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Pretty much. Even if you’re a Trump fan, watch the fine print.And I really, honestly, and respectfully want any Trump fan thinking about donating to post-election Trump fundraisers to read this. I’m not trying to change your mind specifically about donating. Much of this money is going to a PAC that will enable Trump to keep going as factor, perhaps a strong influencer, on Republican politics going forward. If you’re on board with that, you may be happy to send that cash. I just want to ensure it’s all out in the open… because Mr. Trump likes his fine print.And yeah, I’m not a Trump fan, and you will read a bit of snark in most of my writings. I’ve actually won awards for what was essentially well-placed snark. But I’m just trying to offer information here. Truth. Things you should know before sending your hard-earned money to Trump. Folks, I actually work for a living too, as most of us do. Just read and understand what this is all about. And you don’t need to trust me, though I would never dishonor myself or my readers by intentionally lying to them. Thus my “Read More” references, and the simply fact that I do my research mostly online. You can see all the same information.Trump formed his “Election Defense Fund” to “fight back” against — I guess — his loss to Joe Biden. The Election Defense Fund isn’t an actual fund -- it’s a pass-through. Trump formed a Recount Fund/Recount Committee within the campaign to deal with legal fights and recounts. And when you donate to the Election Defense Fund, you actually donate to the Recount Fund. He’s also got a thing called the “Trump Make America Great Again Committee” taking donations… it’s exactly the same as the Election Defense Fund, another pass-through, with funds going exactly the same places.Only, just a bit. Up to 40% of the money coming in goes into the Recount Fund. The remainder, at least 60%, goes to the campaign itself, to pay off debt. Yes, the Trump Campaign was in debt. To whom? Well, the one that matters to those paying the bills is the Trump Organization. Lots of the campaign’s services were done through the Trump Organization, which has earned tens of millions via services rendered to the campaign. Trump hasn’t historically liked to pay his bills, but he’s been paying this one for sure.It’s also some of his rich friends have structure donations to the campaign as loans. I don’t know this for certain, but that’s exactly how Trump himself did it back in 2016. If so, a loan is converted to a donation after the election, except that the FEC allows up to $250,000 to be paid back on such loans, if the campaign has the funds. That could also be where some of that money goes.And this was all nearly two weeks ago... last week, they changed the pass-throughs. Trump formed a Leadership PAC last week, and now 60% of donations go to the PAC, 40% now go to the RNC, leaving nothing for the Recount Fund as of around November 9, 2020. All political action committees have specific sets of rules, depending on their type. A Leadership PAC is basically a vehicle for a political power broker. They’re not allowed to donate directly to any political campaign, but they can provide support for such campaign, including consultants, travel, and personal expenses. A Leadership PAC can also do these things for “leaders”… so Trump can basically use this money to travel around the country and do political things. He can use to buy spray tan, get his hair colored, or fly to a golf course. But he can’t use it to pay for a recount.So how is that going anyway? Georgia is nearly done with their recount, the results are expected today. Georgia did not have an automatic recount trigger, but the margin between Biden and Trump was low enough that the Secretary of State could order a taxpayer-paid recount, which he did. That’s the only freebie. Wisconsin is asking for $7.9 million up-front for a recount, and today’s the cutoff day. The Trump Campaign has to pony up the cash or lose the opportunity. This one will be interesting, as it’s unclear if their Recount Fund has enough to pay for this, or much of anything.In other curious news, in the weeks leading up the election, and the week after, Trump had secured the services of several white shoe law firms for his election defense: Snell & Wilmer, Jones Day, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, and perhaps a few others. Between November 8 and 12th, each of these law firms quit the Trump cause. Why? They couldn’t properly represent their client. Trump was asking them to claim fraud without evidence. Lawyers who lie to judges become non-lawyers, and simple professional ethics forced them out.So a day after the last one quit, Trump put Crazy Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s “TV Lawyer,” in charge of his election fight. He’s assembled team of other Fox News conspiracy nuts and TV Lawyer refugees: Sidney Powell, Joseph DiGenova, and Victoria Toensing to conduct this “fight.” If it’s not obvious, no one, not even Trump, brings in Rudy to head any sort of real legal fight… that’s kind of like bringing in Dr. Oz to do your brain surgery. Rudy is a TV Lawyer, a propagandist and a “fixer”, here to fan flames, incite the rabble, scream conspiracy theories on TV (and, apparently, in Federal Court, at least