Unfit Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
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Farfromgeneva
- Posts: 23833
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am
Re: President Elect Biden
Duh, my bad.
Harvard University, out
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
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cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
I'll forgive you this time.
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
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Farfromgeneva
- Posts: 23833
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am
Re: President Elect Biden
Mayor Pete looking like he’s going to get a seat at the table Per this report
https://www.axios.com/pete-buttigieg-jo ... dde8b.html
https://www.axios.com/pete-buttigieg-jo ... dde8b.html
Harvard University, out
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
Inauguration CANCELLED
YES....former VP Joe Biden's campaign team have announced that they, along with the DNC & Inauguration committee, will be cancelling the Inauguration as we know it. Instead of a chance of having record attendance, people can bless Biden with online watching and twittering, or live stream on essential facebook. Due to COVID, in person events have been cancelled. Just like you childs graduation events.
It's just a speech, after all. Social distancing can NOT happen if this event happens. Facemasks only do so much. If it's cold, will we witness the "fog of covid" aspirating out of attendees mouths, with every exhale?
you just watch.......Hillaryous Clinton really going to wear a mask the entire time? please.
fake facebook twats of news
It's just a speech, after all. Social distancing can NOT happen if this event happens. Facemasks only do so much. If it's cold, will we witness the "fog of covid" aspirating out of attendees mouths, with every exhale?
you just watch.......Hillaryous Clinton really going to wear a mask the entire time? please.
fake facebook twats of news
oligarchy thanks you......same as it evah was
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cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: Inauguration CANCELLED
What a B I itch for the D team. They finally have a chance to let their hair down and party like it's 1999. Effing COVID won't allow that to happen. Hey maybe just one lil ole super spreader event will be okay? Maybe POTUS elect Biden can rent the Pope mobile for the occasion? I found a new job for trump that keeps him in the White House. He can be the pooper picker upper for Major and Champ. A job truly fit for his level of experience.ABV 8.3% wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:01 am YES....former VP Joe Biden's campaign team have announced that they, along with the DNC & Inauguration committee, will be cancelling the Inauguration as we know it. Instead of a chance of having record attendance, people can bless Biden with online watching and twittering, or live stream on essential facebook. Due to COVID, in person events have been cancelled. Just like you childs graduation events.
It's just a speech, after all. Social distancing can NOT happen if this event happens. Facemasks only do so much. If it's cold, will we witness the "fog of covid" aspirating out of attendees mouths, with every exhale?
you just watch.......Hillaryous Clinton really going to wear a mask the entire time? please.
fake facebook twats of news
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
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seacoaster
- Posts: 8866
- Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2018 4:36 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
Of course....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
"A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as give access to government officials, office space in agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email, “and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.”
The GSA statement left experts on federal transitions to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from one administration to the next to begin — when the president has exhausted his legal avenues to fight the results, or the formal vote of the electoral college on Dec. 14? There are 74 days, as of Sunday, until the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20.
“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.
The decision has turned attention to Murphy, whose four-year tenure has been marked by several controversies involving the president, an unusually high profile for an agency little known outside of Washington.
“Her action now has to be condemned,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who leads a House oversight panel on federal operations. “It’s behavior that is consistent with her subservience to wishes of the president himself, and it is clearly harmful to the orderly transition of power.”
The delay has implications both practical and symbolic.
By declaring the “apparent winner” of a presidential election, the GSA administrator releases computer systems and money for salaries and administrative support for the mammoth undertaking of setting up a new government — $9.9 million this year.
Transition officials get government email addresses. They get office space at every federal agency. They can begin to work with the Office of Government Ethics to process financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest forms for their nominees.
And they get access to senior officials, both political appointees of the outgoing administration and career civil servants, who relay an agency’s ongoing priorities and projects, upcoming deadlines, problem areas and risks. The federal government is a $4.5 trillion operation, and while the Biden team is not new to government, the access is critical, experts said.
This is all on hold for now.
“Now that the election has been independently called for Joe Biden, we look forward to the GSA Administrator quickly ascertaining Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the President-elect and Vice President-elect,” a Biden transition spokesman said in an email. “America’s national security and economic interests depend on the federal government signaling clearly and swiftly that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.”
As the campaign wound down, President Trump gave signals that he would not easily hand over the reins to his successor, if there was one. But for people who have been through them, a presidential transition is a massive undertaking requiring discipline, decision-making and fast learning under the smoothest circumstances. Each lost day puts the new government behind schedule.
