sherk

SEE SCHED F

SEE PJT 2025

===

AN 1 25

During the 2024 U.S. presidential race, now-President Donald Trump made a concerted effort to distance himself from Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation's 922-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency. Trump reportedly viewed Project 2025 as a major political liability, claiming he had nothing to do with it even though its architects were major allies.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris hammered Trump aggressively on Project 2025, and her website even had an entire section devoted to the Heritage document and its proposals. Harris, in an October 14, 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, "Donald Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda would give him unchecked power to act on his worst instincts — and there will be no one to stop him."

Regardless, Trump narrowly won the election, returning to the White House on January 20, 2025. And according to reporting from 404 Media, some memos from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) "were seemingly written by people" with Project 2025 connections. But the OPM, Mediaite's David Gilmour reports, "scrambled to scrub" those memos.

404 Media's Samanta Cole, in an article published on January 27, reported, "Some of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memos sent to federal workers about firing, hiring freezes, and mandatory return to office demands were seemingly written by people who were previously employed by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks with longstanding loyalties to President Donald Trump, according to metadata on the memos posted by the government online. We know this because the senders of the memos failed to scrub the metadata from those documents, making it easy for anyone to reveal the listed authors of the memos."

But Gilmour, in an article published on January 28, reports that the OPM "scrambled to scrub" the memos "after initial publication of the documents contained metadata revealing they were authored by individuals tied to Project 2025."

"The metadata revealed the authors' identities as individuals affiliated with the Heritage Foundation think tank's Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for reshaping federal governance, according to 404 Media," Gilmour explains. "One memo, titled 'Guidance on Presidential Memorandum Return to In-Person Work' and dated January 24, listed its author as Noah Peters, a senior advisor at OPM and former Trump appointee who served as solicitor for the Federal Labor Relations Authority during Trump's first term."

Gilmour adds, "Another memo, 'Federal Civilian Hiring Freeze Guidance,' was authored by James Sherk, who 404 Media highlights as an architect of the Trump Administration's Schedule F classification, which stripped employment protections from federal workers."

Sherk, according to Gilmour, was "formerly" active in the Heritage Foundation.

"Despite Trump's public denials of involvement with Project 2025 and distancing from the blueprint," Gilmour reports, "the metadata leak is the latest evidence of how he has tapped its contributors for high-ranking roles. Although the OPM deleted the initial documents before uploading amended ones, tech industry researcher Molly White has hosted the original memos on her website in full."

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no lnx $

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html

Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control.

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Jonathan SwanCharlie Savage Maggie Haberman

By Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

Published July 17, 2023

Updated July 18, 2023

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said John McEntee, a former White House personnel chief who began Mr. Trump’s systematic attempt to sweep out officials deemed to be disloyal in 2020 and who is now involved in mapping out the new approach.

“Our current executive branch,” Mr. McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”

Mr. Trump and his advisers are making no secret of their intentions — proclaiming them in rallies and on his campaign website, describing them in white papers and openly discussing them.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House and now runs a policy organization, the Center for Renewing America.

The strategy in talking openly about such “paradigm-shifting ideas” before the election, Mr. Vought said, is to “plant a flag” — both to shift the debate and to later be able to claim a mandate. He said he was delighted to see few of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals defend the norm of Justice Department independence after the former president openly attacked it.

A Divided Congress

[Under Scrutiny: A licensing agreement between Ford Motor and a major Chinese battery maker is facing questions by Republican lawmakers, who say the deal could make Ford reliant on a company with links to forced labor.

Air Travel: The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for the next half-decade, moving at a time of growing dysfunction and disruption in the system to make a number of changes that affect passengers.

Supreme Court Ethics Bill: The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would impose strict new ethics rules on the Supreme Court, moving over Republican objections to address revelations about justices receiving financial benefits from wealthy benefactors.

U.C. Berkeley: A House select committee is requesting more information about a partnership between the university and several Chinese entities that it said could help China gain access to cutting-edge research.]

