A story about a pathetic man's downfall [34 Felony Convictions]

[DigglerontheHoof 21551]

So what is the state of NY waiting for?  I thought they had indictments against dotard lined up and ready to rock.  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

4 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

 

Is it possible for him to convert that PAC to personal income?  Maybe just declare it and pay taxes on it?  

I've never donated to a PAC so I don't know if you can put strings on your donations.  Or what happens to PAC money if they dissolve. 

Either way, Trump is a bit of a fool for even sticking with the charade. His followers would absolutely give him millions of dollars with no strings attached. All he would need to do is pay taxes on it, and then he can live his dream life.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

4 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

So what is the state of NY waiting for?  I thought they had indictments against dotard lined up and ready to rock.  

Probably waiting on the impeachment to conclude. 

[staboner 5084]

goddamn.  a country fucking full of griftees. 

 

[TwiceHorn 32076]

31 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Probably waiting on the impeachment to conclude. 

I'm not sure they're quite ready to rock. They've been engaged in winning battles to obtain evidence from Trump Org and various Trumps that will go into the hopper of proving their misdeeds.

I think the NY AG will be bringing primarily or solely civil suits and it will be up to various DAs to bring indictments, e.g. Cyrus Vance.

This post quotes some recent material on where those stand.

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[pyrohornIII 4846]

29 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Is it possible for him to convert that PAC to personal income?  Maybe just declare it and pay taxes on it?  

I've never donated to a PAC so I don't know if you can put strings on your donations.  Or what happens to PAC money if they dissolve. 

Either way, Trump is a bit of a fool for even sticking with the charade. His followers would absolutely give him millions of dollars with no strings attached. All he would need to do is pay taxes on it, and then he can live his dream life.

I think he's more concerned with salvaging his image than his fortune.  He's spent his entire life playing this 'everyman's billionaire" for the popularity.  If he wanted to make money only, he would have just let others manage things.  But he frittered away everything trying to prove how intelligent and awesome he was.   

 

Now on the other hand, I have seen it suggested he will start some sort of media platform that will only be available to subscribers.   $10 a month time 10,000,000 rubes is 1.2 billion annually.   Would solve a lot of his debt issues.  Is this new patriot party going to be that platform for tax purposes?   

[Beau Vine 55863]

20 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

I think he's more concerned with salvaging his image than his fortune.

BWAHAHAHA!!!!

 

21 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

he would have just let others manage things.

Think about who you're talking about here.  

[pyrohornIII 4846]

43 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

BWAHAHAHA!!!!

 

Think about who you're talking about here.  

Exactly.

[WhatTheBuck 28928]

3 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

Now on the other hand, I have seen it suggested he will start some sort of media platform that will only be available to subscribers.   $10 a month time 10,000,000 rubes is 1.2 billion annually.   Would solve a lot of his debt issues.  Is this new patriot party going to be that platform for tax purposes?

He’d mismanage the venture and bankrupt it just like he did with his casino. 

[Francisco 2.0 32586]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/01/trump-campaign-autopsy-paints-damning-picture-of-defeat-464636

 

Quote

Former President Donald Trump has blamed the election results on unfounded claims of fraud and malfeasance. But at the top levels of his campaign, a detailed autopsy report that circulated among his political aides paints a far different — and more critical — portrait of what led to his defeat.

 

Quote

The post-mortem, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, says the former president suffered from voter perception that he wasn’t honest or trustworthy and that he was crushed by disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And while Trump spread baseless accusations of ballot-stuffing in heavily Black cities, the report notes that he was done in by hemorrhaging support from white voters.

 

Quote

The 27-page report, which was written by Trump chief pollster Tony Fabrizio, shows how Trump advisers were privately reckoning with his loss even as the former president and many of his supporters engaged in a conspiracy theory-fueled effort to overturn the election. The autopsy was completed in December 2020 and distributed to Trump’s top political advisers just before President Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. 

It is unclear if Trump has seen the report.

 

Spoiler

The findings are based on an analysis of exit polling in 10 states. Five of them — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — are states that Trump lost after winning them in 2016. The other five — Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — are states that Trump won in both elections.

The report zeroes in on an array of demographics where Trump suffered decisive reversals in 2020, including among white seniors, the same group that helped to propel him to the White House. The autopsy says that Trump saw the “greatest erosion with white voters, particularly white men,” and that he “lost ground with almost every age group.” In the five states that flipped to Biden, Trump’s biggest drop-off was among voters aged 18-29 and 65 and older.

Suburbanites — who bolted from Trump after 2016 — also played a major role. The report says that the former president suffered a “double-digit erosion” with “White College educated voters across the board.” 

The picture of the election presented in the report is widely shared by political professionals in both parties, if not by Trump and his legions of his supporters. Trump never offered a concession to Biden, and up until his final days in office, he clung to the debunked idea that the election had been stolen.

Fabrizio declined to comment on the post-mortem. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Trump’s personal behavior, the autopsy makes clear, contributed to his defeat. “Biden had a clear edge over POTUS on being seen as honest & trustworthy,” Fabrizio writes.

Trump’s response to the pandemic was also critical. The autopsy says that coronavirus registered as the top issue among voters, and that Biden won those voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A majority registered disapproval of Trump’s handling of the virus. 

Most voters said they prioritized battling the coronavirus over reopening the economy, even as the president put a firm emphasis on the latter. And roughly 75 percent of voters — most of whom favored Biden — said they favored public mask-wearing mandates.

The report also indirectly raises questions about the reelection campaign’s decision to pause advertising on TV over the summer and save resources until the fall. According to the findings, nearly 9-in-10 voters had made up their minds about whom to support by the final month of the race.