“The transition process is fundamental to safely making sure the next team is ready to go on Day One,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which has set up a presidential transition center and shares advice with the Biden and Trump teams. “It’s critical that you have access to the agencies before you put your people in place.”
The Biden team can move forward to get preliminary security clearances and begin FBI background checks on potential nominees requiring Senate confirmation.
Another senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly said each agency has drafted detailed transition plans for a new administration, but they will not be released to the Biden team until a winner is formally declared.
Trump has been resistant to participating in a transition — fearing it is a bad omen — but has allowed top aides to participate as long as the efforts do not become public, administration officials said. He is unlikely to concede he has lost or participate in traditional activities, the officials said.
In a call on Friday with administration officials, Mary Gibert, the head of the presidential transition team at the GSA, told colleagues the agency was in a holding pattern and not to host people from Biden teams until there is “ascertainment.” She gave no specific timeline on when it was expected.
The delay has already gummed up discussions on critical issues, including plans to distribute a possible coronavirus vaccine, this official said.
GSA has been part of transition planning since the Presidential Transition Act was signed in 1963. Since then, the agency has identified the winner within hours or a day of media projections, and weeks before the results were made official by the electoral college.
Chris Lu, who served as former president Barack Obama’s transition director in 2008, recalled that after Obama was declared the winner over the late senator John McCain on Nov. 4, he went to sleep to get up early the next morning to open the transition office. He missed the call from GSA’s acting administrator, Jim Williams, informing him that he had signed over transition resources to the Obama team.
“Jim made the call at 1 a.m.,” Lu said. “There was simply no controversy involved.”
Robert C. MacKichan Jr., an attorney who served as GSA general counsel for presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said that because Trump is contesting the election and the electors have not yet voted, it’s too early for Murphy to make a call. Once the administrator issues the letter, the funds can be spent and can’t be recouped.
“I don’t think, at this point, I would feel comfortable making that determination now,” MacKichan said. “It’s premature.”
MacKichan said he was confident Murphy would handle a difficult situation fairly. “As an attorney and as a procurement official, I think she has the highest standard of integrity,” he said.
Murphy has not sought the limelight during her tenure and was described by former colleagues as a by-the-book person. She’s regarded as well-qualified, an expert on contracting with experience both at the agency, where she had previously served as chief acquisition officer, and on Capitol Hill, where she had been a staffer for multiple committees. Heading a federal agency unknown to most Americans seemed like an ideal assignment.
But under Trump, two issues of personal importance to the president became almost constant sources of controversy for her: the lease Trump’s company holds with the agency for its D.C. hotel, located in the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion, and the planned consolidation of the FBI headquarters.
Both projects have pressed Murphy into duty defending the president, and her actions elicited criticism from the agency’s watchdog as well as from congressional Democrats.
Trump’s hotel lease was signed with the agency before Trump took office, and he resigned his position with the company when he entered office. But he retained ownership of his business, allowing him to profit from the property while in office.
Democrats held repeated hearings to get a better explanation of how the agency decided to allow Trump to keep the lease given that the Constitution bar presidents from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments, which often patronize the hotel. Under Murphy, the GSA repeatedly declined to provide documents to House Democrats, including the monthly income statements it receives from Trump’s company.
Last year, the agency’s inspector general determined that GSA “improperly” ignored those concerns in allowing Trump’s company to keep the lease. GSA defended itself by saying that the investigation “found no undue influence, pressure or unwarranted involvement of any kind by anyone.”
Trump has personally intervened in the most prominent real estate project in the agency’s entire portfolio: the plan to build a new FBI headquarters that would allow the bureau out of the crumbling and insecure J. Edgar Hoover Building. During his first year in office, Trump and the GSA abruptly canceled a bipartisan plan to build a new suburban headquarters for the agency, infuriating Democrats who had worked more than a decade on the project and who alleged that Trump canceled the project so a competing hotel could never be built in place of the Hoover building, a site down the street from his hotel. The White House said the president’s business had nothing to do with the decision."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
"A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as give access to government officials, office space in agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email, “and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.”
The GSA statement left experts on federal transitions to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from one administration to the next to begin — when the president has exhausted his legal avenues to fight the results, or the formal vote of the electoral college on Dec. 14? There are 74 days, as of Sunday, until the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20.
“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.
The decision has turned attention to Murphy, whose four-year tenure has been marked by several controversies involving the president, an unusually high profile for an agency little known outside of Washington.
“Her action now has to be condemned,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who leads a House oversight panel on federal operations. “It’s behavior that is consistent with her subservience to wishes of the president himself, and it is clearly harmful to the orderly transition of power.”
