What's going on with the Executive Departments

[fraurosena]

So much is going on with the Executive Departments right now that I thought a separate thread was appropriate. 

To start things off, here's an article about how the State Department's current silence is damaging to the US:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/21/politics/state-department-tillerson-press-silence/index.html

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For more than a month, as the US has tangled with China, floated new terms for Middle East peace, watched North Korea test a ballistic missile and proposed an overhaul of ties with Russia, the State Department has been quiet. (...)

The State Department is responsible for explaining US foreign policy to the country and the world, and is the only agency outside of the White House that traditionally speaks publicly every day through a televised news conference. But since January 19, there has been no State Department briefing and, after Tillerson recently took the helm, there has been little in the way of communication about Foggy Bottom's priorities, schedules or policies.  

Regardless of the reason, diplomats, analysts and current and former State Department officials say there are risks if the dead air continues. A voiceless State Department, they say, allows other countries to set the narrative about US policy and events, unsettling allies and potentially shortchanging US businesses, citizens and interests overseas. (...)

This retreat from public engagement coincides with the White House adopting an often-hostile approach to the press.

Many observers say there are structural factors at work, too, a central one being that it's not yet clear what the administration's foreign policy positions are -- in part because of presidential tweets and pronouncements that conflict with official statements. That makes it hard to respond to questions about those challenges. 

The State Department didn't respond to requests for comment for this story. 

The article goes on to say that:

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At the State Department, most leadership positions below Tillerson remain unfilled, including the deputy secretary, who operates as the secretary's No. 2; most under secretaries; the assistant secretaries who run regional bureaus; and their deputies. 

Last month, the White House asked the department's top four management officials to step down as part of an effort to "clean house." Hostility between much of the Republican foreign policy establishment and the Trump administration complicates any attempts to fill those positions quickly.

There are also questions about where power over foreign policy decisions will rest and how much Trump's White House will try to dictate to State.

It just goes to show that they don't know what the hell they're doing in the WH. 

[fraurosena]

Although EPA isn't really an executive department, Scot Pruitt does have Cabinet rank, so I'm putting this here anyway:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pruitt-idUSKBN16129Q?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

 

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The Center for Media and Democracy has sought the release of emails between energy companies and Pruitt for the past two years, saying they show energy companies drafted language that Pruitt's attorney general office then used in suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the office he now heads, over regulations on energy operations. (...)

The attorney general's office released more than 7,500 pages of emails late on Tuesday, holding back an unknown number of documents it called exempted or privileged. Oklahoma Judge Aletia Timmons is reviewing those documents, but there is no set time for when or if they would be released.

Among the documents released were communications between Devon Energy and Pruitt's office that suggest the company gave the Oklahoma officials language on limits on methane emissions at oil and gas operations. Pruitt's office then used this language in suing the EPA over the regulations, the documents suggest.  (...)

Nick Surgey, a research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, called the document release a "major breakthrough" that revealed a close and friendly relationship between Pruitt's office and the oil and gas industry, with frequent meetings, calls, and dinners.

 

[Howl]

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The State Department didn't respond to requests for comment for this story. 

Because there's nobody at State to comment; phone is likely ringing in an empty office.  #Sad

[GreyhoundFan]

I posted something about this the other day. Something like 90% of the sub-cabinet level positions Agent Orange is supposed to have appointed have gone unfilled. It's not that the Democrats have blocked him, they don't require Congressional approval, he just hasn't done anything to fill the positions. He's too busy Tweeting, golfing, and throwing junior high pep rallies to stroke his ego.

[fraurosena]

More info on Scott Pruitt's emails. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/22/scott-pruitt-emails-oklahoma-fossil-fuels-koch-brothers

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The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday. (...)

The emails also show that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil and gas lobby group, provided Pruitt’s office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013. AFPM encouraged Oklahoma to challenge the rules, noting: “This argument is more credible coming from a state.” Later that year, Pruitt did file opposition to both of these regulations.