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the former president has “laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term, something no other candidate has done.” He added, “Voters will know exactly how President Trump will supercharge the economy, bring down inflation, secure the border, protect communities and eradicate the deep state that works against Americans once and for all.”

The two driving forces of this effort to reshape the executive branch are Mr. Trump’s own campaign policy shop and a well-funded network of conservative groups, many of which are populated by former senior Trump administration officials who would most likely play key roles in any second term.

Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.

That work at Heritage dovetails with plans on the Trump campaign website to expand presidential power that were drafted primarily by two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington, with input from other advisers, including Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks. And for some veterans of Mr. Trump’s turbulent White House who came to question his fitness for leadership, the prospect of removing guardrails and centralizing even greater power over government directly in his hands sounded like a recipe for mayhem.

“It would be chaotic,” said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s second White House chief of staff. “It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”

The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.

Its legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory.

The legal theory rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other. Instead, the theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them. Reagan administration lawyers developed the theory as they sought to advance a deregulatory agenda.

“The notion of independent federal agencies or federal employees who don’t answer to the president violates the very foundation of our democratic republic,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, adding that the contributors to Project 2025 are committed to “dismantling this rogue administrative state.”

Personal power has always been a driving force for Mr. Trump. He often gestures toward it in a more simplistic manner, such as in 2019, when he declared to a cheering crowd, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right todo whatever I wantas president.”

Mr. Trump made the remark in reference to his claimed ability to directly fire Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia inquiry, which primed his hostility toward law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He also tried to get a subordinate to have Mr. Mueller ousted, but was defied.

Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, promised a “deconstruction of the administrative state.”But Mr. Trump installed people in other key roles who ended up telling him that more radical ideas were unworkable or illegal. In the final year of his presidency, he told aides he was fed up with being constrained by subordinates.

Now, Mr. Trump is laying out a far more expansive vision of power in any second term. And, in contrast with his disorganized transition after his surprise 2016 victory, he now benefits from a well-funded policymaking infrastructure, led by former officials who did not break with him after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

One idea the people around Mr. Trump have developed centers on bringing independent agencies under his thumb.

Congress created these specialized technocratic agencies inside the executive branch and delegated to them some of its power to make rules for society. But it did so on the condition that it was not simply handing off that power to presidents to wield like kings — putting commissioners atop them whom presidents appoint but generally cannot fire before their terms end, while using its control of their budgets to keep them partly accountable to lawmakers as well. (Agency actions are also subject to court review.)

Presidents of both parties have chafed at the agencies’ independence. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created many of them, endorsed a proposal in 1937 to fold them all into cabinet departments under his control, but Congress did not enact it.

Later presidents sought to impose greater control over nonindependent agencies Congress created, like the Environmental Protection Agency, which is run by an administrator whom a president can remove at will. For example, President Ronald Reagan issued executive orders requiring nonindependent agencies to submit proposed regulations to the White House for review. But overall, presidents have largely left the independent agencies alone.

Mr. Trump’s allies are preparing to change that, drafting an executive order requiring independent agencies to submit actions to the White House for review.Mr. Trump endorsed the idea on his campaign website, vowing to bring them “under presidential authority.”

Such an order was drafted in Mr. Trump’s first term — and blessed by the Justice Department — but never issued amid internal concerns. Some of the concerns were over how to carry out reviews for agencies that are headed by multiple commissioners and subject to administrative procedures and open-meetings laws, as well as over how the market would react if the order chipped away at the Federal Reserve’s independence, people familiar with the matter said.

The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn in the White House.Credit...John Tully for The New York Times

The Federal Reserve was ultimately exempted in the draft executive order, but Mr. Trump did not sign it before his presidency ended. If Mr. Trump and his allies get another shot at power, the independence of the Federal Reserve — an institution Mr. Trump publicly railed at as president — could be up for debate. Notably, the Trump campaign website’s discussion of bringing independent agencies under presidential control is silent on whether that includes the Fed.

