Comments on: White House Politicization of Federal Agencies

By: NVMojo

NVMojo — Fri, 11 May 2007 04:26:44 +0000

Remember the deaths of the miners in this country under the reign of Darth Rove …downsizing of not only OSHA laws but minimizing of MSHA laws and regs.

By: R Barber

R Barber — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:15:24 +0000

Don’t forget the CDC.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/even_cdc_not_im.html

By: Aaron G. Stock

Aaron G. Stock — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:18:06 +0000

Notice Mehlman’s words:

Not “United States people”, and NOT “Republican people.” It’s “Bush people.”

Yet more evidence that Republicans made and will make big mistakes in thinking Bush is on their side. Bush doesn’t care about anyone else, not his party, not the nation. He cares about his power. Almost all evidence I’ve seen points in that direction.

I’ll say this again here and elsewhere, but Republicans and Democrats who serve in Congress need always to know that a President may share a party affiliation but not necessarily the goals of their party or, much worse, the people of this nation.

By: Aaron G. Stock

Aaron G. Stock — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:10:09 +0000

Wow, DaveW. Sad. Sad for the worker. Sad if the contractor didn’t do the right thing after the accident but instead chose to blame OSHA for not enforcing law or guidelines.

By: Dave W

Dave W — Sun, 06 May 2007 13:37:04 +0000

OSHA
Recently, at the place I work in Washington, DC, an accident occured and a worker was seriously injured, working on a large mechanical job, with 1st degree burns, broken bones and other injuries. The contractor, told us, thank God we’re under the Bush administration. If this had happened 8-10 years ago we would have had OSHA crawling all over this place.

That alone spoke volumns.

By: bw

bw — Sun, 06 May 2007 05:01:17 +0000

The potential politicization of federal agencies was also greatly enhanced by amendments to Executive Order 12866 issued on 1/18/07, which among other things required that within 60 days each affected agency (many) was to designate a Regulatory Policy Officer who is to be a Presidential appointee. The duties of the RPO is to “be involved at each stage of the regulatory process to foster the development of effective, innovative, and least burdensome regulations.”

According to OMB Watch:

“Third, the new Regulatory Policy Officer requirement mandates the designation of a political appointee to the position of regulatory chief within each agency. Many agencies already have political appointees reviewing and approving proposed rules. Yet the amendment to the E.O. suggests a further politicizing of the regulatory process. Currently, the Officer is to report directly to the agency head, often a cabinet-level Secretary.”

The amendments also add substantive requirements for proposed new regulations.

By: jd

jd — Sun, 06 May 2007 01:19:47 +0000

You are missing Kennedy’s excellent article in Vanity Fair! http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/revolvingdoor200705

Suggest including it!

By: chimpeach

chimpeach — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:51:09 +0000

I’m wondering if we’re getting close to getting a special prosecutor and putting together an indictment of Rove. He’s not only the one who orchestrated about 90% of this stuff, but he’s still orchestrating the stonewalling, obstruction, lying, foot-dragging, propagandizing, talking points distribution, and anything else he can throw in the way of a duly authorized congressional investigation. A special prosecutor might slow down the actual prosecution of the crimes, but I think an indictment would be a pretty sure thing and he’d be forced to resign.

By: fatkat

fatkat — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:30:50 +0000

The department of education on the “on child left behind act” Bush’s younger brother is selling a product that is funded under the act. Bringing in family and using the tax dollars to help fund there pocket!

By: Citizen 92

Citizen 92 — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:20:53 +0000

The Bush Administration has made extensive use of the Ramspeck provision to convert political appointees into career jobs (non-career appointments). The Administrative law is a snoozer, but once you see what’s going on here, you’ll be outraged all over again.

Once someone serves in a politically appointed position for a period of time, he/she becomes elegible to receive hiring preferences in the federal civil service. This is known as the Ramspect provision or, informally, “burrowing in.” Effectively, this provision gives these job seekers preference over the general public competing for these jobs. Other preferences that figure in is Veterans’ status, disabled status, or prior career government service. On Ramspect, Congress used to ask GAO to report on these “non-competative appointments” all the time, especially under Clinton. Schedule C political appointees become elegible for the preference after, I belive, 1 year. White House staffers have tougher requirements – I think it’s 3 years.