Fabrizio isn’t the only Trump adviser who has presented a post-mortem since Nov. 3. John McLaughlin, another Trump pollster, published a report on the conservative Newsmax website the week after the election.

Meanwhile, advisers to former Vice President Mike Pence brought in multiple pollsters to brief him on their conclusions after the election, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Among the takeaways was that Trump was gaining during the final weeks of the race and that his rallies had helped propel Republicans running in House and Senate races. But the pollsters also made clear that while there was substantial support for Trump’s policies, there was widespread exhaustion with the president.

Within Trump’s inner circle, Fabrizio had long espoused the belief that Trump needed to prioritize the pandemic in order to win reelection. Last summer, he penned a 79-page memo arguing that Trump needed to focus first on dealing with the pandemic rather than reopening the economy and recommending, among other things, that he should have been encouraging people to wear masks rather than mocking the practice.

 

Here's the report

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20913]

Jared and Ivanka made 120 million dollars last year.  You'd think they could have sold the 20 million Covid vaccines for more than that but they probably have a time crunch.
 

 

[Pato del Muerto 53466]

79 pages is NOT a memo. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26846]

17 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Jared and Ivanka made 120 million dollars last year.  You'd think they could have sold the 20 million Covid vaccines for more than that but they probably have a time crunch.
 

 

One time the Clintons got a sweetheart loan and managed to lose $50,000 on a land deal in Arkansas. 
#neverforget #tansuit /FCHorn

[WhatTheBuck 28928]

12 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/01/trump-campaign-autopsy-paints-damning-picture-of-defeat-464636

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The findings are based on an analysis of exit polling in 10 states. Five of them — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — are states that Trump lost after winning them in 2016. The other five — Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — are states that Trump won in both elections.

The report zeroes in on an array of demographics where Trump suffered decisive reversals in 2020, including among white seniors, the same group that helped to propel him to the White House. The autopsy says that Trump saw the “greatest erosion with white voters, particularly white men,” and that he “lost ground with almost every age group.” In the five states that flipped to Biden, Trump’s biggest drop-off was among voters aged 18-29 and 65 and older.

Suburbanites — who bolted from Trump after 2016 — also played a major role. The report says that the former president suffered a “double-digit erosion” with “White College educated voters across the board.” 

The picture of the election presented in the report is widely shared by political professionals in both parties, if not by Trump and his legions of his supporters. Trump never offered a concession to Biden, and up until his final days in office, he clung to the debunked idea that the election had been stolen.

Fabrizio declined to comment on the post-mortem. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Trump’s personal behavior, the autopsy makes clear, contributed to his defeat. “Biden had a clear edge over POTUS on being seen as honest & trustworthy,” Fabrizio writes.

Trump’s response to the pandemic was also critical. The autopsy says that coronavirus registered as the top issue among voters, and that Biden won those voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A majority registered disapproval of Trump’s handling of the virus. 

Most voters said they prioritized battling the coronavirus over reopening the economy, even as the president put a firm emphasis on the latter. And roughly 75 percent of voters — most of whom favored Biden — said they favored public mask-wearing mandates.

The report also indirectly raises questions about the reelection campaign’s decision to pause advertising on TV over the summer and save resources until the fall. According to the findings, nearly 9-in-10 voters had made up their minds about whom to support by the final month of the race.

Fabrizio isn’t the only Trump adviser who has presented a post-mortem since Nov. 3. John McLaughlin, another Trump pollster, published a report on the conservative Newsmax website the week after the election.

Meanwhile, advisers to former Vice President Mike Pence brought in multiple pollsters to brief him on their conclusions after the election, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Among the takeaways was that Trump was gaining during the final weeks of the race and that his rallies had helped propel Republicans running in House and Senate races. But the pollsters also made clear that while there was substantial support for Trump’s policies, there was widespread exhaustion with the president.

Within Trump’s inner circle, Fabrizio had long espoused the belief that Trump needed to prioritize the pandemic in order to win reelection. Last summer, he penned a 79-page memo arguing that Trump needed to focus first on dealing with the pandemic rather than reopening the economy and recommending, among other things, that he should have been encouraging people to wear masks rather than mocking the practice.

 

Here's the report

“It is unclear if Trump has seen the report.”

He may have seen it. He damn sure hasn’t read it. 

[wildcat09 29579]

I'm curious who actually commissioned that post-mortem, because you know Trump doesn't give a shit.

[Francisco 2.0 32586]

11 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

I'm curious who actually commissioned that post-mortem, because you know Trump doesn't give a shit.

Trump's chief pollster from the last campaign.

[Francisco 2.0 32586]

Really didn't have a better thread to put this in, but meh.

 

They fucked around, and they found out. And I'm largely sympathetic to the plight of those with newborns and parental leave.  But the mere fact these folks worked for the Trump administration....they get no sympathy from me.  Maybe I'm getting more callous with age.  Or maybe these folks should have looked at the shithouse of an administration they worked for long ago and realized it might be time to work elsewhere.  

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/02/parental-leave-trump-aides-465302

 

Quote

After four years in the Trump administration, Vanessa Ambrosini was looking forward to three months of parental leave when she and her husband welcomed a baby a week before Christmas. The Commerce Department’s human resources office had given her approval for it. But then she was surprised to find out the benefit was no longer available because of the change in administration.

“I got completely screwed,” she said in an interview. “There were no caveats in that language saying anything about if the administration turns, you get nothing and of course, that happened and so I got nothing.”

