Demanding Political Loyalty, Trump's DOJ Struggles With Staffing

Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in.

Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty.

“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing.

Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.

The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added.

A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive.

The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.

Applications for vacant slots in U.S. attorneys’ offices, once apolitical questionnaires, now often include requirements to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s policies.

“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” read one of the queries on an application for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, whose ranks have drastically thinned after the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis spawned an exodus of prosecutors.

“Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads another.

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Want to work for National Weather Service? Be ready to explain how you agree with Trump

As the National Weather Service scrambles to hire up to 450 people to restore deep cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, potential applicants are being asked to explain how they would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda if hired.

A posting from the weather service’s parent agency seeking meteorologists asks applicants to identify one or two of Trump’s executive orders “that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

It’s among screening questions added to government job applications as part of a “ merit hiring plan” that Trump announced at the outset of his second term, and it’s not unique to the weather service positions. But some experts said they are alarmed at the prospect that a candidate’s ideology could matter for jobs in science.

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Trump Administration to Allow Proselytizing in Federal Work Place

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - Federal employees may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace, the Trump administration said on Monday, citing religious freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Agency employees may seek to "persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views" in the office, wrote Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government's human resources agency.

Supervisors can attempt to recruit their employees to their religion, so long as the efforts aren’t “harassing in nature,” according to Kupor's statement. Agencies can't discipline their employees for declining to talk to their coworkers about their religious views.

The statement represents the latest effort of the six-month-old Republican Trump administration to expand the role of religion in the federal workplace.

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From draining the swamp to reviving the "spoils system"

Part of the plan being cooked up by his loyalists for Trump Admin 2.0 is to gut 140 years of civil service reform and bring back the old spoils system introduced by (ironically) Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party back in the 1830s. The way it worked was simple. The party that won the election fired all or most of the civil service employees and replaced them with their own loyalists. The modern Trumpian motive is to combat the mythical "deep state." But it seems more directed towards undermining the rule of law, asserting direct political control over key executive agencies such as the DOJ in order to shut down any inconvenient criminal investigations and allow for the prosecution of his enemies and critics. Indeed, Trump has not been shy on this subject, being quite open in his declaration that he will use the power of the state to go after his enemies.

Why Some Teachers Prefer a 401(k) Over a Pension

n 2012, the Michigan Legislature passed a bill that kept open the teacher pension system but began allowing school employees to choose a 401(k)-type defined contribution retirement account.
Since then, around 18,000 school employees have chosen the 401(k) instead of the old pension system, according to a FOIA request. Their reasons for making the switch range from concerns about future pension cuts and underfunding to wanting more control over retirement funds.

“I chose the defined contribution option for a number of reasons. One of which … [is] the pension program is underfunded and may or may not be existent when it comes my time to collect,” said Adam Hastings, a math teacher at Athens High School. “ I also was told that the 401(k)-type option was more portable under the circumstance that I should decide to move to another state.”

Read the rest here.

See also part II...

Fears About State Pension Underfunding Drive School Employees to Other Options

Speaking of morons...

I am back online after a long day without internet. Yes, I am aware that you want a detailed explanation of how such a thing could happen. It went down thusly...

The house I rent has two very large, indeed sprawling pine trees in the yard that help to shade it during the often brutal summer days. However the tree limbs have grown to the point where they overhang the road to a degree that sometimes they fall off creating potential traffic hazards. The city has, somewhat understandably gotten a bit irritated and after the latest such incident they sent a crew over to trim one of the trees back. Since the landlord has thus far shown little interest in the matter, I have no real issue with the city's decision.

But in the course of trimming the tree branches that overhang the road... they CUT THE BLEEPING INTERNET CABLE LINE! After making sure they left word to the effect that the landlord would be billed for the trimming, they got into their truck, performed a well executed K Turn and then stopped before the downed internet cable lying in the street. At which point our fearless tree trimming heroes got out of the vehicle, gathered around the downed cable, picked it up and passed the end around. Then they dropped it, got back into their truck and without another word, DROVE OVER THE DOWNED CABLE and left.

