Toward completing Project 2025; 8 thousand civil service fedral employees just became political appointees

 It was not enough that Trump got away with appointing incompetent cabinet members, placing loyalty to him not only as one criterion but as the most important qualification.  However, I had been puzzled why the architect of Project 2025 had not done this earlier, abusing Schedule F, to make sure those just below cabinet level would also be loyal to DJT. For whatever reason, Russell Vought, not only the theorist but the executioner with the power, as Director of Management and Budget, did it just now. This is mob boss and big city corrupt mayor behavior. 

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2026/06/trump-moves-about-8000-federal-positions-to-schedule-policy-career/

 Those 8 thousand below the cabinet level and down several layers are the ones who actually get stuff done and who have been protected from being fired because they disagreed with processes, policies, and orders that violated oaths and the rule of law and were science-fact believers.  What it means to those who have a grievance or a favor to ask of a federal bureaucrat, be sure to ben the knee to Trump now and pray your social media accounts have been scrubbed of anything blue..  This is mob boss and big city corrupt mayor behavior that has largely been stopped until now by the reform movement of years past, fueled by the incompetence and corruption of government staffed by political hacks.  

From my February 2, 2026, blog posting on the subject:Trump administration plans to reclassify 50,000 federal workers, making them easier to fire | CNN Politics

Russell Vought and Trump are pulling the Project 2025 schedule F trigger

 Trump tried it before and failed. He is trying it again. In the name of ending the deep state, Project 2025, the blueprint for the authoritarian takeover of the federal government, proposed once again to eliminate civil service protection from political pressure, and instead, to make civil service employees subject to loyalty tests to the President in the Oval Office by reclassifying their positions. Vought was one of the authors of Project 2025, and Trump appointed him to manage the federal government personnel office known as the Office of Management and Budget.

That is the most destabilizing, power-grabbing, corruption-spawning act one can imagine.  Since early in the last century, when the good government reform movement gained steam,  state and local governments have tried to reform corrupt practices of big bosses by removing government bureaucrats from judgment call pressures based on political control. It makes them subject to appointment and removal actions that do not consider job performance and qualifications for their positions.  Appointment to government positions has always been a power play tool for the mayor, the government, and now the presidency, to have as many political positions to fill as they can. It subverts 50 years' worth of good government reforms, and some see it at the Trumpist level, a threat to democracy itself. The Schedule F Threat to Democracy: A Project 2025 Explainer - Kettering Foundation

Bimgo: The best relatable words to describe Trump yet. Mob boss. It lexplains his appeal and danger.

Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade came up with a word description of Trump that avoids some of the baggage of other words when she was discussing her new book MSNOW this morning: Mob Boss...I have used a mob boss myself as an analogy to what a fascist dictator is like, but perhaps it is time to just call him what he is: a mob boss. https://michigan.law.umich.edu/news/5qs-mcquades-new-book-details-fix-democracy-us.          Mcquade recogizes that defying the rule of law harms us even though it appeals to some.  Bravo Mcquade. You hit the nail on the head, including that it takes away the rule of the people called democracy.  We the people lose the ability to govern ourselves. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ihiH-SSY-vA

Here'i iss my case to brand him with those two words.Given Trump's lifelong modus operandi is mob boss-like, which I too have noted.  

 Calling Trump a fascist just raises the hackles. ;It is too close to  Hitler. and Auschwitz. (Trump is not: his concentration camps full of those of Hispanics do not have ovens.as the end game. On the other hand, he does have his paramilitary ICE and J6 militia thugs he can activate as he has done it. But if you dare cross him, he will get back at you in devastating ways, filing frivolous, unproven criminal charges or primaring you. Fear of his awful power on steroids is his chief weapon. He threatens and makes examples of his targets. to keep his supporters in line.  

Trump feels unchained from the rule of law since he believes he has legal immunity from criminal acts. (Mob bosses spend a lifetime figuring out how to avoid prosecution for criminal acts they know they are committing. The Supreme Court gave Trump a gift: a get-out-of-jail-free pass for a criminal act. The flood of examples of corruption flaunted and in the open, no bid contract his awarded to his cronies, and changes in regulatory laws including IRS scrutiny or rules governing crypto,,  padding his personal pockets in crypto and gifts from foreign powers, his schemes that benefit his kids and loyalists, and punishment meted out to those who only support him 90% not 100% percent of the time,, are like classic mob boss behavior that sticks a third finger into the rule of law.  Loyalty to him is his most treasured value of those deserving his favor and awards, the classic mob boss modus.

However, per many sources often cited in this blog, he may fit a "classic definition" of a fascist,but calling him that is a political unncessary falme thrower . Calling him an autocrat or a wannabe autocrat seems a bit too academic, but still could include the other hackle-raising word "dictator".  Mob boss avoids all of that, but it fits, per McQuade, with a background in prosecution of mob cases.  She makes her case in her book, just released today, which includes guidance on how to stop someone governing like Trump.

While there are stacks and stacks of books and words from his former military aides that call Trump a fascist, perhaps the best text of reference is the Godfather series movies and the Sopranos...Nothing academic or hackle raising there, but for some, a mob boss is a hero figure and may even explain his cult-like followers who excuse his every deed and defiance of laws.

