Executive Departments 3

[Audrey2]

Any time you see Trump and National Parks in the same sentence, you know you are in for a bad ride.

As usual, I'm quoting the beginning of the article.

Trump advisory council recommends expanding private business in national parks

https://www.yahoo.com/news/campgrounds-in-national-parks-set-to-be-privatized-in-new-trump-plan-090019066.html

Quote

A Trump administration advisory panel is recommending an ambitious plan to give private businesses greater access to national parks, according to a memorandum written by an advisory council for the Department of the Interior.

Some price increases could also in the works for park visitors under the plan.

That department [The National Parks Department, part of the Interior Department] is headed by David Bernhardt, a former Republican operative and corporate lobbyist who has made no secret of his desire to increase the presence of private enterprise in national parks.

I must quote this little gem as well.

Quote

Crandall also suggests changes that would greatly expand the footprint of private enterprises like KOA and Delaware North within the national park system. If leases and agreements are signed while Trump is in office, it would be difficult — if not impossible — for a subsequent Democratic administration to nullify or curtail such contracts, meaning that a plan the critics call privatization could become a virtually permanent feature of parks like Yellowstone or Shenandoah.

So they want to modernize the campgrounds by offering Wi-Fi and better stores. My friends and I go to campgrounds (but National Forest Service Campgrounds instead of those at National Parks- they seem to be less expensive and not fully booked) to get away from everything, not to spend our time on our phones. Besides, we're on a budget. Two years ago, I planned a four night trip for four people, four tents, two vehicles, and two camp spaces in a National Forest campground with showers for $102/person, including gas, camping, and most of our food. I think our spaces were $18 or $20/night for each. I avoid KOA Kampgrounds as they are more money. Our daytime recreation was spent hiking on our $30/year National Forest Pass and seeing some interesting things. We piled into one vehicle each day (Friend 1 has a truck and friend 2 has a car, which worked for trailheads on good roads).

Quote

Other proposals that Crandall floats include ending senior discounts during certain times of the year; a “market pricing” model that would have an adjustment for inflation and, in all probability, raise prices for all users of campgrounds in national parks; opening up more of the campgrounds to private concessions; and giving concessions operators free housing in the public parks.

Raising the admission prices to the National Parks would also price out some of the biggest park users.

[Howl]

So glad I got the Senior pass when it was still cheap.  I used national parks back in the day when rangers ran the camp grounds and they were awesome.  Now it's a concessionaire and definitely not so good. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Mnuchin has his big lips firmly planted on the orange menace's backside:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Because a photo-op is more important than empathy.

U.S. security chief 'heaped pain' on grieving parents of UK teen

Quote

Donald Trump’s national security adviser heaped pain and grief on the parents of a British teenager killed in a car crash by trying to hold a meeting at the White House between them and a U.S. diplomat’s wife who was involved, the parents’ lawyer said.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn were invited to a surprise meeting with the U.S. president at his office on Wednesday where they were further shocked to learn that Anne Sacoolas, the American woman involved in the fatal crash, was in the building.

Mark Stephens, the lawyer for Charles and Dunn, said national security adviser Robert O’Brien had the idea of overseeing a coming together of the families before they would then hug in front of an assembled media.

“(O’Brien has) heaped grief and pain on the family by making them go through this but not allowing them to get the closure they need by talking to Mrs Sacoolas before they can go onto the grieving stage,” Stephens told BBC radio on Thursday.

Harry Dunn, 19, died after a car driven by Sacoolas collided with his motorbike near RAF Croughton, an air force base in Northamptonshire in central England used by the U.S. military.

His parents want Sacoolas, who left Britain under a disputed claim of diplomatic immunity, to return to England to speak to the police. Through her lawyers, Sacoolas has said she is “devastated” and is willing to meet Dunn’s family.

Dunn’s parents said Trump had been responsive at their meeting but the planned encounter with Sacoolas had come as a bombshell.

“He said he was sorry about Harry and then he sprung the surprise that Mrs Sacoolas was in another room in the building and whether we want to meet her there and then,” Tim Dunn said.

“We said no because as we’ve been saying from the start we want to meet Mrs Sacoolas but we want to do it in the UK so the police can interview her. We didn’t want to be sort of railroaded, not into a circus as such, but a meeting we weren’t prepared for.”

While Trump and O’Brien had ruled out Sacoolas returning to Britain, Charles said Trump had taken her hand and promised to try to look at the issue from another angle. Stephens said that offer had left open the opportunity for a political solution.

“We have said for a long time the family needs to meet, they need to meet in private, away from the media and not curated by politicians, spies or indeed lawyers,” he said.

“Most sensible folk and not a nincompoop in a hurry would understand that.”

 

[mamallama]

They literally think they're producing a reality show.

 

[Howl]

10 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Because a photo-op is more important than empathy.

U.S. security chief 'heaped pain' on grieving parents of UK teen

I literally can't catch my breath.  This is beyond horrible, and will likely be covered relentlessly in the UK press.

[Howl]

As many people have said, There. Is. No. Bottom. 

[fraurosena]

Rick Perry has resigned. This frees him up to testify.