The delay has implications both practical and symbolic.
By declaring the “apparent winner” of a presidential election, the GSA administrator releases computer systems and money for salaries and administrative support for the mammoth undertaking of setting up a new government — $9.9 million this year.
Transition officials get government email addresses. They get office space at every federal agency. They can begin to work with the Office of Government Ethics to process financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest forms for their nominees.
And they get access to senior officials, both political appointees of the outgoing administration and career civil servants, who relay an agency’s ongoing priorities and projects, upcoming deadlines, problem areas and risks. The federal government is a $4.5 trillion operation, and while the Biden team is not new to government, the access is critical, experts said.
This is all on hold for now.
“Now that the election has been independently called for Joe Biden, we look forward to the GSA Administrator quickly ascertaining Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the President-elect and Vice President-elect,” a Biden transition spokesman said in an email. “America’s national security and economic interests depend on the federal government signaling clearly and swiftly that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.”
As the campaign wound down, President Trump gave signals that he would not easily hand over the reins to his successor, if there was one. But for people who have been through them, a presidential transition is a massive undertaking requiring discipline, decision-making and fast learning under the smoothest circumstances. Each lost day puts the new government behind schedule.
“The transition process is fundamental to safely making sure the next team is ready to go on Day One,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which has set up a presidential transition center and shares advice with the Biden and Trump teams. “It’s critical that you have access to the agencies before you put your people in place.”
The Biden team can move forward to get preliminary security clearances and begin FBI background checks on potential nominees requiring Senate confirmation.
Another senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly said each agency has drafted detailed transition plans for a new administration, but they will not be released to the Biden team until a winner is formally declared.
Trump has been resistant to participating in a transition — fearing it is a bad omen — but has allowed top aides to participate as long as the efforts do not become public, administration officials said. He is unlikely to concede he has lost or participate in traditional activities, the officials said.
In a call on Friday with administration officials, Mary Gibert, the head of the presidential transition team at the GSA, told colleagues the agency was in a holding pattern and not to host people from Biden teams until there is “ascertainment.” She gave no specific timeline on when it was expected.
The delay has already gummed up discussions on critical issues, including plans to distribute a possible coronavirus vaccine, this official said.
GSA has been part of transition planning since the Presidential Transition Act was signed in 1963. Since then, the agency has identified the winner within hours or a day of media projections, and weeks before the results were made official by the electoral college.
Chris Lu, who served as former president Barack Obama’s transition director in 2008, recalled that after Obama was declared the winner over the late senator John McCain on Nov. 4, he went to sleep to get up early the next morning to open the transition office. He missed the call from GSA’s acting administrator, Jim Williams, informing him that he had signed over transition resources to the Obama team.
“Jim made the call at 1 a.m.,” Lu said. “There was simply no controversy involved.”
Robert C. MacKichan Jr., an attorney who served as GSA general counsel for presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said that because Trump is contesting the election and the electors have not yet voted, it’s too early for Murphy to make a call. Once the administrator issues the letter, the funds can be spent and can’t be recouped.
“I don’t think, at this point, I would feel comfortable making that determination now,” MacKichan said. “It’s premature.”
MacKichan said he was confident Murphy would handle a difficult situation fairly. “As an attorney and as a procurement official, I think she has the highest standard of integrity,” he said.
Murphy has not sought the limelight during her tenure and was described by former colleagues as a by-the-book person. She’s regarded as well-qualified, an expert on contracting with experience both at the agency, where she had previously served as chief acquisition officer, and on Capitol Hill, where she had been a staffer for multiple committees. Heading a federal agency unknown to most Americans seemed like an ideal assignment.
But under Trump, two issues of personal importance to the president became almost constant sources of controversy for her: the lease Trump’s company holds with the agency for its D.C. hotel, located in the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion, and the planned consolidation of the FBI headquarters.
Both projects have pressed Murphy into duty defending the president, and her actions elicited criticism from the agency’s watchdog as well as from congressional Democrats.
Trump’s hotel lease was signed with the agency before Trump took office, and he resigned his position with the company when he entered office. But he retained ownership of his business, allowing him to profit from the property while in office.
Democrats held repeated hearings to get a better explanation of how the agency decided to allow Trump to keep the lease given that the Constitution bar presidents from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments, which often patronize the hotel. Under Murphy, the GSA repeatedly declined to provide documents to House Democrats, including the monthly income statements it receives from Trump’s company.
Last year, the agency’s inspector general determined that GSA “improperly” ignored those concerns in allowing Trump’s company to keep the lease. GSA defended itself by saying that the investigation “found no undue influence, pressure or unwarranted involvement of any kind by anyone.”
