MAGA

Whatever happened to "no loyalty oaths" ?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Project 2025 "justice"

“Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.” [Washington Post]

[...]

By the summer of 2022, there was reporting that top Trump allies were working on plans to radically reshape the executive branch of the federal government if Trump won in 2024. Among other things, they were preparing for purges in the ranks of career federal civil servants and lining up Trump loyalists to replace them. A number of the people working on the project are now well known because of their connection to the work done by the January 6 committee and Trump’s criminal prosecutions: Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark, Peter Navarro and Kash Patel are just a few.

[...]

Among the [Project 2025] goals are defunding the Justice Department and dismantling the FBI, breaking up Homeland Security, and doing away with Education and Commerce. The president would take complete control of agencies that currently operate with a great deal of independence, like the the Federal Communications Commission—all the rules for television and internet that Trump has publicly objected to would be his to change.

  Joyce Vance

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP jackboots on the way

From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, a highly unusual and potentially chilling effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House. Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They’re relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers. In a move that alarms some, they’re preparing to publish the findings online. With a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.

[...]

Civil servants are often ex-military personnel and are required to take an oath to the Constitution to work for the federal government, not a loyalty test to a president.

[...]

The effort, focused on top career government officials who aren’t appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare with the red scare of McCarthyism.

  AP

And why would you need to publish this online?

Heritage’s Project 2025 proposes reviving the Trump Schedule F policy that would try to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, which could enable mass dismissals — although a Biden administration rule seeks to make that more difficult. The Heritage project is working to recruit and train a new generation to travel to Washington to fill government jobs.

In announcing the $100,000 Innovation Award last month, Heritage said it’d support American Accountability Foundation’s “investigative researchers, in-depth reports, and educational efforts.

Things are going to get really scary in this country. Stop voting Republican until they come to their senses. Which is unlikely to be any time in the near future. Or maybe distant future.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How do you Trump-proof an agency?

In an effort to Trump-proof, NIH has designated an official to identify political meddling in the agency’s work and is tasking a soon-to-be-established scientific integrity council with reviewing those cases. The White House knows Trump could still cast those plans aside but is calculating that doing so will set off alarms with the media, Congress and the public.

  Politico

And the only faction there that MIGHT have any pushback would be the public.

The Biden administration likely hopes GOP lawmakers, even those who think the NIH needs an overhaul, will temper Trump’s moves.

Have they learned nothing?

The plan to protect the agency’s independence is critical because the public needs to be able to rely on NIH to “generate rigorous, trusted evidence to inform public health.”

That is absolutely true, but depending on "alarms" and, especially, GOP lawmakers is nothing short of pipe dreams.

In addition to assigning Jorgenson as the NIH’s watchdog, the White House has directed other health agencies that got caught up in the Covid wars, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, to strengthen their scientific integrity plans, both to ensure that research is rigorous, bias-free, transparent and reliable — and that nonpartisan civil servants are making the research decisions.

Hello?? Anybody awake in here?? Trump has specifically said he will be firing civil servants and replacing them with loyalists.

NIH’s scientific integrity plan [is] not written into law or regulation.

Nor will it be as long as Republicans hold power. Plus - Trump in a second term will not be concerned about laws and regulations. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deconstructing America

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order creating a new classification of “policy-making” federal employees that could strip swaths of the federal workforce of civil service protections just before the next president is sworn into office.

Positions in the new Schedule F would effectively constitute at-will employment, without any of the protections against adverse personnel actions that most federal workers currently enjoy, although individual agencies are tasked with establishing “rules to prohibit the same personnel practices prohibited” by Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The order also instructs the Federal Labor Relations Authority to examine whether Schedule F employees should be removed from their bargaining units, a move that would bar them from being represented by federal employee unions.

[...]

The order sets a swift timetable for implementation: Agencies have 90 days to conduct a “preliminary” review of their workforces to determine who should be moved into the new employee classification—a deadline that coincides with Jan. 19, the day before the next presidential inauguration.

[...]

“The [1883] Pendleton Act is clearly in the sights of this executive order,” said Donald Kettl, the Sid Richardson professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. “It wants to undo what the Pendleton Act and subsequent civil service laws tried to accomplish, which was to create a career civil service with expertise that is both accountable to elected officials but also a repository of expertise in government. The argument here is that anyone involved in policymaking can be swept into this new classification, and once they’re in they’re subject to political review and dismissal for any reason.”

[...]

“This executive order strips due process rights and protections from perhaps hundreds of thousands of federal employees and will enable political appointees and other officials to hire and fire these workers at will,” [American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett] Kelley said. “Through this order, President Trump has declared war on the professional civil service by giving himself the authority to fill the government with his political cronies who will pledge their unwavering loyalty to him—not to America.”

  GovExec.com

Despicable. And just another reason why we need to do away with executive orders.

He's already fired too many.  He doesn't want to answer to anybody about it.

The House of Representatives is now considering a bill to amend the Inspector General Act to limit the reasons for which inspectors general can be fired and to require the president to produce documentation showing cause exists before firing any of them. That’s a good idea, even if there’s little chance the Republican-led Senate will consider it, and it may be challenged in court on constitutional grounds. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, has offered another worthwhile suggestion, this one for whistleblowers. She urges Congress to give federal workers the right to press claims of whistleblower retaliation in jury trials. As for the civil service, I encourage Congress to shore up due process protections for career federal employees by guaranteeing all of them the right to seek independent review of major disciplinary actions against them, with ample time for processing their complaints and filing appeals.

[...]

I believe we need reform, yet there’s a limit to what laws can do. The Supreme Court has weakened the conflict-of-interest laws we have on the books. Trump and his Republican wrecking crew are ripping out the floorboards under the government ethics program. His administration has taught us the difference between theory and application and shown us what immunity to accountability looks like. What good are laws if no one in power will enforce them?

  NY Books

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.