 

Rick Perry Resigns As Energy Secretary Amid Ukraine Drama

Quote

President Donald Trump's record-breaking turnover in his Cabinet is continuing, as Energy Secretary Rick Perry officially tendered his resignation from his White House post. Perry reportedly informed Trump of his resignation Thursday, and the president confirmed Perry's imminent departure to reporters before a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Texas later that day. “Rick and I have been talking for six months. In fact, I thought he might go a bit sooner. But he’s got some very big plans,” Trump said. The president added that Perry would leave the White House by the end of the year, referring to the energy secretary as a “very good friend of mine.” “I'm going to miss you so much,” Trump told Perry at the event.

Perry's exit comes after months of speculation that the energy secretary was on his way out, which were renewed in the wake of the burgeoning Ukraine scandal. The energy secretary had previously denied the rumors, though, telling reporters October 7, “I’m here. I’m serving.” “They’ve been writing the story that I was leaving the Department of Energy for at least nine months now,” Perry said. “One of these days they'll probably get it right. But it’s not today. It’s not tomorrow. It’s not next month.” Sources cited by Bloomberg, however, suggest the secretary has intended to tender his resignation since even before the current chaos with Ukraine, and the 69-year-old has told friends he wants to earn more money in the private sector before retiring. While a successor to Perry's post has not yet been named, Trump suggested Thursday that he already has a replacement in mind. “We have his successor, we’ll announce it pretty soon,” Trump said. “We’ll be announcing the replacement, and he—I think it’s a he in this particular case— I think he’ll do a fantastic job.”

Unlike so many other members of Trump's cabinet, Perry largely managed to avoid scandal during his tenure at the Department of Energy, which began soon after Trump's inauguration in 2017. Despite famously having called for the agency to be eliminated—and forgetting its name—as a presidential primary candidate, the energy secretary even oversaw the agency's expansion, with the New York Times noting that the agency's budget was expanded by nearly 25% while Perry was in office. Yet Perry has more recently gotten wrapped up in the Trumpworld drama, becoming one of the White House officials to be embroiled in the ongoing Ukraine saga. The cabinet secretary, along with Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, was reportedly one of the “three amigos” who became responsible for the administration's agenda in Ukraine, and Perry's trip to Ukraine for President Volodymyr Zelensky's inauguration was cited in the whistle-blower report. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Perry said that he had reached out to Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine at Trump's request. “As I recall the conversation, [Giuliani] said, ‘Look, the president is really concerned that there are people in Ukraine that tried to beat him during this presidential election,’” Perry told the Journal. “ ‘He thinks they’re corrupt and . . . that there are still people over there engaged that are absolutely corrupt.’” “I don’t know whether that was crap or what,” Perry added about Giuliani's claims. Trump has also personally dragged Perry into the Ukraine mess, claiming to House Republicans that he had made his infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky at Perry's request.

Perry's role in the Ukraine saga and resulting impeachment inquiry likely won't end with his resignation. The secretary faces a Friday deadline to comply with a House subpoena for documents related to Ukraine, and Democratic lawmakers are particularly interested in having Perry testify about his role in the administration's Ukrainian campaign, particularly in the wake of his resignation. While the soon-to-be private citizen has so far demurred about whether he'll participate in the probe, saying he would follow the direction of the Energy Department and White House counsel, sources cited by Politico say Perry “may cooperate as a way to salvage his reputation before he departs.” “For the most part, he has a lot to lose by getting embroiled in this and he’s not going to want to hide things,” a source in the energy industry close to the administration told Politico Thursday. “He’s going to want to extract himself as cleanly as he can from this snare.”

 

[Howl]

Rick looked down the road and saw the bus acomin'.  Texas' ex-Gov. Good Hair isn't the smartest but he's got feral survival instincts + has a lot of powerful non-stupid lawyers and advisers who he actually listens  to. 

 

[Howl]

Besides the fact that Pompeo is, as one author quoted a very experienced person in the State Department, "a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass," I'm intrigued by Pompeo. 

He was first in his f**cking class at West Point, and has achieved this and that but never been really, truly successful.  He's been elected to this and that, but many people thing he's been awful at his elected offices.

One might say that being Sec of State is a big deal, but he's truly awful at Secretary of State-ing; he's flailing and now he's taken to whinging and whining.  West Point ostensibly teaches leadership, but State Dept is imploding under his feet because he isn't demonstrating effective leadership chops. 

[WiseGirl]

What the fuck. 

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, Howl said:

Besides the fact that Pompeo is, as one author quoted a very experienced person in the State Department, "a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass," I'm intrigued by Pompeo. 

He was first in his f**cking class at West Point, and has achieved this and that but never been really, truly successful.  He's been elected to this and that, but many people thing he's been awful at his elected offices.

One might say that being Sec of State is a big deal, but he's truly awful at Secretary of State-ing; he's flailing and now he's taken to whinging and whining.  West Point ostensibly teaches leadership, but State Dept is imploding under his feet because he isn't demonstrating effective leadership chops. 

This just goes to show that you may be good at learning, but terrible in putting it into practice. The first says something about your talent, the latter says something about your character.

[fraurosena]

Not exactly an executive department, but for want of a better place I'm posting this here:

White House cybersecurity chief quits, says leadership is inviting an attack

Quote

White House computer security Chief Dimitrios Vistakis gave the White House one helluva resignation notice earlier this week when he quit over practices he dubbed “absurd” including the systemic purging of cybersecurity staff.

