Last night Joy Reid, subbing for Rachel Maddow, explained how numerous civil servants not loyal to Trump working in just about every federal department with the exception of Defence had been sent to the Turkey Farm. She explained the meaning and the history of this term. Then she interviewed Evan Osnos about his New Yorker article (see below).
I found a 2013 article from an unfamiliar website, FCW: The Business of Federal Technology (FCW stands for Federal Computer Week) which details how the word came into being.
Sometimes, managers would know of particular program or directorate where leadership was lax, and would send their problem employees that way. In other cases, turkey farms would develop within an agency where managers let poor performance slide. In either case, experts say, the root of the problem is red tape that makes it hard to take disciplinary action, sometimes coupled with a personal reluctance on the part of managers to act.
In the Nixon administration, a document referred to as the “Malek Manual” after Nixon’s special assistant Fred Malek, outlined ways to deal with unwanted employees while staying within the bounds of the federal merit system. For example, a manager could promote an employee to an insignificant assignment, disguised as a chance to head a new initiative outside the agency. Another strategy was to recommend an employee for another agency, promising the departing person a good recommendation along with the thinly veiled threat that fighting the decision would mean bad news. CONTINUED
This is explained in depth in a long article
Trump vs.the “Deep State” How the Administration’s loyalists are quietly reshaping American governance.
in The New Yorker.
There’s an article in today’s Politico, “Trump puts Pence in a corner” about how the president is going “out of his way to make sure Pence stays in his shadow.”
There was an observation in the article which led me to realize how Senator John McCain’ s funeral will test how threatened Trump feels when he feels Vice President Pence, the only official he can’t fire, is stealing the limelight from him.
The gist of the article for me was in the last three paragraphs:
But Pence could face a challenge in the near future as Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who is battling brain cancer, is expected to request, according to reports, that Pence attend his funeral rather than the president, who insulted McCain’s war record early in his candidacy and more recently has done nothing to disavow comments made by a staffer dismissing McCain as a result of his terminal illness.
Seeing Pence warmly welcomed by someone who snubbed him could trigger Trump’s anger — or, more likely, send him on an unrelated Twitter rant to draw the attention back to himself.
“Knowing the president somewhat, I do not think Trump thinks anyone overshadows him,” Mary Matalin, a former counselor Cheney, said in an email to POLITICO. “And he is right about that.”
We know that Pence has done something no other vice president has done, he has created his own PAC which, despite denials from Pence, pundits are suggesting is really for the purpose of supporting his own political ambitions.
Vice President Mike Pence is launching his own PAC — the “Great America Committee” — to aid his own future political interests, including helping Republican candidates ahead of the 2018 midterms.
The group, which filed paperwork with the FEC on Wednesday, will be able to use the funds to cover the costs of the vice president’s travels on Air Force Two to campaign on behalf of GOP candidates across the country.
This is the first time a sitting vice president has formed such a separate political arm. Former administration officials have used either party or campaign funds to cover travel costs.
A source close to the vice president said the organization will “provide resources for the vice president to actually support candidates who are supportive of the president’s agenda.”
The source also dismissed that there is any forethought into PAC being an infrastructure for a 2020 run of Pence's own. “Don’t read into 2020 as anything other than his running for re-election as vice president in 2020 and supporting other candidates,” the source said. CONTINUED
I can’t see a way Trump could attend McCain’s funeral unless the senator has a change of heart. There’s no way his family would go against his wishes and re-invited Trump.
My question is whether Trump will allow Pence to attend what will be an event which will get what he values the most, high television ratings.
It would be unseemly not to send representatives from the White House but is this funeral is not one that someone can crash, it will be by invitation only.
However, if Trump concocts a reason Pence can’t attend, my sense is that the McCain family would take this as a hostile act and not allow him to send the likes of Jared, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Sarah Sanders as stand-ins.
My prediction is that Trump will allow Pence to go but will do one of two things. Either he will send his own passive-aggressive message by Tweeting a formal condolence and spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, or he will figure out a way to create a crisis that forces the media to focus on him.
What do you think?
Tuesday, May 15, 2018 · 7:12:33 PM +00:00
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HalBrown
Mike Pence is working to wrestle control of the GOP away from Trump — Salon
Considering the possibility that President Donald Trump could be impeached (especially if Democrats capture both the Senate and House of Representatives in November), it has been nothing short of remarkable that Trump has managed to remain on good terms with the man who would replace him if he is removed from office, Vice President Mike Pence. But if recent reports are to believed, that positive relationship may be beginning to fray.
One of the chief underlying issues is that Pence has been picking up the slack left by Trump when it comes to building the party from the ground up, according to The New York Times. Although Trump himself remains a very popular figure among the rank-and-file, he has done little to help congressional, senatorial and other aspiring Republican politicians, creating a void that Pence and his team have worked to fill. In order to offset the perception that they are doing so to undercut Trump, Pence has made a point of effusively praising the president in his speeches even as he performs duties that might be normally left to the president himself. CONTINUED