What's going on with the Executive Departments

[GreyhoundFan]

More screwing over of the American public: "The FCC has unveiled its plan to repeal its net neutrality rules"

Spoiler

Federal regulators unveiled a plan Tuesday that would give Internet providers broad powers to determine what websites and online services their customers can see and use.

The move sets the stage for a crucial vote next month at the Federal Communications Commission that could reshape the entire digital ecosystem. The agency’s Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, has made undoing the government's net neutrality rules one of his top priorities, and Tuesday's move hands a win to broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

Pai is taking aim at regulations that were approved just two years ago under a Democratic presidency and that sought to make sure all Internet content, whether from big or small companies, would be treated equally by Internet providers.

The decision will be put to a vote at the agency's Dec. 14 meeting in Washington. It is expected to pass, with the GOP controlling three of the commission's five seats.

In a release, Pai said his proposal would prevent the government from "micromanaging the Internet." In place of the existing rules, he added, the FCC would "simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices."

The proposal would also shift some enforcement responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission, which can sue companies whose actions do not reflect the commitments or statements they have made to the public.

Internet providers welcomed the FCC announcement.

"We’re very encouraged by Chairman Pai’s announcement today that the FCC will move forward next month to restore the successful light-touch regulatory framework for internet services," Verizon said in a statement.

But the FCC proposal is largely opposed by Internet companies such as Google, which said Tuesday that the rules help protect an open Internet.

"The FCC’s net neutrality rules are working well for consumers and we’re disappointed in the proposal released today," said Google in a statement.

Story developing...

Sigh. Just sigh.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — Of all the State Department employees who might have been vulnerable in the staff reductions that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has initiated as he reshapes the department, the one person who seemed least likely to be a target was the chief of security, Bill A. Miller.

Republicans pilloried Hillary Clinton for what they claimed was her inadequate attention to security as secretary of state in the months before the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Congress even passed legislation mandating that the department’s top security official have unrestricted access to the secretary of state.

But in his first nine months in office, Mr. Tillerson turned down repeated and sometimes urgent requests from the department’s security staff to brief him, according to several former top officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Finally, Mr. Miller, the acting assistant secretary for diplomatic security, was forced to cite the law’s requirement that he be allowed to speak to Mr. Tillerson.

Mr. Miller got just five minutes with the secretary of state, the former officials said. Afterward, Mr. Miller, a career Foreign Service officer, was pushed out, joining a parade of dismissals and early retirements that has decimated the State Department’s senior ranks. Mr. Miller declined to comment.

The departures mark a new stage in the broken and increasingly contentious relationship between Mr. Tillerson and much of his department’s work force. By last spring, interviews at the time suggested, the guarded optimism that greeted his arrival had given way to concern among diplomats about his aloofness and lack of communication. By the summer, the secretary’s focus on efficiency and reorganization over policy provoked off-the-record anger.

Now the estrangement is in the open, as diplomats going out the door make their feelings known and members of Congress raise questions about the impact of their leaving.

In a letter to Mr. Tillerson last week, Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, citing what they said was “the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January,” expressed concern about “what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks.”

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, sent a similar letter, telling Mr. Tillerson that “America’s diplomatic power is being weakened internally as complex global crises are growing externally.”

Mr. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has made no secret of his belief that the State Department is a bloated bureaucracy and that he regards much of the day-to-day diplomacy that lower-level officials conduct as unproductive. Even before Mr. Tillerson was confirmed, his staff fired six of the State Department’s top career diplomats, including Patrick Kennedy, who had been appointed to his position by President George W. Bush. Kristie Kenney, the department’s counselor and one of just five career ambassadors, was summarily fired a few weeks later.

None were given any reason for their dismissals, although Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Kenney had been reprimanded by Trump transition officials for answering basic logistical questions from Nikki R. Haley, President Trump’s pick as United Nations ambassador. Mr. Tillerson is widely believed to dislike Ms. Haley, who has been seen as a possible successor if Mr. Tillerson steps down.

In the following months, Mr. Tillerson launched a reorganization that he has said will be the most important thing he will do, and he has hired two consulting companies to lead the effort. Since he decided before even arriving at the State Department to slash its budget by 31 percent, many in the department have always seen the reorganization as a smoke screen for drastic cuts.

Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a $25,000 buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018.

His small cadre of aides have fired some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted or taking away their duties altogether. Among those fired or sidelined were most of the top African-American and Latino diplomats, as well as many women, difficult losses in a department that has long struggled with diversity.

One of them was Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Liberia under Mr. Bush and as director general of the Foreign Service and assistant secretary for African Affairs during the Obama administration. Ms. Thomas-Greenfield was among those asked to leave by Mr. Tillerson’s staff, but she appealed and remained until her retirement in September.

“I don’t feel targeted as an African-American,” she said. “I feel targeted as a professional.”

For those who have not been dismissed, retirement has become a preferred alternative when, like Mr. Miller, they find no demand for their expertise. A retirement class that concludes this month has 26 senior employees, including two acting assistant secretaries in their early 50s who would normally wait years before leaving.

The number of those with the department’s top two ranks of career ambassador and career minister — equivalent to four- and three-star generals — will have been cut in half by Dec. 1, from 39 to 19. And of the 431 minister-counselors, who have two-star-equivalent ranks, 369 remain and another 14 have indicated that they will leave soon — an 18 percent drop — according to an accounting provided by the American Foreign Service Association.

The political appointees who normally join the department after a change in administration have not made up for those departures. So far, just 10 of the top 44 political positions in the department have been filled, and for most of the vacancies, Mr. Tillerson has not nominated anyone.

“Leadership matters,” said Nancy McEldowney, a former ambassador who retired in June after a 30-year career as a Foreign Service officer. “There’s a vacuum throughout the State Department, and the junior people now working in these top jobs lack the confidence and credibility that comes from a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.”

Even more departures are expected as a result of an intense campaign that Mr. Tillerson has ordered to reduce the department’s longtime backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests. CNN reported that the task had resulted from Mr. Trump’s desire to accelerate the release of Mrs. Clinton’s remaining emails.

Every bureau in the department has been asked to contribute to the effort. That has left midlevel employees and diplomats — including some just returning from high-level or difficult overseas assignments — to spend months performing mind-numbing clerical functions beside unpaid interns.

Mr. Tillerson’s spokesman, R. C. Hammond, dismissed any suggestion that the departures had had a negative effect.

“There are qualified people who are delivering on America’s diplomatic mission,” Mr. Hammond said. “It’s insulting to them every time someone comes up to them and says that the State Department is being gutted.”

Former State Department officials disagree.

“The United States is at the center of every crisis around the world, and you simply cannot be effective if you don’t have assistant secretaries and ambassadors in place,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat who was an under secretary of state for President George W. Bush. “It shows a disdain for diplomacy.”

One result is that there is no one in place with responsibilities for some key trouble spots.

Although the North Korean nuclear crisis is the Trump administration’s top priority, the administration has yet to nominate an assistant secretary for East Asia or an ambassador to South Korea, crucial positions to deal with the issue.

In the midst of the war in Syria and growing worries over a possible conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is no confirmed assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs or ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt or Qatar. And as Zimbabwe confronts the future after the departure of Robert Mugabe, the department is lacking a confirmed assistant secretary for African affairs or an ambassador to neighboring South Africa.

And the department’s future effectiveness may also be threatened. As more senior officials depart, interest in joining the Foreign Service is dwindling. With fewer prospects for rewarding careers, the number of people taking its entrance exam is on track to drop by 50 percent this year, according to the Foreign Service Association.

“The message from the State Department right now is, ‘We don’t want you,’ and students are hearing that,” said James Goldgeier, former dean of the School of International Service at American University.

For many at the State Department, their experience under Mr. Tillerson has been a particular shock because their hopes for him were initially high.