The above quote, taken from a memo obtained by Axios and sent by Vistakis summarizes the former director’s worries. The rest of the letter paints the picture of a Trump administration hellbent on purging the Obama-appointed security specialists tasked with defending White House computers in the wake of a 2014 breach.

The Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO), according to Vistakis, has been targeted by White House leadership for removal. He reports that leaders employed tactics such as “habitually being hostile” to OCISO members, withholding annual bonuses, and limiting workers’ job scopes in order to force them to quit.

Vistakis also says that, since his office was implemented, the White House has suffered no further incidents like the 2014 breach. However, it appears the Trump administration has justified the drawdown by moving the goalposts. He writes:

Also of concern is the metric leadership is leveraging to gauge success of the cybersecruity program. Measuring the success of your security staff by the frequency major compromises are identified versus the duration of time since the last compromise is absurd.

Vistakis greatest complaint seems to be that White House officials are prioritizing the President’s comfort or convenience over actual computer security.

This isn’t the only technology or science related office the President’s gutted. Since coming into office he’s turned the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science and Technology Council into ghost towns.

Click here to read the full memo, via Axios.

 

[Howl]

This is so bad.  This guy is a Lyndon F**king LaRouche adherent.  

Trump’s Public Lands Chief Wrote For A Cult Extremist’s Magazine

William Perry Pendley authored anti-environmental screeds for Lyndon LaRouche. Now he controls 10% of the U.S. landmass.

Who me?  Depressed?  Feeling a little crazy?  It's MONDAY.  I need to get out to the SW before it's all gone! 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of course: "EPA to scale back federal rules restricting waste from coal-fired power plants"

Spoiler

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday plans to relax rules that govern how power plants store waste from burning coal and release water containing toxic metals into nearby waterways, according to agency officials.

The proposals, which scale back two rules adopted in 2015, affect the disposal of fine powder and sludge known as “coal ash,” as well as contaminated water that power plants produce while burning coal. Both forms of waste can contain mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that pose risks to human health and the environment.

The new rules would allow extensions that could keep unlined coal ash waste ponds open for as long as eight additional years. The biggest benefits from the rule governing contaminated wastewater would come from the voluntary use of new filtration technology.

Trump administration officials revised the standards in response to recent court rulings, as well as to petitions from companies that said they could not afford to meet stringent requirements enacted under the Obama administration. They also reflect President Trump’s broader goal of bolstering America’s coal industry at a time when natural gas and renewable energy provide more affordable sources of electricity for consumers.

Under the Obama-era rule, coal ash ponds leaking contaminants into groundwater that exceeded federal protection standards had to close by April 2019. The Trump administration extended that deadline until October 2020 in a rule it finalized last year.

In August 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit instructed the EPA to require that companies overhaul ponds, including those lined with clay and compacted soil, even if there was no evidence that sludge was leaking into groundwater.

In a statement, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Obama-era rules “placed heavy burdens on electricity producers across the country.”

“These proposed revisions support the Trump administration’s commitment to responsible, reasonable regulations,” Wheeler said, “by taking a common-sense approach that will provide more certainty to U.S. industry while also protecting public health and the environment.”

Under the new proposal, companies will have to stop placing coal ash into unlined storage ponds near waterways by Aug. 31, 2020, and either retrofit these sites to make them more secure or begin to close them. Unlike the Obama-era rules, the EPA will allow greater leeway and more time for operators to request extensions ranging from 90 days to three years, until Oct. 15, 2023, if they can persuade regulators that they need more time to properly dispose of the waste.

Moreover, if a company can demonstrate that it is shutting down a coal boiler, it can petition to keep its storage ponds open for as long as eight years, depending on their size. Slurry ponds smaller than 40 acres could get approval to stay in place until Oct. 15, 2023, officials said, while larger ones could remain open until Oct. 15, 2028.

In a phone interview Sunday, American Public Power Association general counsel Delia Patterson said the proposed rules reflect the fact that it can take time to design, permit and construct new facilities that can pass muster.

“I think the EPA is actually acknowledging the reality of the situation. It’s just really not in anyone’s interest to rush this,” said Patterson, whose group represents publicly owned utilities that provide 15 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Environmentalists have sharply criticized the proposals, arguing these containment sites pose serious risks to the public at a time when more frequent and intense flooding, fueled in part by climate change, could destabilize them and contaminate drinking water supplies that serve millions of people. The rules will be subject to public comment for 60 days.

During the past decade, Tennessee and North Carolina have experienced major coal ash spills that have destroyed homes and contaminated rivers, resulting in sickened cleanup workers and massive lawsuits.

The question of how to handle coal waste, which is stored in roughly 450 sites across the country, has vexed regulators for decades. The Obama administration negotiated for years with environmental groups, electric utilities and other affected industries about how to address the waste, which can poison wildlife and poses health risks to people living near storage sites.

Lisa Evans, an attorney specializing in hazardous waste law for the environmental group Earthjustice, said allowing the electric industry to extend the life of coal ash pits represents a particular threat to low-income and minority Americans, who often live near such installations.

“Allowing plants to continue to dump toxic waste into leaking coal ash ponds for another 10 years will cause irreversible damage to drinking water sources, human health and the nation’s waters,” Evans said in an email. She added it was not surprising the coal industry had lobbied against closing these storage sites. “Operating ponds is cheap. Closing them costs the utilities money,” she said.