I cannot of course be certain, but I will hazard a guess that no man on the tree trimming detail makes less than $50,000 a year plus full civil service benefits.

It took most of the day to get the Charter internet repair guy out here; not his fault, they were backed up with service calls. Once here the poor guy spent about an hour and half rerunning the cable and then another half hour fiddling with the modem which didn't want to read the signal. He ended up installing a new one. Oh, I forgot to mention that the outdoor work was done mostly in the dark and it was raining. Happily we were his last call for the day. I gave him a couple bottles of Guinness in gratitude for his outstanding customer service.

As for what I'd like to give the the city's tree trimming crew, one wonders if they would even know what a piece of coal looks like. I hope Charter sends a nasty note and a bill to the city.

A Bankrupt Greece Does The Unthinkable

Pushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn't done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse.

Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity that the troika has demanded. The first two civil servants were let go on Wednesday under a new law that speeds up the process – one, a policeman, for stealing debit cards, and the other for 110 days of unexcused absence.

Read the rest here.

San Francisco: 572 city workers paid more than governor

No fewer than 572 San Francisco city workers and executives made more than Gov. Jerry Brown last year.

More than 1,500 city workers made more than state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

And that's without overtime.

"That's pretty staggering," said Tom Dalzell, head of the California Citizens Compensation Commission, which sets pay for state lawmakers.

Read the rest here.

Scranton PA Mayor Slashes All Civil Service Pay To Minimum Wage

Unions representing civil servants in the city of Scranton, Pa., are girding for battle after the mayor announced recently that he would be cutting pay for police, firefighters, garbage collectors and other public workers to minimum wage.

The unions' attorney, Thomas Jennings, told the Scranton Times-Tribune Tuesday that they would be filing a lawsuit against Mayor Chris Doherty in federal court under the Fair Labor Standards Act accusing the city of failing to pay wages on time and failing to pay overtime.

The lawsuit will be among several legal actions the unions may take after Doherty made the announcement last Friday that the city's 398 workers would be paid $7.25 an hour because the city was running out of money.

The Times-Tribune, quoting City Business Manager Ryan McGowan, reported that as of Monday the city had $133,000 in cash, but owed $3.4 million in vendor bills. One of those bills was health insurance, McGowan said.

Read the rest here.

Bill would require Federal workers to contribute more for benefits

Federal employees would have to pay 5 percent of salary more toward their retirement benefits, phased in over five years starting in 2013, under legislation to be considered Thursday in the House committee that handles employee benefit issues.

Under the bill before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, current employees would pay 1.5 percent of salary more next year, an additional 0.5 percent in 2014 and yet another 1 percent each year over 2015-2017.

Those hired into the government in 2013 and later, and who had fewer than five years of prior federal service would start paying the entire 5 percentage point increase from the beginning of their employment.

Read the rest here.

Untouchable Pensions May Be Tested in California

When the city manager of troubled Stockton, Calif., had to tell city council members why it was on track to become the biggest American city yet to go bankrupt, it took hours to get through the list.

There was the free health care for retirees, the unpaid parking tickets, the revenue bonds without enough revenue to pay them. On it went, a grim drumbeat of practically every fiscal malady imaginable, except an obvious one: municipal pensions. Stockton is spending some $30 million a year to pay for them, but it has less than 70 cents set aside for every dollar of benefits its workers expect.

Some public pension experts think they know why pensions were not on the city manager’s list. They see the hidden hand of California’s giant state pension system, known as Calpers, which administers hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement obligations for municipalities across the state.

Calpers does not want cities like Stockton going back on their promises, and it argues that the state Constitution bars any reduction in pensions — and not just for people who have already retired. State law also forbids cuts in the pensions that today’s public workers expect to earn in the future, Calpers says, even in cases of severe fiscal distress. Workers at companies have no comparable protection.

Stockton is in the midst of a mediation process with its creditors that will determine by the end of June whether it will file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which would allow the city to negotiate reductions in its debt in court.