 

Quote

Ambrosini is among a number of ex-Trump political officials who lost their parental leave when Joe Biden was sworn into office. It’s a byproduct of the field they’re in: Their boss (the president) may have been the one let go, but his departure has meant that they, too, lose their jobs and benefits. Still, they argue that the Biden administration should have honored their leave by keeping them on payroll until the end of it — a request that, emails reviewed by POLITICO show, the Biden transition did not grant.

The Biden White House declined to speak about the issue on record. Instead, an official noted anonymously that political appointees “do not enjoy the promise of federal employment past the end of the administration in which they choose to serve.” The official blamed the fact that the Trump administration dragged its heels on a quick and orderly transition as a reason why some on his team were caught off guard by the benefits ending.

 

Quote

“We understand that a few Trump appointees, including a handful currently on parental leave, submitted last minute requests to remain on government payroll,” the official said. “Because these requests were received so close to Inauguration Day… there was no way to implement an exception to the rule in a way that is fair to all outgoing appointees, including many who resigned as expected without making requests for extraordinary benefits.”

The official added that “appointees have been advised that they have options including COBRA and the Affordable Care Act.”

 

Spoiler

For Ambrosini and others, those options were not enough to navigate an already difficult situation. Former Trump officials face an uphill climb finding a job in a Washington D.C., where the federal government is run by Democrats. Job searching when you’re at home taking care of an infant is nearly impossible. 

“With a newborn baby, it’s not like I can just jump on the job market and be like ‘hey, I’m ready to work,’” Ambrosini said. “It’s hard. No one’s going to be willing to hire me right this second because I’m still home with the baby, so it’s tough.”

Ambrosini, who was the deputy communications director at the Commerce Department and a former Trump White House official, said she had gotten approval to take parental leave from early January to late March. But she was informed a day before her baby was due on Dec. 17 that her leave would be ending Jan. 20, when the inauguration was taking place. After some deliberation, she decided to use her sick leave to cover her time off during the first three weeks of January before the inauguration. 

A pair of married former Trump Homeland Security officials said they had a similar experience. They provided POLITICO with emails showing an agency official telling them that, as political appointees, their parental leave benefits would be treated the same as those for career employees. Their baby was born on Dec. 18. Late at night on Jan. 5, the father got an email from the HR office saying that they had been wrong and that their benefit would end on Jan. 20.

“It’s one thing if you have a household, if you have one family member who works for the government,” he said. “But we were both employed by the government so we’re losing both of our opportunities for health care and both our incomes, so it’s pretty scary to have a premature baby at home and not knowing if you’re going to have an income or health insurance.”

The former DHS official and his wife wrote a letter on Jan. 13 to the Biden DHS agency review team pleading to get the full benefit. “[T]he remaining 9-10 weeks afforded to federal employees is critical to our family and livelihoods as we work to raise a strong, healthy boy under unique and unforeseen complications to our birth plan,” they wrote. 

But the DHS’ Presidential Transition Office told the couple in an email on Jan. 18 that the benefits would not be rolled over into the next administration. “This is not what you were hoping to hear but I think you also knew that this was the most likely outcome,” the email read. “I am sorry to be the bearer of this news and I am sorry I don’t have other news.” 

The couple declined to go on the record for fear of the political fallout if they were named publicly and how it could negatively affect future employment opportunities. 

*****

It was only in December 2019 that Congress passed the Federal Employees Paid Leave Act, a law championed by Ivanka Trump, which gave federal government employees up to 12 weeks paid time off for the birth of a new child. The law, which took effect last October, required employees to agree to work at least another twelve weeks after taking the benefit, though there is a question about whether that requirement can be waived. 

Either way, it was a major advancement on the status quo. Previously, federal employees were not given any paid time off and often would have to use unused vacation and sick days following the birth of a child or simply forgo pay. 

Still, experts on parental leave policy say that the cases of these Trump officials shows the holes that still exist in the social safety net. As political appointees, they should have been aware that all benefits could end on Jan. 20 as the administration they served potentially came to a close. The experts also said that the Biden administration is under no legal obligation to grant Trump officials their leave. 

But new administrations don’t immediately push out all political appointees from the prior one. And some experts said it would have set a good precedent for the Biden team to accommodate those individuals on parental leave as a means of reinforcing the importance of the policy.

“Paid parental leave is really really important for maternal health, for child wellbeing, for family connectivity, and I can’t imagine being in that new parents’ shoes and not having the finances,” said Adrienne Schweer, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who leads its Paid Family Leave Task Force. “Extending it to a couple people for a few months could be a good thing. There is precedent for unique circumstances, and I would love to see a good example set of ensuring that as many people as possible can have paid parental leave.”

As with virtually all employment, when a job ends so too do most of the benefits (though ex-Trump officials have been kept on government health insurance for the usual 31-day grace period). And, with Biden taking office, Trump officials asking for their parental leave to be respected in full were asking for, what in effect is, a special accommodation. The Biden administration would have needed to keep these individuals — all political appointees — in the federal government, but not working, until their parental leave ended.

*****

Biden has long been a champion of parental leave benefits. After the 2019 law passed, he tweeted: “It’s about time that federal workers get paid parental leave. It is long past time that every American has 12 weeks of paid leave to address their own health needs or care for any of their loved ones.” 

Trump, by contrast, was a somewhat unorthodox adopter of the cause. Republicans have long opposed federal requirements around such benefits and even as they began embracing reform it was through decidedly conservative lenses. One prominent GOP proposal called for people to be able to draw from their Social Security to pay for parental leave.

Trump officials who were given parental leave benefits argued that since it became law, it was now an entitlement — one that needed to be respected regardless of whether the presidency changed hands.