It is also likely to add to ordinary consumers’ costs. Last year, for example, a member of the Virginia State Corporation Commission estimated it could cost ratepayers as much as $3.30 a month over 20 years — between $2.4 billion and $5.6 billion — to clean up Virginia-based Dominion Energy’s 11 coal ash ponds and six coal ash landfills in the state.

The EPA’s proposals will retain several of the monitoring and public disclosure standards put in place in 2015, officials said, requiring companies to monitor nearby groundwater, publicly report the data and address any leaks that pollute area waterways. The “vast majority” of slurry ponds “are on the road to closure” under the new rule, an EPA official said.

Using monitoring data disclosed for the first time under the 2015 rule, a report published jointly earlier this year by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice found 91 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants reported elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, lithium, chromium and other pollutants in nearby groundwater.

The vast majority of ponds and landfills holding coal waste at hundreds of power plants across the country have leaked toxic chemicals into nearby groundwater at facilities from Texas to Pennsylvania to Maryland, according to that analysis. The report acknowledged, however, that the groundwater data alone does not prove drinking-water supplies near the coal waste facilities have been contaminated. Power companies are not routinely required to test nearby drinking water wells. “So the scope of the threat is largely undefined,” the report stated.

The EPA on Monday will also revise requirements for how power plants discharge wastewater, which contain some of the same kind of contaminants. Under the Obama administration, EPA staff had concluded it was feasible to prohibit any releases of such toxic materials by having the units continually recycle their water. The agency has now concluded this is far more costly than originally anticipated, and technological advances have made it cheaper to filter and capture the waste through a membrane system, officials said.

Under the new rule, plants would be allowed to discharge 10 percent of their water each day, on a 30-day rolling average. The administration projects that the regulation would prevent 105 million pounds of pollutants from being released compared with the old standards because 18 affected plants would voluntarily adopt a more advanced filtration system. The administration also estimated it would save the industry $175 million each year in compliance costs and yield an additional $15 million to $69 million in annual public health and environmental benefits.

However, even if the 18 plants voluntarily adopted more advanced filtration techniques, they represent a minority of the nation’s total number of plants.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Southerland, former director of science and technology at the EPA’s Office of Water, said the proposed rule “relaxes the 2015 treatment requirements allowing increased selenium discharges and [the] release of contaminated water from coal ash handling. Even worse, it exempts a large number of plants from these relaxed requirements, allowing them to discharge more pollutants and continue disposing of ash in leaking ponds.”

Patterson said that while it may be “just hard to understand” why companies need more time and flexibility, plant operators have no interest in contaminating nearby waterways. “They live in and around these communities.”

Evans said environmentalists are likely to challenge the new rule on coal ash storage and the federal government could again reverse course if a Democrat wins the presidency next year. She noted that, because 95 percent of coal ash ponds remain unlined, two-thirds lie within five feet of groundwater and 92 percent leak more than federal health standards allow, they could pose a risk to the public even as litigation winds its way through the federal courts.

“We have to hope that no wells are poisoned and no toxic waste is spilled in the interim,” she said. “Crossing your fingers is not a legal or sane way to regulate toxic waste.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump allies received hundreds of thousands of dollars under federal health contract"

Spoiler

At least eight former White House, presidential transition and campaign officials for President Donald Trump were hired as outside contractors to the federal health department at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, according to documents newly obtained by POLITICO.

They were among at least 40 consultants who worked on a one-year, $2.25 million contract directed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma. The contractors were hired to burnish Verma’s personal brand and provide “strategic communications” support. They charged up to $380 per hour for work traditionally handled by dozens of career civil servants in CMS's communications department.

The arrangement allowed the Trump allies to cycle through the federal government's opaque contracting system, charging hefty fees with little public oversight or accountability.

Over a four-and-a-half month stretch from September 2018 to January, the contractors collectively billed at least $744,000. The Department of Health and Human Services halted the contract in April in the face of widespread criticism after POLITICO reported on Verma's extensive use of communications consultants.

But under the terms hammered out last year, revealed for the first time, CMS agreed to allow at least four consultants to bill up to $204,000 over the length of the contract. That included one longtime Verma ally — Marcus Barlow, her spokesperson while she was an Indiana-based consultant to then-Gov. Mike Pence — who was greenlighted to bill as much as $425,000 for about a year’s worth of work.

Those are far higher rates than for the department's regular communications staff and even the agency’s top political appointees. Senior career officials in the CMS communications department were paid about $140,000 last year. HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s annual salary is $203,500, a spokesperson said.

POLITICO obtained roughly 200 pages of billing documents, which were prepared by HHS in response to a congressional oversight request, from a former House staffer and confirmed the authenticity of the files with multiple sources.

The GOP consultants mostly worked as subcontractors through Nahigian Strategies, a communications firm that's hired multiple veterans of the Republican party and GOP campaigns. The firm was brought in by Trump officials under the umbrella of public relations giant Porter Novelli, which has long maintained a slew of contracts with the federal government.

Nahigian Strategies is run by brothers Ken Nahigian — who led the Trump transition team in early 2017 — and Keith Nahigian, who has worked for multiple GOP presidential campaigns. Over a four-month period reviewed by POLITICO, Nahigian Strategies collectively charged $275,565 for a range of strategic communications duties, and the brothers themselves billed roughly $56,970 for their personal services at a $379.80 hourly rate.

