Chris Matthews: Donald Trump may resign to protect ‘next dominoes to fall’ — Ivanka, Donald Jr.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews signed off Monday’s edition of “Hardball” by suggesting President Trump could resign in the “coming weeks” as part of a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller to protect his children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, from facing indictments. “The president’s children stand right in the line of Mueller’s investigative progress,” Mr. Matthews said. “They stand as the next dominoes to fall. “But therein lies the problem: Where earlier Mueller subjects have given Trump up, these two lack the option to do that,” he continued. “They can hardly testify against their father, which brings the country to the reckoning. If the prosecutor will not be stopped and the kids will not fall to him, we see the president’s adult children heading to prison. “But what if the prosecutor were to offer the president an alternative?” he asked. “What if he were to say he would let the children walk if the old man does the same? … That would mean giving up the presidency in the exchange for acquittals all around ― not just for himself, but for all his kids.” Mr. Matthews said the president may have to follow the lead of President Richard Nixon’s twice-elected Vice President Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973 after pleading no contest to tax evasion. “So let’s watch the probable events of the coming weeks bring all this to a breaking point,” Mr. Matthews said. “It is going to be historic.”...MORE

Conservatives voice frustration after Trump signals 'gutless' retreat on border wall

Just over a week after President Trump forcefully suggested he'd risk a government shutdown to secure border wall funding, the White House is now signaling a retreat -- and top conservative commentators and politicians are declaring that the president's "gutless" move has not only broken a campaign promise, but also undermined his credibility as a dealmaker. "Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever" if he yields on the issue, columnist Ann Coulter told The Daily Caller in a podcast. (Within hours of those critical comments, Trump's official Twitter account stopped following Coulter's.) And House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News late Wednesday that "the political fallout will start" soon and that Trump risks doing “major damage” to his re-election effort in 2020. When asked if the president should veto any stopgap funding bill that does not include money for the border wall, Meadows replied “yes.” He added that the "mistake" Republicans had made was that "we didn’t bring up the bill last week when we had the votes." Conservatives' dire rhetoric comes as the White House makes an apparent about-face on the issue of border wall funding just hours before a Friday deadline to pass a spending bill that will keep the federal government operational...MORE

Trump concerned about being impeached, sees it as a 'real possibility,' source says

President Donald Trump has expressed concern that he could be impeached when Democrats take over the House, a source close to the President told CNN Monday. The source said Trump sees impeachment as a "real possibility." But Trump isn't certain it will happen, the source added. A separate source close to the White House told CNN that aides inside the West Wing believe "the only issue that may stick" in the impeachment process is the campaign finance violations tied to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's payouts to Trump's alleged mistresses. Impeachment talk has ratcheted up in recent days following a blockbuster filing from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. In that filing, prosecutors directly alleged for the first time that Cohen was being directed by Trump when he broke the law during the 2016 presidential campaign...MORE

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.\

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader. It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall. The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them. To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office...MORE

WH official pens anonymous NY Times op-ed calling Trump 'anti-democratic,' 'petty and ineffective'

The New York Times on Wednesday published an explosive opinion piece written by an anonymous senior White House official who described a "two-track presidency" in which top officials are "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [President Trump's] agenda and his worst inclinations." The piece quickly triggered anger from inside the White House, as President Trump called it "gutless," and Press Secretary Sarah Sanders demanded the unnamed author "resign." The New York Times on Wednesday published an explosive opinion piece written by an anonymous senior White House official who described a "two-track presidency" in which top officials are "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [President Trump's] agenda and his worst inclinations." The piece quickly triggered anger from inside the White House, as President Trump called it "gutless," and Press Secretary Sarah Sanders demanded the unnamed author "resign." The Times' Twitter account indicated that the author was a man. However, a Times spokesperson told Fox News that the tweet in question "was drafted by someone who is not aware of the author's identity, including the gender, so the use of 'he' was an error." Trump responded at a White House meeting with sheriffs from across America. "If I weren't here, I believe the New York Times probably wouldn't exist," the president said to laughter and applause from the assembled sheriffs. "And someday when I'm not president, which hopefully will be in about six-and-a-half years from now, The New York Times and CNN and all of these phony media outlets will be out of business ... because there'll be nothing to write." Trump tweeted late Wednesday night, promising to drain the swamp, vowing, "We will win." In a statement, Sanders said the author of the piece was "a gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times."...MORE