Asked whether presidents should be able to order interest rates lowered before elections, even if experts think that would hurt the long-term health of the economy, Mr. Vought said that would have to be worked out with Congress. But “at the bare minimum,” he said, the Federal Reserve’s regulatory functions should be subject to White House review.

“It’s very hard to square the Fed’s independence with the Constitution,” Mr. Vought said.

Other former Trump administration officials involved in the planning said there would also probably be a legal challenge to the limits on a president’s power to fire heads of independent agencies. Mr. Trump could remove an agency head, teeing up the question for the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court in 1935 and 1988 upheld the power of Congress to shield some executive branch officials from being fired without cause. But after justices appointed by Republicans since Reagan took control, it has started to erode those precedents.

Peter L. Strauss, professor emeritus of law at Columbia University and a critic of the strong version of the unitary executive theory, argued that it is constitutional and desirable for Congress, in creating and empowering an agency to perform some task, to also include some checks on the president’s control over officials “because we don’t want autocracy” and to prevent abuses.

“The regrettable fact is that the judiciary at the moment seems inclined to recognize that the president does have this kind of authority,” he said. “They are clawing away agency independence in ways that I find quite unfortunate and disrespectful of congressional choice.”

Mr. Trump has also vowed to impound funds, or refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress. After Nixon used the practice to aggressively block agency spending he was opposed to, on water pollution control, housing construction and other issues, Congress banned the tactic.

On his campaign website, Mr. Trump declared that presidents have a constitutional right to impound funds and said he would restore the practice — though he acknowledged it could result in a legal battle.

Mr. Trump and his allies also want to transform the civil service — government employees who are supposed to be nonpartisan professionals and experts with protections against being fired for political reasons.

The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn, including by raising legal or pragmatic objections to his immigration policies, among many other examples. Toward the end of his term, his aides drafted an executive order, “CreatingSchedule F in the Excepted Service,” that removed employment protections from career officials whose jobs were deemed linked to policymaking.

Mr. Trump signed the order, which became known as Schedule F, near the end of his presidency, but President Biden rescinded it. Mr. Trump has vowed to immediately reinstitute it in a second term.

Critics say he could use it for a partisan purge. But James Sherk, a former Trump administration official who came up with the idea and now works at the America First Policy Institute — a think tank stocked heavily with former Trump officials — argued it would only be used against poor performers and people who actively impeded the elected president’s agenda.

“Schedule F expressly forbids hiring or firing based on political loyalty,” Mr. Sherk said. “Schedule F employees would keep their jobs if they served effectively and impartially.”

Mr. Trump himself has characterized his intentions rather differently — promising on his campaign website to “find and remove the radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education” and listing a litany of targets at a rally last month.

“We will demolish the deep state,” Mr. Trump said at the rally in Michigan. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive outthe globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off thesick political class that hates our country.”

[Jonathan Swan is a political reporter who focuses on campaigns and Congress. As a reporter for Axios, he won an Emmy Award for his 2020 interview of then-President Donald J. Trump, and the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award for “overall excellence in White House coverage” in 2022. More about Jonathan Swan

Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” More about Charlie Savage

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent and the author of “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.” She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. More about Maggie Haberman

A version of this article appears in print on July 17, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump and Allies Seeking Vast Increase of His Power. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

jill was raised by her grandmother and aunt in southern China and had little exposure to spirituality until she joined her parents in New York City in 1994, at age 11. Jill’s father was skeptical about Christianity, but her mother had a conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1998.

“It snowballed quickly,” Jill said. “Within maybe a couple months, she’d gone through kind of a weird alignment of happenstances that prepped her psychology for receiving Jesus.”

It didn’t end well. Jill’s mother committed suicide just a few months after her conversion, and her father blamed Christianity.

“Independent of this, I became a secular atheist,” Jill said. “Because of my dad’s narrative, I was also very angry with Christianity in

particular.”

Jill immediately identified with secular humanism – a philosophy that emphasizes the responsibility of people to lead ethical lives, independent of religious beliefs – after learning about it in a high school history class.