The contractors brought in by the Nahigians included Brad Rateike, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign and former White House communications official before leaving the administration in July 2018. Six months later, Rateike billed roughly $1,150 for just three-and-a-half hours of work as an outside consultant.

Maggie Mulvaney — a Republican fundraiser — charged more than $2,500 for a stint as a contractor in October 2018. She has since joined the Trump reelection campaign. Zachary Lamb, who staffed the advance team for Trump’s 2016 run, billed $7,388.52 that same month.

And Taylor Mason, a Nahigian Strategies employee who was formerly a regional press secretary for Trump’s inaugural committee, accounted for at least $54,900 in charges for four months of work in late 2018 and early 2019.

Lynn Hatcher, a former intern for Vice President Mike Pence before joining Nahigian Strategies, and Justin Caporale, who was a top aide in the Trump White House, briefly worked on behalf of CMS after leaving the White House.

Pam Stevens, who did two short stints in the Trump administration, was brought in to CMS as an independent consultant through Porter Novelli. The firm billed CMS roughly $280 per hour for Stevens, a longtime GOP media adviser who specializes in promoting Republican women.

Rateike, Mulvaney, Lamb, Mason and Hatcher didn’t respond to requests for comment. Caporale declined a request to comment. Stevens referred all questions to CMS, as did Porter Novelli.

Nahigian Strategies president Keith Nahigian said in a statement: “Our decades-long experience working as a GSA-qualified subcontractor to more than a dozen federal agencies, including HHS and CMS, is nonpartisan and spans Republican and Democratic Administrations, and those familiar with our work know the exceptional quality and expertise of our team and the skills of our partners."

CMS called its use of contractors appropriate and in line with long-standing practices, contending in a statement that it did not have the in-house staff needed to carry out an ambitious messaging campaign promoting Verma's policy priorities for the agency.

“When the administrator started in 2017, she wanted to ensure that the agency was communicating with the American people about CMS programs and not just relying on inside-the-beltway health press,” a CMS spokesperson told POLITICO. “At that point, CMS did not have the specialized expertise or bandwidth needed to execute on a strategic communications plan for the agency’s work in ensuring all Americans have access to affordable, high quality health care.”

But the agency’s heavy reliance on contractors — spanning nearly two years and drawing on multiple political operatives — alarmed current and former CMS officials and government ethics experts, who questioned the appearance and justification for outsourcing a substantial portion of the agency's communications duties. By early 2019, CMS also had hired multiple political appointees to help manage Verma’s communications.

“It's the classic revolving door,” said Scott Amey, who leads investigations into government contracts for the Project on Government Oversight. Amey added that the number of consultants with ties to the White House or the Trump campaign raises further concerns. “If there's pressure from the top of the agency to hire these people, you worry about whether this is payoff for old friends.”

Verma, who herself previously worked as an independent consultant, has played a central and controversial role in crafting the Trump administration's health agenda as its top official in charge of Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

A fierce advocate for cutting waste in federal health spending, Verma has championed efforts to tie Medicaid benefits to employment, unwind parts of Obamacare and loosen insurance coverage requirements — and taken on an increasingly political role as a prominent critic of Democratic health proposals like "Medicare for All."

That has won her praise from conservatives within the White House and GOP. But Democrats and the broader health care community have sharply criticized Verma's policy priorities as designed to cut benefits and patient protections, and several of those policies have faced court challenges over their legality.

Nahigian Strategies became intertwined with the health department over the first two years of the administration — helping coordinate Verma’s communications strategy, write her speeches, manage her events and set up interviews, according to four people familiar with CMS' operations and contracting details reviewed by POLITICO.

Even before the strategic communications contract took effect in September 2018, Nahigian Strategies had served as a subcontractor in earlier arrangements, according to emails and separate contracting documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests — during which it played a key role in shaping Verma’s messages and handling her interactions with the press.

Verma directed the subcontracts with Nahigian Strategies, said two people with knowledge of her strategy, in part because she wanted to assemble a team that included Barlow, whom she’d initially sought to hire as her communications director.

Barlow — who previously worked for a series of Indiana Republicans — had served as a spokesperson for Verma's own health policy consulting firm, SVC Inc., prior to her appointment to Trump's health department. But Barlow was blocked from following Verma into CMS after the White House found out he'd written a column in an Indianapolis newspaper calling Trump “offensive and ignorant” and vowing never to support him in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Instead, Barlow became a highly paid shadow staffer — helping write Verma’s speeches, providing strategic advice and even screening potential CMS hires, first as an employee of Nahigian Strategies and later as an independent consultant, according to his billing records and multiple people familiar with the workings of the department. Between September 2018 and January, Barlow billed CMS for more than $150,000 as an independent consultant.

Barlow referred all questions about his work for the agency to CMS.

HHS halted the contract in April after POLITICO first reported on its existence, prompting the HHS inspector general to open a review. Top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, House Oversight Committee, Senate Finance Committee and Senate HELP Committee have since launched their own probe into CMS' use of outside consultants.

At a congressional hearing last month, Verma defended the contract and her broader use of consultants.

“All the contracts we have at CMS are based on promoting the work of CMS,” Verma said in response to questioning from Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Those contracts that we have in place are consistent with how the agency has used resources in the past.”