Mrs. Clinton and John Kerry, her successor, were both seen as focused on their own priorities and were not particularly popular within the department. The model secretaries in recent history have been Colin Powell, James A. Baker III and George P. Shultz, Republicans who cared about management.

“Everyone who called me, I said: ‘Listen, guys, this is going to be great, and maybe he’ll finally get the department in shape,’” said Dana Shell Smith, the ambassador to Qatar, who recently resigned.

Since then, Ms. Smith has changed her mind.

“These people either do not believe the U.S. should be a world leader, or they’re utterly incompetent,” she said. “Either way, having so many vacancies in essential places is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Chipping away at the US and our place in the world...

[GreyhoundFan]

"While eyes are on Russia, Sessions dramatically reshapes the Justice Department"

Spoiler

For more than five hours, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat in a hearing room on Capitol Hill this month, fending off inquiries on Washington’s two favorite topics: President Trump and Russia.

But legislators spent little time asking Sessions about the dramatic and controversial changes in policy he has made since taking over the top law enforcement job in the United States nine months ago.

From his crackdown on illegal immigration to his reversal of Obama administration policies on criminal justice and policing, Sessions is methodically reshaping the Justice Department to reflect his nationalist ideology and hard-line views — moves drawing comparatively less public scrutiny than the ongoing investigations into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin.

Sessions has implemented a new charging and sentencing policy that calls for prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible, even if that might mean minority defendants face stiff, mandatory minimum penalties. He has defended the president’s travel ban and tried to strip funding from cities with policies he considers too friendly toward undocumented immigrants.

Sessions has even adjusted the department’s legal stances in cases involving voting rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in a way that advocates warn might disenfranchise poor minorities and give certain religious people a license to discriminate.

Supporters and critics say the attorney general has been among the most effective of the Cabinet secretaries — implementing Trump’s conservative policy agenda even as the president publicly and privately toys with firing him over his decision to recuse himself from the Russia case.

While critics lambaste what they consider misguided changes that take the department back in time, supporters say Sessions has restored a by-the-book interpretation of federal law and taken an aggressive stance toward enforcing it.

“The Attorney General is committed to rebuilding a Justice Department that respects the rule of law and separation of powers,” Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in a statement, adding, “It is often our most vulnerable communities that are most impacted and victimized by the scourge of drug trafficking and the accompanying violent crime.”

Immigration

In meetings with top Justice Department officials about terrorist suspects, Sessions often has a particular question: Where is the person from? When officials tell him a suspect was born and lives in the United States, he typically has a follow-up: To what country does his family trace its lineage?

While there are reasons to want to know that information, some officials familiar with the inquiries said the questions struck them as revealing that Sessions harbors an innate suspicion about people from certain ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in a statement, “The Attorney General asks lots of relevant questions in these classified briefings.”

Sessions, unlike past attorneys general, has been especially aggressive on immigration. He served as the public face of the administration’s rolling back of a program that granted a reprieve from deportation to people who had come here without documentation as children, and he directed federal prosecutors to make illegal-immigration cases a higher priority. The attorney general has long held the view that the United States should even reduce the number of those immigrating here legally.

In an interview with Breitbart News in 2015, then-Sen. Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke favorably of a 1924 law that excluded all immigrants from Asia and set strict caps on others.

“When the numbers reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy and it slowed down immigration significantly,” Sessions said. “We then assimilated through 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America.”

Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division in the Obama administration who now works as chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said Sessions seems to harbor an “unwillingness to recognize the history of this country is rooted in immigration.”

“On issue after issue, it’s very easy to see what his worldview is of what this country is and who belongs in this country,” she said, adding that his view is “distinctly anti-immigrant.”

Those on the other side of the aisle, however, say they welcome the changes Sessions has made at the Justice Department.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for moderating levels of immigration, said she would give the attorney general an “A-plus” for his work in the area, especially for his crackdown on “sanctuary cities,” his push to hire more immigration judges and his focus on the MS-13 gang.

“He was able to hit the ground running because he has so much expertise already in immigration enforcement and related public safety issues and the constitutional issues, so he’s accomplished a lot in a very short time,” Vaughan said.

Prior, the Justice Department spokesman, said, “Clearly having an immigration system that focuses on national security and the national interest should be a matter of importance to the nation’s highest law enforcement official.”

Police oversight, sentencing

Questions about Sessions’s attitudes toward race and nationality have swirled around him since a Republican-led Senate committee in 1986 rejected his nomination by President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship, amid allegations of racism. In January, his confirmation hearing to become attorney general turned bitter when, for the first time, a sitting senator, Cory Booker (D-N.J.), testified against a colleague up for a Cabinet position. Booker said he did so because of Sessions’s record on civil rights.

Sessions ultimately won confirmation on a 52-to-47 vote, and he moved quickly to make the Justice Department his own. Two months into the job, he told the department’s lawyers to review police oversight agreements nationwide, currying favor with officers who often resent the imposition of such pacts but upsetting those who think they are necessary to force change.

Similarly, Sessions imposed a new charging and sentencing policy that critics on both sides of the aisle have said might disproportionately affect minority communities and hit low-level drug offenders with stiff sentences.

Allies of Sessions say the policy is driven not by racial animus but by a desire to respond to increasing crime. The latest FBI crime data, for 2016, showed violent crimes were up 4.1 percent over the previous year and murders were up 8.6 percent — although crime remains at historically low levels. The Bureau of Prisons projects that — because of increased enforcement and prosecution efforts — the inmate population will increase by about 2 percent in fiscal 2018, according to a Justice Department inspector general report.

Larry Thompson, who served as deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and is a friend of Sessions, said that although he disagrees with the attorney general’s charging policy, he believes Sessions was “motivated by his belief that taking these violent offenders off the streets is the right way to address the public safety issues.”

Civil rights, hate crimes

Sessions’s moves to empower prosecutors have led to a concerted focus on hate-crimes prosecutions — a point his defenders say undercuts the notion that he is not interested in protecting the rights of minorities or other groups. Prosecutors have brought several such cases since he became attorney general and recently sent an attorney to Iowa to help the state prosecute a man who was charged with killing a gender-fluid 16-year-old high school student last year. The man was convicted of first-degree murder.

But while civil rights leaders praised his action in that case, Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that it “stands in stark contrast to his overall efforts” to roll back protections for transgender people.

Shortly after he became attorney general, Sessions revoked federal guidelines put in place by the Obama administration that specified that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms that match their gender identity. In September, the Justice Department sided in a major upcoming Supreme Court case with a Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because he said it would violate his religious beliefs.

Sessions recently issued 20 principles of guidance to executive-branch agencies about how the government should respect religious freedom, including allowing religious employers to hire only those whose conduct is consistent with their beliefs. About the same time, he reversed a three-year-old Justice Department policy that protected transgender people from workplace discrimination by private employers and state and local governments.

The Justice Department has similarly rolled back Obama administration positions in court cases over voting rights.

In February, the department dropped its stance that Texas intended to discriminate when it passed its law on voter identification. And in August, it sided with Ohio in its effort to purge thousands of people from its rolls for not voting in recent elections — drawing complaints from civil liberties advocates.

At a recent congressional hearing, Sessions said the department would “absolutely, resolutely defend the right of all Americans to vote, including our African American brothers and sisters.”

Critics say, though, that his record shows otherwise. “We are seeing a federal government that is pulling back from protecting vulnerable communities in every respect,” Clarke said. “That appears to be the pattern that we are seeing with this administration — an unwillingness to use their enforcement powers in ways that can come to the defense of groups who are otherwise powerless and voiceless.”

Sigh, just sigh.