“Humanism was what was good about life. But the teenage anger part came out through my atheism,” Jill said. “I would go to Protestant churches and pick fights” by starting arguments at fellowship nights.

“I was just so angry and I didn’t keep it a secret from anybody that ‘Christians killed my mom,’ ” she said.

James, who moved to Michigan from Canada in the mid-1990s, had his own questions. Raised a Lutheran, he first encountered devout Catholics at Hillsdale College, a liberal arts college in Michigan.

“It wasn’t something I had much interest in engaging with at the time,” James said. “It was something that stuck in the back of my head.”

Focused on completing his master’s degree in economics at the University of Rochester, James said he had little time to think about Catholic beliefs until he moved to Washington in 2006. He began to read about the church’s teachings on human sexuality – specifically, St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility. After finding out that all major Protestant denominations did not allow use of contraception until the 20th century, James began to seriously consider the church’s teaching on infallibility.

“That was the first time I had to take seriously the claims the church makes about the papacy,” James said. If the church did not change its teachings on contraception despite strong pressure to do so, it just might be right about papal infallibility, he thought.

James spent a year and a half reading about the early Christian church and found that “it looks an awful lot more like the Catholic Church than any Protestant church.” After entering RCIA at St. Joseph’s Church on Capitol Hill, he came into the church during Easter Vigil services in 2009.

Two years earlier, Jill had undergone her own conversion. A friend invited her to a Baptist church, and what the teacher there had to say struck Jill as “intuitively true.” She began to speak regularly with him about Christian teachings, while the example of another woman at the church, Laura, “dismantled my guard,” she said.

“I tried my old antics on her, bashing her religion, bashing the God she loves – and she just turned the other cheek and wept with me,” Jill said.

After opening her heart to the idea that there might be a God, Jill made no assumptions about what form “the divine” might take. As she sought to understand if the divine is knowable, personal, immanent and monistic, she dismissed ideologies such as pantheism, polytheism, Daoism, dualism and deism.

“I wanted to know the truth. I didn’t want to be emotional about it,” said Jill, who earned her bachelor’s degree at Columbia University.

By the end of one year, Jill had decided she was a monotheist and began to read about Christianity, Islam and Judaism. She finally realized the next step wasn’t a logical deduction, but a leap of faith – to Christianity. Like James, she eventually became fascinated by the early church fathers and recognized the Catholic Church within their writings.

The couple met in 2014, and after a whirlwind romance, were married at SS. Phillip and James Church in Baltimore April 25, 2015. On their honeymoon, they traveled to Rome to have their marriage blessed by Pope Francis. James and Jill are expecting a daughter in January: Chiara Caeli, “light of heaven.”

Now parishioners at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Lake Ridge, they consider it a blessing to have arrived at the same church through their own separate paths.

devos combine dept ed with labor?

https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-attack-federal-labor-unions-harms-epa-environment-and-public-health

no lnx

Trump's Attack on Federal Labor Unions Harms the EPA, Environment and Public Health

By marginalizing federal employees, Trump is risking America’s health and ecosystems.

By John O'Grady / Independent Media Institute June 22, 2018, 9:15 PM GMT

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And, history is definitely repeating itself. President Donald Trump’s rule-by-decree executive orders, especially regarding federal labor unions, remind me of the late Rev. Friedrich Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor best known for a widely paraphrased statement:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

As Trump rejects trade unions and would marginalize their members, it is time for Americans to speak out. On May 25, 2018, he issued three executive orders savagely attacking the largest sector of trade unionism—the federal sector. Trump is dangerous.He is also as serious as a heart attack on public employees and their unions’ official time, space arrangements and federal civil service protections. The Labor and Employee Relations Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already chomping at the bit to implement Trump’s three anti-union executive orders, two of which target labor organization and one that makes it easier to fire federal civil servants. Part of that effort is to deny union members the opportunity—and their privilege—to visit with lawmakers on official time.