One former senior Trump official said he coordinated with his HR team at his agency and was told that the requirement he perform 12 weeks of work after their parental leave ended was waivable because of the extenuating circumstances of a new administration. He also reached out to the Office of Personnel Management and was told to date his resignation letter the last day of his paternity leave.

His wife had a baby girl in early December. He took three weeks of paternity leave before having to go back to work to deal with the fallout of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. He says he lost out on nine weeks of leave, which is equivalent to between $20,000 and $30,000.

“This isn’t an entitlement that I asked for but I feel like after four years, it was earned,” he said. 

When some of the Trump political appointees found out that their full leave would not be granted, they elevated the issue to the Biden transition team. But after initially believing that the incoming administration would keep those on leave effectively employed, they soon were told otherwise. The former senior Trump official said he is now regretting his decision to stay until the end of the administration. 

“I could have left earlier but I didn’t because I was told ‘hey you’ve got paternity leave coming up,’ and if I had known that you’re not going to get to use your paternity leave and you’re actually gonna just work your ass off when you have a new baby and then get fired, I probably would have made a different decision,” he said.

The former official declined to go on the record for fear that it would affect his prospects of landing a job with a salary to support a family of five.

“It makes you look like you’re desperate for work and a story about me wanting to get money is not going to work well when I’m negotiating with people I’m talking to,” he said. “I’m trying to convince everybody that I’m in a perfectly good situation.”

 

[washparkhorn 9973]

On 1/30/2021 at 6:31 AM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Somehow I missed this. Should've left out all the politics and it would have been an okay statement. Sorry Coach Kilmer, but I think Conan had a better video:

 

That is creepy af  . . . wow, he is so off the deep end he appears calm. yikes.

Grifting?

[washparkhorn 9973]

5 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Really didn't have a better thread to put this in, but meh.

 

They fucked around, and they found out. And I'm largely sympathetic to the plight of those with newborns and parental leave.  But the mere fact these folks worked for the Trump administration....they get no sympathy from me.  Maybe I'm getting more callous with age.  Or maybe these folks should have looked at the shithouse of an administration they worked for long ago and realized it might be time to work elsewhere.  

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/02/parental-leave-trump-aides-465302

 

 

 

 

  Hide contents

For Ambrosini and others, those options were not enough to navigate an already difficult situation. Former Trump officials face an uphill climb finding a job in a Washington D.C., where the federal government is run by Democrats. Job searching when you’re at home taking care of an infant is nearly impossible. 

“With a newborn baby, it’s not like I can just jump on the job market and be like ‘hey, I’m ready to work,’” Ambrosini said. “It’s hard. No one’s going to be willing to hire me right this second because I’m still home with the baby, so it’s tough.”

Ambrosini, who was the deputy communications director at the Commerce Department and a former Trump White House official, said she had gotten approval to take parental leave from early January to late March. But she was informed a day before her baby was due on Dec. 17 that her leave would be ending Jan. 20, when the inauguration was taking place. After some deliberation, she decided to use her sick leave to cover her time off during the first three weeks of January before the inauguration. 

A pair of married former Trump Homeland Security officials said they had a similar experience. They provided POLITICO with emails showing an agency official telling them that, as political appointees, their parental leave benefits would be treated the same as those for career employees. Their baby was born on Dec. 18. Late at night on Jan. 5, the father got an email from the HR office saying that they had been wrong and that their benefit would end on Jan. 20.

“It’s one thing if you have a household, if you have one family member who works for the government,” he said. “But we were both employed by the government so we’re losing both of our opportunities for health care and both our incomes, so it’s pretty scary to have a premature baby at home and not knowing if you’re going to have an income or health insurance.”

The former DHS official and his wife wrote a letter on Jan. 13 to the Biden DHS agency review team pleading to get the full benefit. “[T]he remaining 9-10 weeks afforded to federal employees is critical to our family and livelihoods as we work to raise a strong, healthy boy under unique and unforeseen complications to our birth plan,” they wrote. 

But the DHS’ Presidential Transition Office told the couple in an email on Jan. 18 that the benefits would not be rolled over into the next administration. “This is not what you were hoping to hear but I think you also knew that this was the most likely outcome,” the email read. “I am sorry to be the bearer of this news and I am sorry I don’t have other news.” 

The couple declined to go on the record for fear of the political fallout if they were named publicly and how it could negatively affect future employment opportunities. 

*****

It was only in December 2019 that Congress passed the Federal Employees Paid Leave Act, a law championed by Ivanka Trump, which gave federal government employees up to 12 weeks paid time off for the birth of a new child. The law, which took effect last October, required employees to agree to work at least another twelve weeks after taking the benefit, though there is a question about whether that requirement can be waived. 

Either way, it was a major advancement on the status quo. Previously, federal employees were not given any paid time off and often would have to use unused vacation and sick days following the birth of a child or simply forgo pay. 

Still, experts on parental leave policy say that the cases of these Trump officials shows the holes that still exist in the social safety net. As political appointees, they should have been aware that all benefits could end on Jan. 20 as the administration they served potentially came to a close. The experts also said that the Biden administration is under no legal obligation to grant Trump officials their leave. 

But new administrations don’t immediately push out all political appointees from the prior one. And some experts said it would have set a good precedent for the Biden team to accommodate those individuals on parental leave as a means of reinforcing the importance of the policy.

“Paid parental leave is really really important for maternal health, for child wellbeing, for family connectivity, and I can’t imagine being in that new parents’ shoes and not having the finances,” said Adrienne Schweer, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who leads its Paid Family Leave Task Force. “Extending it to a couple people for a few months could be a good thing. There is precedent for unique circumstances, and I would love to see a good example set of ensuring that as many people as possible can have paid parental leave.”

