injustice, that discovery actually flips the narrative polarity instantly.
The original goal of the stage crisis, hypothetically would be to justify control, suppress opposition, accelerate a policy discredit movements, collapse the debate, protect whatever.
But then, once the staging is exposed, every one of those outcomes reverses the direction and then, authority becomes suspect, emergency powers become evidence of malice, oppositions become vindicated, silence becomes complicity, compliance becomes shame.
And instead of describing a movement, the exposure validates its warnings and then, we have that that will actually cause a collapse of trust that spreads way past their original agenda and this is the part all institutions fear the most: if one event is proven staged and the public does not isolate that event, they ask “What else was manipulated? What else was framed? What else was necessary, because of fear?”
This triggers an epistemic collapse, a breakdown in trust across media, government experts and institutions.
Wait, because I did tell you this is going to happen. Just pay attention to what I’m telling you now. Once this happens, even legitimate future warnings are totally ignored and therefore, the original operation, which was to do that is a complete success!
That’s why, historically, states avoid fabrication. Well, they should. And opportunism is safer than invention and real crises are abundant, fake ones are existentially risky.
So, this creates the agenda to become retroactively-criminalized so if staging were exposed the agenda doesn’t merely fail, it becomes evidence. Policies pass under false pretenses or challenged officials involved face legal and political moral consequences and all downstream actions are reframed as “illegitimate”.
Everyone’s going to lose trust in the media. I think I f@cking told you that we are going to be destroying the media soon. I said that a couple weeks ago, when I was live, because it was coming and it came and even people who benefited from the agenda rush will start to distance themselves.
What was once an emergency governance becomes an abuse of power.
Now, to be fair, the public reaction to something like that would not be confusion it would be rage. Righteous indignation but actually, really bad rage. Importantly, the dominant emotion would not be fear or disbelief it would be f@cking anger.
Fear makes people compliant. Anger makes people organized and this is why exposure of deception is far more destabilizing than exposure of incompetence or corruption. Corruption can be rationalized, deception aimed at emotional manipulation cannot.
I mean, all of you hold some keys. Wait till you see all your operators chatting. Oh! And you still follow them. That’s what sucks. Deception aimed at emotional manipulation cannot survive something like this, no matter how many fucking revival events you do, you’re dead in the water, now, because this almost never happens openly, like you know. That’s just, you know, because exposure would be devastating.
Successful power systems don’t rely on staging, they rely on narrative framing, selective amplification, emotional saturation, agenda timing, moral compression. Those are the methods that achieve similar outcomes without existential risk. That’s why a serious analysis focuses on the response of exploitation, not the fabrication.
Hence, why I didn’t focus on assassinations and these mass things, I’m focusing on the response and the exploitation, not so much the fabrication.
It’s what comes after. That’s why the minute that came out, I was like, “Oh! Here we go, here we go!”
So, the idea of staging in a psychological thing to society, even if no event is staged, the perception that it might be signals something super real; that a population no longer trusts authority to act in good faith and that loss of trust, itself is destabilizing and often the result of repeated crises that have been exploited in the past.
So, when people you know ask like, “If they would lie to control us, what else is built on lies?”
Well b¡tches, everything! How about that?
So, in the event that that event and others were staged and were discovered, as such the agenda not only would merely fail, it would implode.
Authority would completely lose legitimacy, far beyond the original issue. Public trust; would completely fracture across institutions. Opposition would be validated and energized. Sh¡t, you’d lose your sh¡t.
I mean, if I was Australian and they were probably real casualties – or all of them were fake – I mean, come on, man. You watch movies. Do you not watch that show, Face-Off?
Come on. For real, guys this is a big problem and this – I’ve been trying to explain, like you need to start trusting your gut. You have to have more faith and you should be able to see clearly.
When people stop me when I’m out and they’re like, “Oh, Tore, hi, I listened to your show or blah blah blah blah,” you know and they’re like, “What do you think of the Charlie Kirk.
I’m like, “Well, the world says he’s dead for now, so we’re gonna keep it at that.” Done.
“What do you think of Erika Kirk?”
“Well, I thought it was awkward the way President Trump pushed her away but that’s about it.”
“But she –”
“I already know.”
“Where’s Charlie Kirk’s sister?”
I get it but I don’t want to look at that. I want to see what comes after.