[GrumpyGran]

Mindless BTs scream about Sharia law while Sessions tries to implement Supremacy law. If this horrific policy from Dumpy's band of robber barons continues without any interference, I wonder if they won't eventually come up against a roadblock that they don't expect. In the Supremes, Thomas will do as told and obviously Gorsuch is in their pocket but John Roberts, although he is a conservative, is not going to be told what to do. He is a true letter-of-the-law guy and I can't see him and some of the other right-leaning justices accepting that they will now change their views of the law, based on what a corrupt lawyer from Alabama and a money-hungry egomaniac want.

[GreyhoundFan]

What a Charlie Foxtrot: "Dueling officials spend chaotic day vying to lead federal consumer watchdog"

Spoiler

The battle over who will lead a prominent federal consumer watchdog agency escalated Monday, with dueling leaders each claiming control before a federal judge during a chaotic day of public appearances and maneuvering.

By the end of the day, it was still unclear who was the true acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — President Trump’s pick of White House budget director Mick Mulvaney or one of the agency’s longtime executives, Leandra English.

Mulvaney showed up at the agency’s Washington headquarters early in the morning bearing a bag of doughnuts and then firing off an email ordering the staff to disregard any orders from English. His office tweeted photos of Mulvaney taking part in office meetings and he invited in the press to announce that he had declared a temporary freeze on hiring and rulemaking.

Trump “wants me to get it [the agency] back to the point where it can protect people without trampling on capitalism,” Mulvaney said.

English, meanwhile, came to the office and sent an early morning email welcoming the staff of 1,600 back from the Thanksgiving holiday and then headed to Capitol Hill, where she met with several Democratic lawmakers. She held her first public appearance before a barrage of cameras and reporters sitting alongside Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Barely audible, English said the lawmakers had been “very helpful.”

The confusion promised to continue for at least another day after a federal judge — a recent Trump appointee — declined to rule immediately on English’s request for a temporary restraining order barring Mulvaney from taking over.

English’s attorney, Deepak Gupta, asked U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly to rule as “expeditiously as possible” in a way that could be immediately appealed. “Everyone needs to know who is director of the bureau,” Gupta said.

The standoff is quickly turning into one of the highest-profile efforts by the Trump administration to roll back the government’s oversight over the financial industry. And it is bringing to a head a long-simmering partisan fight over the CFPB, an agency established in 2011 in response to the global financial crisis.

The tug-of-war left the CFPB’s staff and contractors befuddled over how to proceed. Legal experts said any actions taken by either Mulvaney or English could later be challenged in court should they not ultimately prevail — effectively freezing the agency’s ongoing work. The CFPB, for example, is working on rules for debt collectors, which are now likely to stall, legal experts said.

Republicans have been trying to wrest control of the agency for years, complaining that the CFPB lacked accountability and its rulemaking made it harder for consumers to get a loan. Republicans in Congress, for example, recently voted to block a regulation allowing consumers to sue their banks, arguing it would trigger a flood of frivolous lawsuits and drive up costs. On Twitter, Trump called the agency a “total disaster.”

But Democrats and consumer advocates have cheered the CFPB’s aggressive actions against big financial institutions, noting its record $100 million fine against Wells Fargo for opening millions of fake accounts consumers didn’t want. The agency, they say, was intentionally created to be independent of Congress and from political pressure from the White House. Schumer said he recalled language being added to the legislation about who could temporarily replace an absent director to further limit political interference.

“We purposely put that to avoid putting a fox in charge of the henhouse,” he told reporters.

The Trump administration spent months privately fuming that the CFPB’s longtime director, Richard Cordray, initially did not resign like other banking industry regulators following the election, and they have recently accused him of using his office to gain political favor. A former attorney general of Ohio, Cordray has been rumored to be interested in running for governor.

“We think that a lot of the past practices under the previous director and under the previous administration were used more to advance political ambitions and not about protecting American consumers, which is what that’s supposed to be,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday.

When Cordray did resign Friday, he set off a showdown with the White House by promoting his chief of staff, English, to deputy director, and saying that she would serve as acting director until the Senate confirmed his permanent replacement. Trump struck back a few hours later by announcing that Mulvaney would take the job instead.

Both sides spent the holiday weekend in a war of words about the fine print in dueling federal statutes. English’s supporters argue that the legislation that created the agency in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act, gave the power to appoint an acting director to Cordray. And some questioned whether Mulvaney would have the time to properly run such a large agency while also serving as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. As head of OMB, he is tasked with negotiating budget agreements with Capitol Hill. A deal must be brokered before a deadline next week to avoid a partial government shutdown. Mulvaney said he plans to work three days a week at the agency and three days at OMB.

“President Trump put a cloud over the agency by invoking a statute [to appoint Mulvaney] that doesn’t apply here,” said Warren, who, as a bankruptcy professor at Harvard Law School, came up with the idea for the agency. “The agency has been an effective cop on the beat, and the banks don’t want an effective cop on the beat.”

Schumer said Trump has nominated people devoted to terminating the agencies they were nominated to run. Mulvaney, he said, is “only the latest in a line of Trojan horse candidates.”

Trump has installed new leadership at the top of several other regulatory agencies, many of which have already taken a more business-friendly tone. He is likely to follow that pattern with his eventual nominee to replace Cordray — a decision that Mulvaney said will happen quickly.

Mulvaney, a frequent critic of the CFPB, once called the agency a “joke . . . in a sick, sad way.” He stood by those 2015 remarks Monday but said the concerns among some consumer advocates were overblown.

“Rumors that I’m going to set the place on fire or blow it up or lock the doors are completely false,” he said. “We intend to execute the laws of the United States, including the provisions of Dodd-Frank that govern the CFPB.”

At the court hearing, Mulvaney’s attorney, Brett Shumate, a deputy assistant attorney general, was asked by the judge whether the government would agree that English would not be fired, to remove some of the urgency from the matter.

Shumate said he could not “give any representation or assurance on that score.”

For confused CFPB employees, José Andrés, the Washington celebrity chef who once had his own legal dispute with the president over operating a restaurant in Trump’s D.C. hotel, offered a respite. “Have two bosses? Please bring a proof you work there to any of our DC restaurants and the first drink is on us,” he offered on Twitter.

You couldn't make this shit up.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Rex Tillerson’s exit and the Trump administration’s inevitable drift toward yes-men"

Spoiler

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's days appear to be numbered, with the White House planning to remove him in the next few weeks. That news, first reported by the New York Times, isn't hugely surprising, given that it was rumored to be the case ever since it was reported that Tillerson had called President Trump a “moron.”

What's more significant here are the dominoes that would reportedly fall once Tillerson is out: Specifically, CIA Director Mike Pompeo taking over for Tillerson at the State Department, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) replacing Pompeo at the CIA. In one fell swoop, Trump would be removing one of three people who Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said is helping “separate our country from chaos” and promoting two men who would move the Trump administration conspicuously in the direction of Trump allies and yes-men.

Pompeo's elevation, in particular, would come at the expense of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, another rumored pick to lead the State Department. Haley has often broken with the administration or, at the very least, gotten ahead of its messaging. (At one point, Trump seemed to only half-jokingly say that Haley “could easily be replaced.") It's not difficult to see that approach having harmed her, given Trump's reportedly unpleasant experience with Tillerson as his top diplomat.

Pompeo is decidedly on the other end of the spectrum. Despite holding a job that often requires independence from the White House and politics more generally, he has made conspicuously pro-Trump moves from his perch in Langley, Va. — to the point where he has reportedly given intelligence officers heartburn.

As I wrote a few weeks back, Pompeo has:

• Met with the purveyor of a disputed theory that the Democratic National Committee's emails weren't hacked by Russia but were leaked internally — a theory that flies in the face of the intelligence community's conclusions — reportedly at Trump's own request.
• Used a Trump-ian talking point — also directly at odds with the intelligence community's findings — that Russian hacking “did not affect the outcome of the [2016] election.”
• Reportedly been enlisted by the White House to beat back stories about Trump campaign contacts with Russia.
• Put a CIA unit charged with investigating possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia directly under his control.