Trump has personally intervened in the most prominent real estate project in the agency’s entire portfolio: the plan to build a new FBI headquarters that would allow the bureau out of the crumbling and insecure J. Edgar Hoover Building. During his first year in office, Trump and the GSA abruptly canceled a bipartisan plan to build a new suburban headquarters for the agency, infuriating Democrats who had worked more than a decade on the project and who alleged that Trump canceled the project so a competing hotel could never be built in place of the Hoover building, a site down the street from his hotel. The White House said the president’s business had nothing to do with the decision."
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MDlaxfan76
- Posts: 27162
- Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:40 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
Anyone have a sense of how quickly the legal cases will be disposed of by the courts?
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seacoaster
- Posts: 8866
- Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2018 4:36 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
More on the GSA resistance to calling Biden the person it ascertains to be the President-Elect:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
My sense is the legal challenges could take at least another couple or three weeks to move through the courts, unless there is a capitulation of sorts. You can follow the Democratic side with this guy:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
If GSA resists for another two weeks, transition of the government will be really compromised and made more difficult, less efficient, and likely even more costly as the Biden-Harris people have to play catch-up ball.
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
My sense is the legal challenges could take at least another couple or three weeks to move through the courts, unless there is a capitulation of sorts. You can follow the Democratic side with this guy:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
If GSA resists for another two weeks, transition of the government will be really compromised and made more difficult, less efficient, and likely even more costly as the Biden-Harris people have to play catch-up ball.
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MDlaxfan76
- Posts: 27162
- Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:40 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
ok, we don't think some of the courts will quickly dispose of much of this?seacoaster wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:40 am More on the GSA resistance to calling Biden the person it ascertains to be the President-Elect:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
My sense is the legal challenges could take at least another couple or three weeks to move through the courts, unless there is a capitulation of sorts. You can follow the Democratic side with this guy:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
If GSA resists for another two weeks, transition of the government will be really compromised and made more difficult, less efficient, and likely even more costly as the Biden-Harris people have to play catch-up ball.
I guess we'll at least soon know whether any of the cases actually present concrete, credible evidence.
So far, nada, and if that continues, should be easy to dispose of as irrelevant.
The GSA delay was predictable, and fortunately the Biden folks already gamed that out many months ago. They'll be moving forward without the normal cooperation and support. Competence matters.
Re: Inauguration CANCELLED
If anyone with brains in this current administration certainly must be thinking the same thing: "put this guy on a "farewell tour".....NOW "cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:12 amWhat a B I itch for the D team. They finally have a chance to let their hair down and party like it's 1999. Effing COVID won't allow that to happen. Hey maybe just one lil ole super spreader event will be okay? Maybe POTUS elect Biden can rent the Pope mobile for the occasion? I found a new job for trump that keeps him in the White House. He can be the pooper picker upper for Major and Champ. A job truly fit for his level of experience.ABV 8.3% wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:01 am YES....former VP Joe Biden's campaign team have announced that they, along with the DNC & Inauguration committee, will be cancelling the Inauguration as we know it. Instead of a chance of having record attendance, people can bless Biden with online watching and twittering, or live stream on essential facebook. Due to COVID, in person events have been cancelled. Just like you childs graduation events.
It's just a speech, after all. Social distancing can NOT happen if this event happens. Facemasks only do so much. If it's cold, will we witness the "fog of covid" aspirating out of attendees mouths, with every exhale?
you just watch.......Hillaryous Clinton really going to wear a mask the entire time? please.
fake facebook twats of news
between his golf outings and these "barnstorming" type tRump events. Hire full time, around 5-6 thousand people, to tour along with him. Traveling, by train, of course. Leaving behind a legacy of lasting imagery of him caring much about the "environment" and "climate badness". (trains & carbon footprint, blah blah blah)
How hard could it be to find six thousand people wanting the job of just cheering, wearing maga gear and listening to him prattle on and on.
College students, homeless, elderly, unemployed or just plain ole lonely, bored people.
$500 bucks a week, for two weeks. Housing and a coupon to taco bell is provided. Except for the homeless. The consulting firm laying out the groundwork and details IS really hammering on finding mostly homeless. For obviou$ rea$on$. Illegals are good too. Only part of this "deal" that will happen is the "housing" (barracks or dorm living, perfect time ,colleges are empty ) The payment of $500 a week. Goodluck getting paid. but, I digress.
To keep tRump motivated, throw in guest appearances from the like of Sean Hannity, etc.