Woodward book prompts West Wing witch hunt, sources say

President Donald Trump, showing his outrage over Bob Woodward's explosive new book, is ordering a real witch hunt in the West Wing and throughout his administration, asking loyal aides to help determine who cooperated with the book. "The book is fiction," Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office alongside the Emir of Kuwait. Even as the President publicly fumes, he's privately on a mission to determine who did -- and didn't -- talk to Woodward, CNN has learned. But no sooner had the search for Woodward's sources begun than yet another devastating portrait of the President emerged, this time via a New York Times op-ed written by an unnamed senior Trump administration official. The White House did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment on the op-ed. Before it published, two officials who have spoken directly to the President say he is pleased with the denials of speaking to Woodward offered by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis. Trump himself highlighted the denials of Mattis and Kelly, saying that both men were "insulted" by the comments Woodward attributed to them. "Gen. Mattis has come out very, very strongly...He was insulted by the remarks that were attributed to him," Trump said. "John Kelly, same thing. He was insulted by what they said. He couldn't believe what they said." In Trump's eyes, what makes or breaks aides who are reported to have made disparaging comments about him is how strongly they push back on the accusations. Unlike Kelly and Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson never denied calling Trump a "moron" and a former senior White House official said Trump "never forgave him for it." But he is also taking note of the silence from several other former administration officials. "He wants to know who talked to Woodward," one of the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity amid the highly tense atmosphere in the West Wing in the wake of the book...MORE

Trump rolls back pay requirements for guides on federal lands

President Donald Trump has rolled back an Obama-mandated minimum wage requirement for outfitters and guides who operate on federal lands. President Obama had enacted a $10.10 minimum wage requirement by executive order in 2014 for businesses that operate on federal lands, such as national parks, monuments, and recreational areas. The mandate swept in outfitters and guides, including river, fishing, hunting guides, and operators engaged in multi-day expeditions, who were forced into an overtime wage structure that is inappropriate to their lifestyles. The rule applied to mountain guides and all their expedition assistants in places such as Denali National Park. Still covered by the minimum wage rule are lodge and food service workers at establishments that have permits to operate on federal land. “We objected to outfitters being in the executive order under Obama, and never got a bit of notice back from that administration,” said Rod Arno, executive director of the Alaska Outdoor Council. “It’s pretty hard to be a seasonal guide in Alaska, where our seasons are so short and intents, and you are on call 24-7 because of the dangers of weather and bears. The expense of compliance with Executive Order 13658 was harmful, if not impossible. A lot of guides are doing it as family businesses and are not paying themselves most of the time they’re actually working.”...MORE

Good news for outfitters and guides and I'm glad to see them get this relief...but...couldn't that headline just as well have been...Trump endorses Obama minimum wage order for everyone except outfitters and guides...why not rescind the entire order?

Trump vs. the “Deep State”: How the Administration’s loyalists are quietly reshaping American governance.

This is a long article that covers the gamut on personnel issues. Excerpted below is the part about Zinke and the Dept. of Interior:

...One of Trump’s most ardent lieutenants is Ryan Zinke. Six feet two, with broad shoulders and a cleft chin, Zinke is a fifth-generation Montanan who was recruited as a linebacker at the University of Oregon and spent twenty-three years in the Navy SEALs. In 2008, he entered politics, in the Montana State Senate. After one term in Congress, he was appointed Secretary of the Interior, and arrived for his first day of work on horseback, riding down C Street in a ten-gallon hat and jeans. Since then, Zinke has attracted attention mostly for his zealous embrace of Trump’s energy agenda. He has opened up America’s coasts to offshore oil and gas drilling; overturned a moratorium on new leases for coal mines on public land; and recommended shrinking national monuments in Utah by two million acres, the largest reduction of protected lands in American history.
Within the department, Zinke has adopted the President’s approach to expertise, loyalty, and dissent. In April, 2017, a scientist named Joel Clement, the director of the department’s Office of Policy Analysis, visited Zinke for a briefing. He noticed that Zinke had redecorated the office with a grizzly bear, mounted on its hind legs, and a collection of knives. Zinke has no professional experience in geology, but he routinely describes himself as a “geologist,” because he majored in geology in college. (In a 2016 memoir, “American Commander,” Zinke wrote that he chose it by “randomly pointing to a major from the academic catalog.”) “He doesn’t read briefing materials,” Clement told me. “He comes over and sits down, and he says, ‘O.K., what are we here for?’ ” To keep Zinke’s attention, staff hewed to subjects related to his personal experience. “I briefed him on invasive species,” Clement said. “It was one issue where it looked like we might actually get a little traction, because in Montana they had just discovered mussels that could really screw up the agricultural economy.” The strategy failed. “He didn’t understand what we were talking about. He started talking about other species—ravens and coyotes. He was filling the intellectual vacuum with nonsense. It’s amazing that he has such confidence, given his level of ignorance.”
A couple of months later, Zinke ordered the involuntary reassignment of dozens of the department’s most senior civil servants. Clement, who had been his agency’s public face on issues related to climate change, was assigned to the accounting office that handles royalty checks for oil and gas and coal extraction. His new job had no duties and appeared on no organizational chart. Clement filed a whistle-blower complaint; he believed that his post was retaliation for speaking about the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities. In October, he quit. “I really didn’t feel like I had a choice,” he told me. “I wanted to keep my voice more than I wanted to keep the job.” In a resignation letter, Clement accused Zinke and Trump of having “waged an all-out assault on the civil service by muzzling scientists and policy experts.” (A department spokesperson declined to comment for this article, citing “loaded and flat-out false information.”)
Like his Commander-in-Chief, Zinke makes no secret of his distrust. “I got thirty per cent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag,” he said, in September, to an advisory board dominated by oil and gas executives. He likened his leadership of the department to capturing a ship at sea, and vowed to prevail over resistant employees. Zinke’s comment drew a rebuke from fifteen former Interior appointees, in Republican and Democratic Administrations, who appealed to him to let public servants “do their jobs without fear of retaliation on political grounds.” In a private mutiny, some of his staff printed T-shirts that read “30% DISLOYAL” and took to calling themselves “the disloyals.”
One of the department’s largest divisions, the Bureau of Land Management, has distributed plastic badges, called “vision cards,” for employees to wear, bearing an image of an oil rig on one side and cattle ranchers on the other. The bureau said they are not mandatory, but an employee told me, “If you’re not wearing them, I think management in some places looks at you like maybe you’re not loyal to the flag.” Under Zinke, the employee said, policy debate has dried up: “We’re supposed to provide back-and-forth perspective, so that you make the best decision based on science and based on the law. But that’s a pretty big struggle right now.” The employee went on, “I hunt and fish—I’m actually kind of a redneck. But I believe in the public good and public land. When Trump talks his b.s. about the ‘deep state,’ that’s who he’s referring to. I totally reject that kind of characterization. That’s how these guys see it: if you’re not a tool of the most high-powered lobbyists in Washington or following orders, then they really don’t want you around.”
Zinke has also adopted the White House’s preoccupation with quashing unflattering information. In April, 2017, he came under criticism after internal memos were leaked, revealing his intention to roll back protections on public land. To prevent that from happening again, Matthew Allen, the B.L.M.’s communications director, was ordered to stop the leaks. Allen pointed out that very little of Interior’s work is classified. “I can’t stop these leaks, because I don’t have the resources or the authority,” he said. “I don’t think it’s legal.”
Last fall, Trump appointees in the department became frustrated by bad press over efforts to expand mining and drilling, and by Freedom of Information Act requests that sought details of their contacts with powerful industries. Allen received another order: send FOIA requests about political appointees to the subjects themselves before releasing the results to the public. He was taken aback. “It was just a blatant conflict of interest,” he said. “The person who may be under suspicion, that they’re requesting records on, is going to be an approval authority in the chain. That just doesn’t seem O.K.”
After another leak, Allen was turkey-farmed—reassigned to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, in a newly created position with no staff and no responsibilities. Allen filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel. “I did not swear an oath to Ryan Zinke, Donald Trump, or any other person,” he told me. “My oath is to the Constitution. I work for the American people. I still feel like I am helping to uphold the Constitution, even if it’s by insuring the First Amendment by having this conversation.”
In one agency after another, I encountered a pattern: on controversial issues, the Administration is often not writing down potentially damaging information. After members of Congress requested details on Carson’s decorating expenses, Marcus Smallwood, the departmental-records officer at HUD, wrote an open letter to Carson, saying, “I do not have confidence that HUD can truthfully provide the evidence being requested by the House Oversight Committee because there has been a concerted effort to stop email traffic regarding these matters.” At the Department of the Interior, the Inspector General’s office investigated Zinke’s travel expenses but was stymied by “absent or incomplete documentation” that would “distinguish between personal, political, and official travel.” According to Ruch, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, when environmentalists filed suit to discover if industry lobbyists had influenced a report on Superfund sites, they were told, “There are no minutes, no work product, no materials.” Ruch added, “The task-force report was a product of immaculate conception.” He believes that the Administration is “deliberately avoiding creating records.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Trump's personal lawyer coughs up name of mystery client: Sean Hannity

