This should be an April Fools Day joke but unfortunately it is real.
Trump announced that he was putting his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of introducing innovation into the federal government, especially the values of American business.
The Office of American Innovation will have a huge portfolio. As the White House announced:
““The Office of American Innovation will bring a creative and strategic approach to many critical issues and intractable problems that affect Americans’ quality of life,” said Kushner. “We have an opportunity to identify and implement solutions by combining internal resources with the private sector’s innovation and creativity, enabling the Federal Government to better serve Americans.”
“Individuals involved have already hosted listening and working sessions with more than 100 private-sector CEOs, other external thought leaders, and senior Government officials. OAI will create task forces to focus on initiatives such as modernizing Government services and information technology, improving services to veterans, creating transformational infrastructure projects, implementing regulatory and process reforms, creating manufacturing jobs, addressing the drug and opioid epidemic, and developing “workforce of the future” programs.”
Immediately after the announcement, a former high-level official of Kushner’s newspaper suggested that he knows very little about innovation.
Eliabeth Spiers was hired by Kushner as editor-in-chief of his paper, the New York Observer.
She wrote:
“I worked for Kushner for 18 months as he tried to infuse a much smaller institution than the U.S. government with cost-cutting impulses from the commercial real estate world. And my experience doesn’t bode well for the Office of American Innovation. Not everything that works in the private sector is transferrable to the public sector — and even if it were, Kushner isn’t the best person to transfer it.”
Kushner’s idea of innovation is cost-cutting. He thinks he has great expertise, but he inherited the family business. Needless to say, he knows little about government nor has he ever run a large organization.
April Fools Day indeed.
The New York Times reported today that Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump are worth about $741 million. They are still receiving profits from their sprawling business empire. In other words, they are loaded with potential conflicts of interest.
We are the fools this day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Save this country from the dump CLAN. Kushner likes to SLASH. He is not someone who knows how to create anything of importance. KARMA, the physics of life, will eventually “get” him. Hope it happens sooner than later.
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If Kushner wants to slash the budget, he should start with the military industrial complex and all the government contractors that routinely pad their bills. Kushner may be a bright young man, but he is also a government novice. “Innovation” sounds like the same old tired market based ideology that has created extreme income stratification with the 1% as the usual winners and the rest of us as losers. Teachers have been subjected to the misguided belief that “charters are laboratories of innovation” for over twenty years so we are skeptical when we hear this term bandied around.
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“…more than 100 private-sector CEO’s, >other external thought leaders<, and sr govt officials…”
External thought leaders? Is it just me, or is a whole new innovation jargon being developed? Phone home, ET!
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Well Trump is an expletive (add your own here). Republicans want smaller and less government, so Trump creates a department for his son in law, and another for Chris Christie. We wonder why in NJ, at the eleventh hour of his term, the fat Crispie one uses taxpayer dollars to feature himself in an anti-drug commercial, and divert taxpayer monies to steer drug abusers into treatment centers, perhaps a boon for his cronies in insurance. I don’t know. The Crispie one has also just released monies for road work, so he is trying to ingratiate himself into our hearts here in NJ. Not working; we are not fooled.
Trump tells t.v. news journalists to move along, nothing to see about the Russia connection, and they should, instead, be investigating Clinton. I didn’t vote for Trump, but I thought, ok, I’ll give him a chance. Indeed. He is a wanna-be dictator, and life under his rule in just a few weeks has put us all through the looking glass. Curiouser and curiouser.
I think his impeachment is getting close. Then, I guess we’re stuck with Pence, the tie-breaker.
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Kushner’s father spent time in the “pen” for his innovations…must be in the genes. Let’s hope his cell is still open for Trump (and his ‘lesser’ Kushners, and his oily Trumpie boys who love to kill animals and pretend to run the business) who has committed so many illegal acts that the Emoluments Clause is singed and burning up as the law of OUR land.
I am coming to the conclusion that there are many legislators, like Paul Ryan, who also deserve jail cells. And of course it could not be more ludicrous that all harks back to needed action by the DoJ…which is run by major Right Wing Russia colluder, liar/bigot, Jeff Sessions.
Every Repub and every Dem who protects the Trumpster group is an Accessory both BEFORE and AFTER all the illegal acts. By holding up, obfuscating, and trying to eliminate all the Russian ties (as ‘false news’), and by Congress voting the week that the DC Trump hotel, the gift from you and me and all American taxpayers directly to the bank accounts of Trump as with using OUR old US Post Office for his personal gain, makes at least half of Congress indictable.