And if Trump were at all worried about replacing a loyalist at the CIA, Cotton would quickly put those fears to rest. The senator from Arkansas has been perhaps his most vocal defender in Congress — a guy once credibly labeled Trump's “wingman.”

The Trump administration was initially stocked with both allies and more pragmatic picks who were less tied to Trump's brand of politics and perhaps less willing to indulge his controversial impulses. More recently, the selection of John Kelly as chief of staff was thought to be a move away from yes-men and toward people who might keep Trump, for lack of a better phrase, in line.

That clearly hasn't happened, and these picks seem to move the needle more toward Trump die-hards.

But in a lot of ways, this was bound to happen. As his presidency has progressed, Trump has clearly clashed with establishment-friendly officials who have inhabited his inner circles. He seemed to almost torture former chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer before their departures after just six months. He reportedly frustrated Tillerson so much that the secretary of state called him a "moron" in front of other people. National security adviser H.R. McMaster has reportedly been exasperated. Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director when Comey declined to declare his loyalty. Corker, who Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) once said talked to Trump more than any other senator, has clearly had it. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke has reportedly told Kelly she will resign over disagreements. And even as Kelly has stood by Trump — including during the flap over feuding with another Gold Star family — he has at times clearly had his patience with the commander in chief tested.

As Trump's presidency progresses — and as he makes it clearer and clearer that he's not going to change and may actually drift further from the GOP's comfort zone — it's going to become more difficult to pull talent from the ranks of people who might stand up to Trump. And a reportedly exasperated Trump is likely to be drawn more to yes-men and -women who promise (either implicitly or explicitly) not to put him through the things he has gone through with Tillerson.

It's almost an inevitable shift. It may be happening earlier than some expected.

It's the sycophant administration.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Rex Tillerson’s exit and the Trump administration’s inevitable drift toward yes-men"

  Reveal hidden contents

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's days appear to be numbered, with the White House planning to remove him in the next few weeks. That news, first reported by the New York Times, isn't hugely surprising, given that it was rumored to be the case ever since it was reported that Tillerson had called President Trump a “moron.”

What's more significant here are the dominoes that would reportedly fall once Tillerson is out: Specifically, CIA Director Mike Pompeo taking over for Tillerson at the State Department, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) replacing Pompeo at the CIA. In one fell swoop, Trump would be removing one of three people who Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said is helping “separate our country from chaos” and promoting two men who would move the Trump administration conspicuously in the direction of Trump allies and yes-men.

Pompeo's elevation, in particular, would come at the expense of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, another rumored pick to lead the State Department. Haley has often broken with the administration or, at the very least, gotten ahead of its messaging. (At one point, Trump seemed to only half-jokingly say that Haley “could easily be replaced.") It's not difficult to see that approach having harmed her, given Trump's reportedly unpleasant experience with Tillerson as his top diplomat.

Pompeo is decidedly on the other end of the spectrum. Despite holding a job that often requires independence from the White House and politics more generally, he has made conspicuously pro-Trump moves from his perch in Langley, Va. — to the point where he has reportedly given intelligence officers heartburn.

As I wrote a few weeks back, Pompeo has:

• Met with the purveyor of a disputed theory that the Democratic National Committee's emails weren't hacked by Russia but were leaked internally — a theory that flies in the face of the intelligence community's conclusions — reportedly at Trump's own request.
• Used a Trump-ian talking point — also directly at odds with the intelligence community's findings — that Russian hacking “did not affect the outcome of the [2016] election.”
• Reportedly been enlisted by the White House to beat back stories about Trump campaign contacts with Russia.
• Put a CIA unit charged with investigating possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia directly under his control.

And if Trump were at all worried about replacing a loyalist at the CIA, Cotton would quickly put those fears to rest. The senator from Arkansas has been perhaps his most vocal defender in Congress — a guy once credibly labeled Trump's “wingman.”

The Trump administration was initially stocked with both allies and more pragmatic picks who were less tied to Trump's brand of politics and perhaps less willing to indulge his controversial impulses. More recently, the selection of John Kelly as chief of staff was thought to be a move away from yes-men and toward people who might keep Trump, for lack of a better phrase, in line.

That clearly hasn't happened, and these picks seem to move the needle more toward Trump die-hards.

But in a lot of ways, this was bound to happen. As his presidency has progressed, Trump has clearly clashed with establishment-friendly officials who have inhabited his inner circles. He seemed to almost torture former chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer before their departures after just six months. He reportedly frustrated Tillerson so much that the secretary of state called him a "moron" in front of other people. National security adviser H.R. McMaster has reportedly been exasperated. Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director when Comey declined to declare his loyalty. Corker, who Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) once said talked to Trump more than any other senator, has clearly had it. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke has reportedly told Kelly she will resign over disagreements. And even as Kelly has stood by Trump — including during the flap over feuding with another Gold Star family — he has at times clearly had his patience with the commander in chief tested.

As Trump's presidency progresses — and as he makes it clearer and clearer that he's not going to change and may actually drift further from the GOP's comfort zone — it's going to become more difficult to pull talent from the ranks of people who might stand up to Trump. And a reportedly exasperated Trump is likely to be drawn more to yes-men and -women who promise (either implicitly or explicitly) not to put him through the things he has gone through with Tillerson.

It's almost an inevitable shift. It may be happening earlier than some expected.

It's the sycophant administration.

I'm becoming more depressed about the fact that the decent and half-way qualified people are just giving up and leaving. I saw the Nikki Haley rumors along with what has to be a joke, that Ivanka would take over the UN position if Haley was made Sec. of State. I don't think he'll pick her, though, she doesn't kiss his feet enough.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an excellent opinion piece by Madeline Albright: "The national security emergency we’re not talking about"

Spoiler

America’s diplomatic professionals have issued a dire warning about the crisis facing the State Department: Scores of top diplomats, including some of our highest-ranked career Foreign Service officers, have left the agency at “a dizzying speed” over the past 10 months.

“The rapid loss of so many senior officers has a serious, immediate and tangible effect on the capacity of the United States to shape world events,” wrote former ambassador Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA).

As a former secretary of state, I agree. This is not a story that has two sides. It is simply a fact that the United States relies on diplomacy as our first line of defense — to cement alliances, build coalitions, address global problems and find ways to protect our interests without resorting to military force. When we must use force, as in the fight against the Islamic State, our diplomats ensure that we can do so effectively and with the cooperation of other countries.

Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department’s civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis. There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus. President Trump is aware of the situation and has made clear that he doesn’t care: “I’m the only one that matters,” he told Fox News.

Sadly, the official who should be highlighting the State Department’s vital role has not done so. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied that the department is being hollowed out even while defending the president’s plan for a massive reduction in his agency’s budget. Meanwhile, for reasons that make sense only to him, Tillerson has delayed filling many of the most important diplomatic posts in Washington and overseas. All too often, foreign officials have sought to engage the department at a high level only to find no one with whom they can speak.

The administration’s disdain for diplomacy would be alarming under any circumstances, but two factors make it worse. First, while the United States is tying a rope around its feet, our competitors are running ahead. Trump’s recent trip to Asia was considered by many a success because there were no obvious disasters, but that is hardly a reassuring standard by which to judge the performance of an American commander in chief. The fact is that on trade and climate change, the U.S. government is now irrelevant; on security issues, we are ineffective; and on the use of cybertools to undercut democracy, we have a president who believes Vladimir Putin.

Second, the damage being done to America’s diplomatic readiness is both intentional and long-term. The administration isn’t hurting the State Department by accident. Tillerson maintained a freeze on hiring long after most other Cabinet officials had stopped. The number of promotions has been cut in half and the quantity of incoming Foreign Service officers by more than two-thirds. He is effectively shutting down the State Department’s pipeline for new talent.