Should you be worried that these executive orders attacking federal unions—which are comprised of scientists and engineers—might negatively impact the environment and public health? Yes, if you’re concerned that a surge in allowable levels of particle and ozone pollution in Pennsylvania can harm children’s lungs. Yes, if you’re concerned that this White House will permit further contamination of drinking water resources in our Great Lakes. Yes, if you’re concerned that EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s arbitrary choices for Superfund remediation will give, according to an EPA press release, “immediate and intense action” to some sites, while ignoring more acutely in-need and neglected toxic lands in Houston and across the nation. Yes, if you’re concerned that continued inaction is exacerbating the climate crisis along America’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Without AFGE Council 238—the union for more than 8,000 EPA workers—there will be no one to let Congress know exactly what is going on at the EPA under Pruitt’s unethical leadership. There will be more pressure put on EPA staff to certify state and local laboratories that don’t meet minimal standards, to approve air, water and land permits absent adequate protection of human health and the environment. And approvals of dangerous pesticides would be rushed through without adequate scientific review. In a nutshell, without the union protecting whistleblowers, they will not blow the whistle because they need their jobs to pay their mortgage, utilities and children’s education.

To Trump’s discontent, labor is organized—and protesting. It will, however, require action by the judicial branch to rectify the president’s trampling on the legislative branch and existing statutes. So, perhaps America is moving backwards in time.

Take, for example, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Following the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled job seeker, Congress passed the act, which was introduced by Sen. George Pendleton (D-Ohio). It provided that federal government jobs be awarded based on merit and through competitive exams. It stopped the appointment of people to governmental offices merely because of their political affiliation or their connection to the president. The law offended politicians who belong to a small clique that controls a political party. These “machine politicians” realized that with the Pendleton Act in place, they would have to find new means of income, as they could no longer count on donations from the wealthy hoping to receive jobs.

Fast forward to 2018, and Trump has made cronyism the order of the day, filling the executive branch with many who are simply unqualified to hold their positions. Trump would deny working families benefits protected by the Constitution. Those rights include collective bargaining on pay and working conditions, legal services, personal representation, health and safety and fairness. Trump’s executive orders would prevent our federal workforce from organizing.

Ultimately, Trump would end civil service protections and destroy labor’s federal sector unions. In February 2017, Trump quietly hired James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation to handle labor and employment policy. Sherk believes that federal workers are overpaid; he opposes increasing the minimum wage and expanding workers’ rights. He was indoctrinated at the Koch-funded Hillsdale College that has helped to advance the corporate agenda of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to undermine the rights of workers using their so-called model legislation, which benefits special interests in more than a third of our 50 states.

The right-wing Heritage Foundation was Sherk’s proving ground for Trump’s White House. It’s where he honed his craft of limiting the influence that unions have and undermining workers’ rights. Sherk is also a proponent of local governments pushing “right-to-work laws,” statutes in 28 states that prohibit agreements between employers and labor unions. Notably, three major aspects in right-to-work states are: 1) The right to work for significantly less money; 2) the right to work with less training; and 3) the right to work with fewer safety conditions.

Considering the fact that most Republicans disdain unelected federal employees and labor unions comprising working women and men, it’s difficult to feel optimistic. It’s hard to hold out much hope for the federal sector and labor unions under the Trump regime. If federal sector unions go, then the “Save the U.S. EPA Campaign”—a national campaign being conducted by AFGE Council 238 and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to stop the destruction of the EPA—goes away as well. The interests of the coal and fossil fuel industries will continue to be placed above those of the American public. The abuse of taxpayer dollars will also go on, while jobs and programs that are critical to the health and safety of America’s air, water, land and endangered species will be drastically cut or even eliminated. Science will be undermined. Public health will suffer.

Trump and Pruitt are reducing protections of federal employees to enshrine an era of cronyism. Simultaneously, they threaten the environmental protections for all Americans by refusing to staff open positions at EPA. By design, that will result in fewer civil servants keeping our land, water and air clean. Trump and his chief sycophant at the EPA will call that ‘Victory!’