As with virtually all employment, when a job ends so too do most of the benefits (though ex-Trump officials have been kept on government health insurance for the usual 31-day grace period). And, with Biden taking office, Trump officials asking for their parental leave to be respected in full were asking for, what in effect is, a special accommodation. The Biden administration would have needed to keep these individuals — all political appointees — in the federal government, but not working, until their parental leave ended.

*****

Biden has long been a champion of parental leave benefits. After the 2019 law passed, he tweeted: “It’s about time that federal workers get paid parental leave. It is long past time that every American has 12 weeks of paid leave to address their own health needs or care for any of their loved ones.” 

Trump, by contrast, was a somewhat unorthodox adopter of the cause. Republicans have long opposed federal requirements around such benefits and even as they began embracing reform it was through decidedly conservative lenses. One prominent GOP proposal called for people to be able to draw from their Social Security to pay for parental leave.

Trump officials who were given parental leave benefits argued that since it became law, it was now an entitlement — one that needed to be respected regardless of whether the presidency changed hands.

One former senior Trump official said he coordinated with his HR team at his agency and was told that the requirement he perform 12 weeks of work after their parental leave ended was waivable because of the extenuating circumstances of a new administration. He also reached out to the Office of Personnel Management and was told to date his resignation letter the last day of his paternity leave.

His wife had a baby girl in early December. He took three weeks of paternity leave before having to go back to work to deal with the fallout of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. He says he lost out on nine weeks of leave, which is equivalent to between $20,000 and $30,000.

“This isn’t an entitlement that I asked for but I feel like after four years, it was earned,” he said. 

When some of the Trump political appointees found out that their full leave would not be granted, they elevated the issue to the Biden transition team. But after initially believing that the incoming administration would keep those on leave effectively employed, they soon were told otherwise. The former senior Trump official said he is now regretting his decision to stay until the end of the administration. 

“I could have left earlier but I didn’t because I was told ‘hey you’ve got paternity leave coming up,’ and if I had known that you’re not going to get to use your paternity leave and you’re actually gonna just work your ass off when you have a new baby and then get fired, I probably would have made a different decision,” he said.

The former official declined to go on the record for fear that it would affect his prospects of landing a job with a salary to support a family of five.

“It makes you look like you’re desperate for work and a story about me wanting to get money is not going to work well when I’m negotiating with people I’m talking to,” he said. “I’m trying to convince everybody that I’m in a perfectly good situation.”

 

That is quite a dilemma, but  follow the golden rule for the children and parents. What to do with politicos just following orders is always difficult. 

That's a good read. Thanks.

 

[Dr. Teeth 5868]

She can learn to code.

[Bookman 4759]

https://findsomethingnew.org/

[Born to Run 6601]

Really didn't have a better thread to put this in, but meh.
 
They fucked around, and they found out. And I'm largely sympathetic to the plight of those with newborns and parental leave.  But the mere fact these folks worked for the Trump administration....they get no sympathy from me.  Maybe I'm getting more callous with age.  Or maybe these folks should have looked at the shithouse of an administration they worked for long ago and realized it might be time to work elsewhere.  
 
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/02/parental-leave-trump-aides-465302
 

After four years in the Trump administration, Vanessa Ambrosini was looking forward to three months of parental leave when she and her husband welcomed a baby a week before Christmas. The Commerce Department’s human resources office had given her approval for it. But then she was surprised to find out the benefit was no longer available because of the change in administration.
“I got completely screwed,” she said in an interview. “There were no caveats in that language saying anything about if the administration turns, you get nothing and of course, that happened and so I got nothing.”

 

Ambrosini is among a number of ex-Trump political officials who lost their parental leave when Joe Biden was sworn into office. It’s a byproduct of the field they’re in: Their boss (the president) may have been the one let go, but his departure has meant that they, too, lose their jobs and benefits. Still, they argue that the Biden administration should have honored their leave by keeping them on payroll until the end of it — a request that, emails reviewed by POLITICO show, the Biden transition did not grant.
The Biden White House declined to speak about the issue on record. Instead, an official noted anonymously that political appointees “do not enjoy the promise of federal employment past the end of the administration in which they choose to serve.” The official blamed the fact that the Trump administration dragged its heels on a quick and orderly transition as a reason why some on his team were caught off guard by the benefits ending.

 

“We understand that a few Trump appointees, including a handful currently on parental leave, submitted last minute requests to remain on government payroll,” the official said. “Because these requests were received so close to Inauguration Day… there was no way to implement an exception to the rule in a way that is fair to all outgoing appointees, including many who resigned as expected without making requests for extraordinary benefits.”
The official added that “appointees have been advised that they have options including COBRA and the Affordable Care Act.”