As a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, I see the consequences of all this firsthand. In the past, my best students have come to me seeking advice on how to enter public service. Now, more and more are telling me they do not see a future for themselves in government. In some cases, this is because they disagree with administration policies, but more often it is because they fear that their efforts and pursuit of excellence would not be valued.

This was never a problem under President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush, but it is a problem now. According to AFSA, the number of individuals taking the Foreign Service exam this year is on track to plummet by more than 50 percent.

If the U.S. military were facing a recruitment and retention crisis of this magnitude, few would hesitate to call it a national security emergency. Well, that is what we are facing. And while it saddens me to criticize one of my successors, I have to speak out because the stakes are so high.

What can we do? We can support bipartisan-minded leaders in Congress who have rejected the reckless cuts the administration proposed in our country’s budget for international affairs. We can amplify these warnings about the hollowing out of the State Department. We can strengthen our case by enlisting business leaders who understand the importance of the work our embassies do across the globe. We can help young people understand that time is sure to bring new leaders with more enlightened ideas about the importance of diplomacy and development to the interests and values of the American people.

Whenever my students ask me whether they should serve in government under this administration, I remind them that the reason we love America so much is that, here, the government is not one man or woman. The government is us, and public service is both a great privilege and a shared responsibility. This is our republic. We must do all we can to keep it strong.

Sadly, I can't see Pompeo being any better than Tillerson.

[GrumpyGran]

36 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is an excellent opinion piece by Madeline Albright: "The national security emergency we’re not talking about"

  Reveal hidden contents

America’s diplomatic professionals have issued a dire warning about the crisis facing the State Department: Scores of top diplomats, including some of our highest-ranked career Foreign Service officers, have left the agency at “a dizzying speed” over the past 10 months.

“The rapid loss of so many senior officers has a serious, immediate and tangible effect on the capacity of the United States to shape world events,” wrote former ambassador Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA).

As a former secretary of state, I agree. This is not a story that has two sides. It is simply a fact that the United States relies on diplomacy as our first line of defense — to cement alliances, build coalitions, address global problems and find ways to protect our interests without resorting to military force. When we must use force, as in the fight against the Islamic State, our diplomats ensure that we can do so effectively and with the cooperation of other countries.

Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department’s civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis. There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus. President Trump is aware of the situation and has made clear that he doesn’t care: “I’m the only one that matters,” he told Fox News.

Sadly, the official who should be highlighting the State Department’s vital role has not done so. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied that the department is being hollowed out even while defending the president’s plan for a massive reduction in his agency’s budget. Meanwhile, for reasons that make sense only to him, Tillerson has delayed filling many of the most important diplomatic posts in Washington and overseas. All too often, foreign officials have sought to engage the department at a high level only to find no one with whom they can speak.

The administration’s disdain for diplomacy would be alarming under any circumstances, but two factors make it worse. First, while the United States is tying a rope around its feet, our competitors are running ahead. Trump’s recent trip to Asia was considered by many a success because there were no obvious disasters, but that is hardly a reassuring standard by which to judge the performance of an American commander in chief. The fact is that on trade and climate change, the U.S. government is now irrelevant; on security issues, we are ineffective; and on the use of cybertools to undercut democracy, we have a president who believes Vladimir Putin.

Second, the damage being done to America’s diplomatic readiness is both intentional and long-term. The administration isn’t hurting the State Department by accident. Tillerson maintained a freeze on hiring long after most other Cabinet officials had stopped. The number of promotions has been cut in half and the quantity of incoming Foreign Service officers by more than two-thirds. He is effectively shutting down the State Department’s pipeline for new talent.

As a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, I see the consequences of all this firsthand. In the past, my best students have come to me seeking advice on how to enter public service. Now, more and more are telling me they do not see a future for themselves in government. In some cases, this is because they disagree with administration policies, but more often it is because they fear that their efforts and pursuit of excellence would not be valued.

This was never a problem under President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush, but it is a problem now. According to AFSA, the number of individuals taking the Foreign Service exam this year is on track to plummet by more than 50 percent.

If the U.S. military were facing a recruitment and retention crisis of this magnitude, few would hesitate to call it a national security emergency. Well, that is what we are facing. And while it saddens me to criticize one of my successors, I have to speak out because the stakes are so high.

What can we do? We can support bipartisan-minded leaders in Congress who have rejected the reckless cuts the administration proposed in our country’s budget for international affairs. We can amplify these warnings about the hollowing out of the State Department. We can strengthen our case by enlisting business leaders who understand the importance of the work our embassies do across the globe. We can help young people understand that time is sure to bring new leaders with more enlightened ideas about the importance of diplomacy and development to the interests and values of the American people.

Whenever my students ask me whether they should serve in government under this administration, I remind them that the reason we love America so much is that, here, the government is not one man or woman. The government is us, and public service is both a great privilege and a shared responsibility. This is our republic. We must do all we can to keep it strong.

Sadly, I can't see Pompeo being any better than Tillerson.

He almost certainly will be worse. Dumpy's second and third choices are never better than his first.

[fraurosena]

It seems that there won't be a Rexit. Yet. Although this denial could also be a foreshadowing of his imminent resignation. Who knows? 

Uh-oh... I see he has found Instagram. Do you think is he hedging his bets because one of these days Twitter might ban him? After all, he does need his regular social media fix!

[JMarie]

Corey Lewandowski was on TV this morning.  He's got a new book out, just in time for Christmas (surprise!).  During the interview, he describes Trump as warm, nice, and genuine, saying all of this while smiling.  

It must be exhausting to be so very fake.

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, JMarie said:

Corey Lewandowski was on TV this morning.  He's got a new book out, just in time for Christmas (surprise!).  During the interview, he describes Trump as warm, nice, and genuine, saying all of this while smiling.  

It must be exhausting to be so very fake.

He's gotta lay it on thick, he's hoping the Trumpers will buy a copy for everyone on their shopping list. 

It's his book that has the stuff about Hope Hicks steaming Trump's pants, right? 

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, JMarie said:

Corey Lewandowski was on TV this morning.  He's got a new book out, just in time for Christmas (surprise!).  During the interview, he describes Trump as warm, nice, and genuine, saying all of this while smiling.  

It must be exhausting to be so very fake.

But also describes Dump having tantrums, screaming obscenities at people, and the horrible diet of Dumpster Don. Apparently he's a junk food addict.

So he's on Instagram now. I guarantee every post will have a picture of him.

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

But also describes Dump having tantrums, screaming obscenities at people, and the horrible diet of Dumpster Don. Apparently he's a junk food addict.

So he's on Instagram now. I guarantee every post will have a picture of him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-campaign-big-macs-screaming-fits-and-constant-rivalries/2017/12/02/18bcfa30-d6bd-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?utm_term=.9fb9fc7fec16

Quote

And Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of “two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.”

My insides hurt just thinking about this overfull meal tray.  And I love McDonald's.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is freaking insane: "FEMA Staffers Told They Might Be Billed for Working Too Much"

Spoiler

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has informed employees who’ve worked extra hours battling a record wave of natural disasters in 2017 that they may have to pay back some of their overtime.

Federal law caps some federal employees’ premium pay and permits agencies to recover money paid in excess of the maximum from future paychecks. FEMA says the extraordinary year of hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters means it may have to take that step.

“This year’s unprecedented hurricane season led to a record-setting length of national activation,” the agency said in an emailed statement. “Due to the extended work hours involved in supporting disaster recovery and response efforts for multiple storms, some employees have been affected by the annual maximum earnings limitation.”

The agency last month sent employees a Frequently Asked Questions document saying that those who hit the annual cap due to the number of extra hours they’ve worked “may still be ordered to perform work without receiving further compensation,” and would “continue to receive their regular base pay regardless of whether they exceed the annual premium pay cap or not.”