Why Jena Griswold is the most qualified candidate for the Colorado AG

 

I keep hearing from backers of opponents of Jena Griswold, the current Secretary of State, that she is not qualified to be AG, but no specifics. From the right, her weight gain is ridiculed, though I did not think the qualifications to be an AG were to be skinny and young, though young she is...I. What Griswold brings to the AG table is what none of her opponents have: administrative talents to run a large government regulatory and enforcement agency and the knowledge and ability to bring to justice and accountability those who would undermine elections and harm integrity as she did in the Tina Peters case..While her Secretary of State's office has as many as 200 employees engaged in a variety of regulatory and service functions, including Griswold being the chief elections official for the state, , the AG office has about 300 plus attorneys (400 supportive staff) and among them is a whole division on courtroom litigators. I am not sure how many AGs in the past have ever argued cases in a courtroom themselves as their main, or even part-time, jobs. She has a national record on protecting voting integrity and is skilled at handling national media. The AG in the next two years will also face continued attempts by Trump to control Colorado elections and federalize the vote count. Her background and experience, and demonstrated effectiveness, are appropriate to the position and top any I see in her opponents

 I have been following how she has operated in my frequent blog postings on the subject of local and Tina Peters-type election deniers in county clerk positions, including my own.  I am a former elections official myself in Denver (and before that, as a director of a consumer affairs office with concurrent powers with the AG's office and function, just multi-county wide instead of statewide).) I am also a small business owner, and I have frequently had to file reports with her office. Even that function has gone smoothly.

How to tell a political lie from the truth and the implications of the answers on Nov 2026 midterms

How do you tell a political lie from the truth? There are serious implications, depending on the answers you get, for the November 2026 midterms and for whether the election will be stolen or the integrity will be protected. If you only get your news from one or two "trusted sources" and hear a few examples, the next question is how widespread these selected examples of fraud were, and whether they were sufficient to have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.  

One way to tell a lie from the truth is if, instead of evidence of how widespread something was, the answer you get is an example, a story, a judicial finding that one person, or even one county like Fulton County, GA, was found guilty, or some evidence or not. Watch the election denier neglect presenting evidence that the example represented enough of a problem to justify a federal takeover by whatever means, including violent acts like in J6. The SAVE Act, also inspired by the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, which was so voter suppressive, was just defeated in the Senate. That was a dire piece of legislation in search of an actual dire problem to fix, resulting in dire unintended consequences.  

The data and every attempt to assert the claim before any court that there was enough fraud to have changed the outcome failed for lack of evidence.   Ever since 2020, MAGA has been consumed by the search for missing pieces to justify their beliefs, and so far, after 6 years of trying, they have failed. They are trying to find a poster child in Georgia and one county, but even if they could find some anecdotal evidence or if they didn't, how did what happened there mean it happened in the thousands of counties elsewhere? 

So, where do you get the data and evidence outside of your "trusted sources"? AI is helpful if you ask the question several ways.  That way, you may avoid a slanted answer.   Usually, AI will summarize one source, and the screen may show a variety of answers, a menu, and links to other sources.  If you ask for evidence or examples of how and whodunit, you will get some anecdotes. Ask for data on frequency and impact, and you will get another viewpoint: there was no finding by any due process judge that there was enough fraud to overturn the 2020 election.  The MAGA response: we'll keep digging; the evidence has got to be there somewhere. That is enough to satisfy the loyalists to the MAGA cause. The president's word is all they need.

Here is one source I thought was fair to provide in response to the question raised: how widespread was fraud in 2020? After all, Congress-sponsored information sources had been objective in budget analyses.  So I tapped into the information supplied by Congress, which members rely on for research. Congress does have the power to make changes in certain circumstances. Here is what happened when I clicked on https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20190129-SD020.pdf    I was immediately directed to the ultra-conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, the architect of the unitary form of government that presented a plan to defang Congress and the judicial branch and put the actual power in the hands of an all-powerful autocratic president,  Project 2025.   Ok, I said, let's see what they have.  I got this: anecdotal reports of selective election fraud that actually got a guilty verdict after due process. The evidence was on state-by-state convictions over at least the past 10 years, some of which were relevant in 2020. 

I wondered how many of those prosecutions resulted in convictions and led to a judge or jury actually overturning the 2020 elections. There was plenty of data and evidence presented, but not enough to prove the point in a court of law, and in many cases, no evidence or data at all.   

In the meantime, ICE armed for the Middle East battle, may be sent to Nov 2026 polling places on the unproven claim of illegals, ie. Hispanics were voting (scaring the toot out of anyone who looked Hispanic and was legally registered). "Suspect" ballot boxes may be seized and kept from the public, and Secretaries of State's security and any protection from tampering. There will be a huge attempt to challenge the legitimacy of voters, from registration to ballot casting, and mail-in ballots that, per Trump's executive order, will only be accepted and counted if the post office verifies federal registration lists that do not exist.  All of this will be in the name of "voter integrity" or "vote integrity? and the election results will be delayed amid the ensuing chaos and court challenges. on the constitutionality ...all justified by a demonstrable lie.