 
Spoiler

For Ambrosini and others, those options were not enough to navigate an already difficult situation. Former Trump officials face an uphill climb finding a job in a Washington D.C., where the federal government is run by Democrats. Job searching when you’re at home taking care of an infant is nearly impossible. 
“With a newborn baby, it’s not like I can just jump on the job market and be like ‘hey, I’m ready to work,’” Ambrosini said. “It’s hard. No one’s going to be willing to hire me right this second because I’m still home with the baby, so it’s tough.”
Ambrosini, who was the deputy communications director at the Commerce Department and a former Trump White House official, said she had gotten approval to take parental leave from early January to late March. But she was informed a day before her baby was due on Dec. 17 that her leave would be ending Jan. 20, when the inauguration was taking place. After some deliberation, she decided to use her sick leave to cover her time off during the first three weeks of January before the inauguration. 
A pair of married former Trump Homeland Security officials said they had a similar experience. They provided POLITICO with emails showing an agency official telling them that, as political appointees, their parental leave benefits would be treated the same as those for career employees. Their baby was born on Dec. 18. Late at night on Jan. 5, the father got an email from the HR office saying that they had been wrong and that their benefit would end on Jan. 20.
“It’s one thing if you have a household, if you have one family member who works for the government,” he said. “But we were both employed by the government so we’re losing both of our opportunities for health care and both our incomes, so it’s pretty scary to have a premature baby at home and not knowing if you’re going to have an income or health insurance.”
The former DHS official and his wife wrote a letter on Jan. 13 to the Biden DHS agency review team pleading to get the full benefit. “[T]he remaining 9-10 weeks afforded to federal employees is critical to our family and livelihoods as we work to raise a strong, healthy boy under unique and unforeseen complications to our birth plan,” they wrote. 
But the DHS’ Presidential Transition Office told the couple in an email on Jan. 18 that the benefits would not be rolled over into the next administration. “This is not what you were hoping to hear but I think you also knew that this was the most likely outcome,” the email read. “I am sorry to be the bearer of this news and I am sorry I don’t have other news.” 
The couple declined to go on the record for fear of the political fallout if they were named publicly and how it could negatively affect future employment opportunities. 
*****
It was only in December 2019 that Congress passed the Federal Employees Paid Leave Act, a law championed by Ivanka Trump, which gave federal government employees up to 12 weeks paid time off for the birth of a new child. The law, which took effect last October, required employees to agree to work at least another twelve weeks after taking the benefit, though there is a question about whether that requirement can be waived. 
Either way, it was a major advancement on the status quo. Previously, federal employees were not given any paid time off and often would have to use unused vacation and sick days following the birth of a child or simply forgo pay. 
Still, experts on parental leave policy say that the cases of these Trump officials shows the holes that still exist in the social safety net. As political appointees, they should have been aware that all benefits could end on Jan. 20 as the administration they served potentially came to a close. The experts also said that the Biden administration is under no legal obligation to grant Trump officials their leave. 
But new administrations don’t immediately push out all political appointees from the prior one. And some experts said it would have set a good precedent for the Biden team to accommodate those individuals on parental leave as a means of reinforcing the importance of the policy.
“Paid parental leave is really really important for maternal health, for child wellbeing, for family connectivity, and I can’t imagine being in that new parents’ shoes and not having the finances,” said Adrienne Schweer, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who leads its Paid Family Leave Task Force. “Extending it to a couple people for a few months could be a good thing. There is precedent for unique circumstances, and I would love to see a good example set of ensuring that as many people as possible can have paid parental leave.”
As with virtually all employment, when a job ends so too do most of the benefits (though ex-Trump officials have been kept on government health insurance for the usual 31-day grace period). And, with Biden taking office, Trump officials asking for their parental leave to be respected in full were asking for, what in effect is, a special accommodation. The Biden administration would have needed to keep these individuals — all political appointees — in the federal government, but not working, until their parental leave ended.
*****
Biden has long been a champion of parental leave benefits. After the 2019 law passed, he tweeted: “It’s about time that federal workers get paid parental leave. It is long past time that every American has 12 weeks of paid leave to address their own health needs or care for any of their loved ones.” 
Trump, by contrast, was a somewhat unorthodox adopter of the cause. Republicans have long opposed federal requirements around such benefits and even as they began embracing reform it was through decidedly conservative lenses. One prominent GOP proposal called for people to be able to draw from their Social Security to pay for parental leave.
Trump officials who were given parental leave benefits argued that since it became law, it was now an entitlement — one that needed to be respected regardless of whether the presidency changed hands.
One former senior Trump official said he coordinated with his HR team at his agency and was told that the requirement he perform 12 weeks of work after their parental leave ended was waivable because of the extenuating circumstances of a new administration. He also reached out to the Office of Personnel Management and was told to date his resignation letter the last day of his paternity leave.
His wife had a baby girl in early December. He took three weeks of paternity leave before having to go back to work to deal with the fallout of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. He says he lost out on nine weeks of leave, which is equivalent to between $20,000 and $30,000.
“This isn’t an entitlement that I asked for but I feel like after four years, it was earned,” he said. 
When some of the Trump political appointees found out that their full leave would not be granted, they elevated the issue to the Biden transition team. But after initially believing that the incoming administration would keep those on leave effectively employed, they soon were told otherwise. The former senior Trump official said he is now regretting his decision to stay until the end of the administration. 
“I could have left earlier but I didn’t because I was told ‘hey you’ve got paternity leave coming up,’ and if I had known that you’re not going to get to use your paternity leave and you’re actually gonna just work your ass off when you have a new baby and then get fired, I probably would have made a different decision,” he said.
The former official declined to go on the record for fear that it would affect his prospects of landing a job with a salary to support a family of five.
“It makes you look like you’re desperate for work and a story about me wanting to get money is not going to work well when I’m negotiating with people I’m talking to,” he said. “I’m trying to convince everybody that I’m in a perfectly good situation.”

 
That lady just needs to craft some boot strap extensions and pull her self up. I can't expect my taxes to go towards towards someone that can't help themself/ welfare queen/ prolly drives a BMW

[Born to Run 6601]

The official added that “appointees have been advised that they have options including COBRA and the Affordable Care Act.”

This part is fucking hilarious.

