President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition staff has issued a blanket edict requiring politically appointed ambassadors to leave their overseas posts by Inauguration Day, according to several American diplomats familiar with the plan, breaking with decades of precedent by declining to provide even the briefest of grace periods.
The mandate — issued “without exceptions,” according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a case-by-case basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.
Complete asshole:
In Costa Rica, Ambassador Stafford Fitzgerald Haney is hunting for a house or an apartment as his family — which includes four school-age children and his wife, who has been battling breast cancer — struggles to figure out how to avoid a move back to the United States with five months left in the school year, according to the diplomats.
In the Czech Republic, they said, Ambassador Andrew H. Schapiro is seeking housing in Prague as well as lobbying his children’s Chicago-based school to break with policy and accept them back midyear. In Brussels and Geneva, Denise Bauer, the United States ambassador to Belgium, and Pamela Hamamoto, the permanent representative to the United Nations, are both trying to find a way to keep daughters from having to move just months before their high school graduation.
I hope Trump has really important plans for Costa Rica that no one but his hand-picked ambassador can oversee.
I’ll keep an eye out to see how long it takes for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to get around to confirming this vital replacement.
Gotta give it to him…aggression without cease.
The Mike Tyson of politics.
Like Tyson…where will the ear-biting begin?
Even more importantly…who will be his Teddy Atlas?
AG
Or even better, his Buster Douglas.
Maybe.
But Buster went down.
Teddy got there early, and he’s still around.
A survivor.
We need ’em.
Bet on it.
AG
Fair enough, but Douglas knocked out a man in the ring. Atlas pulled a pistol on a child.
A dangerous, murderous child. Driven Brownsville nuts? Yes. But he was still dangerous and potentially murderous.
Even then.
Tyson was sexually messing w/a young, defenseless woman. A relative of Atlas’s, I believe. He outweighed Atlas by at least 40 pounds and was already a potential champion. What was Atlas supposed to do? Go reason with this angry, crazy motherfucker? Walk away and leave the girl in threat? Smack him in the mouth? Call the police in some two-bit upstate NY town where the boxing camp was probably the most successful business?
Please.
AG
Who knew the State Dept sends a cable to ambassadors based on an edict from a president elect? OTOH:
So, technically, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Guess if they want to work for Trump, they’ll have to apply for a job.
Right, but those justifications weren’t even reviewed by Trump’s people.
That’s how a spoils system operates. Complaining about the rules after the fact, unless one has been complaining about it all along, is petty and a distraction.
Far better to focus critiques on team der Trump’s efforts to undermine the federal employees selection and merit system. One that has served us well for a long time to limit the levels corruption and preclude our government from being another banana republic.
Dunno about this one.
It’s looking just like a run of the mill banana republic, Marie.
The only real difference?
A much bigger banana.
AG
Heh. Been a banana republic for years. Now we’ll just drop the pretense.
Drop the pretense?
More like drop the peel on the ground and watch as the world slips and falls on it.
AG
Or?
Suck his…
Little hands.
So it goes.
AG
That’s normal. Usually the new administration lets them stay until they have the replacement ready. This applies to the political appointees (Schedule C) that don’t require confirmation.
However, how can Congress start confirmation hearings on the appointments of a man who is not yet President? I think that is unprecedented and possibly illegal. Obama is still President and has the sole authority to appoint subject to Senate confirmation of HIS appointments. As I’ve said before, this is going to be a good year for lawyers with plenty of lawsuits filed.
The ambassador thing is just very bad manners. If an ambassador wanted to he could not resign but wait for the new President to fire him. But the normal procedure is for them to offer pro forma resignations that are accepted one by one by the new President as replacements become available.
Isn’t that exactly what Trumpsters want to see from their guy? Bad manners and “drain the swamp.”
True, but I’m much more concerned with him having the power to take away a Civil Servant’s pay without cause or an administrative hearing. That CAN be done now, but the employee has a right to a hearing before the Civil Service Commission who can fire him (yes it IS done) for CAUSE, nor whim, and to have legal representation as well as union representation.
People say that Civil Servants can’t be fired but they are wrong. It’s just hard. It’s hard because management has to prove their case not fire people arbitrarily like corporations do (when the employees don’t have a union).
The Civil Service Commission was dissolved in 1978.
I don’t want to minimize the harm that can be done to individual federal public employees, but protections do exist for fired or even demoted without cause. Greenhouse’s demotion cost the government almost a million dollars (plus whatever additional legal costs the government incurred defending the demotion). At a million dollars a pop (which would be at the low end for compensatory damages and attorney’s fees) it doesn’t take many for such costs to be driven up over the billion dollar line. If der Trumper goes there, it’s one of those things that simple enough for the rubes to understand and become outraged over it.
Renamed as Merit Systems Protection Board.