If the gop of pretend CONservatives can't find that many, always choose smaller venues. Like state fairs or Air Force bases. Put Derek Smalls on the smaller venues.
oligarchy thanks you......same as it evah was
Re: President Elect Biden
Will repeat, while this IS news......it IS nothing out of the ordinary to file lawsuits. Many campaigns do so.MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:47 amok, we don't think some of the courts will quickly dispose of much of this?seacoaster wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:40 am More on the GSA resistance to calling Biden the person it ascertains to be the President-Elect:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
My sense is the legal challenges could take at least another couple or three weeks to move through the courts, unless there is a capitulation of sorts. You can follow the Democratic side with this guy:
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/sta ... 6577013765
If GSA resists for another two weeks, transition of the government will be really compromised and made more difficult, less efficient, and likely even more costly as the Biden-Harris people have to play catch-up ball.
I guess we'll at least soon know whether any of the cases actually present concrete, credible evidence.
So far, nada, and if that continues, should be easy to dispose of as irrelevant.
The GSA delay was predictable, and fortunately the Biden folks already gamed that out many months ago. They'll be moving forward without the normal cooperation and support. Competence matters.
Why you and collective you find it so necessary to carry on and on about how much a piece of garbage this guy is is weird. He lost. can you please move on?
oligarchy thanks you......same as it evah was
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Farfromgeneva
- Posts: 23833
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am
Re: President Elect Biden
MIchael Lewis' book the Fifth Risk discusses this early on. Trump didn't think there was any need for a transition plan or team so predictable as stated. Chris Christie took it on until Jared fired him via Steve Bannon for jailing his daddy. From a review, first one I pulled from the google.
The Fifth Risk' Paints A Portrait Of A Government Led By The Uninterested
October 2, 20189:26 AM ET
The Fifth Risk
by Michael Lewis
The thought that Donald Trump may have been totally unprepared to become president in November 2016 is one that's not new to those who have been following the day-to-day crises and dramas of the Trump White House closely.
But a case for this argument is revealingly and startlingly made by Michael Lewis in his fascinating — and at times harrowing — new book The Fifth Risk.
For instance, here's the scene Lewis describes in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016, just after Pennsylvania was called, giving Trump enough electoral votes to win the election (Chris Christie, who was the head of the Trump transition effort, sat on a couch):
"Mike Pence went to kiss his wife, Karen, and she turned away from him. 'You got what you wanted, Mike,' she said, 'now leave me alone.' She wouldn't so much as say hello to Trump. Trump himself just stared at the tube without saying anything, like a man with a pair of twos whose bluff has been called. His campaign hadn't even bothered to prepare an acceptance speech. It wasn't hard to see why Trump hadn't seen the point in preparing to take over the federal government: Why study for a test you'll never need to take?"
Christie would soon be fired from the transition effort by Trump adviser Steve Bannon; the work he and his team did, ceremoniously dumped into the garbage. Trump, Lewis writes, "was going to handle the transition more or less by himself."
And that has proved problematic. Nearly two years later, the Trump administration is still lacking some important components. According to a tally kept by the Partnership For Public Service and The Washington Post, of some 700 key positions in government, slightly more than half have been filled.
Many vacancies have nominees awaiting Senate confirmation, and as of this writing, 153 of these key posts have no nominees whatsoever. For instance at the State Department, unfilled positions include what would seem like some pretty important jobs for the agency running the nation's diplomatic efforts. There's no chief financial officer or undersecretary for public diplomacy, no coordinator for threat reduction programs — and in the foreign service, there are vacancies at U.S. embassies in Ireland, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Africa, Pakistan and Turkey, to name a few.
That's just one department. No one has been nominated to run the Federal Aviation Administration or the Federal Highway Administration.
That $715 billion defense bill the president brings up at each rally? At the Pentagon, the office of the principal deputy undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, which would seemingly have a large role in determining how all the money is spent, sits empty.
It can be argued, as Trump has done, that there are too many positions in the government. What do we need all those undersecretaries and deputy assistant secretaries for in the first place? Trump has said, "I am the only one that matters," but it would seem there is a reasoned and smart approach to reducing these numbers, not simply by leaving key posts unfilled.
"Getting to Know the U.S. Government," Lewis writes, "had not been high on Donald Trump's to-do list, even after he learned that he'd be running it." Lewis describes the scene inside the Commerce Department the Monday after the election, where "dozens of civil servants sat all day waiting to deliver briefings" to Trump's transition team about their agencies' role and responsibilities, "that would, in the end, never be heard."
