First Agency Head Fired

[mak]

Michael Pack, VOA boss, has the distinction of being the first to be fired. Pack was fired in the first hour of the Biden Administration.

[tamada]

Michael Pack, VOA boss, has the distinction of being the first to be fired. Pack was fired in the first hour of the Biden Administration.

To be more precise, he resigned at the request of President Biden (but we all know what that means).

[JimboPSM]

A bit of background behind Biden booting out three of his predecessors’ most unqualified and corrupt appointees.

Some extracts from Slate:

Biden Has Already Fired Three of Trump’s Worst Appointees
By: Mark Joseph Stern, Jan 20, 2021

Many of Donald Trump’s most notorious appointees, including his cabinet secretaries, resigned shortly before Joe Biden took office.

But myriad officials whom Trump installed in the executive branch remained in spite of their antagonism toward the new president’s agenda.

Hours into his presidency, Biden has already ousted three of his predecessors’ most unqualified and corrupt appointees.....


1. Michael Pack, who was confirmed to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media in last June.

Pack sought to transform the agency, which oversees the international broadcaster Voice of America, into a propaganda outlet for Trump —despite a statutory mandate that prohibits such political interference.

He purged the staff of VOA and its sister networks, replaced them with Trump loyalists, demanded pro-Trump coverage, and unconstitutionally punished remaining journalists who did actual reporting on the administration. In a perverse move, he refused to renew visas for foreign reporters who covered their home countries, subjecting them to retribution by authoritarian regimes.

Pack also illegally fired the board of the Open Technology Fund, which promotes international internet freedom, and replaced them with Republican activists.....


2. Kathleen Kraninger, who was confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018.
Kraninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency’s role as a watchdog for the financial sector.

She scrapped a landmark rule that restricted predatory payday lending, pressuring staff to downplay the resulting harm to consumers. And she refused to enforce a federal law that protected military personnel against a broad range of predatory lending.

Her decision yanked federal support from military families who were defrauded by lenders. In the midst of the pandemic, Kraninger also approved a rule that allows debt collectors to harass Americans with limitless texts and emails demanding repayment.....


3. Peter Robb, who was confirmed as the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel in 2017.

The NLRB was created to enforce federal laws that guarantee workers the right to form a union and bargain collectively.

Robb is vehemently anti-union; during his tenure, he tried to limit employees’ free speech, give managers more leeway to engage in wage theft, hobble unions’ ability to collect dues, and prevent employers from helping workers organize.

He also tried to seize near-total control of the agency by demoting every regional director and consolidating power in his office. If successful, this gambit would’ve given him unprecedented authority to bust existing unions and prevent new ones from forming.....

Full article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... -robb.html

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[Mosquito]

Go Biden Go...

[Kenr6583]

Hopefully next up will be OSHA, the EEOC, and OPM. They were turned into worker unfriendly agencies.

Getting Peter Robb out of there the first day was beautiful.

It's funny, the NALC CBA expired in September 2019. We had been in negotiations for over a year and getting ready for interest arbitration. As soon as Trump lost, a tentative agreement was reached. It hasn't been ratified yet, but it will be soon. Trump and his administration were doing everything in their power to eliminate our bargaining unit rights.