The letters also show the cosy relationship between Pruitt and the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the influential US lobbying network of Republican politicians and big businesses, and other lobby groups sponsored by the Koch brothers, the billionaire energy investors who have spent decades fighting against environmental regulation. (...)

Pruitt was congratulated for his work on pushing back against the EPA by another Koch-backed pressure group.

“Thank you to your respective bosses and all they are doing to push back against President Obama’s EPA and its axis with liberal environmental groups to increase energy costs for Oklahomans and American families across the states,” said one email sent to Pruitt and an Oklahoma congressman in August 2013 by Matt Ball, an executive at Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group also funded in part by the Kochs. “You both work for true champions of freedom and liberty!” the note said. (...)

A staunch opponent of what he sees as federal overreach, Pruitt said following his appointment that “citizens don’t trust the EPA is honest” with its scientific work, particularly around climate change. Pruitt has said he accepts the planet is warming but has questioned the degree of human influence over this, despite the volumes of scientific literature on the impact of greenhouse gasses.

John O’Grady, an EPA environmental scientist and head of a union that represents 9,000 agency staff, said (...) “Mr Pruitt isn’t a proponent of addressing climate change or of a strong EPA, so it won’t surprise me when they start to whittle away at what we do as an agency. (...) I’m wondering when the hammer is going to fall.”

 

[SilverBeach]

For the record, I am an EPA employee, and we are an executive branch agency. So thankful to be retiring soon.

[GreyhoundFan]

Short answer=NO: "Does Betsy DeVos know what ‘choice’ means?"

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Those who don’t learn history are doomed to become head of the Education Department, I guess.

Here is Betsy DeVos’s actual news release about meeting with presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, in which she praised them as “pioneers when it comes to school choice.”

“Wait, school choice?” you may well be asking yourself. “Does she mean choice in the sense that, if these institutions had not been pioneers during the era of racial segregation, black students would have had the choice to go to school or go nowhere? Does she not know what the word ‘choice’ means?”

...

“HBCUs were created for African-Americans because they had no choice and were unable to attend schools due to segregation laws,” said Texas Southern University’s “puzzled” President Austin Lane, according to Politico.

There is no choice like, er, no choice!

If this is the kind of school choice that DeVos is hoping to bring nationwide, we are up a worse creek than previously thought. By this broad definition, “tangible, structural reforms that will allow students to reach their full potential” sound like they could include “restoring segregation to the land.” After all, it was segregation that created this wonderful pioneering set of school choices in the first place.

But maybe I have been too narrow in my definition of what “options” are. Once you remedy that, history becomes a lot better.

Internment was just a lovely way of providing more housing options to people. Before, U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent did not have the option of moving to a cool gated community with a watchtower and barbed wire fences, but, afterwards, they did. Similarly, with the Indian Removal Act, President Andrew Jackson created a whole range of options for many communities. Instead of the option of staying in the place where they lived, they had the option of — moving! With help from the U.S. Cavalry.

This was clearly the essence of Jim Crow laws: giving people a greater range of options. Without Jim Crow laws, there would only have been one set of water fountains for everyone.

Being denied the right to vote for years was a way of increasing women’s options. Everyone else had to go to the polls — but women were given the option to do literally anything else during that time. Except own land and property. But, again, those so-called restrictions were just ways of increasing their ability to do other things.

In a way, there are no limitations. Limitations are just in your mind. If you do not have enough money to afford private school, that is not a limitation. With Betsy DeVos in charge, soon you may have the wonderful option of not sending your child to any school at all.

 

[fraurosena]

Jeff Sessions hasn't even read DOJ's reports on police abuse in Ferguson and Chicago

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged Monday that he hasn't read the Obama-era Department of Justice reports on abuses committed by police departments in Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri. Sessions, who is now the nation's top law enforcement official, said he's only read summaries of the two reports, according to Reuters, and, apparently, he found no reason to read on. "Some of it was pretty anecdotal and not so scientifically based," he commented.