So why are there no indictments? Why is Trump allowed to profit from all his foreign holdings and not be impeached for repeatedly breaking the law of our land with the Emoluments Clause? Why is it and has it, mot been applied? Why are so many legislators averting their eyes, as was demanded of the State Dept. workers this week when they were ordered (“don’t make eye contact, don’t ever talk to him”) to do with Tillerson?
The maniacs, crooks, and most self aggrandizing evil villains are now running our country.
And then there are our fellow Americans who are Trump voters. the 6 or 7 I have had to speak with this week all give me the same answer about their vote…”they love all the deregulation for it means more money in their pockets” as they trash the environment and let young and old die in the streets from lack of food and health care.
It has been some time since I recommended to all Richard Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene. I fully expect some of our best progressive legislators who are finally and furiously speaking out (and do NOT have the selfish gene) will be ‘spirited away’ by this overwhelming evil force that is our current Fascistic government. After all, Trump loves Putin and emulates his style.
This is all so much bigger and more dangerous than Watergate…and Trump is so much crazier and more ignorant than Nixon, and it is so much more serious than irangate, and Trump is far more of a manipulative’con’ than Reagan…we never worried that Nixon and Reagan would/could exterminate the world…but most us are not sleeping nights with this ‘whacko money machine’ now at the helm directing all our lives.
What the hell has happened to our country? Are we now just another outpost of Russia like Crimea? Has Putin already taken over Alaska?
Rachel Maddow for President…..
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I have learned to cringe when I see or hear the word “innovation” tossed around as if some panacea. Even worse is the concept that “disruptive innovation” is as ultra-wonderful and also inevitable as purveyed by the Harvard professor of business administration Clayton Christenen. Branding or re-branding anything as innovative is the current stock-in-trade move of advertisers who can also slap the labels “New” or “New and Improved” on just about anything and get a little boost in sales.
I have no doubt that the architecture of the federal government needs some renovation and updating. The Trump administration, guided by chief strategist Steve Bannon (aided by Steven Miller), has clearly asserted that it wants to do something very different. The Trump administration intends to “deconstruct the administrative state.” In plain English, that means eliminating as many functions of government as possible and outsourcing activities to private entities where so-called “transformative creativity and innovation” will take care of everything— not yet fully mined for profits.
The Trump administration is going to find it difficult to deconstruct the administrative state. It has been constructed to enable profit seeking at every turn. In fact, outsourcing to private enterprise has become the norm in government, extending to the mercenaries who now outnumber US Armed Forces in Afghanistan and other regions. One the largest contractors, Eric Prince, served on the Trump transition team. His sister is Betsy Devos Secretary of Education. See some of this deep history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
Why is an Office of American Innovation needed?
Reason one. Trump cannot handle the complexity of delivering on his campaign promises, especially in the first 100 days. So far, he has relied on executive orders as a way to proceed with de-constructing the administrative state. He signs these papers during photo-ops. Sometimes he signs them without understanding their implications, perhaps not even reading them. He wants more and faster action but does not know how to manage that.
Reason two. Trump may be getting bored with signing executive orders. It is really becoming inconvenient to stage these photo-ops. Some members of the press are always there for the ceremonial signing. They ask annoying questions. At the last photo-op, Trump was scheduled to sign executive orders dealing with trade. He got bummed by a question from the press and walked away without signing. Pence picked up the documents for signing behind closed doors.
Reason three intersects with reason one. Trump is clueless about the legislative process. He seems to be bored and angry that he cannot command and control Congress. He is not willing to acknowledge that skill sets for he campaign don’t work for governance. The promises he made cannot be met by tweets. Policies that work depend on more than having a quixotic presence for fans. In the case of getting rid of Obamacare, he bailed out of complexity by saying: “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” He has left that project to others. He has no interest in government, least of all policy.
Reason four. Because Trump is not up to the responsibilities of his office, he is outsourcing leadership, not merely delegating it. He has shifted leadership to his son-in-law, Eric Kushner who is free to move without being in the Cabinet. Eric will be in charge of “deconstructing the administrative state,” but under the banner of innovation, creativity, and “modernization of government services.” That is jargon for figuring out how to harness or bypass the authority of Congress, reduce obstacles in the flow of federal money to the private sector. The how-to-do-it steps are not hard to manage. Accept what lobbyists and cronies have prepared for you to act on, cut regulations, eliminate paperwork, avoid delays required for public comment on policies and budgets. The prevailing ethic is to maximize profit.
