Entitlements, Money Grabs, and Lawyers
I have often gritted my teeth and made snarling sounds when someone referred to my social security as an “entitlement.” It makes me want to tie their tail in a knot and toss their goofy butt over the fence.
I worked for my social security. I paid for it. I am also entitled to drive my car because I damn well paid for it, too.
Let me show you entitlement:
Come to find out, the United States passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967. There are a series of memos from the Department of Justice saying that family members of presidents cannot work for the government, even in an unpaid position.
The Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama White House all received the memos when they tried to hire family members, even in unpaid positions. They followed the good advice they got.
Then comes Trump. If you can’t change the law, change the damn lawyers.
The opinion longtime Justice Department attorney Daniel Koffsky issued in January at the request of the incoming Trump administration concluded that another law passed in 1978 and conferring broad authority on the president to appoint White House officials essentially overrides the earlier anti-nepotism measure.
“We believe that the President’s special hiring authority [in the 1978 law] permits him to make appointments to the White House Office that the anti-nepotism statute might otherwise forbid,” Koffsky wrote in the opinion sent to White House Counsel Donald McGahn at his request.
So there are new rules for Trump. Thank you, Don McGahn. That right there – that’s entitlement!
First, I need to tell you that Don McGahn is the most soul sucking lawyer on the planet. He is Dr. Julius No with a Black Law Dictionary. He comes to government from the law firm of Jones Day.
As little Bubba once said, “Jones Day helped themselves and their banker friends feast on the corpse of the once great city of Detroit.”
A friend of mine was courted strongly by Jones Day when she graduated law school. She sent them this letter. You will love it, especially lawyers, who will get the few inside jokes.
Getting rid of Trump is not enough. The swamp is now a cesspool.
This could only be improved by being annotated for us great unbarred.
1Excellent letter. I’ve worked for several Big Law corporate defense firms and have seen a lot of dirty deals that were ‘legal’. Loved the Botts & Baker.
Spending my last years working in personal injury, w/c and SS – for WE THE PEOPLE, rather than THEM THE CORPORATIONS~
2Shades of Alberto Gonzales, the Bush 43 lawyer who wrote opinions that said anything Bush wanted them to say, not matter how big a pack of lies that ignored, twisted, and perverted the actual intent and letter of the law.
3So, did your friend get the job?
/s
4“I have often gritted my teeth and made snarling sounds when someone referred to my social security as an “entitlement.”
5——————-
I know! How did entitlement become a bad word? Damn right my SS is an “entitlement.” I worked hard for it and will fight any attempts to take it away from me. Because, you damn fool republicans, I am indeed “entitled” to it.
What an awesome letter. Thanks for sharing it!
6That letter is one of the more elegantly snarky ways of saying “Get stuffed!” I’ve seen in a while. Thank you.
7Have seen a lot of lawyers come and go in D.C. The ones who mostly go are the ones totally dependent on that great well of corruption that sometimes follows certain personality types into the White House and the Capitol. Have noticed that the ones who go back to wherever were the ones most dependent on that deep, deep well of corruption. When it dries up, like sub-Sahara wildlife, they go elsewhere, sometimes in packs of hundreds.
8Love the letter. It is right up there with some of the letters I and my colleagues have written when forced to recommend someone for a job. My favorite line is “You’ll be lucky to get him to work for you.”
On the other side, it reminds me of a letter of rejection I received from an Ivy League school to which I had applied to be a Ph.D. student. The salient line was “You are the best applicant this year, however, it is our policy not to accept females into our graduate program.” They then invited me to apply to them for a job when I got my Ph.D.
9Do you recall when Sally Yates testified in Congress and stated the Don McGann asked her if it was illegal for people in the White House to lie?
10We need a gigantic cast iron spatula on the business end of a massive front end loader to scrape the crud, scum and loathsomeness, 99.9% of it snacilbupeR, out of DC. It/them can all be piled up in the empty Mar a Loco pool to slowly fester and rot, thus becoming less putrid.
11I do like the idea of removing 99.9% of the rethugs moc’s. However, I prefer dropping them into an active caldera of a large volcano. They would be sterilized, and the environment not further polluted. If done in Hawaii, I believe Pelé would accept that none were virgins.
12Sue –
So, you weren’t acceptable as a student in their graduate program, but you would be acceptable as an employee, once you qualified by obtaining a degree from another school?
Why do I get the feeling that they figured they could hire you more cheaply, you being female and all?
Unbelievable.
13@Lunargent – Not unbelievable at all. I was told once, “You’re exactly what we’re looking for,…but we already have a woman.”
LOVED the letter, but had to look up “Botts & Baker”. Baker Botts LLP is an international law firm with approximately 725 lawyers, and there are several stories around about B&B raiding JD offices around the world and taking their top people (in London, Hong Kong, etc.) I guess payback is a bitch when you’re a cat.
14And so it begins. One law after another after another will be added, changed, omitted, whatever benefits the current occupant of the White House. Then, 4 years from now, some lawyer will write the opinion that, 240 years ago, terms and elections and so on were just niceties. Suggestions. They weren’t meant to be binding or anything, fergoshsakes!
15Yep. What about all the First Ladies? Were they working for the White House without pay? You betcha. Some were even eager to do it. I always give Eleanor Roosevelt credit for the good legislation passed by FDR. Was that illegal?
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