But the blame does not fall entirely on the Republicans. It is shared by the Democrats who consistently fail to vigorously support labor unions. For years, the pendulum has remained to the far right. As a result, one agency and department after another fail to meet objectives because they are not only understaffed and under-budgeted, but are filled with toadies. Meanwhile the people’s work doesn’t get done. The American taxpayers and voters are not served, while the Koch Brothers and their Republican cohorts get richer and more powerful. Worse yet, the best and the brightest younger generation is no longer attracted to government positions because they are treated with hostility, like second-class citizens. Morale at the EPA is down, because the moralities of America’s elected leaders are in the gutter.

“…Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.” Who’s next? Maybe the Democrats?

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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James Sherk commented on a post • 2w2w

This case has been a sleeper in the media, but it is a very big deal.

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James Sherk commented on a post • 2w2w

Congratulations Bill!

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James Sherk commented on a post • 2w2w

Congratulations! This is a big deal.

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ExperienceExperience

America First Policy Institute logo

Director, Center for American FreedomDirector, Center for American Freedom

America First Policy InstituteAmerica First Policy Institute

Mar 2021 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mosMar 2021 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mos

Washington DC-Baltimore AreaWashington DC-Baltimore Area

U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans logo

MemberMember

U.S. President's Council on Improving Federal Civic ArchitectureU.S. President's Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture

Jan 2021 - Feb 2021 · 2 mosJan 2021 - Feb 2021 · 2 mos

Washington, District of Columbia, United StatesWashington, District of Columbia, United States

Presidential appointee to the President's Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture created by Executive Order 13967 until the Council was rescinded by E.O. 14018.Presidential appointee to the President's Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture created by Executive Order 13967 until the Council was rescinded by E.O. 14018.

Executive Office of the President logo

Executive Office of the President, The White HouseExecutive Office of the President, The White House

Full-time · 4 yrs 1 moFull-time · 4 yrs 1 mo

Washington D.C. Metro AreaWashington D.C. Metro Area

Special Assistant to the President for Domestic PolicySpecial Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy

Apr 2018 - Jan 2021 · 2 yrs 10 mosApr 2018 - Jan 2021 · 2 yrs 10 mos

➤ Top labor policy & civil service reform advisor to President Trump on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

➤ Primary White House responsibility for developing andcoordinating policy with the Department of Labor, Office of Personnel Management, NLRB, NMB, EEOC, & FLRA.

➤ Helped vet and recommend individuals for Presidential agency appointments.

➤ Led the inter-agency working group (including the Department of Labor, the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and the White House Counsel’s Office) that produced regulations that:

• Updated the salaried overtime threshold;

• Defined joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act;

• Clarified which employee benefits count towards an employee’s regular rate of pay for overtime purposes; and

• Required union trust funds to file financial transparency reports.

➤ Principal author of and/or policy lead for issuing & implementing approximately two-dozen executive orders and Presidential memoranda, including:

• The Civil Service Reform Executive Orders that streamlined the process for dismissing poor performers, directed the renegotiation of agency union contracts, and limited taxpayer-funded union time (E.O.’s 13836, 13837, and 13839);

• The Strengthening Retirement Security in America Executive Order (E.O. 13847) that allowed small businesses to offer Association Health Plans;

• The Executive Order creating the National Garden of American Heroes (E.O. 13934); and

• The Executive Order creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service (E.O. 13957), curtailing civil service appeals for career employees in policy-influencing positions;

➤ Architect of the administration’s Federal-sector labor-relations strategy.