Then, it said, “A bill will be determined and established for any premium pay amounts over the annual premium pay cap and the employee will be notified and billed in 2018 for that amount."

The issue arises amid broader reckoning at FEMA. On Nov. 30, the agency’s administrator Brock Long told a House Appropriations subcommittee that staff were "tapped out" following record activation. "FEMA was never designed to be the first or only respondent in a disaster, but we often find ourselves in that situation," he said.

According to FEMA, there is a pool of about 500 employees whose compensation the agency is monitoring because they are at risk of exceeding the cap. Those employees are all exempt from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and generally are towards the upper end of the agency’s pay scale.

One FEMA employee, who asked not to be identified because she wasn’t authorized to speak to media, said workers have voiced concerns to agency management about the issue. Billing staff or docking pay could reduce the willingness of FEMA employees or other Homeland Security staff to sign up for deployments in the future, she said.

The federal Office of Personnel Management, which handles federal workforce human resources, said the ceiling on annual compensation was out of its hands.

“The premium pay caps are statutory, and OPM does not have authority to waive or modify the premium pay caps,” the agency said in an emailed statement.

Under the law, an executive branch employee’s premium pay -- which includes overtime -- combined with basic pay can’t exceed the maximum rate of basic pay for certain categories of employees. An email to staff from FEMA November 2 offered the example of a category of employees based in Washington, D.C. who this year get a regular salary of $153,730; for those workers, Congress has capped the premium pay they can receive, including for working extra hours, at $7,636.40.

Along with the annual cap, there is also a ceiling on how much overtime compensation employees can receive each two-week period, but agencies have the discretion to waive that one, as the Department of Homeland Security did this year for hurricane relief -- contributing to the annual cap issue.

“Employees who have exceeded the annual premium pay cap will be contacted and provided options on the overpayment process," the agency told its employees. They will be able to give back the money via payroll deduction or simply pay the full sum, according to the Nov. 3 Q&A.

The House is slated Tuesday to consider a bill that would raise the cap on overtime for Secret Service agents, a third of whom had already hit the limit as of August. The agency, in a statement, said the bill would be a "tremendous lift to employee morale."

The bill has not yet been voted on in the Senate.

Homeland Security is not powerless to address the situation for FEMA, said attorney Jacob Statman, who represents federal workers in employment disputes.

While the agency can’t waive the pay cap, a different law grants it the discretion to waive the requirement that a particular employee pay back the excessive compensation, if the employee requests the waiver and the government determines that collection "would be against equity and good conscience and not in the best interests of the United States."

Asked about that prospect, the Office of Personnel Management said in an email that "The head of each agency has authority to administer the overpayment waiver authority" under the statute.

FEMA didn’t comment on whether it might grant such waivers if employees requested them.

Agencies are generally hesitant to grant such waivers, said Richard Loeb, an attorney for the American Federation of Government Employees, in part because waiving repayments could draw scrutiny from their inspector generals.

Former OPM director Donald Devine, who led the agency under President Ronald Reagan, said Congress never should have deprived the executive branch of the authority to waive pay caps in the first place. “You need a certain amount of flexibility in terms of running the government,” Devine said. “Unfortunately, Congress gets frustrated about something, they usually try to find some blunt instrument way to do something.”

 

[candygirl200413]

Voucher Schools Championed By Betsy DeVos Can Teach Whatever They Want. Turns Out They Teach Lies.

So I won't copy cause it's extremely long but it's a good read. It talks about our fav fundamentalists essentially teaching BS to students in the name of religious freedom. I really didn't know how bad it was but it's frankly disgusting. They are quickly breeding the deplorables of the future.

[bashfulpixie]

I just don’t understand how that’s legal!

[Ali]

So it should be okay for a Muslim school to open, teach curriculum with a Muslim slant, and receive vouchers right?

[fraurosena]

The k-k-keebler possum-elf got owned by his own interns!  

 

[AmazonGrace]

Make corruption great again: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Zinke booked government helicopters to attend D.C. events"

Spoiler

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spent more than $14,000 on government helicopters this summer to take himself and staff to and from official events near Washington, D.C., in order to accommodate his attendance at a swearing-in ceremony for his replacement in Congress and a horseback ride with Vice President Mike Pence, according to previously undisclosed official travel documents.

The travel logs, released to POLITICO via a Freedom of Information Act request, show Zinke using taxpayer-funded vehicles from the U.S. Park Police to help accommodate his political events schedule.

In a case detailed in the new documents, Zinke ordered a U.S. Park Police helicopter to take him and his chief of staff, Scott Hommel, to an emergency management exercise in Shepherdstown, W.Va., on June 21.

Zinke’s staff justified the $8,000 flight by saying official business would prevent him leaving Washington before 2 p.m., too late to make the two-hour drive to the exercise, according to the documents.

The event that prevented Zinke from leaving before 2 p.m. was the swearing-in ceremony for Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), according to Zinke's official Interior calendar. Gianforte, who won a special election for Zinke's old seat in May after assaulting a reporter, contributed along with his wife $15,800 to Zinke’s two congressional campaigns.

“Secretary Zinke’s last engagement in Washington D.C. is at 2 p.m.,” an Interior staffer wrote as justification for using the helicopter. “Driving to [the West Virginia event] would not enable him to be on time and fully participate as scheduled.”

Interior defended the trips.

“The swearing in of the Congressman is absolutely an official event, as is emergency management training,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said in an email Thursday. “Shame on you for not respecting the office of a Member of Congress.”

Zinke also ordered a Park Police helicopter to fly him and another Interior official to and from Yorktown, Va., on July 7 in order to be back in Washington in time for a 4 p.m. horseback ride with Pence. The trip cost about $6,250, according to the documents.

The horseback ride through Rock Creek Park also included Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and CMS Administrator Seema Verma, according to a post on Pence’s Facebook page.

While in Yorktown, Zinke completed a walking tour of the local Revolutionary War battlefield and attended a boating industry roundtable discussion, according to the documents. The day before the trip, an Interior trip planner added to the schedule a 30-minute flyover of an area where Dominion Energy is building high-voltage electric transmission lines to run across the James River.

Interior officials originally estimated that driving to Yorktown would take about three hours, although one noted that “there is a major construction project on I-64, which will slow things down.”

In an email to Interior travel scheduler Tim Nigborowicz, an Interior employee justified Zinke’s using the helicopter instead of less expensive method by saying “the Secretary will be able to familiarize himself with the in-flight capabilities of an aircraft he is in charge of” and that the Park Police staff on board would “provide an added measure of security to the Secretary during his travel.”

Interior officials certified ahead of the flight that Zinke’s use of the helicopter would not compromise law enforcement obligations.

The Park Police helicopter, Eagle One, is deployed for medevac and emergency response situations around Washington, a part of its mission Zinke praised later that month.

“U.S. Park Service helicopter pilot and crew provided a life-saving medevac flight during the attack on members of Congress during baseball practice,” Zinke said in the July 25 video celebrating American Heroes Week.

The former Montana congressman and Navy SEAL is already being investigated by the Interior Department’s Inspector General and the independent Office of Special Counsel for his mixing of official travel and political events. Interior earlier this year released records documenting Zinke's use of charter and military aircraft, including a $12,000 flight from Las Vegas to Montana that allowed him to give a speech for a hockey team owned by a major campaign donor.

I'm so glad we could foot the $6K+ bill for Zinke to get back in time to take a horseback ride with Pencey. (end sarcasm)

[GreyhoundFan]

Par for the course in this sham administration: "New CDC head faces questions about financial conflicts of interest"

Spoiler

ATLANTA — After five months in office, President Trump’s new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been unable to divest financial holdings that pose potential conflicts of interest, hindering her ability to fully perform her job.

