Podcast
Civil Rights for Civil Servants
Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.
Listen to the podcastNews, rights, tools & learning
Federal Employee Resource Center
Search timely updates, plain-English explainers, practical guides, podcasts, and mindful-action resources. Start with the question you are trying to answer.
Should Musk Testify Under Oath? Two House Democrats Ask After GAO Finds DOGE Savings of $92 Million, Not $10.5 Billion
Two House Democrats have asked for Elon Musk and DOGE officials to testify under oath about DOGE's savings numbers, after a GAO audit found that DHS's claimed $10.5 billion in cont...
D.C. Circuit: IRS Data-Sharing With ICE "Indisputably Contravenes" Federal Tax Privacy Law
The lawsuit filed to keep DOGE out of IRS taxpayer data just won at the D.C. Circuit. On September 8, 2026, a unanimous panel in Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS, No. 26-5006 (D.C...
GAO Audit: DHS Claimed $10.5 Billion in DOGE Contract Savings. Auditors Found $92 Million.
A new GAO audit of DHS contract terminations has put a hard number on the DOGE savings claims that federal employees heard all year. The Department of Homeland Security publicly re...
Federal Judge Orders DOGE to Turn Over IRS Taxpayer-Data Communications by September 14
DOGE must turn over its internal communications about the IRS taxpayer-data sharing deal by September 14 β a federal judge has ordered it. After more than a year in which DOGEβs ro...
The Man Who Ran the IRS Says the Bill for DOGE's Cuts Hasn't Come Due Yet
The IRS workforce has fallen from about 100,000 employees to an expected 74,000 by year's end after DOGE's cuts β and the man who ran the agency says the bill has not come due yet....
Your Weather App Is Not Broken. The Federal Data Behind It Was Cut.
If your weather app has stopped being able to tell you whether it will rain, the app is not the problem β the federal weather data underneath it is. Almost every forecast in this c...
A FEMA Contractor Was Paid Through a DOGE Staffer's Company. Her Deposition Is Now Public.
The rule against using contracts for inherently governmental functions is one of the least discussed protections in the federal workplace, and a newly public deposition in the FEMA...
GAO Audited DOGE's Ethics Paperwork. Most of It Could Not Be Verified.
Every federal employee knows the annual routine: ethics training, records management training, and β for many positions β a financial disclosure form with a certification block som...
GAO Clears DOGE at NLRB β But the Agency Deleted the Access Logs First
A new Government Accountability Office report on DOGE's activity at the National Labor Relations Board reads, at first glance, like an all-clear. But a footnote buried in that same...
DOGE Is Dead. The Damage to the Federal Workforce Isn't.
DOGE β the Department of Government Efficiency β officially shut down on July 4, but the damage to the federal workforce it leaves behind is only now coming into focus. When Congre...
DOGE Alumni, AI Contracts, and Federal Ethics
Federal employees have spent the last year living through workforce reductions, reorganizations, and shifting directives justified in the name of efficiency. Now, according to Vani...
DOGE Whistleblower Retaliation and Federal Rights
Dan Berulis, an IT staffer at the National Labor Relations Board, reportedly raised serious concerns that DOGE had accessed agency systems and moved sensitive data out. The agency ...
More ways to learn
Choose the format that helps you understand what is happening.
The Mindful Federal Employee is part of a broader public-education ecosystem from Shaun Southworth, Lydia Taylor, and Southworth PC. Use the resource that fits the question and the moment.
Mindfulness
Work Peacefully
Use practical mindfulness tools to create space between workplace pressure and the decision you make next.
Explore mindfulness resourcesAbout the people behind the work
Shaun Southworth & Lydia Taylor
Meet the federal employment attorneys behind this public-education work and the podcast Civil Rights for Civil Servants.
Meet Shaun & LydiaThe Federal Employee Briefing
The important developments, without the all-day scroll.
Join 3,900+ federal employees getting sourced workforce news and practical next steps on weekdays. It is a free public-service resource from Southworth PC.