➤ Spearheaded rollback of regulations permitting dues-skimming from Medicaid homecare provider payments.➤ Top labor policy & civil service reform advisor to President Trump on the White House Domestic Policy Council. ➤ Primary White House responsibility for developing and coordinating policy with the Department of Labor, Office of Personnel Management, NLRB, NMB, EEOC, & FLRA. ➤ Helped vet and recommend individuals for Presidential agency appointments. ➤ Led the inter-agency working group (including the Department of Labor, the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and the White House Counsel’s Office) that produced regulations that: • Updated the salaried overtime threshold; • Defined joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act; • Clarified which employee benefits count towards an employee’s regular rate of pay for overtime purposes; and • Required union trust funds to file financial transparency reports. ➤ Principal author of and/or policy lead for issuing & implementing approximately two-dozen executive orders and Presidential memoranda, including: • The Civil Service Reform Executive Orders that streamlined the process for dismissing poor performers, directed the renegotiation of agency union contracts, and limited taxpayer-funded union time (E.O.’s 13836, 13837, and 13839); • The Strengthening Retirement Security in America Executive Order (E.O. 13847) that allowed small businesses to offer Association Health Plans; •The Executive Order creating the National Garden of American Heroes (E.O. 13934); and •The Executive Order creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service (E.O. 13957), curtailing civil service appeals for career employees in policy-influencing positions; ➤ Architect of the administration’s Federal-sector labor-relations strategy. ➤ Spearheaded rollback of regulations permitting dues-skimming from Medicaid homecare provider payments.…see more

Labor Policy AdvisorLabor Policy Advisor

Jan 2017 - Mar 2018 · 1 yr 3 mosJan 2017 - Mar 2018 · 1 yr 3 mos

The Heritage Foundation logo

The Heritage FoundationThe Heritage Foundation

10 yrs 11 mos10 yrs 11 mos

Research Fellow in Labor EconomicsResearch Fellow in Labor Economics

Jan 2015 - Jan 2017 · 2 yrs 1 moJan 2015 - Jan 2017 · 2 yrs 1 mo

➤ Nationally recognized expert on labor markets, labor policy and the civil service.

➤ Conducted and published original research and economic analysis on labor policy and labor market conditions.

➤ Frequently called upon to provide expert testimony to both houses of Congress and state legislatures regarding labor policy, labor markets, and the civil service.

➤ Worked with Congressional staff and conservative allies to develop labor policies subsequently voted on by Congress and state legislatures.

➤ Commentary and analysis featured in national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Business Week, National Review, and the New York Post.

➤ Guest expert featured on ABC News, Fox News, CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, and PBS.➤ Nationally recognized expert on labor markets, labor policy and the civil service. ➤ Conducted and published original research and economic analysis on labor policy and labor market conditions. ➤ Frequently called upon to provide expert testimony to both houses of Congress and state legislatures regarding labor policy, labor markets, and the civil service. ➤ Worked with Congressional staff and conservative allies to develop labor policies subsequently voted on by Congress and state legislatures. ➤ Commentary and analysis featured in national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Business Week, National Review, and the New York Post. ➤ Guest expert featured on ABC News, Fox News, CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, and PBS.…see more

Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics

Jan 2010 - Jan 2015 · 5 yrs 1 moJan 2010 - Jan 2015 · 5 yrs 1 mo

Bradley Fellow in Labor PolicyBradley Fellow in Labor Policy

Jan 2007 - Dec 2009 · 3 yrsJan 2007 - Dec 2009 · 3 yrs

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EducationEducation

University of Rochester logo

University of RochesterUniversity of Rochester

Master of Arts (M.A.), EconomicsMaster of Arts (M.A.), Economics

2003 - 20062003 - 2006

Grade: Concentrations in labor economics and econometricsGrade: Concentrations in labor economics and econometrics

Hillsdale College logo

Hillsdale CollegeHillsdale College

Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Economics and MathematicsBachelor of Science (B.S.), Economics and Mathematics

1999 - 20031999 - 2003

Activities and societies: Debate teamActivities and societies: Debate team

SkillsSkills

PublicationsPublications

1 endorsement1 endorsement

Political SciencePolitical Science

12 endorsements12 endorsements

PolicyPolicy

Endorsed by Shawn McBurney and 15 others who are highly skilled at thisEndorsed by Shawn McBurney and 15 others who are highly skilled at this

Endorsed by 13 colleagues at The Heritage FoundationEndorsed by 13 colleagues at The Heritage Foundation

69 endorsements69 endorsements

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PREVENTING A PATRONAGE SYSTEM ACT OF 2021

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... James Sherk, Tales from the Swamp: How Federal Bureaucrats Resisted President Trump, America First Pol. Inst. (Feb. 1, 2022) (Tales from the Swamp).