Brenda Fitzgerald, 71, who served as the Georgia public health commissioner until her appointment to the CDC post in July, said she has divested from many stock holdings. But she and her husband are legally obligated to maintain other investments in cancer detection and health information technology, according to her ethics agreement, requiring Fitzgerald to pledge to avoid government business that might affect those interests. Fitzgerald provided The Post with a copy of her agreement.

Last week, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the senior Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees CDC, wrote that Fitzgerald is raising questions about her ability to function effectively.

“I am concerned that you cannot perform the role of CDC director while being largely recused from matters pertaining to cancer and opioids, two of the most pervasive and urgent health challenges we face as a country,” Murray wrote.

By her reading of the ethics agreement, Murray wrote, Fitzgerald is unable to engage in “key matters relating to cancer,” the second leading cause of death in the United States. Murray said Fitzgerald may also be unable to respond to the opioid crisis “given your apparent conflict with regard to opioids” and specifically with state-based electronic databases used to track and monitor the use of opioids.

In an interview, Fitzgerald dismissed those concerns, saying she was following ethics rules laid out by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CDC. While her ethics agreement requires her to recuse herself from “many particular matters” in cancer detection and health information technology, those recusals are “very limited,” she said.

“I’ve been assured that I can participate in broad policy work,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve done everything the ethics office said that I should do.”

The ethics issue comes amid broader questions about Fitzgerald’s leadership at the agency, a critical bulwark against disease that has been targeted for deep budget cuts by the Trump administration. Congress has restored most funding for next year. But over the next two years, CDC’s work helping other countries detect and control outbreaks is slated to fall dramatically, with ground staff reductions of about 80 percent.

Since her appointment, Fitzgerald has made few public statements, even while visiting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after back-to-back hurricanes scoured the Caribbean. She waited 133 days before holding her first agencywide staff meeting, on Nov. 17. And the CDC had to cancel her first scheduled appearance before Congress, on the opioid epidemic, in early October, because she had not finished shedding financial assets that could pose a conflict of interest, a process she has since completed, aside from the remaining investments questioned by Murray.

Murray has also complained that Fitzgerald has on at least three occasions sent deputies rather than appear herself to testify on the federal response to the opioid crisis at congressional hearings alongside the heads of other government agencies.

Fitzgerald's relatively low profile is in sharp contrast to that of her predecessor, Tom Frieden. Frieden testified frequently on Capitol Hill, led regular media briefings on public-health issues from obesity to Zika, and was a prominent public face of the fight against infectious diseases in the United States and abroad.

Frieden constantly checked messages and often answered emails while talking on the telephone. CDC researchers said it was not unusual for him to call them directly, prompting some to ask whether he was too deep into the weeds.

“Frieden was, at heart, a scientist, and [Fitzgerald is] a clinician, and there is a difference between the two,” said one senior CDC official who requested anonymity because officials are prohibited from making such judgments publicly.

An obstetrician-gynecologist for 30 years, Fitzgerald served as a major in the Air Force and ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice in the 1990s. Named Georgia's public-health chief in 2011, Fitzgerald championed early child development, tobacco control and obesity prevention. She has been criticized for accepting funds from the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Foundation for a childhood obesity program.

Her husband, Thomas Fitzgerald III, is an emergency medicine physician. The couple lives in Carrollton, Ga., about 60 miles west of Atlanta.

During a 36-minute interview with The Washington Post — one of only a few she’s given since taking the job — in the conference room outside her office at CDC’s sprawling headquarters in Atlanta, Fitzgerald said she has spent most of her first three months listening and learning about the agency. She said is strictly abiding by what ethics officials have directed.

Financial-disclosure forms show that she and her husband have combined assets worth $3.8 million to $16 million. A 48-page document shows that the couple’s portfolio has included a wide variety of health-care, pharmaceutical, food and tobacco holdings through companies and investment funds that, for the most part, are widely traded.

“My husband and I, you know, we have worked for 30 years,” she said, noting her time in the private sector. “And, you know, this is our retirement accounts. And so we have a diversified portfolio.”

... < financial disclosure forms >

She and her husband have holdings in two limited liability companies they are not able to divest from because of legal and contractual obligations that are not spelled out in her ethics agreement, dated Sept. 7, two months after she was appointed.

Those companies invest in two other entities, Greenway Health, a health information technology company, and Isommune, a biotech start-up focusing on early cancer detection, according to the agreement.

Fitzgerald says she will “continue to be alert” to sell or transfer those holdings in the future. But until then, she is required to recuse herself from “many particular matters” in cancer detection and health information technology, including electronic health records and software to help medical practices manage revenue, the agreement states. The document does not list additional specifics.

Murray’s letter says Fitzgerald has an “apparent conflict with regard to opioids” and specifically, to state-based electronic databases known as prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs. These databases contain information on controlled-substance prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies and prescribers and are used to track opioid use.

Her ethics agreement does not mention opioids or PDMPs. But the recent White House report on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis recommends more support and funding for incorporating PDMPs with electronic health records and increased use of electronic prescribing, both of which are components of Greenway Health.

Greenway Health was listed among 20 prescribing software vendors working with Ohio’s prescription drug monitoring program during a CDC town hall teleconference for state and local officials in July. The event, titled “Promising Interventions to Improve Prescribing Practices Within States,” included talks from CDC officials and featured presentations from Ohio and Oregon officials.

Fitzgerald has also agreed to avoid participating in government business involving her husband’s consulting company, Thomas E. Fitzgerald III MD Inc., or any of his clients.

In the interview, Fitzgerald said she has no recusals regarding opioids or prescription drug monitoring programs. She added that any potential conflicts on her part will be handled by others at the agency. “Any particular thing that is a particular conflict, we have people who will step in and do that little tiny piece,” Fitzgerald said.

A CDC spokeswoman later issued a clarification. “Dr. Fitzgerald is able to speak about PDMPs as a tool in the opioid response, and she will continue to speak about the opioid public health emergency in general,” spokeswoman Katherine Lyon-Daniel wrote in an email.

Don Fox, acting director and general counsel at the Office of Government Ethics during President Barack Obama's administration, reviewed Fitzgerald’s financial disclosure and ethics agreement and the CDC’s response at The Post’s request.

The wording suggests that HHS ethics officials “have concluded that right now, she has to recuse herself from dealing with a particular policy or strategy on either PDMPs or on the opioid crisis,” Fox said in an interview. “The important thing here is what the ethics officials are not saying,” he added. “They’re not saying she can work on anything to do with PDMPs or the opioid crisis.”

Based on his federal government ethics experience, he said it was unusual that “you would go ahead and appoint someone who had significant parts of the job that they were unable to do, and where there is no visibility as to how long that situation would persist.”

... < ethics disclosure >

The CDC has a budget of about $7 billion and more than 12,000 employees working across the nation and around the globe on everything from food and water safety to heart disease and cancer to infectious disease outbreak prevention.

At her all-staff meeting Nov. 17, Fitzgerald alluded to her low profile and explained that she had been learning about the agency and holding one-on-one meetings with staff. She also outlined a plan to streamline programs around a common focus within four major areas: noninfectious disease, infectious disease, public-health science and public-health service.

Unlike other Trump administration officials who have tried to clear their agencies of longtime staffers, Fitzgerald has made few changes among senior staff at CDC. She hired her former chief of staff at the Georgia health department and a new acting director in CDC’s Washington office. But Anne Schuchat, a highly regarded CDC veteran who served as acting CDC director after Frieden’s departure in January, remains the principal deputy.

Fitzgerald said she has been impressed by the passion of CDC scientists, their rigorous pursuit of science and the world-class work done there. Referring to scientists researching the neglected tropical illness known as Guinea worm disease, she said, “There are people who have studied that one worm for 30 years, and I don’t mean that derogatorily.”

