Originally published at: Federal Judge Poised To Block NLRB Firing Bristles At ‘Extreme’ Attempt To Expand Trump’s Power
A federal judge instructed the lawyers before her to walk through the history of the National Labor Relations Board and the long effort to degrade agency independence, providing a bird’s-eye primer for the public on President Donald Trump’s attempt to put the entire executive branch under his direct control. “I recognize that for both sides,…
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Spoils system, here we come.
In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. It contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity.
The term was used particularly in politics of the United States, where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 due to a civil service reform movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States.
The term was derived from the phrase “to the victor belong the spoils” by New York Senator William L. Marcy,[1][2] referring to the victory of Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, with the term “spoils” meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.[3]
Similar spoils systems are common in other nations that traditionally have been based on tribal organization or other kinship groups and localism in general.
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So Republican DEI.
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Federal Judge Poised To Block NLRB Firing Bristles At ‘Extreme’ Attempt To Expand Trump’s Power
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"Bristles*?!?
Ohhh myyy that’s not good. She might do what donnie doesn’t want then…
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She won’t, the subprime court will (though of course with the carefully worded carve out that only GQP presidents can have the power of a king)
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Getting paid by the Fed while black.
These ignorant racist shitbags are epidemic.
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“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell
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Some thoughts. Patronage (we don’t call it spoils) is a feature of government in Canada. The ability of the head of a federal or provincial government to make discretionary appointments. Often it is relatively innocuous, but can also be the leading edge of corruption. Appointment to a government agency board of directors with director’s fees is not the same as, say, a government contract. Nor is it necessarily an abuse… often the appointee has the qualifications of a merit appointee, who happens to support the right political party. Patronage can also be used to advance DEI (in the traditional sense of promoting qualified members of underrepresented groups and which in Canada is still a good thing).
Full disclosure, I was the recipient of a small scale patronage appointment early in my career as a director of a federal lending agency for a couple of years in the late 1980s. I had knowledge and experience to contribute to the committees I served on. The other board members were very capable business people. The composition of the board was chosen to represent the country… I was an Ontario representative… so merit, but also regional representation. Compensation was a modest director’s fee, some resume recognition and a chance to hang out with some cool people. There was also a DEI component. There were four exceptional women and one indigenous person on a fifteen member board.
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“Is the tradition of the British king with unfettered removal power — not only to remove somebody working in the government but probably to slice off his head — is that the model?” Howell asked incredulously. “Maybe Tennessee is recommending it for us Americans, but is that model that we should be turning to?”
Yes, I will be doing everything in my power to prevent the use of my Trebutine® in most cases such as these.
Thanks for asking.
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In your otherwise very informative post, I have a nitpicky but important nuance.
The ability of the head of a federal or provincial government to make discretionary appointments. Often it is relatively innocuous, but can also be the leading edge of corruption. Appointment to a government agency board of directors with director’s fees is not the same as, say, a government contract.
That nuance is the difference that currently Americans would call “Political Appointees” versus “Civil Servants”.
To begin with I would change the last word from “contract” to “JOB”. That is where “compensation was a modest director’s fee” versus full time salary employment. In America it is very common to have these boards usually appointed by elected official and some include a small fee. But full time federal Government employment is controlled by Civil Service rules that protect employees from political winds.
That is I have no problem with political appointments to a board of directors for the purpose of writing procedures and even regulations. But enforcing those regulations should be a full time job by people independent of politics.
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Couldn’t the King of England also execute people at his discretion? Texas would file an amicus brief supporting that.
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Geez. Don’t give Paxton any ideas!
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I take your point. What you are describing is turning civil service positions into ‘spoils’, which Project 2025 and Schedule F do, but they do more. The spoils are not just a reward for political acolytes… they are installing political operatives.
Can’t speak to how patronage/spoils works in other countries, but the point I wanted to make was that patronage can be mildly offensive, but bribery and corruption are bribery and corruption.
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Perhaps someone should point out to That Guy that President James Garfield was assassinated by a fellow who thought he deserved a government job under the patronage system, and wasn’t given one.
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The lifespan of the current craziness is directly correlated with how long rich people can access their Vitamin K supplies, the chop-shop aliens show up, or creditors come after you (Musk’s net wealth has declined by $110 billion since Trump was elected).
In 1994, the researcher D. M. Turner wrote, “A fairly large percentage of those who try Ketamine will consume it non-stop until their supply is exhausted.” John Lilly, a neurophysiologist and psychedelic researcher who once used LSD to investigate dolphin communication, famously abused ketamine until he believed that he was contacted by an extraterrestrial entity who removed his penis. “For anyone who is using a very significant amount of ketamine on a regular basis over a long period of time, I think there’s good reason to suspect that they could have different kinds of cognitive and psychological forms of impairment,” David Mathai, a psychiatrist who offers ketamine therapy to some of his patients in Miami.
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Top this!
Thoughts from the US
"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, “And we shall overcome.” I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
"These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
"And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.
"The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.
"Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.
Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."
– Charles Pierce
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Oh OK
Trump scrambles to explain away ‘hot mic’ comment to Chief Justice Roberts - Raw Story
Late Wednesday night Donald Trump took to his Truth Social account and attempted to quell speculation about a comment he made to Chief Justice John Roberts following his speech to the nation on Tuesday night.
On Truth Social, the president said questions about the exchange are much ado about nothing and called journalists who noted it “sleazebags.”
On Truth Social, he raged, “The Fake ‘Play the Ref’ News, in order to create a divide between me and our great U.S. Supreme Court, heard me say last night, loudly and openly as I was walking past the Justices on the way to the podium, ‘thank you,’ to Chief Justice John Roberts.”
“Like most people, I don’t watch Fake News CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they are going ‘crazy’ asking what is it that I was thanking Justice Roberts for? They never called my office to ask, of course, but if they had I would have told these sleazebag ‘journalists’ that I thanked him for SWEARING ME IN ON INAUGURATION DAY, AND DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB IN SO DOING!” he said.
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