Some of the people that Trump has nominated for key government posts Lewis views as deeply troubling.
Take Trump's choice to head National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Commerce Department agency that, among other responsibilities, oversees the National Weather Service. For that critical position, Trump has chosen Barry Myers, who is CEO of the private forecasting service AccuWeather. As Lewis points out, AccuWeather repackages the weather service's own data and sells it to private concerns for a profit. Myers at one time argued that "the government should get out of the forecasting business." In other words, you want to know if it's going to rain tomorrow? Or which way that hurricane is tracking? Well, buy our app, or subscribe to our forecasts. Myers has yet to be confirmed.
In a previous book, the bestselling Moneyball, Lewis tracked how smart baseball minds were changing the game with the use of data and analytics. In The Fifth Risk (the risk posed by incompetent government leaders), Lewis turns his attention to government data collection, including weather information and the census (which, as we rapidly approach the 2020 decennial census, also lacks a permanent director).
Smart government scientists and techs have been mining this data to protect Americans. But Lewis reports (as have others), a lot of government data is now disappearing from government websites, data on climate change at the EPA, on animal abuse at the Department of Agriculture, on violent crime at the Department of Justice. "Under each act of data suppression," Lewis writes, "usually lay a narrow commercial motive: a gun lobbyist, a coal company, a poultry company."
The Fifth Risk' Paints A Portrait Of A Government Led By The Uninterested
October 2, 20189:26 AM ET
The Fifth Risk
by Michael Lewis
The thought that Donald Trump may have been totally unprepared to become president in November 2016 is one that's not new to those who have been following the day-to-day crises and dramas of the Trump White House closely.
But a case for this argument is revealingly and startlingly made by Michael Lewis in his fascinating — and at times harrowing — new book The Fifth Risk.
For instance, here's the scene Lewis describes in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016, just after Pennsylvania was called, giving Trump enough electoral votes to win the election (Chris Christie, who was the head of the Trump transition effort, sat on a couch):
"Mike Pence went to kiss his wife, Karen, and she turned away from him. 'You got what you wanted, Mike,' she said, 'now leave me alone.' She wouldn't so much as say hello to Trump. Trump himself just stared at the tube without saying anything, like a man with a pair of twos whose bluff has been called. His campaign hadn't even bothered to prepare an acceptance speech. It wasn't hard to see why Trump hadn't seen the point in preparing to take over the federal government: Why study for a test you'll never need to take?"
Christie would soon be fired from the transition effort by Trump adviser Steve Bannon; the work he and his team did, ceremoniously dumped into the garbage. Trump, Lewis writes, "was going to handle the transition more or less by himself."
And that has proved problematic. Nearly two years later, the Trump administration is still lacking some important components. According to a tally kept by the Partnership For Public Service and The Washington Post, of some 700 key positions in government, slightly more than half have been filled.
Many vacancies have nominees awaiting Senate confirmation, and as of this writing, 153 of these key posts have no nominees whatsoever. For instance at the State Department, unfilled positions include what would seem like some pretty important jobs for the agency running the nation's diplomatic efforts. There's no chief financial officer or undersecretary for public diplomacy, no coordinator for threat reduction programs — and in the foreign service, there are vacancies at U.S. embassies in Ireland, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Africa, Pakistan and Turkey, to name a few.
That's just one department. No one has been nominated to run the Federal Aviation Administration or the Federal Highway Administration.
That $715 billion defense bill the president brings up at each rally? At the Pentagon, the office of the principal deputy undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, which would seemingly have a large role in determining how all the money is spent, sits empty.
It can be argued, as Trump has done, that there are too many positions in the government. What do we need all those undersecretaries and deputy assistant secretaries for in the first place? Trump has said, "I am the only one that matters," but it would seem there is a reasoned and smart approach to reducing these numbers, not simply by leaving key posts unfilled.
"Getting to Know the U.S. Government," Lewis writes, "had not been high on Donald Trump's to-do list, even after he learned that he'd be running it." Lewis describes the scene inside the Commerce Department the Monday after the election, where "dozens of civil servants sat all day waiting to deliver briefings" to Trump's transition team about their agencies' role and responsibilities, "that would, in the end, never be heard."
Some of the people that Trump has nominated for key government posts Lewis views as deeply troubling.
Take Trump's choice to head National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Commerce Department agency that, among other responsibilities, oversees the National Weather Service. For that critical position, Trump has chosen Barry Myers, who is CEO of the private forecasting service AccuWeather. As Lewis points out, AccuWeather repackages the weather service's own data and sells it to private concerns for a profit. Myers at one time argued that "the government should get out of the forecasting business." In other words, you want to know if it's going to rain tomorrow? Or which way that hurricane is tracking? Well, buy our app, or subscribe to our forecasts. Myers has yet to be confirmed.