But deep pursuit of science can result in silos that slow down the ability to respond to new health threats that require working together between areas of expertise, she said. One of her priorities will be to “reach across the entire agency” to improve communication within CDC and to the broader public.

Fitzgerald defended her decision not to use her Caribbean trip to deliver public-health messages. “I went to Puerto Rico to do a job,” she said. “I just think when we do routine work, we don’t necessarily send out a press release.”

Supporters inside and outside the agency describe her as engaged and personable and someone who asks good questions. “When you talk to her, she’s very there, and she is very smart,” the senior CDC official said.

Fitzgerald, who likes to be called “Dr. F,” prefers to get in-person briefings, is more comfortable in small groups and has asked staff members not to interrupt her during her lunch break, officials said.

Fitzgerald is viewed by some senior CDC officials as more attuned to politics than Frieden was. Given the polarized climate in Washington, the official said, “that may be a really good thing for a CDC director right now.”

In an email, Frieden said that Fitzgerald's approach appears reasonable and that she has “put excellent people in key positions.” But he added: “The key issue for CDC will be whether it has the budget support from the Administration and Congress to continue protecting the United States, and whether it continues to have scientific independence.”

Of her potential conflicts of interest, he said: “My impression of Dr. Fitzgerald is that she is committed to serving the American people, whether she is directly involved or delegates to the excellent staff at CDC. I am optimistic these issues will be resolved and that the agency will continue protecting the American people from health threats.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Zinke seems to be enjoying his taxpayer-funded jaunts: "A sudden change in Ryan Zinke’s travel plans cost taxpayers nearly $2,000, documents show"

Spoiler

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s decision in April to change his travel plans for a fact-finding trip to Channel Islands National Park in California added nearly $2,000 in costs when he left from Santa Barbara, Calif., where his wife owns a second home, according to emails sent among Interior Department officials.

The documents, obtained by the advocacy group Western Values Project under the Freedom of Information Act, show the extent to which National Park Service staff had to rearrange transportation to accommodate Zinke. The two-day trip — which included Zinke’s wife, Lolita, as well as her aunt, Beatrice Walder — was originally scheduled to depart out of Ventura Harbor aboard a Park Service vessel, the Ocean Ranger.

It is unclear what prompted the change in plans for the April 17-18 trip. The Zinkes had just spent the weekend in Santa Barbara and decided to attend an evening town hall event there on the 17th that the conservative group Young America’s Foundation hosted.

Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall is probing several aspects of Zinke’s travel, including his trips to political gatherings and the extent to which his wife reimbursed the government for costs stemming from her attendance on multiple journeys. In a memo last month, Kendall warned the secretary and his aides that they needed to provide documentation to “distinguish between personal, political and official travel” and that management of his trips had been “deficient.”

Interior press secretary Heather Swift said in an email Monday that the visit “was part of a multi-day visit” to department sites from Sacramento  south to the Channel Islands. Zinke always planned to meet with the team at the national park, “and the office of scheduling reached out to the superintendent’s office as soon as it was clear when he could go.”

For the boat, Swift added, the Zinkes paid via check for her fare and her aunt’s fare. “No costs were incurred due to Mrs. Zinke’s presence.”

Still, the emails chronicle how costs rose after Zinke’s staff stressed he wanted to go in and out of Santa Barbara rather than Ventura.

Russell Galipeau, the Channel Islands superintendent, wrote in an April 7 email that while he was working with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials to use a vessel it had in Santa Barbara, “I urge against it.” A week later, Galipeau wrote that “to accommodate” Zinke’s request, the crew would need to be paid three hours of overtime each, adding $300, and the government would have to add fuel for an additional eight hours of running time at a price of $1,440. The group ultimately used the Park Service’s boat.

In a phone interview Monday, Western Values Project Executive Director Chris Saeger said the fact that government employees had to go to such lengths and that taxpayers incurred a higher bill suggests a broader problem at Interior. “This pattern of behavior is not just a problem for the people who are making the schedule changes,” he said. “The influence they’re exerting over leadership decisions at Interior is sloppy and ethically deficient.”

Swift countered that Saeger’s group is “a classic dark money group which is run by current and former Democratic Party members and campaign staff.”

Channel Islands National Park is the site of a major restoration effort undertaken by the Nature Conservancy with the Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring back native habitat and endemic species such as the island fox, the island scrub-jay and the Santa Catalina Island ironwood. Thousands of sheep, cattle and feral pigs were killed as part of the effort to eliminate invasive species on the network of eight islands.

Zinke was billed $142 on April 25 for the travel costs associated with his wife and her aunt, which grew by mid-June to $152 with late fees. It was paid by the end of June.

The Zinkes were accompanied by Nita Vail, a political supporter of Zinke who had hosted a fundraiser for him in 2014 in Carpinteria, a seaside community about 15 minutes east of Santa Barbara. Vail is a great-granddaughter of the rancher who bought Santa Rosa Island in 1901 and established the Vail & Vickers ranch there. The family, which sold Santa Rosa Island to the federal government for $30 million in 1986, ran cattle on the island until 1998 and operated a commercial hunting business there until 2011.

The National Parks Conservation Association sued in the mid-1990s to end both ranching and big-game hunting on Santa Rosa, arguing that they were degrading crucial habitat. The Vail family closed its hunting business as part of a settlement in that suit.

After touring Santa Rosa with Vail on April 18, Zinke said he would “like to highlight the significant ranching heritage on the island with a working demonstration ranch,” Galipeau said in an email. “At this point it is not clear how this idea will be implemented.”

 

[Howl]

Zinke/House Natural Resources Committee is now pissing on Patagonia (the outdoor gear company)  via Twitter and email, over Patagonia's response to Trump's move to downsize Bears Ears and Escalante/Grandstaircase National Monuments.   The House Natural Resources Committee tweeted that Patagonia is lying and also send out an email blast with Patagonia: Don't buy it.  Zinke retweeted the committee's tweet on his official account. 

Quote

On the day of Trump’s announcement about the monuments, the California-based retailer replaced its usual home page last week with a black screen and stark message: “The President Stole Your Land.” Patagonia filed suit to block the planned reduction to Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument.

In a tweet, the House Natural Resources Committee said Patagonia is “lying” and making the allegation about Trump’s plan “to sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco.”

The Republican-led committee also sent out a widely distributed email with the subject line, “Patagonia: don’t buy it.”

A committee spokesman said Monday the email was not urging a boycott of Patagonia, but rather was telling consumers, “Don’t buy the lies” about Trump’s plan.

“We’re just telling Patagonia: stop selling a false narrative,” said Parish Braden, a spokesman for the committee.

Zinke accused Patagonia of lying about Trump’s actions and retweeted the committee post on his official account.

In response, former government ethics chief Walter Shaub launched a tweet storm, saying Zinke “misused his official position by re-tweeting this wildly inappropriate tweet.”

Shaub, who resigned in July as head of the Office of Government Ethics after repeated battles with the Trump administration, called Zinke “the poster child for this lawless administration’s misuse of governmental authority & resources.”

Zinke’s “thuggish interference with a business is outside the scope of his duties, raising a question as to whether a sovereign immunity defense might fail” if Patagonia sues him for libel or slander, Shaub said.

The committee may have violated House rules against advertising for or against a private individual, firm or corporation, Shaub said.

Full text of article here. 

 

[GrumpyGran]

20 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

While her ethics agreement requires her to recuse herself from “many particular matters” in cancer detection and health information technology, those recusals are “very limited,” she said.

Yeah, I can still sit in office and eat my lunch in private and collect my sizable salary. No worries.

 

20 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“I went to Puerto Rico to do a job,”

I just don't know what it is yet.

This administration has turned our country into one big hen house and released dens of foxes to run wild.