As adult-film actress Stormy Daniels looked on, a federal judge ordered U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen to cough up the name of client he had hoped to keep secret at a Monday court hearing: Sean Hannity. Hannity is a conservative television host known for passionately advocating for Trump on his Fox News show, and often receiving public praise from Trump in return. Calls to a Fox News spokeswoman were not immediately returned. Cohen, Trump’s fiercely loyal and pugnacious lawyer, was in court to ask a judge to limit the ability of federal prosecutors to review documents seized as part of a criminal investigation. The investigation has frustrated the White House as it has spread to enfold some of Trump’s closest confidantes. Cohen has argued that some of the documents and data seized in last week’s raids are protected by attorney-client privilege or otherwise unconnected to the investigation. But Judge Kimba Wood rejected his efforts to mask the identity of Hannity, a client Cohen had said wanted to avoid publicity. “I understand if he doesn’t want his name out there, but that’s not enough under the law,” Wood said, before ordering a lawyer for Cohen to disclose the name. Cohen has asked the court to give his own lawyers the first look at the seized materials so they can identify documents that are protected by attorney-client privilege. Failing that, they want the court to appoint an independent official known as a special master, a role typically filled by a lawyer, to go through the documents and electronic data seized under a warrant and decide what prosecutors can see...MORE

The Real Investigation

Andrew McCarthy

President Trump now has real legal peril. The potential jeopardy stems from the investigation that came to light this week when the FBI conducted raids on the office and residences of his lawyer and self-professed “fixer,” Michael Cohen.

I’ve never thought “collusion with Russia” posed jeopardy. If there had been anything criminal to that storyline, the politicized anti-Trump factions in the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies would have leaked it. And, notwithstanding Trump’s nauseating nods to Putin, the administration has taken enough aggressive steps against Russia that it is past time for the Kremlin to broadcast the big kompromat file if it exists.

I’ve also never thought Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s other known angle, obstruction, posed a great risk. There is a line between foolishness and crime. For important policy reasons, a president should not weigh in with the FBI director on the merits of investigating a friend and political ally; and it would be better if he did not make personnel moves that could be perceived as efforts to influence witnesses or affect the course of an investigation. But as long as a president’s actions — e.g., firing the FBI director, discussing the possibility of pardons — are on their face legal and within his legitimate constitutional authority, I do not believe they can validly predicate an obstruction prosecution. (In theory, they could be grist for impeachment, which involves a political inquiry into abuse of power, not a legal proceeding to establish the essential elements of a statutory crime.)

The matter now under investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), however, is a very live criminal investigation. Anyone potentially connected to it should be worried.

...In the earlier column, I observed that it would be outrageous to raid a lawyer’s premises if the only “crime” under investigation were a campaign-finance infraction — which is generally treated as a civil-law issue for the Federal Election Commission to sort out...

That, however, is not what’s going on here — or, at least, I don’t think it is all that is going on here.

I believe that the government is investigating whether there was, in connection with Trump’s White House bid, a conspiracy to commit fraud and extortion for the purpose of silencing potentially compromising sources — specifically, people in a position to portray Donald Trump as a womanizer.

Clearly, the prosecutors regard Trump and Cohen as potential co-conspirators. That does not mean a conspiracy will be proven, but the possibility is certainly being scrutinized. Here, it is important to bear in mind a distinction from the Russia investigation: This is not a counterintelligence matter; the SDNY is unquestionably conducting a criminal investigation, and a federal judge would not have authorized search warrants absent finding probable cause that federal crimes may have been committed.

The Cohen search warrants sought, as the New York Times describes it, “all documents, including emails between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump, related to Mr. Cohen’s efforts to suppress negative publicity ahead of the 2016 election.” We know that these efforts specifically involve — but are not necessarily limited to — the burying of stories about Trump’s flings with pornographic actress Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Various reports also indicate that a former Trump-building doorman named Dino Sajudin was paid $30,000 to stay silent about an unverified claim that, nearly 30 years ago, Trump fathered a child out of wedlock with a young Trump Organization employee.

