“I Want My Binkie! The Big Nuclear One”
“U.S ‘beating the drum’ of pressure on Iran” ~John Brennan
“On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced a purge of longstanding members of the Defense Policy Board, a group of foreign policy experts who advise the Secretary of Defense and his team about specific issues when they want outside opinions. … They will be replaced by Trump loyalists.” ~ Per Heather Cox Richardson
Regarding this business of Trump’s installing ‘loyalists’ in all the civil service positions to gum up the works for Biden: just practically, that’s not going to work.
First of all, he waited until very late to essentially fire dozens of institutional types who will not go quietly, some of them will sue. None of it will be fully adjudicated before January 20, 2021.
“…according to Defense News, 24 of the 60 positions at the Department of Defense that require Senate approval are not occupied by confirmed appointees. Increasingly, our foreign policy ranks are filled with people loyal to Trump.”
Secondly, given what we’ve seen of the incompetence at the highest levels, does anyone really believe that Trump had literally dozens — maybe hundreds — of qualified acolytes that he could install in these jobs? I don’t. That brings up the singular problem that most of them will not be able to do the job sufficiently to remain employed in the federal government.
Furthermore, I know from personal experience that every single person in Homeland Security, for instance — even the guys in the mailroom — go through extensive vetting taking a year to eighteen months. None of these people were vetted properly so any serious look into their backgrounds will bring up things that rate immediate dismissal.
But the main reason that this is a false threat — just another attempt by Trump to sabotage and just plain screw Joe Biden — is that, as in any serious corporation or company, there is a probationary period in which any new hire can be terminated for simply not being a ‘team player.’ It is in the contract. Federal government hires are on probation for a year.
“Probationary or trial period: All competitive and excepted employees on a permanent appointment are on probation for one year. Supervisors will recommend retention or separation before the end of the first year. All new supervisors serve a one-year supervisory probationary period.”
So while this is a cluster fuck and an HR nightmare, I don’t really think it is an ‘unsolvable’ as Donald Trump would like it to be because most of these Trumpists he’s trying to install are not remotely qualified for those jobs and as soon as they get slammed with a workload they can’t handle, I’m betting they are heading for the doors. I mean, he put his son’s wedding planner in charge of Housing and how long has it been since we’ve heard from her?
“Although the U.S. has not been associated with the attack, it is well known that America and Israel are allies that share intelligence about Iran, and just two weeks ago news broke that advisers had to talk Trump out of attacking Iran…”
Not to say that Trump is totally impotent because Steve Mnuchin is trying to claw back $455 bil in unused Covid funds so Biden cannot unilaterally send out some more aid to desperate Americans — cause yeah, Steve Mnuchin is a big dick; and yeah, whether directly or implicitly, Trump is complicit in blowing up an Iranian scientist then pointing navy vessels in that direction to punctuate his point. You know, “I’M STILL HERE AND I WANT MY BINKIE!”
But the particular business of firing institutionalists and hiring a legion of wedding planners and Uber drivers to run government? That’s the governance equivalent of “clean up on aisle nine.”