[texas08 1599]

Lose maternity leave...or lose your kid while they’re caged up? Hmmmmm....those bitches need to STFU

[Beau Vine 55863]

So my phone went off at 6am this morning with an AMBER alert for a kid in Celina (200 miles away), which reminded to turn off the Amber alerts as soon as I got up.  

Did you know there's a setting on your phones for "Presidential Alerts?"  And that it's the only type of alert that cannot be turned off?

I assume Trump didn't know about this, either, or else he would have spent two months (and especially after getting kicked off twitter) sending out alerts saying "I won the election, but Sleepy Joe stole it."

[Bama Chick 28596]

He/His administration actually tested the Presidential Alert thing once in 2018.

It’s was annoying AF.

[TwiceHorn 32076]

9 hours ago, Born to Run said:

The official added that “appointees have been advised that they have options including COBRA and the Affordable Care Act.”

This part is fucking hilarious.

Yes it is.  Going from free health benefits to $2500/month should be loads of fun.

[Beau Vine 55863]

31 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

He/His administration actually tested the Presidential Alert thing once in 2018.

It’s was annoying AF.

What was it about?  The stock market breaking new records?

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

1 minute ago, Beau Vine said:

What was it about?  The stock market breaking new records?

Wasn’t it the North Korean nuke warning for Hawaii? 

[BearSchlong 8240]

cynicism/ I'd venture to be that Vanessa Ambrosini's husband doesn't work for the administration and has the choice to add his wife to his employer sponsored plan, that her outrage is just political sour grapes./cynicism

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19453]

I bet her kid is ugly. 

[Kyrie Eleison 9312]

11 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

That is creepy af  . . . wow, he is so off the deep end he appears calm. yikes.

Grifting?

well, he's a professional actor, so...

but i personally always listen intently to the theological musings of a Trump supporting professional actor.

[WhatTheBuck 28928]

59 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

What was it about?  The stock market breaking new records?

Nothing. It was about absolutely nothing. 

[shakahorn 1656]

On 1/30/2021 at 6:31 AM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Somehow I missed this. Should've left out all the politics and it would have been an okay statement. Sorry Coach Kilmer, but I think Conan had a better video:

 

He plagiarized this. I saw it earlier from some dude sitting in the front seat of his car.

[Guest Lobo]

You gotta give him credit, Coach Kilmer looks and sounds about the same as he did when he left West Canaan almost 23 years ago.  Pretty impressive.  

Also, he might be going insane.  

[aggie08 21796]

11 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Also, he might be going insane. 

He's been insane for awhile now. He just found his spirit animal in Trump.

[Ben Tobin 374]

2 hours ago, shakahorn said:

He plagiarized this. I saw it earlier from some dude sitting in the front seat of his car.

[Pato del Muerto 53466]

10 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

He's been insane for awhile now. He just found his spirit animal in Trump.

I wonder how he and Angie are getting on these days. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 34104]

 

[Biff Tannen 46163]

6 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Wasn’t it the North Korean nuke warning for Hawaii? 

I was out to eat with a family member that works for the DoD that day and right when that happened and he got a phone call at the table and to jump up and take it and walked briskly out of the room.  Guessing that was quite a few tense moments for the DoD.  /csb?

[Biff Tannen 46163]

33 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

[Guest Lobo]

29 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

When a city that literally takes 2 years to approve building permits for gardens and water features approves a permit to demolish your helipad in just 2 weeks.  

What happened to the Master Negotiator?  You getting pushed around by the fucking Del Boca Vista condo board, Donald?  

[Biff Tannen 46163]

5 minutes ago, Lobo said:

You getting pushed around by the fucking Del Boca Vista condo board, Donald?  

We all saw his act at the White House last year.  He's lucky he can pay his rent.

[Guest Lobo]

"We're here to discuss the tabled motion to issue the permit for deconstruction of the helipad of impeached and disgraced former President, Donald Trump of the Pines of Mar-a-Lago Gables."
 

"What the hell does that mean?"
"If you're for the permit, you're against Trump."

"Why didn't you just say that in first place?"

(Giuliani bursts in the room): "I'm running this meeting now!"

"If you think so..." 

This would all be funnier if it wasn't happening right now and we weren't headed towards more violence. 

[Kyrie Eleison 9312]

24 minutes ago, Lobo said:

When a city that literally takes 2 years to approve building permits for gardens and water features approves a permit to demolish your helipad in just 2 weeks.  

What happened to the Master Negotiator?  You getting pushed around by the fucking Del Boca Vista condo board, Donald?  

[aggie08 21796]

1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

I want to been in an HOA whose discussions involve who does and doesn't get to have helipads.

[High Plains Drifter 11186]

18 hours ago, Born to Run said:

 
 