The article then states that the reports are far from anecdotal and sites quite a lot of statistics and findings. 

Then it goes on to say:

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Jonathan Smith, an official in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Obama, called Sessions' admission that he has not read the Chicago or Ferguson reports "extremely troubling."

"Chicago and Ferguson are two of the most important investigations done by the Civil Rights Division," said Smith, who oversaw the investigations as head of the division's Special Litigations Section. "The fact that Sessions hasn't even bothered to read those reports suggests to me that he has no interest in ensuring that law enforcement comply with the Constitution."

Not only that, but:

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Sessions' ignorance on the DOJ's investigation into the Chicago Police Department apparently reaches beyond the content of the report, however. In January, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) told a reporter that when he met with Sessions that month, Sessions said he was not even aware that the Chicago Police Department was under investigation by the DOJ in the first place. The investigation was launched following the November 2015 release of video—which recieved national media attention—showing a Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times, killing him.

Sessions also said on Monday his department hadn't yet decided whether it would pursue a consent decree with the Chicago Police Department mandating reforms—a process that had been initiated under the Obama administration. Before making that decision, it might help to read the DOJ's report on the matter.

I don't know why I still find this kind of stuff so shocking when I know that every head of state is specifically chosen to demolish their departments. But I am shocked. Every. single. time. Maybe it's because their so blatant about it, not even trying to hide the fact. Maybe it's because everybody in de GOP seems so blasé about it. I don't know. But it's shocking, disturbing and utterly incomprehensible to me that people in a governmental institution can just sit there ignoring the house being deliberately burnt down around them. 

[RosyDaisy]

None of this surprises me. Sessions is racist to the core. Has connections to the KKK and other hate groups, a fact that isn't a secret. He simply doesn't care.

[fraurosena]

It's a proven fact, not an alternative one, that Sessions lied to Congress. Let's hope this happens then:

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The penalty for lying to Congress includes a fine and up to five years imprisonment for perjury, and also a fine and up to five years for providing 'false statements' to any branch of government.

https://www.indy100.com/article/president-donald-trump-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-us-senate-confirmation-hearing-communication-7607061

(not holding my breath though...)

[fraurosena]

Things are stirring up, at least on the Dem side:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/jeff-sessions-russia-trump-investigation-democrats.html?action=click&contentCollection=us&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article&version=newsevent&rref=collection%2Fnews-event%2Fdonald-trump-white-house

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WASHINGTON — Democrats escalated their demands late Wednesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuse himself from overseeing an investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government after a disclosure that Mr. Sessions himself spoke with the Russian ambassador last year, seemingly contradicting his testimony at his confirmation hearing.

And some Democrats went further, suggesting that Mr. Sessions had perjured himself and demanding that he resign.

“Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law enforcement officer of our country and must resign,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader. “There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians.”

Of course there are predictable denials from the other side:

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But the Trump administration rejected the accusations as partisan attacks, and Mr. Sessions said in a statement issued shortly before midnight that he had not addressed election matters with the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak.

“I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign,” Mr. Sessions said. “I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Even though the whole Sessions and Russia situation is not funny, this made me laugh:

 

[fraurosena]

YES!!!!

Sessions To Recuse Himself From Russia Investigations!

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions is will recuse himself from Justice Department investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, as well as any inquiries into ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Trump said Thursday that he did not think Sessions should recuse himself from investigations and that he had “total” confidence in his attorney general. But Trump also admitted that he only learned of the meetings between Sessions and Kislyak on Wednesday night, from The Washington Post. 

Asked whether he believed Sessions had told the truth in his confirmation hearings, the president said “he probably did.”

So the President of the United States gets his intelligence from what he has dubbed the FAKE media. SAD!

Edited to add Sessions recusal statement:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

YES!!!!

Sessions To Recuse Himself From Russia Investigations!