In a previous book, the bestselling Moneyball, Lewis tracked how smart baseball minds were changing the game with the use of data and analytics. In The Fifth Risk (the risk posed by incompetent government leaders), Lewis turns his attention to government data collection, including weather information and the census (which, as we rapidly approach the 2020 decennial census, also lacks a permanent director).
Smart government scientists and techs have been mining this data to protect Americans. But Lewis reports (as have others), a lot of government data is now disappearing from government websites, data on climate change at the EPA, on animal abuse at the Department of Agriculture, on violent crime at the Department of Justice. "Under each act of data suppression," Lewis writes, "usually lay a narrow commercial motive: a gun lobbyist, a coal company, a poultry company."
Harvard University, out
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
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cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
They should be disposed of very quickly. The trump team has no evidence of any legal wrongdoing. IMO the process for counting mail in ballots was not done all that well in many states. The folks on this forum blame this on the republicans. IMO going forward, and i do not like saying this, maybe there should be federal guidelines how mail in votes should be handled. Since in does now involve a branch of the US Government some oversite into the process is justified. The process should at the very least be consistent in every state.MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:26 am Anyone have a sense of how quickly the legal cases will be disposed of by the courts?
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
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cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: Inauguration CANCELLED
"ABV 8.3% wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:55 amIf anyone with brains in this current administration certainly must be thinking the same thing: "put this guy on a "farewell tour".....NOW "cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:12 amWhat a B I itch for the D team. They finally have a chance to let their hair down and party like it's 1999. Effing COVID won't allow that to happen. Hey maybe just one lil ole super spreader event will be okay? Maybe POTUS elect Biden can rent the Pope mobile for the occasion? I found a new job for trump that keeps him in the White House. He can be the pooper picker upper for Major and Champ. A job truly fit for his level of experience.ABV 8.3% wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:01 am YES....former VP Joe Biden's campaign team have announced that they, along with the DNC & Inauguration committee, will be cancelling the Inauguration as we know it. Instead of a chance of having record attendance, people can bless Biden with online watching and twittering, or live stream on essential facebook. Due to COVID, in person events have been cancelled. Just like you childs graduation events.
It's just a speech, after all. Social distancing can NOT happen if this event happens. Facemasks only do so much. If it's cold, will we witness the "fog of covid" aspirating out of attendees mouths, with every exhale?
you just watch.......Hillaryous Clinton really going to wear a mask the entire time? please.
fake facebook twats of news
between his golf outings and these "barnstorming" type tRump events. Hire full time, around 5-6 thousand people, to tour along with him. Traveling, by train, of course. Leaving behind a legacy of lasting imagery of him caring much about the "environment" and "climate badness". (trains & carbon footprint, blah blah blah)
How hard could it be to find six thousand people wanting the job of just cheering, wearing maga gear and listening to him prattle on and on.
College students, homeless, elderly, unemployed or just plain ole lonely, bored people.
$500 bucks a week, for two weeks. Housing and a coupon to taco bell is provided. Except for the homeless. The consulting firm laying out the groundwork and details IS really hammering on finding mostly homeless. For obviou$ rea$on$. Illegals are good too. Only part of this "deal" that will happen is the "housing" (barracks or dorm living, perfect time ,colleges are empty ) The payment of $500 a week. Goodluck getting paid. but, I digress.
To keep tRump motivated, throw in guest appearances from the like of Sean Hannity, etc.
If the gop of pretend CONservatives can't find that many, always choose smaller venues. Like state fairs or Air Force bases. Put Derek Smalls on the smaller venues.
If anyone with brains in this current administration certainly must be thinking the same thing: "put this guy on a "farewell tour".....NOW "
100% agree. trump will make his money on the other end. The sooner he leaves Washington DC the better off the country is. I likely will disagree with much of the Biden agenda. The American people have spoken and elections have consequences.
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
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MDlaxfan76
- Posts: 27162
- Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:40 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
rrr, abv, etc, I'd love to 'move on'.
To the transition.
To a new President.
To a more competent and more honest administration of the powers of federal government.
Maybe even to a reckoning within my party, the GOP.
One step at a time.
Is there a serious friction remaining to doing so?
Well, yeah, the dishonest a-hole in the Oval Office encouraging his 70 million voters (and 80+ million Twitter followers) to resist the outcome of the election, to believe that the election was stolen, fraudulent, rigged, etc and to exercise their 2nd amendment rights...
