Executive Departments 4

[AmazonGrace]

Devin Nunes ally: 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

50 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Devin Nunes ally: 

 

If people think this coup is over, I hope they ask themselves how many bosses immediately seat new employees in their last week.

 

[onekidanddone]

We had an virtual all hands meeting on Thursday. For half a damn hour people talked on how much they would miss our outgoing assistant administrator. First the AA talked about how proud they were of the work we do and how they have left the department a better place then how they found it.  If by better place they mean employee moral in the toilet, our hard work gutted. Ass hat. I put it on mute when the gushing praise started. There is a record that I was logged in (it was a mandatory meeting). They just didn’t know I had my speakers muted 

3 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

If people think this coup is over, I hope they ask themselves how many bosses immediately seat new employees in their last week.

 

Till Biden fires them

[HerNameIsBuffy]

13 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

We had an virtual all hands meeting on Thursday. For half a damn hour people talked on how much they would miss our outgoing assistant administrator. First the AA talked about how proud they were of the work we do and how they have left the department a better place then how they found it.  If by better place they mean employee moral in the toilet, our hard work gutted. Ass hat. I put it on mute when the gushing praise started. There is a record that I was logged in (it was a mandatory meeting). They just didn’t know I had my speakers muted 

Till Biden fires them

But moving military personnel now means he has plans for them before Biden can fire them.

[onekidanddone]

Just now, HerNameIsBuffy said:

But moving military personnel now means he has plans for them before Biden can fire them.

Yes. It is really scary. I could see trumps goons order the national guard out of DC

[Snarkasarus Rex]

RE: Alex Azar’s resignation letter. It’s customary for political appointees to resign effective the day the new admin takes over. We just don’t normally see these reported on because they’re not usually newsworthy...

[AmazonGrace]

Because of course they did.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I will be so happy to see the last of Pompouseo:

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

Would it be a bad career move if I sent all the political appointees at my agency GTFO email at 11:59 AM tomorrow ?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

I’ve been tasked with editing all the web pages in my department to change all Trump’s political appointees and add the word ‘Former’. It is a huge job but I don’t care. Hell I’d work over time for free just to start removing the stench from what I consider my website. Really it is America’s website 

Edited January 22, 2021 by onekidanddone

[thoughtful]

6 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I’ve been tasked with editing all the web pages in my department to change all Trump’s political appointees and add the word ‘Former’.

Every time you type that wonderful word, think of FJ as being with you in spirit and cheering you on.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm so glad this nasty grifter is no longer in a position of power:

I'd like to invite him to shove those pens up his ass...sideways.

[fraurosena]

22 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm so glad this nasty grifter is no longer in a position of power:

I'd like to invite him to shove those pens up his ass...sideways.

How many freaking pens were that?! Engraved Chinese pens cost (on average) about a dollar a piece.
Something's financially fishy here, methinks.

[AmazonGrace]

Trump's guy lied under oath because of course he did.

 

[fraurosena]

Hasn’t Biden fired him yet?

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Hasn’t Biden fired him yet?

He can't fire him directly. Only the USPS Board of Governors can do that. Biden can fill the openings on the Board and hopefully then DeJoy can get the hell out.

[GreyhoundFan]

I wonder how many more criminal referrals will appear for members of The Previous Guy's administration: "Ethics concerns led to criminal referral involving Elaine Chao, inspector general says"

Quote

Investigators from the Transportation Department’s internal watchdog found evidence of potential ethical violations by former secretary Elaine Chao, and referred the case to the Justice Department for prosecution in December, according to documents released Wednesday.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section declined pursue the case, according to investigators from Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General.

There were a number of “potential ethics concerns arising from the actions of the Secretary and Office of the Secretary (OST) staff under her direction,” investigators wrote.

Among them were “tasking” political appointees to “contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the status of a work permit application submitted by a foreign student studying at a U.S. university who was a recipient of Chao family philanthropy,” according to investigators.

“The [U.S. attorney’s office] stated that there may be ethical and/or administrative issues to address but there is not predication to open a criminal investigation,” investigators from the Inspector General’s office said.

The department also provided public affairs and media support to Chao’s father, investigators said. He was the founder of the Foremost Group, a shipping company headed by her sister.

Investigators said Chao also used the staff time of department employees “for tasks for the Secretary that appear to be personal in nature.”

Among the personal tasks, according to a description from investigators, was Chao emailing a staffer in her office with the subject line: “Xmas ornaments.” The email directed the staff member to “sort out and fedex on Monday to Dr. Chao, and my sisters. Please draft a cover note –let me see it-telling them what we are sending.”

 

[Audrey2]

Oh please! Oh please! Oh please!

I want Mrs. Mitch McConnell to hit the ground hard, too!

[fraurosena]

14 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Oh please! Oh please! Oh please!

I want Mrs. Mitch McConnell to hit the ground hard, too!

And it would be even better if she drags her decrepit husband along with her as she goes down.

[GreyhoundFan]

17 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

And it would be even better if she drags her decrepit husband along with her as she goes down.