So the President of the United States gets his intelligence from what he has dubbed the FAKE media. SAD!

Edited to add Sessions recusal statement:

 

 

Let's hope the next step is a resignation!

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Let's hope the next step is a resignation!

Don't hold your breath... 

But I will keep my fingers crossed though!

[fraurosena]

The NY Times has a timeline of Sessions contacts with the Russians and contacts with the Tangerine Toddler

I find these visuals so enlightening, and I hope this timeline, that also shows when Flynn had contact with the Russians, is updated continuously as more and more of the Russian Connection is unearthed.

[clueliss]

I wish on resignation but when Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri is tweeting that he believes Sessions (his friend by the way - he tweeted so during the confirmation process) then I suspect we're going to see more rubber stamping and supporting.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Another case of "do as I say, not as I do": "Six times Jeff Sessions talked about perjury, access and recusal — when it involved the Clintons". Way, way too much to copy, but basically Grand Wizard Sessions went full hissy fit if he thought Bill or Hillary did anything questionable, but, hey, no big deal if he meets with the Russian government.

[onekidanddone]

On 2/23/2017 at 5:31 PM, fraurosena said:

More info on Scott Pruitt's emails. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/22/scott-pruitt-emails-oklahoma-fossil-fuels-koch-brothers

 

Ahhh I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. I was just about to post an article about the same thing from the WoPo.  Do I get to go down to Federal Triangle outside Pruitt's office and yell 'LOCK HIM UP"?

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo did an annotated transcript of Sessions' press conference. Interesting reading. This one was the most interesting point, in my estimation:

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QUESTION: Just to clear up any confusion over this, could you just explain a little bit about the September 8th meeting? Who on your staff was there? And what was discussed with the Russian ambassador?

SESSIONS: The Russian ambassador apparently sent a staffer to my office — I did not see him — and asked for a meeting, as so many of the ambassadors were doing. And we set up a time, as we did — as we normally did. And we met with him.

The notes that went with his reply indicated:

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While the Russian ambassador may ask for lots of meetings, none of the other 26 members of the Armed Services Committee (the capacity in which Sessions says he meet the ambassador) have said they met with him in 2016, according to The Post’s Adam Entous.

So Sessions was special? That's why he was the only one of 26 who was contacted? Yeah, right. And I have a lovely bridge to sell you.

[candygirl200413]

GUYS. GUYS.

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/pence-used-personal-email-state-business----and-hacked/98604904/

WHY ISN"T THIS ALL ON THE NEWS 24/7 YET?! oh I know cause he has a piece of equipment that a certain woman did not. 

so over this. so completely over this.

Re Session: He also used campaign funds to GO to Russia, in addition to having a history of going to Russia in the 90s.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeff-sessions-used-political-funds-for-republican-convention-expenses-1488509301

[Penny]

I think the Russian scandal is more in the headlines than Pence. I hope he goes down in flames along with all his cronies.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

GUYS. GUYS.

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/pence-used-personal-email-state-business----and-hacked/98604904/

WHY ISN"T THIS ALL ON THE NEWS 24/7 YET?! oh I know cause he has a piece of equipment that a certain woman did not. 

so over this. so completely over this.

Re Session: He also used campaign funds to GO to Russia, in addition to having a history of going to Russia in the 90s.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeff-sessions-used-political-funds-for-republican-convention-expenses-1488509301

It was one of the headlines on the WaPo this morning.

[onekidanddone]

On 2/23/2017 at 8:37 PM, SilverBeach said:

For the record, I am an EPA employee, and we are an executive branch agency. So thankful to be retiring soon.

I'm five years away from being eligible.  Not that I can afford it, but I am still ticking down the days. 

[fraurosena]

Pence claims there is 'no comparison' between his use of a private email account and HRC's

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"There's light years of difference" between the use of private email by Mr Pence and Ms Clinton, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

 

Yes, of course. We all know that there's light years of difference between and elephant and a donkey. They're nothing alike whatsoever.