For Calpers, the prospect of a California city in Federal Bankruptcy Court portends a potential test of the constitutional mandate that federal law trumps state laws — in particular, the state laws that protect public workers’ pensions in California. Such a challenge could blow a hole in what experts consider the most airtight pension protections anywhere.

“Obviously, what Calpers wants is that it doesn’t come up in the process, which I think is ridiculous,” said David A. Skeel Jr., a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who writes frequently on bankruptcy. “My view is that even the California Constitution is subsidiary to federal bankruptcy law.”

Read the rest here.

'Insane' even by Illinois standards? Union official to get $500,000 in pensions

A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year, according to reports Wednesday.

The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

The news organizations said this was due to "a charitable interpretation" of Illinois law by officials representing two city pension funds.

Read the rest here.

Public pensions, once off limits, face the axe

When an arbitrator ruled this month that Detroit could reduce the pensions being earned by its police sergeants and lieutenants, it put the struggling city at the forefront of a growing national debate over whether the pensions of current public workers can or should be reduced.

Conventional wisdom and the laws and constitutions of many states have long held that the pensions being earned by current government workers are untouchable. But as the fiscal crisis has lingered, officials in strapped states from California to Illinois have begun to take a second look, to see whether there might be loopholes allowing them to cut the pension benefits of current employees. Now the move in Detroit — made possible, lawyers said, because Michigan’s constitutional protections are weaker — could spur other places to try to follow suit.

“These things do tend to be herd-oriented,” said Sylvester J. Schieber, an economist and consultant who studies pensions.

The mayors of some hard-hit cities have said that the high costs of pensions have forced them to lay off workers: Oakland, Calif., laid off one-tenth of its police force last year after failing to win concessions on pension costs.

Elsewhere there is pension envy: some private sector workers, who have learned the hard way that their companies can freeze or reduce their pensions, resent that the pensions of public workers enjoy stronger legal protections. But government workers, many of whom were recruited with the promise of good benefits and pensions, say that it would be unfair — and in many cases, very likely illegal — to change the rules in the middle of the game.

Read the rest here.

In California City, Layoffs for Nearly Half the Staff

COSTA MESA, Calif. —To solve a looming pension crisis and budget gap, city officials said, they needed to take drastic action. Now everyone agrees on one thing: they did.

Nearly half of this city’s workers were told late last week that, come September, they would probably be out of a job. Nearly every city department will be eliminated. More than a dozen tasks will be outsourced, including graffiti removal, firefighting, building maintenance and street cleaning.

Unlike the drama that played out over several months in Madison, Wis., the battle over public workers in this bustling suburb of upscale shopping malls in the heart of Orange County is happening at lightning speed.

The letters went out last week to more than 200 of the city’s roughly 450 workers, sending many into a panic as they scurried to look for new jobs. The move will, in one great swoop, reinvent municipal government here, and perhaps lead the way for other cities to adopt similar plans.

Emotions in Costa Mesa, already running high, grew more intense after one city worker, summoned to receive his pink slip, instead climbed five stories to the roof of City Hall and jumped to his death. A small side entrance to the building is now decorated with supermarket bouquets and tall, white candles, a memorial to the 29-year-old man, who had worked for the city’s maintenance department for four years.

The layoffs have deeply divided this small city, just over the coast from affluent Newport Beach. While Costa Mesa has long been a politically conservative enclave, much like the other wealthy suburbs that surround it, the move to privatize so many city services strikes many residents as a harsh political tactic, meant to remake the city into a national model in the battle over public employee unions.

Read the rest here.

New York: Gov. Cuomo considers eliminating 15000 state jobs

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is considering reducing the state workforce by up to 15,000 workers in his budget, the largest cut to the government payroll in recent years, two people briefed on the plan said Wednesday night.

The prospective cuts are likely to accompany large reductions in Medicaid and state education spending, those people said, as Mr. Cuomo and his administration seek to close a projected budget gap of more than $9 billion.

But the cuts would represent a substantial downsizing of the state’s workforce, including clerical workers, state troopers and park rangers. And that belt-tightening would almost certainly be accompanied by noticeable reductions in government services, though it is hard to predict where and how much until Mr. Cuomo releases his proposed budget in early February.