I want them both to go down too, but if I had to choose one, I'd choose him. I think the amount of damage he has done and continues to do is incalculable.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm glad this corrupt thief is no longer employed by the US Government:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, maybe if their cult leader (AKA the former guy) hadn't insisted that his sham administration not participate in an orderly transition, they would have gotten what they believe is owed to them. "Former Trump appointees say they’re still waiting on their vacation payouts"

Quote

A number of former Trump political appointees have still not received their lump-sum vacation payouts and required forms that are necessary to file for unemployment benefits as they face a tough job market in a Democratic Washington.

While HR headaches are to be expected during a government transition, some former political appointees say they were not warned there would be significant delays. And the problems faced by the seven former appointees POLITICO interviewed appear more acute than during past recent transitions.

It’s not clear, however, whether the delays are related to the rocky Trump-Biden transition or a slow federal government bureaucracy that is still working mostly from home.

Political appointees who stay to the very end of an administration often face a gap between Jan. 20 and when they land their next job, given the time it takes to network, get job interviews and then get a formal offer. Trump appointees face the added problem of job hunting in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, which made some companies reluctant to hire former Trump appointees, in part because of fear of a backlash.

“I’m sitting here going, how do I pay my rent? How do I pay my cellphone bill?” one former Commerce appointee said in an interview.

Another former Trump Commerce official said: “I have enough money to make it a month, but when rent’s due next month, what happens then? Rent in D.C. isn’t cheap.”

Besides the vacation payouts, at least three former Commerce appointees haven’t gotten their separation packets that contain a document called the SF-50, which allows them to apply for unemployment benefits, according to another former Commerce appointee, who only just received his packet.

A Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement: “Commerce’s HR Department is available to past appointees and more than happy to help them finish any outstanding paperwork.”

The spokesperson added that Commerce had completed separation procedures for appointees who have completed the necessary paperwork and that it was ready to assist appointees who have outstanding questions or haven’t completed all of the steps for off-boarding out of the department, which is necessary for payouts to be issued.

The lack of timely vacation payouts is not affecting just former Commerce appointees. A former Homeland Security official said she hadn’t received payout of her annual leave, which is more than 200 hours and equivalent to three months of pay. Another former senior DHS official said he also hadn’t gotten his one month of vacation payout, which comes out to about $15,000 minus taxes.

“For all pay and benefits inquiries, former DHS employees are encouraged to reach out to their servicing Human Resources office,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

It’s not known how widespread the payment delays are or the exact cause, but there have been other personnel hiccups during the transition, which was especially rocky because of former President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge President Joe Biden’s win. POLITICO previously reported that a number of Trump appointees unexpectedly lost their parental leave benefits when Biden was sworn into office.

While some Trump appointees have been able to land jobs on Capitol Hill or in the private sector, many of them are still looking, and one called the job market for Trump appointees “a little slow” and said that she’d received no offers yet.

Two former Commerce political appointees who served at the end of the Obama administration said that their vacation payouts weren’t delayed as long, and that there weren’t major delays in getting appointees their separation packets.

“I don’t remember it being a problem,” said one of the former Obama Commerce officials. “I don’t remember us having any issues.” Another former official got his vacation payout in the middle of February of 2017.

Some of the former Trump appointees say they are getting increasingly frustrated with the prolonged delays in the payouts, although others have started to get them recently.

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“I don’t understand how it’s taking so long to figure out how much comp time you have and how much you’re owed and why that isn’t falling directly into my account,” one former Trump appointee said. “Jan. 20 was never a moving target.” While he has only 72 hours of unused comp time because he was new at the department, he said some people have hundreds of hours.

“A lot of the politicals are not getting jobs, so a lot of them were relying on the lump-sum payments to get them through the next few months,” a third former Trump appointee said.

A separate issue some former Trump appointees are facing is temporarily extending their federal government health insurance through COBRA, although such insurance would be paid by the appointees themselves.

While there’s a 31-day grace period in which appointees still get health insurance, several told POLITICO that the government hadn’t given them the proper forms to apply for COBRA, and one said that when he went to a doctor recently, the office couldn’t find evidence of his insurance.

One said the delay was “leaving a lot of people asking: Am I going to lose health care for the time that the processing center would take to get our information into the system?”

“A lot of people are freaking out,” another said.

 

[Alisamer]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, maybe if their cult leader (AKA the former guy) hadn't insisted that his sham administration not participate in an orderly transition, they would have gotten what they believe is owed to them. "Former Trump appointees say they’re still waiting on their vacation payouts"

 

On the one hand, that sucks, and they should get the money they earned.

On the other hand, they chose to work for Trump.

Bootstraps, y'all! I have a hard time feeling much sympathy for people who supported a republican administration opposed to any help for the working poor and the huge numbers of people who went with nothing for months during the pandemic (remember how long it took to apply for and get unemployment then?), who are now having to wait a little extra time to get their leftover vacation money. Especially when that vacation pay equals half of many Americans' yearly income. 

Lots of us get 10 days vacation yearly, maximum, with no sick time at all. And for many of us, it's "use it or lose it". So I have a hard time dredging up sympathy for people who make $15000 a month who are waiting for their months worth of vacation pay, or those who apparently have "hundreds of hours" of unused comp time. Especially when they would absolutely look at me and shrug and say "just get a better job!"