Trump goes away, I'm good with letting him go...to jail I hope, but that's another subject.
To the transition.
To a new President.
To a more competent and more honest administration of the powers of federal government.
Maybe even to a reckoning within my party, the GOP.
One step at a time.
Is there a serious friction remaining to doing so?
Well, yeah, the dishonest a-hole in the Oval Office encouraging his 70 million voters (and 80+ million Twitter followers) to resist the outcome of the election, to believe that the election was stolen, fraudulent, rigged, etc and to exercise their 2nd amendment rights...
Trump goes away, I'm good with letting him go...to jail I hope, but that's another subject.
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Farfromgeneva
- Posts: 23833
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am
Re: President Elect Biden
As long as it isn't one of those "rolling stones farewell tours" they've been doing since the late 80s/early 90s
Harvard University, out
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
-
cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
"Maybe even to a reckoning within my party, the GOP."MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:04 am rrr, abv, etc, I'd love to 'move on'.
To the transition.
To a new President.
To a more competent and more honest administration of the powers of federal government.
Maybe even to a reckoning within my party, the GOP.
One step at a time.
Is there a serious friction remaining to doing so?
Well, yeah, the dishonest a-hole in the Oval Office encouraging his 70 million voters (and 80+ million Twitter followers) to resist the outcome of the election, to believe that the election was stolen, fraudulent, rigged, etc and to exercise their 2nd amendment rights...
Trump goes away, I'm good with letting him go...to jail I hope, but that's another subject.
Good luck doing that with 70 million plus trump voters. I saw Mitt talking this morning and he sure sounds like someone just dying to run again. You bring up a very interesting point MD, how does your party make peace with 70 million trump voters? If your party can't do so they won't win any elections for a very long time.
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
-
Farfromgeneva
- Posts: 23833
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am
Re: President Elect Biden
Lots can happen in the next two years.
Harvard University, out
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
University of Utah, in
I am going to get a 4.0 in damage.
(Afan jealous he didn’t do this first)
-
cradleandshoot
- Posts: 15527
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm
Re: President Elect Biden
"To a more competent and more honest administration of the powers of federal government."MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:04 am rrr, abv, etc, I'd love to 'move on'.
To the transition.
To a new President.
To a more competent and more honest administration of the powers of federal government.
Maybe even to a reckoning within my party, the GOP.
One step at a time.
Is there a serious friction remaining to doing so?
Well, yeah, the dishonest a-hole in the Oval Office encouraging his 70 million voters (and 80+ million Twitter followers) to resist the outcome of the election, to believe that the election was stolen, fraudulent, rigged, etc and to exercise their 2nd amendment rights...
Trump goes away, I'm good with letting him go...to jail I hope, but that's another subject.
The words "competent" and "honest" I am sure you are just using as a figure of speech. I would phrase it more like this... The administration of the powers of the federal government will resort back to what it has been for many years. Calling that "competent" and "honest" on your part is a disservice to the words "competent " and "honest" Of course in the bizzaro world of Washington DC those 2 words are interpreted much differently than any dictionary you will ever find.
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross:
Bob Ross:
Re: President Elect Biden
seacoaster wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:21 am Of course....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
"A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as give access to government officials, office space in agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“Jim made the call at 1 a.m.,” Lu said. “There was simply no controversy involved.”
Robert C. MacKichan Jr., an attorney who served as GSA general counsel for presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said that because Trump is contesting the election and the electors have not yet voted, it’s too early for Murphy to make a call. Once the administrator issues the letter, the funds can be spent and can’t be recouped.
Trump has personally intervened in the most prominent real estate project in the agency’s entire portfolio: the plan to build a new FBI headquarters that would allow the bureau out of the crumbling and insecure J. Edgar Hoover Building. (please, with this nonsense. Show us the crumble or be gone ) During his first year in office, Trump and the GSA abruptly canceled a bipartisan plan to build a new suburban headquarters for the agency, infuriating Democrats who had worked more than a decade on the project and who alleged that Trump canceled the project so a competing hotel could never be built in place of the Hoover building, a site down the street from his hotel. The White House said the president’s business had nothing to do with the decision."
Why do you post such junk?
Wasn't the past 3 and half years of full throttle tRumps is lousy enough for you? He lost too, btw.
Guess Biden, after almost 50 years of "public service", 8 of which he was vice-PRESIDENT........what is there left to know about "transitions" of office for Joe Biden?
oligarchy thanks you......same as it evah was