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The Epoch Times

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Aug 12, 2022 — His name is James Sherk and he's now a scholar at the America First Policy Institute. ... It's called “Tales From the Swamp.

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8 James Sherk, “Tales from the Swamp: How Federal Bureaucrats Resisted President Trump,”. America First Policy Institute, ...

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Nov 1, 2022 — James Sherk, Tales From the. Swamp: How Federal Bureaucrats Resisted President Trump, AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE (Feb. 1, 2022).

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David Bernhardt · 2023 · ‎Political Science

14 James Sherk, “Tales from the Swamp,” America First Policy, February 1, 2021, https://americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/Tales_from_the_swamp.

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http://www.thinktankwatch.com › 2022/07 › trump-ali...

Jul 25, 2022 — Axios notes that James Sherk, a former Heritage Foundation staffer ... a lenghty report called "Tales from the Swamp" recounting ways that ...

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Sep 2, 2022 — ... of the harrowing account of the Trump years, Tales from the Swamp. ... Sherk here gives the backstory on the innovative idea and its ...

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Aug 8, 2022 — Too often, insubordinate employees subvert the work of political appointees. By. James Sherk. Aug. 8, 2022 5: ...

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The Heritage Foundation

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As a former research fellow in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, James Sherk researched ways to promote competition and mobility in the workforce ...

James Sherk

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View James Sherk's profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. ... Company Website: http://www.heritage.org/About/Staff/S/James-Sherk ...

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James Sherk

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As senior policy analyst in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, James Sherk researches ways to promote competition and mobility in the workforce ...

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C-SPAN

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Economic Policy Institute

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The Daily Signal

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Aug 9, 2016 — In a recent report, the Heritage Foundation said federal employees receive on average ... James Sherk, a research fellow in labor economics.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation |

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As Heritage's Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics, James Sherk researches ways to promote competition and mobility in the workforce instead of erecting ...

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EXPOSEDbyCMD

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Mar 8, 2017 — In February, Donald Trump quietly hired James Sherk from the Heritage Foundation to handle labor and employment policy.

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U.S. News & World Report

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Testimony on Ohio House Bill 441

America First Policy Institute

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Apr 5, 2022 — James Sherk is the Director of the Center for American Freedom at the America First Policy Institute. He previously served as the top labor ...

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eenews.net

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Former Trump administration officials said the now-revoked Schedule F executive order would improve federal workforce accountability, while a leader at…

Divide over Schedule F reveals deeper need for ...

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Jul 3, 2023 — All News America First Policy Institute American Leadership Initiative Center for American Freedom Donald Trump Hiring/Retention James Sherk ...

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Unions and the Facts on Right to Work

National Review

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About James Sherk. December 7, 2012 10:43 PM. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan once quipped, “but they are not entitled ...

Forum on Schedule F and the Future of the Public Service

National Academy of Public Administration

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Jun 29, 2023 — The forum will feature James Sherk, Director of the Center for American Freedom at America First Policy Institute and Special Assistant to ...

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James Sherk

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Washington, District of Columbia, United States · America First Policy Institute

James Sherk. America First Policy Institute. Washington, District of Columbia, United States. 2K followers 500+ connections.

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Jun 29, 2023 — James Sherk, former special assistant to President Trump, shown here during a 2016 Heritage Foundation event. Sherk defended Schedule F at a ...

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The Federalist

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Sep 7, 2015 — James Sherk, a Labor Policy Expert at the Heritage Foundation, reports that today, “there are more union workers in the U.S. Postal Service ...

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Trump ran on draining the swamp. Biden is now refilling it. James Sherk is the Director of the Center for American Freedom at the America First ...