Sept. 22, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Now is Ideal Time to Reform Federal Workforce
A survey conducted by the
American Federation of Government Employees in August found 56 percent of
federal employees were still working from home via telework amid the COVID-19
pandemic. If representative of the currently estimated 2.2 million federal
civilian workforce, that would mean about 1.2 million federal employees are
working it from home right now. Given the
major use of teleworking by the federal government right now, this could provide
a major opportunity to consider widespread civil service reform by expanding
part-time, job-sharing opportunities in the federal government and making it
easier to fire bad or lazy employees. In 1978, Congress passed into law Federal
Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act. Yet, 42 years later, the law has
hardly been implemented and fully utilized. Currently, according to the Office
of Personnel Management’s (OPM) FedScope, as of Dec. 2019, there were just
105,000 part-time workers, and just 291 job-sharers in the entire federal
workforce. And just to fire any employee could take years.
Cartoon: Short List
Biden prepares his short list
from Supreme Court nominees.
Video: Fill The Seat
President Donald Trump and
Senate Republicans have a responsibility to their constituents to fill the vacant
seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s what they were elected to do.
FLASHBACK To When Joe Biden Was a Serial Plagiarizer & Worse
Joe Biden wants you to
believe he is not the man he used to be. In fact, who he once was, he still is:
a serial plagiarizer. This matters because Biden’s handlers are attempting to
market him as a man of character when the truth is, his nearly half-century
career as a politician is strewn with half-truths, plagiarism, and outright
lies.
Video: Chuck Schumer Makin' Them Do The Forehead Slap For Almost 40 Years!
The camera-loving Senate
Minority Leader loves attention. But Chuck Schumer seems to focus on things
that are unimportant while big things happen. He now is a look at some of the many
times he had America doing the forehead slap!
Video: Obama didn't wait to replace Scalia in an election year, why would Trump wait to replace Ginsburg?
Former President Barack Obama
did not think twice in 2016 about attempting to flip the nation’s high court
even without a Senate majority.
John Solomon: A year after impeachment, Hunter Biden's Ukraine activities come home to roost
“The GOP-led Senate Finance
and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees plan to release a
joint report as early as this week disclosing the results of a year-long probe
into Joe Biden's stewardship of Ukraine anti-corruption policy while his son earned
big money as a board member at the corruption-plagued Burisma Holdings gas
firm. The report is expected to accuse the former vice president of engaging in
a prohibited conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest
by continuing to oversee the U.S. anti-corruption policies in Ukraine while his
son served on the board of a natural gas company under investigation by the
very Ukrainian prosecutors dependent on U.S. money, guidance and assistance in
the fight against corruption that Joe Biden controlled.”
With over half of federal employees still working from home, good time for civil service reform, job-sharing
By Rick Manning
A survey conducted by the American Federation of Government Employees in August found 56 percent of federal employees were still working from home via telework amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If representative of the currently estimated 2.2 million federal civilian workforce, that would mean about 1.2 million federal employees are working it from home right now.
Given the major use of teleworking by the federal government right now, this could provide a major opportunity to consider widespread civil service reform with a focus on addressing personnel hiring, retention and termination.
For example, given the toll the pandemic and related state-led closures have inflicted on the U.S. economy, including many schools still being closed, many employees would like to become part-time employees so they can keep their kids on track with distance learning. Therefore, this could be a good time to consider expanding part-time, job-sharing opportunities in the federal government.
In 1978, Congress passed into law Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act that “Requires the heads of specified Federal agencies to establish and maintain a program for part-time career employment consisting of 16 to 32 hours a week.”
OPM even advertises the law on its website, stating, “The key to achieving family-friendly workplaces in the Federal Government is to make full utilization of all the personnel flexibilities and resources available. As an employer, the Federal Government has long recognized the value of part-time employment. Legislation encouraging part-time employment for Federal employees has been in place since 1978.”
Yet, 42 years later, the law has hardly been implemented and fully utilized. Currently, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) FedScope, as of Dec. 2019, there were just 105,000 part-time workers, and just 291 job-sharers in the entire federal workforce.
The Trump administration and OPM should consider expanding that number greatly, in the process meeting the needs of the modern workforce, while reducing overall personnel costs for taxpayers. If this was a good idea in the late 1970s, it’s great idea today.
In addition, OPM, in conjunction with all departments and agencies, should be reevaluating all current positions to ensure that they are still needed to perform federal government functions. This will allow the departments and agencies to modernize by removing antiquated positions, and to reorganize to be leaner and more efficient.