...As I explained earlier this week, the only thing protected in a lawyer’s office are attorney–client communications and work product. If Cohen had incriminating items unrelated to attorney work in his office, being a lawyer does not shield him from liability. Furthermore, if there is no attorney–client relationship on a particular matter, there is no privilege. Trump and Cohen both say that Cohen did not tell Trump about the Clifford arrangement. Sounds implausible, but on its face it means there was no attorney–client relationship regarding that transaction.

More important, if a lawyer is involved with a client in a criminal conspiracy, the crime-fraud exception to the attorney–client privilege strips their communications of privileged status. It seems evident that prosecutors are investigating on the theory that Clifford, McDougal, and perhaps others were defrauded or extorted into silence. The fact that they accepted money does not foreclose the possibility that their agreement to remain silent was procured, in part, by trickery or threats.

 

When Hillary Clinton inserted lawyers at various stages of her email scandal, in order to conceal the mishandling of classified information, the destruction of government records, and the obstruction of investigations, some of us pointed out that when lawyers become actors in criminal schemes, there is no privilege. That’s still true.

No wrongdoing has been established at this point. But the SDNY investigation is a serious matter.

For all the known facts, legal intricacies and sordid details, please read the entire column at NATIONAL REVIEW

Trump increasingly weary of staff advice

The speech was written. A cast of relatable Americans with emotional stories was standing by to reinforce the message. But President Donald Trump was in no mood to play along. "The hell with it," Trump said, recounting the scene with his aides to a West Virginia crowd last week. Trump tossed the staff-prepared remarks on tax cuts in the air and ducked as the paper fluttered to the floor. "I said, 'This is boring, come on.' Tell it like it is." This president has never been one to stick to a script, but that abandoned speech illustrates a new phase in Trump's presidency. He is increasingly at odds with his staff — and growing wise to their tactics. One favored staff strategy: Guide the president to the right decision by making the conventional choice seem like the only realistic option. Except now, 14 months into his administration, Trump is on to them, and he's making clear he won't be boxed in. That was the message that an irritated Trump delivered to his national security team last week in a classified meeting about U.S. involvement in Syria. Trump's advisers, among them Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, were advocating for an ongoing U.S. military presence to provide stability. They aimed to rely on the same playbook they used last year in persuading Trump to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. They would paint a dire picture of a pullout, of regional chaos benefiting Russia and Iran, and the potential resurgence of the Islamic State group. But even before they could begin their pitch in that meeting Tuesday, Trump headed them off, saying he wanted to remove U.S. troops immediately. The ensuing heated argument put new distance between the president and his team and left the military with a mandate, if not a formal order, to remove U.S. troops from Syria within six months. The episode stood in sharp contrast to the earlier meeting on Afghanistan, when Trump went along with his advisers despite his instincts to pull out completely...MORE

I wish he had done something similar on national monuments1

Trump signals he's open to mileage tax with praise of Oregon program

The White House on Wednesday praised an experimental program in Oregon that charges a mileage tax to volunteer drivers, adding to signals that President Donald Trump is open to finding new revenue sources to pay for his proposed infrastructure program. Many of Trump’s fellow Republicans, however, dislike the idea of a transportation tax as it would go against the grain of the party’s push to lower taxes and could hit Republican-leaning rural areas harder than cities. In the annual Economic Report of the President, the White House described Oregon - a Democratic-leaning state where environmental issues are a priority for many voters - as a “pioneer” in transportation funding and highlighted its funding initiative, which began in 2015. Volunteers are charged a fee of 1.7 cents for each mile driven on state roads. In return, drivers get rebates for state fuel taxes. As of the end of 2016, only about 700 people were participating in the program, which is intended to gather data and generate consumer feedback. “The program offers tangible evidence that a tax on vehicle miles traveled is a promising alternative to relying on fuel taxes,” the report said. Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, described Oregon’s mileage tax as “innovative” in a conference call with reporters and made clear the Trump administration was open to looking at ways to raise revenue for infrastructure projects...more

Rural residents already spend a large share of their income on transportation, and a tax of this type would increase that disparity.  And guess which population would receive the most benefits from these tax revenues? That's right, urban residents. This is the opposite of a Robin Hood tax, its a Sheriff of Nottingham tax.  