Previous administrations have indeed utilized contractors to aid the rollout of new laws and programs, such as the Obama administration's public launch of the Affordable Care Act.

But health department veterans stressed that those contractors were traditionally relied on for specific initiatives, not the daily work of the agency or for so narrowly supporting a senior official. There is similarly little precedent for a top political appointee like Verma directing government funds toward consultants dedicated to boosting her public visibility — let alone so many of them.

In addition to bringing on Nahigian Strategies as a subcontractor, Porter Novelli dispatched at least 20 of its in-house public affairs, branding and social media specialists to CMS at various points over the four-and-a-half months. It also utilized several other independent consultants who specialized in communications and speechwriting.

The contractors' deep involvement with CMS' activities concerned the agency's career staff, three people familiar with CMS' inner workings said, causing some to raise objections over devoting so many taxpayer dollars to bring in outside help.

In a statement to POLITICO, CMS did not answer specific questions about the contractors' duties and whether their work troubled any agency leaders, saying only that it followed standard government contracting procedures and that CMS routinely relies on thousands of contractors for "critical day-to-day operations."

The majority of the consultants with ties to the Trump administration were brought in through a subcontractor, a CMS spokesperson noted, adding that "CMS was not involved in their employment, which was a business decision of the subcontractor."

Government ethics experts said that the consultants’ work still deserved additional scrutiny.

“There are real questions about the need for these services and are these services duplicative of what PR people inside the agency are already doing,” said POGO’s Amey. “There are quite a few red flags that go up here, in terms of the services that are being outsourced, the rates that are being paid and the connections of the people being hired that are worth an HHS inspector general investigation.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Only the best people... "She inflated her resume and peddled a fake Time cover. Trump appointed her to the State Department."

Spoiler

Mina Chang sports a subtle smile on the cover of a Time magazine “Special Edition,” with a swaggering headline that reads, “We change the world: Modern humanitarian in the digital age.”

The cover shot was among the photographs Chang brought to a January 2017 interview about countering violent extremism. At the time, the State Department senior official was the chief executive of a small nonprofit, and she appeared on the public affairs show to discuss efforts to curb the influence of groups such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram.

But five minutes into the interview, the show’s host suggests that they “take a look at some pictures you brought with you of your work around the world.”

The Time magazine cover flashed on-screen.

“Here you are on Time magazine, congratulations,” the host, Mary Sit, said to Chang. “Tell me about this cover and how this came to be.”

Chang explained that her organization used “drone technology in disaster response.”

“I suppose I brought some attention to that,” she said.

What she did not say, however, is that the cover was fake.

The fabricated Time cover is just one of Chang’s listed accomplishments and résumé line items that has come into question after an NBC News investigation found that the 35-year-old Trump appointee embellished her work history and made misleading claims about her professional background. It has been a persistent problem for President Trump’s administration: an apparent failure to recognize red flags when vetting potential hires and appointees.

Last year, The Washington Post reported the story of a 24-year-old former Trump campaign worker who was quickly promoted to a leading role in the White House’s drug policy office. Taylor Weyeneth was quietly fired after The Post story cast doubt on his qualifications.

In August, Trump withdrew his nominee for director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), saying the embattled pick had been treated “very unfairly” by the media. Ratcliffe had bragged that as a federal prosecutor he “arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day.” But that was not true, The Post reported then.

After he announced the change of plans, Trump defended the White House’s failure to scrutinize Ratcliffe’s background.

“I give out a name to the press, and they vet for me,” Trump said. “We save a lot of money that way.”

The latest round of media vetting, then, turned up several more problematic claims, this time from Chang, who in April joined the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations as a deputy assistant secretary. At one point, she was up for a more senior post at the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Asia, but in September, her nomination was withdrawn without explanation.

Officials at the White House and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment, or to questions about Chang’s purported qualifications. The agency also did not make Chang available for comment or an interview. It is unclear whether Chang has the top-secret security clearance typical for an official of her level.

In her State Department biography, which appears to include the same photograph used in the doctored Time cover, Chang claims that she is “an alumna of the Harvard Business School” who has “addressed the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.” A similar bio appears on the website of the think tank New America. She also used her Twitter account for self-promotion — but by Tuesday night, it was offline.

Chang did complete a program at Harvard, but one very different from the prestigious institution’s master of business administration degree. Chang attended an eight-week course known as the “Advanced Management Program,” Brian Kenny, Harvard Business School’s chief marketing and communications officer, told The Post.

The program’s website says that graduates of the course “will become a lifetime member of the HBS alumni community,” but Kenny said it is “not on the same footing as an MBA.” Last year, the school’s acceptance rate for its MBA program was 11 percent, he said. But the Advanced Management Program has open enrollment. As long as an applicant’s employer sponsors them, and the firm can meet certain standards and foot the $82,000 fee, the person is admitted.

He said the proper way to list such an experience on a résumé would be to declare oneself “an alum of the Advanced Management Program” and then note the year the course was completed. In her bio, Chang was not specific.

Her claims about speaking to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions also seem to be false or misleading. She did address the Global Oval, an international affairs policy summit convened during both conventions in the cities where they were held.

However, those were not convention-sponsored events, confirmed a representative for one of the organizations that put them together. Speaking there would not be considered addressing the convention, the representative said.