In the process the government should complete performance evaluations for existing personnel to identify non-productive dead weight in the system.
Finally, Congress should consider passing the MERIT Act by U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) that would expedite the removal of poorly performing federal workers, who are otherwise lazy, incompetent, or recalcitrant by applying the same procedures that were put into place in 2018 to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs across the entire civil service.
Right now, it can take years just to terminate an employee with cause. In a modern workplace, that is simply ludicrous.
With the federal government still working from home to a large extent, this is the perfect time to reevaluate the current structure of the civil service with an eye to modernization, flexibility and increasing efficiency. And President Donald Trump, with his prior experience as a private employer, is just the right person to lead that effort.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/09/with-over-half-of-federal-employees-still-working-from-home-good-time-for-civil-service-reform-job-sharing/
Cartoon: Short List
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
Video: Fill The Seat
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7XX2Cu8O1w
FLASHBACK To When Joe Biden Was a Serial Plagiarizer & Worse
By Catherine Mortensen
Joe Biden wants you to believe he is not the man he used to be. In fact, who he once was, he still is: a serial plagiarizer. This matters because Biden’s handlers are attempting to market him as a man of character when the truth is, his nearly half-century career as a politician is strewn with half-truths, plagiarism, and outright lies.
At last month’s Democratic National Convention, Democrats focused almost exclusively on character. Biden himself drew the contrast. In his acceptance speech he said, “Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency is on the ballot.”
In his first year in law school he plagiarized a law review article for a brief he had written, and when caught admitted to it. He tried to explain it away by saying he was not “malevolent” but merely “very stupid.”
Later, in his first of three bids for the presidency, Biden claimed he attended law school on a full scholarship, graduated in the top half of his class, and had three undergraduate degrees. In fact, he attended law school on a half-scholarship, graduated 76 out of 85 in his class, and earned only one undergraduate degree.
And well into his career, he was still plagiarizing. He lifted quotes from speeches of Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Neil Kinnock, a British Labour Party leader, without any attribution.
“Incredibly, some people are voting for Biden based upon his character, but that is exactly why he was forced out of the race in 1988,” said Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government.
In the case of Kinnock, Biden went beyond plagiarizing his speeches, and appropriated Kinnock’s life story as his own. “Joe Biden couldn’t tell the truth if it was written by Neil Kinnock himself,” commented Manning.
Biden has spent the second half of his political career trying to make people forget about the first half. And to a large degree he has succeeded. But what is left is a hollowed out human being, a man incapable to telling his own story, or perhaps even knowing it.
In recent months, Biden has struggled on multiple occasions to answer questions without a teleprompter. It’s so bad, it’s become a cottage industry on YouTube to mock Biden’s awkwardness in front of the camera.
Given Biden’s questionable character, it’s curious his party chose to make this election a referendum on his character. Perhaps that’s because running on his policies would be worse.
Biden has said if elected, he would defund the police, confiscate firearms, raise taxes, and shut down the country again.
Which is worse, Biden’s character or his policies?
“It’s a tough call. They’re both bad,” said Manning. “Joe Biden is a serial plagiarizer and appropriator who plays fast and loose with the truth. If elected, his policies will tank our economy and leave Americans defenseless.”
Investigative journalist John Solomon’s Justthenews.com, recently did a deep dive into Biden’s past. It exposes Biden’s “lengthy history of fabrication, plagiarism, and racial controversy.”
Check out this damning reel of Biden lies in these news clips from the late 1980s. One pundit sums up Joe Biden of 1988 with these prescient words, “If they are going to do things that are stupid, as well as immoral, then they’re probably too dumb to have the job of president.”
Biden thinks he’s through with the past, but, as the old saying goes, “the past ain’t through with you.” Americans for Limited Government aims to make sure of that.
Catherine Mortensen is the Vice President of Communications for Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/09/flashback-to-when-joe-biden-was-a-serial-plagiarizer-worse/
Video: Chuck Schumer Makin' Them Do The Forehead Slap For Almost 40 Years!
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB5h5NMdoyQ
Video: Obama didn't wait to replace Scalia in an election year, why would Trump wait to replace Ginsburg?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwLPFU5zd4A
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured report from Justthenews.com’s John Solomon, the Senate Finance, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees are about to release a joint report on former Vice President Joe Biden’s stewardship of Ukraine policy while his son served on the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings:
A year after impeachment, Hunter Biden's Ukraine activities come home to roost
By John Solomon
A year ago this month, Democrats began their impeachment crusade against President Trump because he had sought an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine. And the rallying cry then was that any concerns about the Bidens were pure, discredited conspiracy theories.