 
Spoiler

  Reveal hidden contents

For Ambrosini and others, those options were not enough to navigate an already difficult situation. Former Trump officials face an uphill climb finding a job in a Washington D.C., where the federal government is run by Democrats. Job searching when you’re at home taking care of an infant is nearly impossible. 
“With a newborn baby, it’s not like I can just jump on the job market and be like ‘hey, I’m ready to work,’” Ambrosini said. “It’s hard. No one’s going to be willing to hire me right this second because I’m still home with the baby, so it’s tough.”
Ambrosini, who was the deputy communications director at the Commerce Department and a former Trump White House official, said she had gotten approval to take parental leave from early January to late March. But she was informed a day before her baby was due on Dec. 17 that her leave would be ending Jan. 20, when the inauguration was taking place. After some deliberation, she decided to use her sick leave to cover her time off during the first three weeks of January before the inauguration. 
A pair of married former Trump Homeland Security officials said they had a similar experience. They provided POLITICO with emails showing an agency official telling them that, as political appointees, their parental leave benefits would be treated the same as those for career employees. Their baby was born on Dec. 18. Late at night on Jan. 5, the father got an email from the HR office saying that they had been wrong and that their benefit would end on Jan. 20.
“It’s one thing if you have a household, if you have one family member who works for the government,” he said. “But we were both employed by the government so we’re losing both of our opportunities for health care and both our incomes, so it’s pretty scary to have a premature baby at home and not knowing if you’re going to have an income or health insurance.”
The former DHS official and his wife wrote a letter on Jan. 13 to the Biden DHS agency review team pleading to get the full benefit. “[T]he remaining 9-10 weeks afforded to federal employees is critical to our family and livelihoods as we work to raise a strong, healthy boy under unique and unforeseen complications to our birth plan,” they wrote. 
But the DHS’ Presidential Transition Office told the couple in an email on Jan. 18 that the benefits would not be rolled over into the next administration. “This is not what you were hoping to hear but I think you also knew that this was the most likely outcome,” the email read. “I am sorry to be the bearer of this news and I am sorry I don’t have other news.” 
The couple declined to go on the record for fear of the political fallout if they were named publicly and how it could negatively affect future employment opportunities. 
*****
It was only in December 2019 that Congress passed the Federal Employees Paid Leave Act, a law championed by Ivanka Trump, which gave federal government employees up to 12 weeks paid time off for the birth of a new child. The law, which took effect last October, required employees to agree to work at least another twelve weeks after taking the benefit, though there is a question about whether that requirement can be waived. 
Either way, it was a major advancement on the status quo. Previously, federal employees were not given any paid time off and often would have to use unused vacation and sick days following the birth of a child or simply forgo pay. 
Still, experts on parental leave policy say that the cases of these Trump officials shows the holes that still exist in the social safety net. As political appointees, they should have been aware that all benefits could end on Jan. 20 as the administration they served potentially came to a close. The experts also said that the Biden administration is under no legal obligation to grant Trump officials their leave. 
But new administrations don’t immediately push out all political appointees from the prior one. And some experts said it would have set a good precedent for the Biden team to accommodate those individuals on parental leave as a means of reinforcing the importance of the policy.
“Paid parental leave is really really important for maternal health, for child wellbeing, for family connectivity, and I can’t imagine being in that new parents’ shoes and not having the finances,” said Adrienne Schweer, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who leads its Paid Family Leave Task Force. “Extending it to a couple people for a few months could be a good thing. There is precedent for unique circumstances, and I would love to see a good example set of ensuring that as many people as possible can have paid parental leave.”
As with virtually all employment, when a job ends so too do most of the benefits (though ex-Trump officials have been kept on government health insurance for the usual 31-day grace period). And, with Biden taking office, Trump officials asking for their parental leave to be respected in full were asking for, what in effect is, a special accommodation. The Biden administration would have needed to keep these individuals — all political appointees — in the federal government, but not working, until their parental leave ended.
*****
Biden has long been a champion of parental leave benefits. After the 2019 law passed, he tweeted: “It’s about time that federal workers get paid parental leave. It is long past time that every American has 12 weeks of paid leave to address their own health needs or care for any of their loved ones.” 
Trump, by contrast, was a somewhat unorthodox adopter of the cause. Republicans have long opposed federal requirements around such benefits and even as they began embracing reform it was through decidedly conservative lenses. One prominent GOP proposal called for people to be able to draw from their Social Security to pay for parental leave.
Trump officials who were given parental leave benefits argued that since it became law, it was now an entitlement — one that needed to be respected regardless of whether the presidency changed hands.
One former senior Trump official said he coordinated with his HR team at his agency and was told that the requirement he perform 12 weeks of work after their parental leave ended was waivable because of the extenuating circumstances of a new administration. He also reached out to the Office of Personnel Management and was told to date his resignation letter the last day of his paternity leave.
His wife had a baby girl in early December. He took three weeks of paternity leave before having to go back to work to deal with the fallout of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. He says he lost out on nine weeks of leave, which is equivalent to between $20,000 and $30,000.
“This isn’t an entitlement that I asked for but I feel like after four years, it was earned,” he said. 
When some of the Trump political appointees found out that their full leave would not be granted, they elevated the issue to the Biden transition team. But after initially believing that the incoming administration would keep those on leave effectively employed, they soon were told otherwise. The former senior Trump official said he is now regretting his decision to stay until the end of the administration. 
“I could have left earlier but I didn’t because I was told ‘hey you’ve got paternity leave coming up,’ and if I had known that you’re not going to get to use your paternity leave and you’re actually gonna just work your ass off when you have a new baby and then get fired, I probably would have made a different decision,” he said.
The former official declined to go on the record for fear that it would affect his prospects of landing a job with a salary to support a family of five.
“It makes you look like you’re desperate for work and a story about me wanting to get money is not going to work well when I’m negotiating with people I’m talking to,” he said. “I’m trying to convince everybody that I’m in a perfectly good situation.”

 
That lady just needs to craft some boot strap extensions and pull her self up. I can't expect my taxes to go towards towards someone that can't help themself/ welfare queen/ prolly drives a BMW

 

 

she probably has smart phone!

 

 

[Born to Run 6601]

Can we get El Deguello playing on a loudspeaker at Mara Lago. Even if we have to rent a boat?

[henrygandorf 29225]

2 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

trump had no idea when that would be though.  could've been 4 years, 8 years, 12 years, longer even...

[Guest Lobo]

That it took that city precisely two weeks to issue that permit when they typically move at glacial pace, is irony completely lost on Trumpers.  I for one, toast to them! 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Lobo