Chang also exaggerated the scope of her nonprofit’s work, NBC News reported. In public appearances, she claimed Linking the World operated in dozens of countries and impacted thousands of people. But her organization’s tax filings do not contain concrete information about overseas projects and show a budget of less than $300,000 with a handful of staff, according to NBC News.

The president himself has overstated — often to an absurd degree — everything from his personal wealth to his charitable giving and his own IQ.

And in June 2017, half a year after Chang debuted her cover story, The Post found that Trump had his own fake copies of Time magazine — on display in at least five of his golf clubs.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Soldiers with top-secret clearances say they were forced to use an app that could endanger them"

Spoiler

Soldiers in an intelligence unit with top-secret clearances were ordered by their commander to download an information app, triggering fear their secretive work could be harnessed and exploited by adversary governments, soldiers in the unit told The Washington Post.

Army Col. Deitra L. Trotter, the commander of Fort Hood’s 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, told her soldiers in late October a new app developed for the unit could provide weather updates, training changes and other logistics. She then told the soldiers to download it onto their personal smartphones, according to the Texas-based soldiers in the unit.

But the soldiers — many of whom have jobs in interrogation, human intelligence and counterintelligence — soon noticed that the app’s terms of service said it could collect substantial amounts of personal data and that the developer has a presence overseas.

That caused widespread concern that a hack could put individuals and missions worldwide at risk, soldiers in the unit said.

“We do top-secret work,” said one noncommissioned officer, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution by their chain of command. “If our personal information is being put out there to a foreign power, what can they get from our brigade?”

Intelligence soldiers specialize in siphoning enemy communications and groom sources to deliver information about their foes, like their location and what weapons or capabilities they may have.

When they deploy, some soldiers grow their hair out and wear civilian clothes to obscure their military roles and don’t disclose their work outside of close family, another noncommissioned officer in the 504th said.

The app’s permissions — which suggested it could pull GPS location data, photos, contacts and even rewrite memory cards — frustrated soldiers who have taken extreme precautions they felt were glossed over by Trotter and other senior leaders.

“Just being in intelligence, we are trained to be extremely paranoid of everything,” the soldier said. “This is serious operational security not being considered.”

The worst-case scenario, he said, was “our cover might be blown.” While the app said permissions could be disabled, the soldiers said there was a failure of confidence it was secure. Senior leaders checked the phones of subordinates to ensure they had the app installed, soldiers in the unit said.

Adversarial governments and intelligence agencies prize gateways to people who collect and manage classified information, said David Forscey, the managing director of the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity Group.

Sensitive information like loan debts, history of drug use or even a trail of adultery through dating apps are all pieces of information that can be used to blackmail soldiers or coerce them to hand over classified information, he said.

“One reason drug use is a question in background investigations is the U.S. wants to see what people could have to compromise you,” Forscey said.

Even if secrets gathered from a soldier aren’t apparent now, they could be useful later if correlated with other data, Forscey said.

For instance, he said, there is belief that a massive Chinese hack of U.S. security clearances may have been paired with theft of medical information in the Anthem hack to find U.S. officials with access to classified information who may also have big hospital bills — making them a prime target for exploitation.

And if a soldier leaves the military and enters the CIA or another agency, “it would be useful for China to know who they are and what they look like.”

That is why U.S. officials should balance the risk of divulging sensitive information with the potential payoff, he said, which was not clear for an app that delivers rudimentary updates, like training changes or weather cancellations.

The app developer, Straxis LLC, is based in Tulsa but has a subsidiary in southern India. User data wasn’t stored on foreign servers and third parties do not have access to data, a company spokesperson said.

Questions about security reviews during development, what user data was collected and development costs were referred to the 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, which did not address them or make Trotter available.

The concern among service members circulated on Army Reddit and the Army WTF! moments Facebook page, a popular digital hangout for soldiers. Soldiers deleted the app in revolt. Trotter called another formation Wednesday to address the controversy, admonishing whomever talked about the issue online, soldiers in the unit said.

The app was later removed from both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store.

“We are confident that the appropriate security protocols are in place to protect our Soldiers’ personally identifiable information,” the unit said, calling the app an unclassified communications tool. Straxis, the brigade said, had developed similar apps for other units.

The app was removed for a “preplanned maintenance update” and will return to the app stores, the unit said, although it did not explain the timing of the removal right after the outcry within the unit.

On Wednesday, the brigade said the soldiers had no “formal obligation” to download the app.

A day later, it reversed course, conceding the app was originally “mandatory,” but following “further discussion and feedback” from unit soldiers, the brigade decided it would only “highly encourage” use of the app.

The soldiers also were frustrated over the legal review of an order to install an app on personal smartphones. Trotter told the soldiers that her decision was reviewed by Army attorneys, they said, but it was unclear to soldiers if Trotter could mandate an app on their privately owned devices.

One soldier said he was often away from his wife, and they sent intimate photos to each other. He could not be sure if they would land onto a server monitored by his commanders.

“I don’t want someone else looking at my wife’s [breasts],” he said.

The military has recently blundered in cyberspace, including an issue where troops with fitness apps unwittingly broadcast location data at secret bases worldwide.