I was kind of shocked by your statement because I was still in service in 1979 and it should have have made major waves. Instead, that legislation went largely unnoticed. So, I conclude it was just reorganization and re-naming, with separation of employer/employee functions. Else the unions would have raised the roof if our protections were dissolved.
Thanks for pointing this out.
I’m referring to the pending legislation that would allow the President to arbitrarily lower the salary of any Civil servant to $1. Assuming it passes, there isn’t much anyone can do except attack the Constitutionality of the law. So, if all your duties are taken away and you are ordered to sit at your desk and not even answer the phone (I’ve seen this, it’s usually effective after a while) and your pay is reduced to $1 a year, you are effectively fired.
And that would be a demotion without cause. Same as Greenhouse’s. The $1 salary would entitle the employee to file a claim with the US Merit Systems Protection Board. It is has to power to both require the re-hiring of a wrongfully terminated employee and order retroactive salary payment. Recent large settlements have also been near the million dollar mark.
der Trumpster may envision an all volunteer and uncompensated federal work force, but the majority in this country still retain a value of fairness and this isn’t going to fly with them. Although, if framed broadly as fairness by the opposition, it would be powerful enough to cost the GOP the House and Senate in 2018. (Framed as protecting federal employees would be weak tea.) “What’s next? $1/year for fast food employees?”
NO! It’s NOT a demotion! The title and grade stay the same. The duties are re-assigned as is management’s right to assign duties. The proposed act allows the pay to be reduced without penalty. Right now cutting pay is an adverse act, but it won’t b3e if the Republican bill becomes law.
So, the proposed act requires that the salary for all grades be adjusted to a minimum of $1/year? Grades and salary are intertwined and can’t be disconnected wily-nilly without running afoul of a large body of law and court rulings. And some stupid new rule can’t override all of that. I suppose they could go for a constitutional amendment, but good luck with that.
According to Booman it’s individual.
Sure because the civil service that was established 130 years ago is today exactly as it was back then. No additional legislation, agency rules, court decisions, etc. have taken place in the interim. That KS AG is always looking for and finding some loophole in old legislation that he can exploit and upend something or another but with little to no success.
NARFE is also worried about this.
(from member e-mail)
CNBC – Is your Sears or Macy’s closing? Here’s a look at the stores that will go dark
Also off-loading one of its crown jewels – Money – Sears sells Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker
Not to worry:
Assuming you local Sears store wasn’t on the chopping block. Could have been worse by selling the brand to a foreign company but that might have made it more obvious that some Craftsman tool have ahready been made in China for a few years.
The Sears store in my old hometown got it this time. Also according to my father in law who likes to woodwork, black and decker is inferior to craftsman. Which is backed up by B&D pushing the brand.
Yes, Macy’s is closing. I don’t know why the Sears isn’t. It’s like a tomb inside. No customers, no staff. If you find something you want to buy you literally have to hunt for someone to sell it to you.
I don’t shop Macy’s. Too expensive and many Chicago area people are still mad at them destroying all traces of Marshall Field’s and moving the candy manufacture out of the city and, indeed, out of the country. I did notice that the parking lot was virtually empty every time I went there. There were actually more people parked near Sears on the other side. I always park at Sears Automotive where a space is always available near the door and walk through the store into the mall. There are always a handful of cars on the racks but never anyone working on them.
The KMart on the other side of the main road is not much better. KMart does have a lot of shoppers at the checkout registers, probably because the checkout process is glacially slow. When my wife looks at undergarments and such (who would buy their horrible outer garments), I look at the electronics and garden sections. Except for closeout items, Walmart is always cheaper and for small items like USB sticks, Amazon is cheaper yet if you can wait two days for delivery.
Of the two local Macy’s, one is closing. Nothing about Sears yet. But Nordstrom’s keeps drawing them from as far away as Tennessee and West Virginia.
Only 42 Sears stores. 108 KMart stores.
All the retailers would prefer to junk the bricks and mortar locations in favor of on-line retailing because the profits are higher. At least until all that remains is on-line retailers and then price competition will become fierce.
I am wondering how/if this could provide an opportunity for local merchants and help main street.
I thought these cushy ambassadorships to friendly countries went to big money political donors who can live wherever they want – no? Do these ambassadors’ state department salaries make much difference in their financial lives?
My question as well.
My question, too, but I think part of the issue is the very short notice to get outta Dodge with school age kids, etc. Of course, anyone who expected Trump to adhere to former “niceties” and processes has to have been living in a dreamland, frankly.
Unfortunately, this is only the very tip of the assholishness about to be unleashed on all of us, but all federal workers are likely under the gun now.
They do and no. But at least in Obama’s second term, there were few such appointments.