What a difference a year makes.
The GOP-led Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees plan to release a joint report as early as this week disclosing the results of a year-long probe into Joe Biden's stewardship of Ukraine anti-corruption policy while his son earned big money as a board member at the corruption-plagued Burisma Holdings gas firm.
The report is expected to accuse the former vice president of engaging in a prohibited conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest by continuing to oversee the U.S. anti-corruption policies in Ukraine while his son served on the board of a natural gas company under investigation by the very Ukrainian prosecutors dependent on U.S. money, guidance and assistance in the fight against corruption that Joe Biden controlled.
The fact that Joe Biden admits he forced the firing in spring 2016 of Viktor Shokin — the Ukrainian prosecutor who was overseeing the Burisma probe — by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine only heightens the conflict concerns.
Democrats won't be able to easily dismiss the concerns politically because Obama-era State Department officials have admitted in testimony that the Bidens' behavior created the appearance of a conflict of interest that directly undercut U.S. efforts to fight endemic corruption in Ukraine.
But the bigger concern the report is expected to raise is whether U.S. officials during the Obama-Biden era turned a blind eye to red flags about what was going on at Burisma and with Hunter Biden and his business dealings.
Records reviewed by Just the News and provided to the Senate committees reveal that Hunter Biden's name was invoked by a Democratic firm called Blue Star Strategies as it lobbied mightily in 2016 to get the State Department to help make Burisma's corruption problems disappear before that year's presidential election.
Blue Star's wide-ranging efforts included contacts at the State Department in Washington, the U.S. embassy in Kiev and even inside Congress, the memos show.
"They keep trying through every channel they can," a State Department official lamented in summer 2016 in one memo, describing a nonstop pressure campaign.
Blue Star's contacts on behalf of Burisma reached as high as Undersecretary of State Catherine Novelli in February 2016 in Washington and Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in Kiev in December 2016.
"Per our conversation, Karen Tramontano of Blue Star Strategies requested a meeting to discuss with U/S Novelli USG remarks alleging Burisma (Ukrainian energy company) of corruption," one memo read, citing Hunter Biden's service on the board as one reason State officials should take the meeting.
State Department officials not only chafed at the pressure, they had deep-rooted concerns that Burisma had indeed engaged in bad behavior, including after Hunter Biden joined its board in spring 2014.
Records obtained by Just the News show State official George Kent reported concerns in early 2015 that Burisma had just paid a $7 million bribe to Ukrainian officials to try to make the corruption investigations against it go away.
Kent reported the bribe successfully undercut FBI efforts to help secure an asset forfeiture against Burisma for its owner's past alleged corruption.
The documents also show Kent in 2016 successfully canceled a clean energy partnership between USAID, the department's foreign aid arm, and Burisma because of "reputational" concerns that the natural gas firm was still corrupt.
How Burisma was able to secure the initial deal in 2014 when it was under multiple corruption investigations is expected to be flagged as another example of the conflicts Hunter Biden's role created at State as well as the temptation for government officials to look the other way.
The concerns about Hunter Biden's far-reaching global business deals didn't stop with State, either. Suspicious Activity Reports that the U.S. Treasury Department provided the Senate panels are expected to show that several foreign transactions flowing into firms connected to Hunter Biden were flagged by the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as suspicious.
Those red flags were raised as Hunter Biden benefited from more than $3 million paid by Burisma in Ukraine to one of his firms and secured multiple business deals in communist China, while his business partner Devon Archer boasted in a document obtained by the FBI that he had secured more than $200 million in financing commitments from a Russian oligarch.
Again, Senate investigators will ask the question whether the FBI or U.S. intelligence committees looked the other way because Hunter Biden's father was the vice president.
Such questions are the very reason why conflict of interest laws exist in the U.S government's ethics laws — to avoid putting federal officials in awkward positions that cause Americans to doubt the integrity of their government.
"The public has to be aware of this what I call glaring conflict of interest," Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said recently. "The media is covering for Joe Biden. They're part and parcel of the Democratic Party."
The big question is whether the Senate committees will conclude any laws or regulations were broken.
But no matter where the report comes down on that question, it is no longer a conspiracy theory to question the Bidens' behavior in Ukraine. Even the federal agencies who served under Joe Biden did that.
To view online: https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/year-after-impeachment-hunter-bidens-ukraine-activities