All about Trump's infrastructure plan

Below are some links followed by the 55p plan. My previous comments on the leaked version of the plan are here

Trump is announcing a huge $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan — here's what's in it

Trump infrastructure plan to ask states for big bucks

Trump aims to speed environmental reviews in infrastructure plan

Trump says it is 'going to be up to' Congress to act on plan to rebuild roads

The plan is embedded below. To download the plan go here.

The hiring freeze is over, so do we lose all the ground we gained?

by Jazz Shaw

One of President Trump’s first big moves upon taking office (wildly applauded around these parts) was a freeze on federal hiring with an eye toward dramatic cuts in the size of the federal government. This was supposed to usher in an era of trimming down the federal behemoth, reducing costs and lessening the impact of Washington on the day to day lives of the average citizen. The freeze was always designed to be temporary, allowing time for departments to come up with plans as to how they would tighten their belts going forward. This week the freeze was lifted early and it sounds as if the promised, long-term reduction plans are still mostly theoretical. (Government Executive)

The Trump administration announced its hiring freeze will end Wednesday, while delivering to agencies promised guidance on how they should reduce the size of their workforces in both the near and long term. Trump’s hiring freeze, which went into effect Jan. 23, lasted 79 days, with the Office of Management and Budget issuing guidance to end it 11 days before the president’s initial deadline. While agencies are allowed to begin hiring again without restriction or approval from the Office of Personnel Management, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday they cannot begin onboarding employees “willy-nilly.”

“willy-nilly”? Really? You just watch them. 

 I just posted two days ago about all the vacancies in leadership positions in the Trump administration. That means the under secretarys, assistant secretarys, agency heads and so on aren't in place to oversee the hirings.

Can't help but agree with Shaw's conclusion:

The honeymoon period isn’t going to last long for the Trump administration, assuming there even was one. We gave you guys the ax. It’s time to start chopping.

Why the Trump administration has so many vacancies

By Nancy Cook, Josh Dawsey and Andrew Restuccia

Hundreds of key jobs across the federal government remain vacant as a result of an overworked White House personnel office that is frustrating Cabinet secretaries and hampering President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out his ambitious legislative agenda. The process is bogged down as a result of micromanaging by the president and senior staff, turf wars between the West Wing and Cabinet secretaries and a largely inexperienced and overworked staff, say more than a dozen sources including administration insiders, lobbyists, lawyers and Republican strategists. Trump personally oversees the hiring process for agency staff by insisting on combing through a binder full of names each week and likes to sign off on each one, according to two people with knowledge of the administration’s hiring process. Also weighing in on the names — and not always agreeing on final picks — are leaders of sometimes warring factions, including chief of staff Reince Priebus, senior strategist Steve Bannon, Cabinet secretaries and, sometimes, the White House’s top lawyer, Don McGahn. “It’s like a medieval court,” said one person advising potential nominees through the confirmation process. “The White House meets once a week to go over personnel in some attempt to create uniformity, but in this White House, you just have to smile at that. … It’s hard to impose uniformity among the White House’s different coalitions.” The only uniformity is that potential hires must show fealty to the president. One person close to the White House said a sense of “paranoia” has taken over amid fears that disloyal hires might undercut Trump’s agenda or leak to the press. All of this adds up to unusual pressure on the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which is charged with filling thousands of jobs throughout the federal government, according to former personnel staffers from the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush. The top-heavy decision-making has put the Trump White House behind other West Wings in filling out the ranks of the federal government. Of the 553 key appointments that require Senate approval, the White House has formally nominated 24 people and 22 have been confirmed, according to data from the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service — to say nothing of the thousands of slots that don't require confirmation. By comparison, Obama had 54 people confirmed by April 7; Bush, 32; and Bill Clinton, 44...more

Trump donates first 3 months of salary to Park Service

President Donald Trump is donating the first three months of his salary to the National Park Service. White House press secretary Sean Spicer handed an oversized check for $78,333.32 to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke during Monday's briefing. The billionaire businessman turned president had promised to forgo his presidential salary. By law he must be paid, so he is donating the money. Taxpayers can write off such donations, potentially lowering their income taxes...more