Most ambassadorships are held by career foreign service officers and that’s a State Dept career track. Have to assume that while der Trumper can kick a State Dept employee out of an ambassador chair, they remain State Dept employees. Here’s the list of US Ambassadors. And the postings in both categories turn over every four years or sooner. I’m sure someone can tell us why it took so long for Obama’s second term appointees to be confirmed.
How many ambassadorships does der Trumper expect to sell? And how many unqualified/inexperienced appointments does he expect to name? The baseline for both during Obama’s tenure is low; so, if der Trumper steps much over that line, the opposition should be prepared to make a lot of noise about such nominations by likening them to Brownie.
The strategy I see that they can use at their option until some court tells them to stop is the political appointees, who used to tender courtesy resumes anyway–some accepted, some retained for a transition period–will by and large have their resignations accepted. The career foreign service officers in senior positions will be reassigned at the whim of Trump Donald I. Some foreign service officers who currently have what are considered plum posts might be reassigned to less convenient posts, say from a senior manager at the Paris embassy to a lesser manager at the embassy in the Central African Republic.
And Congress just gave itself the power to encourage others to leave by reducing their salaries to $1.
Will they actually do that or will those who will be likely threatened take the hint? Apparently some folks in the plum posts of Prague, Brussels, and Geneva, and the ambassador to Costa Rica would like to be ex-pats for the duration or at least long enough to have continuity for their high-school-age children.
Watch for Trump to sell every office he can. His was not a political campaign as much as negotiating a business deal to further feather his nest while charming the adoring millions.
Of course he’ll sell every office he can. We just don’t know how many offices he’ll successfully peddle.
wrt the $1/year salary, there are so many ways for the opposition to skin this cat successfully that if they fail they too should be fired. Start with $1/year for all members of Congress (many can’t go without even a single paycheck) and the VP (doubt that Pence could go without). IOW — they need to play hardball and not sit on the sidelines and make snide remarks.
With I bit of googling I found this:
President Obama nominated yet another bundler Wednesday for an excellent ambassadorship, one in beautiful Costa Rica, land of wonderful beaches, volcanoes, tropical forests, zip-lining, exotic fauna and flora, lovely people and no army.
The pick? Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, who’s head of business development and client service at Pzena Investment Management.
I think he’ll be just fine
Look at this. Political ambassadorships. Absolutely no qualifications of any kind required, never have been. Previous Presidents have had dozens if not hundreds of urgently beseeching applicants for each such post.
…not Trump.
So, not only does the guy not have a single friend (aside from those who have already been appointed to this-or-that), but there isn’t even anybody who is willing to ask him for a favor, traditionally the most-asked-for favor with the lowest bar to entry.
How radioactive can you get?
(Here’s an idea: appoint all the members of the Coercion Caucus as ambassadors to countries they’ve never heard of or could find on a globe.)
Trump doesn’t have friends but power does. There will be hundreds of applicants for all the administrative positions. Some basement dwelling, pajama wearing, Cheeto eating kid could easily end up as the Ambassador to Burkina-Faso.
The had no problems at all staffing senior positions in the Coalition Provisional Authority with 20-something baby Elephants from the Heritage Foundation. Look for some social media “personalities” who were all-Trump-all-the-time getting some interesting appointments.
If your objective is to shake things up, your appointments need not be competent at anything.
The opposition was a in weak position to object to the CPA staffing because a) they were temporary/emergency/war positions that hardly ever get any scrutiny b) most D senators and a goodly number of D House reps approved the IWR and c) they hadn’t considered the possibility that it would be staffed by twenty year olds long on free market ideology and short on any relevant experience.
Has the opposition learned anything from the CPA disaster? We shall see.
Judging from the disastrous state of the state legislatures and governorships I’d say the opposition hasn’t learned anything in decades.
Oh, they’ve learned a few things over the decades — such as how to win some presidential and some congressional elections by being GOP-lite. However, as it only works after the GOP has royally screwed up, there’s no evidence that GOP-lite is a winner and the wins they do get are evanescent. But they’re sure that their strategy is the correct one regardless of how many losses it racks up.
It’s like he wants to push anyone who isn’t deplorable out of the basket.
As this percolates down the ranks we can look forward to all kinds of leaking and passive sabotage.
Not “like” or as if, but is.
This is the culmination of years of discounting and disparaging relevant education and experience for government jobs. A mindset that no-nothings can do it better.
Won’t even require “passive sabotage.” Simply not getting in the way of the no-nothings trying to do jobs for which they haven’t a clue should suffice.
And years of discounting and disparaging the government jobs themselves.
Why can I login to my new Booman account but I’m “denied access” to practically everything? Thank you to anyone with competence.
“New account” — when you first sign up you are on probation, with limited access/privileges. It clears up pretty quickly – be patient.
Too bad that $1 per year doesn’t apply to Congress.