So, for all of you out there, as we’re bombarded with a lot of these things and a lot of you get enraged – and I can tell you that there’s a lot of people within your government right now that feel the same rage – we can’t wake everyone up if we’re not doing the work.
And it’s unfortunate, you know, I was speaking to someone. I was like, “Oh my God! Here he goes again!” You know? I sent a DM to a friend of mine, I was like, “What the f@ck!” You know? And I’m not gonna lie, it’s about Mike Benz. I was like “Why is he making this analysis? It’s so fucking wrong!”
And he’s like, “Well, because not a lot of people are like us, they need lower-level f@cking talk and this is how operators work, you know? It could be that he believes everything he’s saying or he could be ordered to muddy stuff around,” you know?
There’s a lot of maybes. I’m not saying he is, I’m not saying he’s not but rage is never the answer and, oh boy, it’s about to get real bumpy and the media is going to lose all credibility by Christmas. I think like next week is going to be pretty insane.
So, taking that, I don’t want to say more on that, for now. I have a lot on my mind. 17 years, I hadn’t seen my mom and I see her in a really bad state and it’s hard to see her like that, even though we never saw eye-to-eye on things, ever, she’s still my mother and I respect that she gave birth to me and I love her for that, so it’s been pretty rough, you know.
There’s a lot of things that happened and I don’t think I’m an idiot but I think sometimes, people take advantage of your compassion and your kindness but it’s not a lesson for you. You should never stop being kind. You should never stop being compassionate, no matter how much someone may take advantage of you or do you harm, because it’s not your lesson to learn, it’s theirs.
I’ve said this before, when someone takes from you or hurts you, it comes back to them, tenfold and I speak that into reality. Anyone that takes something from me will get it back tenfold.
I don’t know. I don’t want to gloat but a lot of the visible ones that have done that to me, they’re in a lot of trouble, lately and I don’t want to gloat, because I shouldn’t have find pleasure in their punishment, even though a little piece of me wants to.
(Her cat, Biscuit comes over to her)
Yeah he can tell that I’m upset. My cat, I don’t know if you guys can hear him purring from there. This is my little old man, who I brought back from Afghanistan. This is my Biscuit. This is my man, who stowed away when I was hurt and his purrs kept me alive. And he’s a little b¡tch. He hates it when I call him f@ggot, because he sways his butt when he walks and I told him, if he eats dog food or things that he doesn’t need to, again, he’s going to be the first transsexual cat at 18, because I’m going to have to take his little weewee off, so he doesn’t get stir bites [?].
Yeah, you can hear him purring. He’s a loud purrer. That’s what kept me alive. His purrs. Look at that! Look at that! He’s so old, he’s almost 20, so he’s the King of the House, he’s the King of the House and he loves condensed milk, too.
So, I want to have a chat with you guys but I have to go. I really wanted to show you that, because I think we need to start moving really hard on gutting our federal employees and civil servants that are not serving us but serving other interests.
NATO, go pound sand! The Crown needs to go pound sand! And these private corporations need your your your honey trip and your taking advantage time of the American People is now gone, because Daddy’s back!
And I pray for all of you to have discernment. I watch a lot of you, like even that the the Spicy Girl. She tagged Nick Sorter! Like, why? And that Clandestine guy! Why?
Even other operators that I know are operators, part of this “Awakening” operation call that guy out. Why would you tag him?
But she’s just a person or an operator. I think she’s just a person. She’s funny. I’ve seen her dance on a table and it’s fun, so I watch her content but you know, we have to be careful who we credit with things and it’s really important.
So, it’s almost Christmas. I’m thinking, like tomorrow maybe I can do a TikTok Metacube Advent Calendar thing on TikTok, so you guys can see it.
I’m actually really excited, because it got me a lot of sh¡t that I get, anyway. So, thank you for the Advent Calendar.
I haven’t been able to send out cards this year. I’ve had a lot of obligations for family stuff, that I don’t want to get into and things that have happened, that only like four people know…
So, I or if you guys can keep my daughter in your prayers, I’d appreciate it. I do not want to have another weekend like last week. Keep all our soldiers in prayers – and fuck – I thought Uranium One was over, right?
Anyway, peace out, Everyone. And you know, in God We Trust, right?
So let me share my favorite interview from the President, in closing. God bless.
(Roll video of Trump’s “Never Give Up” speech).