Mr. Cuomo has made trimming the state’s far-flung bureaucracy a top priority of his new administration, hoping to reduce costs to taxpayers and root out waste. Along with Medicaid and education spending, money for so-called “state operations,” including payroll, health and pension benefits, is one of the larger portions of spending borne directly by New York taxpayers.

But layoffs of the magnitude the governor is considering are likely to spur a major counterattack from unions that represent state workers, who have in recent years agreed to concessions that would reduce long-term pension costs but sharply resisted calls by Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, David A. Paterson, to agree to downsizing the state workforce or other cost-saving measures.

Read the rest here.

Civil Service Unions Face Increasing Public Outrage

FLEMINGTON, N.J. — Ever since Marie Corfield’s confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie this fall over the state’s education cuts became a YouTube classic, she has received a stream of vituperative e-mails and Facebook postings.

“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”

Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable, as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city and town budgets, and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions — wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules.

It is an angry conversation. Union chiefs, who sometimes persuaded members to take pension sweeteners in lieu of raises, are loath to surrender ground. Taxpayers are split between those who want cuts and those who hope that rising tax receipts might bring easier choices.

And a growing cadre of political leaders and municipal finance experts argue that much of the edifice of municipal and state finance is jury-rigged and, without new revenue, perhaps unsustainable. Too many political leaders, they argue, acted too irresponsibly, failing to either raise taxes or cut spending.

A brutal reckoning awaits, they say.

Read the rest here.

Wisconsin State Workers Fret, as G.O.P. Takes Over

MADISON, Wis. — In preparation for Monday’s inauguration of the new governor, Scott Walker, red, white and blue bunting has been draped around the Capitol’s echoing rotunda. Lawmakers are unpacking files in their newly assigned offices. And state workers are fretting.

“What does this bring? What does it mean? Where are we going here?” Marty Beil, the leader of a union that represents 22,000 of Wisconsin’s corrections officers, maintenance workers, game wardens and others, said the other day. “State employees feel like they are the target of all the slings and the arrows and the bullets that the new administration is already throwing.”

There is a reason this place has, at moments lately, looked like a parade of boxes — arriving, departing and shuttling to better (and lesser) offices. The amount of change here is huge: the fall election turned control of the State Assembly, the State Senate and the governor’s office from the Democrats to the Republicans. But even before soon-to-be-Governor Walker and other Republican leaders officially take over next week, the fight over public workers nearly boiled over.

December, often a sleepy time around here, brought a series of explosive episodes. Democratic leaders, pressing to approve contracts for state workers before Republicans took control, called a special session.

Mr. Walker, who has said publicly that he hopes to force public employees’ wages and benefits “into line” with everyone else’s, urged leaders against the session, saying he needed “maximum flexibility” to handle the state’s coming budgets, but Democrats argued that the contracts were not particularly beneficial to workers anyway (they included no raises and furlough time that amounted to a pay cut).

In the end, the State Assembly approved most of the contracts by a single vote, one that was cast, Republicans complain bitterly, by a legislator who had been permitted to travel to Madison to vote though he was serving a jail sentence (with work-release privileges) for driving under the influence of an intoxicant. But a tie in the State Senate — thanks, in part, shockingly to a “no” vote from the Democrats’ own majority leader — meant the contracts failed. (The leader, Russ Decker of Schofield, who had already lost his re-election bid, was then deposed by his caucus.)

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Federal Salaries Soaring Above Private Sector

For those fortunate enough to have a job in this tough economy, there's a growing gap in salary between government employees and those who work for private companies.

While many Americans have suffered pay cuts or job losses, one group is bucking the trend: federal workers, CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. A USA Today analysis finds that federal employees have gotten bigger pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years straight.

"It made me think, man, I should be a federal employee," one woman said on the streets of the capital.

Federal salaries have grown 33 percent faster than inflation. Their pay and benefits averaged $123,049 in 2009, up 36.9 percent since 2000. Private workers averaged $61,051, up just 8.8 percent during the same time.

Read the rest here.