Inside the Trump admin's favorite conservation coalition

Corbin Hiar, E&E News reporter

On Ryan Zinke's first full day leading the Interior Department, he hosted top officials from more than a dozen sportsmen's groups — some of which were returning to the secretary's wood-paneled suite for the first time in years. The gathering provided a glimpse of both how Zinke's conservation priorities will differ from his predecessor's and which organizations he's most likely to consult. All but four of the 19 groups represented that day had one thing in common: They are part of American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP), a little-known consortium of sportsmen's groups that is poised to wield considerable influence at Interior in the coming years. Some of the partner groups that sent executives to the meeting have deep ties to President Trump and Zinke. The National Rifle Association, which had little high-level contact with Interior during the Obama era, spent more $30.3 million during the 2016 race in support of Trump or targeting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. That was more than any other outside group, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a money in politics watchdog organization. During the same election cycle, the Safari Club International donated $10,000 to the campaign of Zinke, who until earlier this month was Montana's lone Republican House member. Other partner groups, such as the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), count Donald Trump Jr. as an active member. Along with the rest of AWCP, they will be pushing Interior to support overhauling the Endangered Species Act, reining in environmental litigation and streamlining environmental reviews of timber projects. Those were among the policy recommendations to "conserve our fish, wildlife, and habitat resources long into the 21st century" that the consortium's 47 partner organizations sent to presidential candidates last year. Though all the groups — from the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies to Ducks Unlimited — signed on to AWCP's "Wildlife for the 21st Century" report, some may push particular policies included in it, while others may stay silent. "It's pretty clear that Trump and Don Trump Jr. and Zinke all value the importance of the sportsmen community," said TRCP President and CEO Whit Fosburgh, who was also in the room with Zinke on his first full day in office. "We have access, and we're in a good position to make our voices heard in this administration."...more

The first casualties of Trump's trade wars are Texas cattle ranchers

If the first casualty of war is truth, then the first casualties of trade war are the working man and woman. And first among them is about to be the iconic Texas rancher. Here in the rolling pastures of bright, green spring grass at the edge of the Texas Hill Country, the handful of large spreads prosper from a wet winter. The short-horned charlois breed, imported from France via Mexico, grow thick and wide, their white coats bright in the sunshine of impending spring. The charlois makes for some of the finest grass-fed beef in the world. Now that a years-long drought has broken, ranchers can count on trucking in less of that expensive coastal grass they require in the dry months. But the Texas cattle rancher now faces a new threat: the Trump administration's blundering, blustering trade policy. By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers. Texas ranchers, though, will not be alone for long. Beef producers from Nebraska to the Dakotas face the same problems. So do grain farmers in Kansas and the snow-covered corn fields of Iowa, just like tomato farmers in California and Florida and autoworkers in Michigan, longshoremen, truckers and railway workers in Miami and Houston and Long Beach. These will be the first casualties of a trade war. Trump fired his opening salvo right after his inauguration by threatening a 20 percent tax on Mexican goods coming into the United States, the funds would ostensibly fund the border wall. That led to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a summit with the new American president. Trump's was an artillery shell delivered for effect. Peña Nieto answered in kind. Within days, both beat a hasty retreat though, putting their diplomats behind closed doors with the Canadians to work out a new trade agreement. By then, however, the collateral damage was done. It was clear that the Trump administration would at least re-write trade agreements if not scuttle them. The first to go down was the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And re-writing the rest means, at the very least, injecting uncertainty into what the new rules of trade look like. At the worst, it means that the trade wars will resume in earnest. No state in the country has more exposure to economic damage in each scenario than Texas.  Now all that is at varying forms of risk. Sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership may have been popular with Trump's supporters, but it was not popular with cattle ranchers. They have been building herds for years and anticipated shipping beef products -- some of which are not exactly popular among American consumers -- to Japan as tariffs fell from 38.5 percent to just over 9 percent. Now that opportunity is gone. Instead, other cattle-producing nations like Australia will try to seize the Japanese market on a bilateral basis.
Last week, Texas ranchers shipped 1,430 cattle to Mexico, most to slaughter and to market. On an annual basis that's 74,000 head, part of a brisk two-way business that sees hundreds of thousands of Mexican cattle coming north to be fattened in Midwestern feed lots. But in the event of a trade war, all bets are off. A tariff here means retaliation by the Mexican government there, and the last time that happened, it was the United States that surrendered...more

Smokey Bear lobby designed to stir young imaginations - Forest Service staff is proud of new entrance, gift shop and lobby