Reason five. If you look at the gist of the press release, Kushner’s main job is to get “task forces” together. These are the people who will salvage Trump’s promises to create jobs. These jobs of immediate interest are in manufacturing, jobs to prepare a workforce for the future, infrastructure jobs, jobs to improve services to veterans, jobs in preventing and treating drug addiction. What people need to ask is whether Kushner is going to populate these task forces with cronies or ideologues, or people who will exceed our present expectations by really being competent.
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Trump’s son-in-law thinks like him. Innovation means firing everyone while making a profit from their misery.
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And Ivanka has security clearance!
Not good…BAD!
Where’s the bucket?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/jared-kushner-harvard-donald-trump-son-in-law
Sounds like the boy and his second Dad have a lot in common . Except one went to Wharton.
Innovation not really, just business as usual . the best Government money can buy.
They are all the best and the brightest, till they reveal themselves to be fools. We were all told that Ryan was a policy wonk a numbers cruncher . Except his numbers never added up. .
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Lest we forget. a former President also sought to streamline government in the name of efficiency… and it arguably led to the school reform movement: https://waynegersen.com/2017/04/02/president-trumps-decision-to-office-of-government-innovation-echoes-earlier-presidential-initiatives-to-run-government-like-a-business/
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What’s considered illness has been changing with time. It used to be, not so long ago, that gays were given medication (have you guys seen the Turing movie, Imitation Game?) or in Victorian times, women were institutionalized for simple marital disobedience, while some disorders like eating ones or Asperger were not recognized as such.
The time will come when people with the desire of becoming a billionaire or with the belief that they can and should influence the lives of millions of people will be treated, and, in case of the severe Gates-Trump-Kushner-DeVos syndrome, they will be institutionalized.
Let’s face it, these people are not normal.
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“He knows very little about innovation.” Surely the same line could be used for Trump himself, for many of his advisors, and for most of his appointees. Hasn’t Trump’s clarion call (and subsequent action) been to reverse and undo all progress, taking the nation backwards in his effort to make America great “again?”
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Ciedie,
They also know very little about management.
Both Trump and Kushner are part of family businesses, which they inherited. They have never run an enterprise with large numbers of employees. They never had transparency or accountability. Trump went into bankruptcy four times to avoid paying his debts, leaving many contractors and workmen with no compensation.
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Backward to when? Since Trump doesn’t read, he doesn’t know that there is no time in Ameican history that we were greater than we were right before Reagan and then NCLB.
If we look at the chart in this Atlantic piece, we discover America was greatest between 1960-1970, the Civil Rights Era.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/60-years-of-american-economic-history-told-in-1-graph/261503/
And if we read Diane’s “Reign of Error” we will discover the public schools were at their best right before NCLB.
And in “Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall of Unions In One Chart” we discover that the middle class was best off at the high point of union membership in 1967.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/18/union-membership-middle-class-income_n_3948543.html
Now imagine if Trump was educated and knew all this and his make America Great Again was to return the U.S. to the 1960s.
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Ah, perhaps the most maddening, most frustrating truth: “…if we read Diane’s “Reign of Error” we will discover the public schools were at their best right before NCLB.”
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““He knows very little about innovation.” Surely the same line could be used for Trump himself, for many of his advisors, and for most of his appointees.”
Innovation for these people mean bringing in market and business practices. They just have this view that market practices and values solve all problems. People are too static, too thoughtful, too slow for them. They want action, they want to do stuff, they want things done for them, and want them done now; move and move, change and change for the sake of change. They view themselves as busy people while others are wasting their times and hence their money.
They are hyperactive teenagers, but while teenagers are charming, these guys screw us big time. As I said, they need to be institutionalized.
These are the kind of people who changed our university motto from the lamish but appropriate “thinkers and doers” to “driven by doing”. Please.
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Everyone should read today’s (Sunday 4/2) Los Angeles Times editorial on Trump. Here’s some of it what The Times published on the front page: “Nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck…He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that is is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation.” The entire editorial goes on for a full page of this. Wow.
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Here’s the link to “Our Dishonest President” The LA Times Editorial from its editorial board.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/
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Thoughtful, well-written article, Lloyd. I must admit I pay more attention to the WaPo due to my distance from LA (being a Hoosier and all). I will endeavor to look to the LAT more often after reading this. I look forward to Tuesday’s installment.
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Be aware that the LA Times has been a cheerleader of corporate charter schools in California, but it is obvious the paper are not a fan of the malignant narcissist in the White House and his horrible, fascist, destructive, non-policies.
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