Now that there’s pretty widespread information out there that the Bush Administration has moved the hiring decisionmaking for career jobs away from career staff and now require political appointees’ final signoff, it becomes more sinister.

Only one report has been issued since Bush took office, and it is interesting. It appears as though there have been a lot of “burrowers in” early and consistently throughout the Bush Administration (usually they come at the end of an Administration when appointees would otherwise be out of a job).

Here’s the GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06381.pdf

It’s necessary to get in the weeds and look at the individual conversions. And there are a lot at DOJ – in my mind particularly suspect are the ones from US Attorney (a political position) to Assistant US Attorney (a career position, and most definitely a step down). Why would a US Attorney want to become an AUSA? Usually the USA slots are stepping stones to bigger things.

Also ask you to consider the case of Gary Malphrus. He was a young White House policy aide who used his preference and became a career immigration judge, doubling his salary. He had no immigration experience. And, as the GAO report says, they found it impossible to determine if his hiring was proper. With political appointees signing off on career hires, you really have to wonder.

Bush appointee job:
Associate Director
Domestic Policy Council
The White House
3 U.S.C. 105
AD-0301-00/00
salary per year — $61,000
end of job term — 01/21/2009

After the obscure preference appointment:
Immigration Judge
Executive Office for
Immigration Review
IJ-0905-00/01
salary per year — $113,904
end of job term — never; it’s a career job

Here’s a law.com article on Gary and his appointment: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1150794314407

Interestingly, he was also part of the so-called “Brooks Brothers riot” in Florida in 2000: http://www.democrats.com/joel-kaplan

By: Cranky

Cranky — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:05:10 +0000

While not a federal agency, it might as well be in some ways, a mention of the World Bank might be added as a footnote.
I’d I miss where you mentioned the obvious, the DOJ ?

By: sailguy

sailguy — Sat, 05 May 2007 21:43:43 +0000

To late for that now, this is an attempted coup. The players must be removed. Now is not the time to be timid or weak.

By: For Whom the Bell Tolls

For Whom the Bell Tolls — Sat, 05 May 2007 21:04:17 +0000

As the book “One Party Country” implys, politics is played like a game of football. The republicans are more skilled at offense, defense, and tricky plays. That’s why they believe so strongly they can win. And the democrats spend their time fighting against the other team with inferior equipment. So my question is: Do we need to change the way we play the game, or the game itself? If we change the way we play this game, then we continue to have winners and losers. And if you’d like to have an entirely Blue Country, you’re really no different from those that want the purely Red Country. Why are we playing a game with a winner/loser mentality? We’re all in the country, this world, together. Let’s play a new game. The first step is to simply accept the idea that a new game can be played.

By: Candyce

Candyce — Sat, 05 May 2007 20:54:20 +0000

Roket, I was just thinking the other day how we read almost daily that Waxman or Conyers is ratcheting up the investigations, but nothing is coming to fruition. Sure, there’s a lot of evidence out there. Look at this TP report – seems evident. All I can come up with is that there is so much of it that no one can handle it all. It’s going to take years to undo the damage, and in the meantime, BushCo gets away with it all. They’ll all be long gone. Where are the independent counsels? Where are the federal investigations into violations? Oh yeah….fox in the henhouse.

By: Roket

Roket — Sat, 05 May 2007 20:10:57 +0000

Just exactly how much evidence does one need before somebody does something? Itâ€™s become a daily barrage of evidence. Lay out Bushâ€™s private life to the world, if thatâ€™s what it takes. God knows Clinton had to suffer the invasion of his privacy. Why is shit-for-brains exempt?

By: Riley

Riley — Sat, 05 May 2007 19:50:00 +0000

Let’s not forget:

John DiIulio, former head of White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives:
“There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” says DiIulio. “What youâ€™ve got is everythingâ€”and I mean everythingâ€”being run by the political arm. Itâ€™s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

source: Ron Suskind, Esquire , January 2003. “Why Are These Men Laughing?”
http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html

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