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Can President-elect Donald Trump shake up the federal government by firing whoever he wishes on day one of his new administration? Former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer says yes -- and the president-elect can thank Joe Biden firing him for that. If you can remember back to 2021 -- I know it's difficult, especially if you're Joe Biden -- Spicer was fired along with two other Trump allies who had been appointed to the visitor boards at the Navy, the Air Force and Army academies. (Kellyanne Conway and Russ Vought were the other two, as the Washington Examiner...

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward said Monday that President-elect Trump appears to be trying to recreate the “imperial presidency” by selecting appointees with little relevant experience to their nominated posts. Woodward criticized Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” The former White House press secretary-turned-cable host asked him directly whether he thinks the Fox News host was equipped to do the job. “Somebody should get that job who knows the military and has had also management experience,” Woodward said of Hegseth. “From what I read about him, no, he doesn’t.” He...

A nuclear policy expert appointed to the Department of Energy under the Biden administration in February 2024 previously co-authored an article entitled "queering nuclear weapons" which argued "queer theory" should be used to inform American nuclear policy. Sneha Nair works as a special assistant at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency responsible for maintaining the safety and security of America's extensive arsenal of nuclear weapons. On Wednesday Beijing said it was "seriously concerned" after President Biden updated America's Nuclear Employment Guidance to focus on the threat from China, according to The New York Times. Nair co-authored a piece titled...

Gov. Katie Hobbs defied Arizona law when she circumvented the Senate and nominated directors of statewide agencies without legislative approval, a judge ruled on June 5. After the Democrat struggled to get many of her director nominees through a newly created Republican-led Senate approval committee last year, Hobbs went around the chamber and instead appointed deputy directors that essentially served as directors. Agency directors are subject to Senate approval, but deputy directors are not. Senate President Warren Petersen, a Queen Creek Republican, filed a suit in December, accusing Hobbs of violating state law by circumventing legislative hearings for her appointees...

Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Ron DeSantis includes this exchange about the Supreme Court:HH: Now in terms of the judges that you will bring to bear on this, former President Trump hit three home runs with his Supreme Court appointments. Are you going to make the same kind of pledge to the Republicans as you go around the country that your judges will be like the Trump judges?RD: Well, actually, I would say we’ll do better than that. I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and...

Hundreds of people serving on the Pentagon’s 42-civilian advisory boards were forced to resign on Tuesday upon the orders of Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The move effectively purged many Trump appointees who were put in place in the final days of the Trump administration. While the resignations were reportedly part of a broader review ordered by Austin, the Pentagon’s top spokesman did acknowledge that move was prompted by the 11th-hour appointments by Trump. “The Secretary was deeply concerned with the pace and the extent of recent changes to memberships of department advisory committees,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon’s...

Sessions Barr Gorsuch Kavanaugh Barrett Mark Esper Gina Haspel McMaster Bolton Tillerson Mattis Chao DeVos Miles Taylor [anonymous] Scaramucci and?

Though President Donald Trump is expected to leave office in January, not all of his political appointees will follow. That’s due to a longtime, controversial practice called “burrowing” in which political appointees — whose jobs could easily be nixed by an incoming president — transition to more secure civil service positions, many times within the agencies they once helped lead. A review by the News4 I-Team found more than a dozen Trump appointees have already “burrowed” into new positions this year alone, joining the rank and file who will serve under President-elect Joe Biden. They include a high-ranking official at...

American Thinker Trump's Senate Saboteurs By Fran Fawcett Peterson March 3, 2017 The Republican-controlled Senate is to blame for only 17 Trump confirmations so far. Trump has 1242 more needing Senate approval, or the number may be as low as 500, it's hard to pin down. Republicans are to blame because they are in the majority and thus in control of the schedule. Given the Senate’s vacation schedule, officially “state work period,” there is an almost impossibility of Trump getting all 1242 appointees confirmed in four years even if they worked round the clock. If the figure is only 500...

Obama's "echo chamber" lives on and the media are still buying... In an article on the Atlantic website, a former Obama White House staffer explains why she resigned from the Trump White House after only eight days. . . . Hers was the second story in less than a week in which a government official explained that they’d resigned because of Trump’s policies. Ned Price, a CIA analyst who worked at the Obama White House, authored a cri de coeur for the Washington Post to explain why his disagreements with Trump’s policies prompted him to leave government service. “To be...

Democrats are breaking records for stalling and denying President Trump his slate of top cabinet appointees. The childish “Party of No” has only approved three of Trump’s appointees as of Monday. ArSquared The Daily Signal noted that this obstructionism from Democrats was “unprecedented” and Sen. McConnell reiterated the same point during a floor speech last week: “I urge colleagues to remember that we worked with the administration of former President Obama after he was first inaugurated…We confirmed seven members of his Cabinet the day he took office, and nearly the entire Cabinet was filled within two weeks.” On Tuesday Democrats...

Donald Trump has embarked on an unprecedented purge of government officials appointed by President Barack Obama in a bid to wipe the slate clean ahead of his inauguration. Scores of presidential appointees, from ambassadors in far flung capitols to two nuclear security chiefs to the head of Washington's National Guard, will be leaving their posts on Friday at noon, having received unexpected orders to do so, just as Trump takes office as one of the most unpopular and scandal-ridden incoming presidents in history. While his recent predecessors were swept toward inauguration day on a tide of goodwill, Mr Trump has...

Republicans on Sunday defended their party against Democratic complaints that Congress is being forced to consider nominees for Donald Trump’s administration without completed ethics reviews. “All of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustration in having not only lost the White House, but having lost the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I understand that,” he added, “but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that.” …

Senate Democrats are not going to be able to block Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions bid to become attorney general. And they can’t do much to stop Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo from assuming the helm of the CIA. And they have only themselves to thank for it. That’s because exactly three years ago, the Democratic Senate majority — led by Harry Reid (Nev.) — rammed through controversial rules fundamentally changing the way the Senate does business. They unleashed in November 2013 what’s called the “nuclear option” allowing senators to approve by a simple majority all presidential appointments to the executive branch...

If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday. Christie, who is governor of New Jersey and leads Trump's White House transition team, said the campaign was drawing up a list of federal government employees to fire if Trump defeats Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election. ... Trump's transition advisers fear that Obama may convert these appointees to civil...

pulled quote: "... Since Roosevelt’s Presidency, the Executive Office of the President has gained about 2,000 people, and the number of political appointees has increased to more than 7,000. Setting aside White House staffers and about 3,000 part time Presidential appointments, each new President fills about 3,000 positions with his or her partisans. To lead departments and agencies, contemporary Presidents make appointments to about 800 full time PAS positions, which require Senate confirmation (not including US attorneys, US marshals, or ambassadors, which are also PAS). In addition, each new administration can appoint partisans amounting to 10% of the Senior Executive...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the Cabinet secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press. The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more...

It wasn't surprising that Big Labor Democrats would choose a labor union lawyer to present the White House talking points to justify his unconstitutional appointments of National Labor Relations Board members. However, when the labor concluded her opening remarks saying that congress having hearing regarding unconstitutional appointments made them shills for the 1%, she lost a lot of credibility. If she any credibility left after her opening statements, it was soon to be destroyed as were the White House talking points that she was shilling. Elizabeth Reynolds the lawyer from Allison, Slutsky & Kennedy was questioned by South Carolina Congressman...