When children visit the Smokey Bear Ranger District office of the Lincoln National Forest, they come out smiling and carrying a few free momentoes of their time at the U.S. Forest Service station in Ruidoso, along with whatever toys, books and clothing their parents may buy in the lobby gift shop. But just a few years ago, the situation was different. As Customer Service Representative George Garnett recalled Wednesday, there was a time when the stop might have been a little boring for children. He wants the public to know that today it is worth their time to come inside. “According to Larry Cordova (district wildlife biologist), it all started back in the mid-2000s,” Garnett said. “He noticed that young people would come to the Smokey Bear Ranger District and he saw how excited they were when they came out of the car. But they would run into the ranger station and there really wasn’t anything exciting in there. All we had for them was maybe a comic book and a few little gifts. We didn’t have a gift shop or anything exciting inside to see.” When Cordova was assigned to a district office in the state of Washington, it had a gift shop and he saw many others when visiting forests across the country. So he brought up the possibility of created a shop at the Cedar Creek Drive station office during a leadership meeting in Carlsbad about eight years ago, pointing out that the Smokey Bear District was where the famous bear icon actually was found during a forest fire. Of all places, the district should create a memorable experience, he argued, so that when people came inside, they were just as excited as when they got out of the car. “They started developing plans with our U.S. Forest Service engineers to turn a meeting room (toward the front entrance of the station) into a gift center and larger lobby,” Garnett said. “We had a really small entrance before and we needed more room.” nside the lobby, gifts from the Public Land Interpretive Association are displayed on shelves along one wall with all different sizes of Smokey Bear toys from large stuffed animals to keychains, Garnett said. “We have caps, T-shirts, scarves, backpack, binoculars, puzzles, lots of books, calendars and stuffed animals of every orientation,” Garnett said...more

I know this may sound like an old Scrooge, but I wonder how much this entire renovation cost?

The forest reserves were created to "improve and protect" the forests "for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States." I'm not sure how we got from there to making little kids happy.

The overall management of the forests is now controlled by the courts and the enviro law firms, so maybe the employees need something they can actually manage, like a gift shop.

And now Smokey Bear has been adopted as the mascot of anti-Trump resistance.

The National Park Service Goes Rogue

Shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the official National Park Service (NPS) Twitter account was caught retweeting crowd size photos that poked fun at Trump’s poorly attended ceremony. Hours later, the Badlands National Park in western South Dakota began tweeting out facts about human-induced climate change. Then the Death Valley National Park posted tweets about the park’s history as an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. The subsequent days brought more rumblings of dissent. Hundreds of “alternative” NPS social media accounts began to appear, run by anonymous NPS employees upset at the Trump administration’s attempt to obstruct evidence of human-caused climate change. A Rogue EPA popped up, followed by a Rogue NASA, USDA, Forest Service, and so on. Some tweeted climate facts relevant to their particular agency or park. Others took it a step further, highlighting the catastrophic ecological impacts of Trump’s border wall and approval of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. Last weekend, in a front-page article, the New York Times reported that its interviews with dozens of current and recently departed federal employees “reveal a federal workforce that is more fundamentally shaken than usual by the uncertainties that follow a presidential transition from one party to another.” The subhead inside put it even more starkly: “‘Sense of Dread’ Among Civil Servants Stirs Talk of Resistance to Trump.” Ideologically fractured, divided, and contested, government agencies in the age of Trump present themselves not just as sites of struggle but as opportunities for real left advances — especially against a president with little knowledge about the workings of the federal bureaucracy...

Read about these rogue agencies at JACOBIN, which bills itself as "a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture." The post covers several topics, including how Smokey Bear "has recently been taken up as a mascot of anti-Trump resistance." But about these federal agencies they conclude:

 Over 1.4 million people now follow the most popular Rogue NPS page. The page advocates resistance to border walls, privatization of public lands, and suppression of science. Stealing the NPS name and enlisting it in the growing resistance to privatization, resource extraction, climate denial, and racism, the Rogue NPS models a National Park Service that stands up for a concept of nature as common. The Rogue NPS movement is more than cute memes captured in the circuits of communicative capitalism. It marks a symbolic strike against the Trump administration. It bites the hand that feeds it, refusing the power of the powerful. It also tells us that there are people within government agencies who are eager to fight Trump. For the Left, the rogue agencies challenge us to rethink our tactics in this convulsive era. They remind us that the people who staff the NPS, EPA, NPS, NOAA, and other public institutions are not merely state functionaries. They are also producers of common knowledge, even potential agents of subversion.