Daily Archives: 4 February 2025

Here’s a Thought

Posted on by
Reply

I do actually have one, every once in a while. This one is brief, as my thoughts often are.

President Donald Trump (R) has nominated a long and broad list of folks for various of the Departments, Agencies, and White House staff poitions; many of these are controversial, at least in the minds of Progressive-Democrats and the press. A subset of the controversial ones may not get confirmed.

There’s a way around that.

Trump should include all those whose confirmations are denied in his kitchen cabinet. There’s no reason for him to lose their advice, just because weak sisters and Progressive-Democrats in the Senate disapprove.

NB: There are parallels between a Trumpian kitchen cabinet as I propose and the origin of the function in President Andrew Jackson’s administration.

Government Moving at the Speed of Business

Posted on by
Reply

This is what the Trump administration has done in the first couple of weeks, much less its first 100 days.

  • offered buyouts to 2 million civilian full-time federal workers. Remains to be seen how many will take the offer, but the offer was paired with warnings of being fired if the offer isn’t taken
  • more on Federal employment:
    • ordered federal workers back to the office full-time and agencies to take steps to halt remote work arrangements
    • freeze on federal hiring, except for military, immigration enforcement, national security, and public safety jobs
    • reinstated first-term Schedule F Executive Order, stripping potentially hundreds of thousands of government workers of government employment protections, making them easier to fire
    • acting director OMB memo: agency heads told to identify employees on probationary periods, or who have served less than two years
    • 160 NSC staff members “sent home”
  • outright fired some folks
    • 1,000 officials appointed by Joe Biden
    • heads of Coast Guard and TSA, and “other officials” fired
  • 20 senior career attorneys at the Justice Department, including environmental, criminal, national security, civil rights lawyers, and some immigration court staff, have been reassigned, some to newly formed Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group
  • issued memo pausing potentially trillions of dollars in federal aid…. The freeze was blocked by a Federal district judge, but the review/audit and requirements for substantive recommendations for cutting remains in place
  • freeze on new civil rights litigation, halted all pending environmental litigation
  • ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending assessments of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy
  • review of FEMA with a view to reform or close down
  • eliminated government diversity programs, including closing all federal offices, eliminating DEI-related jobs. Workers in those positions put on paid leave. Ordered hiring to be based on merit, with no racial, sex, religious discrimination allowed
  • reinstatement of thousands of troops involuntarily discharged for refusing Wuhan Virus vaccines during the Situation

Whodathunk a government could move that fast?