And between July 2017 and January 2018, the Army accidentally emailed spreadsheets containing sensitive information about immigrant recruits from China and Russia to some recruits themselves.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"State Department inspector general slams smear campaign against employee"

Spoiler

The State Department’s inspector general rebuked a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday, saying the aide had played a role in reassigning a staffer suspected of being disloyal to the Trump administration.

The inspector general’s report recommended that Pompeo consider disciplining Brian Hook, currently the point man for Iran policy. The report, however, covers Hook’s previous tenure as head of an in-house think tank known as the Policy Planning Office, which is located on the department’s storied seventh floor near the secretary’s office.

The report cited a chain of emails among senior officials, including Hook, and prominent conservatives, following an article in the Conservative Review that characterized a staffer in the office as a “trusted Obama aide” who had “burrowed” into the State Department during the Trump administration. She was dismissed from Hook’s staff three months early, a decision the inspector general concluded was based not on merit but on improper, inappropriate and false perceptions of her political opinions, association with the previous administration and her national origin.

The State Department and Hook both condemned the conclusions as unfair.

The long-awaited report on political machinations in the Office of the Secretary took more than a year to complete and covers a period at the beginning of the Trump administration, when Rex Tillerson was secretary of state.

But it crystallizes the ongoing tensions that have bedeviled the State Department throughout the Trump administration, as political appointees have disparaged career professionals as “deep state” bureaucrats trying to undermine President Trump’s agenda. From the beginning of the administration, Democrats have complained that some officials, feeding off conspiracy theories promulgated by conservative activists, have spread false accusations in an attempt to purge the State Department and White House of apolitical diplomats and civil servants.

It comes on the heels of another inspector general’s report in August that reprimanded the leaders of the bureau overseeing international organization affairs for mistreating and harassing staffers. It said leaders had accused them of political disloyalty and retaliated against them.

The report is imbued with a theme that has emerged in the House impeachment inquiry, in which veteran diplomats have spoken of political considerations infecting foreign policy decisions, particularly in the case of Ukraine.

The one complaint that permeates both inspector general’s reports and the unfolding impeachment inquiry is the mistreatment of professional staffers by political appointees.

Transitions between administrations — particularly those from opposing parties — are often filled with rough patches that eventually smooth over. But State Department veterans, who pride themselves on working through multiple administrations, say they have never experienced so much politicization as that imposed on Foggy Bottom in the Trump administration.

The latest inspector general’s report said the office had looked at five cases. But it said it found no evidence of inappropriate factors in two cases. It was unable to make any conclusion in two other cases, in part because of the “inability to gain essential information from key decision-makers” on the motives for personnel decisions. It found convincing evidence in only one case.

Although the report did not name her, the facts match the description of the treatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a State Department Iran expert who is of Iranian descent. Not long after Trump took office, she emailed Hook asking for his help in countering and possibly correcting news reports that were wrong.

According to the report, her problems began after the Conservative Review published an article in March 2017, titled “Iran Deal Architect Is Now Running Tehran Policy at the State Department.” It stated, “Why Secretary Tillerson has decided to keep on a chief Obama policy official remains unclear.” The email was forwarded to State Department political appointees by at least four people, including Newt Gingrich, who had been emailed a copy by an adviser to former vice president Richard B. Cheney.

Nowrouzzadeh, who was born in the United States and joined the federal government in 2005 when George W. Bush was president, said the article misrepresented her background and made her fear for her job, as well as her safety. She asked Hook to help correct the article, but he did not reply to her.

In an eight-page response included in the report, Hook disputed many details of the inspector's report and denied that political factors played any role in his decision to replace Nowrouzzadeh with another Iran expert he had been recruiting already. He said the report was written in a "highly politically motivated and biased manner." The inspector general acknowledged it had no emails from him stating any political motivations, but said that did not fully explain why he agreed to remove her.

Hook said he had decided to make a personnel change before any internal discussion among other officials about the allegations. He said he neither knew nor cared about her political opinions, ethnic origin or previous work in the Obama administration.

“It would be wrong to graft the motives of anyone in the Department to my motives or to assume the motives of others were my motives,” he wrote.

The State Department also disagreed with the report, saying Hook made the decision purely for professional reasons. But it nevertheless agreed to establish a training course to address standards of conduct and discuss prohibited personnel practices.

“The Secretary and the entire leadership team of the Department are committed to ensuring the highest levels of professional behavior on behalf of all the staff here at the State Department,” said the response written by T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a senior adviser to Pompeo.

In a statement released by her lawyer, Nowrouzzadeh said she was hopeful her case would help deter misconduct in this or future administrations.

“For nearly 15 years, I've been proud to serve our country, across Republican and Democratic administrations,” she said. “I continue to strongly encourage Americans of all backgrounds, including those of Iranian heritage, to consider public service to our nation and to not be discouraged by these findings.

“I also think I speak for many within what President Harry S. Truman during a critical time in U.S. history called ‘the most loyal body of civil servants in the whole world’ in saying that we should not fear, but rather value rigorous debate among colleagues with deep experience when formulating U.S. policy on matters critical to our national security. It is one of the ways we faithfully discharge our duties, as per our oaths and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, above all else.”

 

[fraurosena]

There are no words to describe the idiocy of this frivolous lawsuit. With it, Patel might even surpass his former boss Devin Nunes suing a fake cow. Then again, they do share the same lawyer.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Find a honest Trump official.