once), and basically to help keep this all going.Not to overturn the election. But because Trump has someone figured out how to line his pockets, legally, by not conceding the election and continuing to pretend to fight it. As long as he’s making bank, he’s going to “fight”. And as he’s structured this right now, the RNC is also making money on this, so they’re actually being paid to “give Trump room to cope with his loss.” Neither is anxious to acknowledge reality right now, though some individual Republicans in office are getting sick of this.Oh, and that 1000% match? Does he have a block of his rich buddies ready to chip in based on the donations of the regular people? No… actually, that 1000% is YOU. Seriously. If you were to fill in these donation forms, printed or on-line, you automatically opt-in to ten payments of whatever it is you check or write-in as a donation. You can opt out, but you have to explicitly do that, otherwise, you’re the 1000%!The graphic here is a screen capture of his latest version… the image of Trump is intentionally overwhelming, and the countdown timer there suggesting you have only so long to donate before … what exactly? You lose the change to donate? Not in a million years. If you let the clock run your, your time is extended.The psychology behind this is to get you through the site quickly enough that you don’t notice that the pre-checked first box obligates you to monthly payments… not just ten anymore, but far as I can tell, until you quit. And the pre-checked second box obligates you to an additional payment in December. I didn’t select the $250 box, that’s just the default. So I’d be on the hook for $500 in December and $3,000 in 2021 if I were a Trump donor and used these settings.THIS JUST IN: Apparently, the Trump Campaign has wired the State of Wisconsin $3 million for a partial recount, limited to Milwaukee and Dane counties. Biden won with 69.4% and 317,270 votes in Milwaukee county, 79.7% and 260,185 vote in Dane county. So I guess if you’re looking to overturn Biden’s 20,565 vote margin and avoid the usual embarrassment of recounts often backfiring, you’d pick counties with large, pro-Biden tallies.Of course, dig a little deeper and you’ll find that these are also the two counties with the highest percentage of black folks voting… so of course Trump is going after these counties. The Republicans have been trying to prevent our black brothers and sisters from voting pretty much my entire lifetime, so why stop now?The other thing, of course, is that while this is still tilting at windmills, it serves to keep Trump’s donation money flowing — still pretending to fight — for a lower cost, and potentially less embarrassment potential, than going for the full Monty in Wisconsin. And in particularly, because it’s going after black people, it’ll resonate with Trump’s base.UPDATE 2-Dec-2020: Those nice people at the Trump Recount Committee, it turns out, paid that $3 million in order to find an additional 87 votes for Joe Biden. Wasn’t that sweet of them!I was wondering about Trump’s ability to pay for recounts… silly me! As above, Trump’s various fundraising passthroughs were only sending 40% of their haul into the Recount Committee for a little over a week. Sure, once all his real lawyers quit, it can’t be that expensive to have Crazy Rudy and the Fox News triplets running around the country spewing barking mad conspiracy theories from parking lots and Holiday Inns conference rooms. But did they collect enough for recounts?Oh boy did they! That’s why Trump figured out quickly how he could pocket most of the cash — there was just too much to ignore. According to the New York Times estimate earlier this week, Trump has brought in as much as $170 million from his MAGA Army.And that’s just round one. He’s been evolving the fine print. The PAC now gets 75% of the money coming in, the RNC 25%, and the Recount Committee anything that overflows the $5,000 individual donation allowed to the PAC. Most, perhaps all of these are small donations. And yeah, if you didn’t uncheck the box, you’re doing a 1000x match. Except not anymore. First they added one additional matching payment, kicking in this week sometime, with the excuse of supporting Trump’s rally in Georgia. Maybe a grab for more cash before they all figure out they’ve been scammed? And now, while you still see the 10x, well now, 11x numbers on the web site, if you actually dig down, you’re signing up for a monthly payment with no expiration date.This is what Trump thinks of his supporters… picking their pockets, and their bank accounts, on his way out. I have to give him credit. He was the worst all-around President in US history, but as a conman, he really does live up to the title of Con Artist. This was a work of criminal art the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. If not on the scale of Bernie Madoff, if not quite the level of pure artistry of Victor Lustig, he’s closing in on the haul brought in by Charles Ponzi on just this one scam, which hasn’t even run a full month just yet. Ponzi’s $15 million would be about $225 million in 2020 dollars. I’ll bet Trump surpasses that in a week, two at the minimum! And he’s doing in out in the open and possibly even legally!UPDATE 5-Apr-2021: We now have a bunch more information about Trump’s Campaign debt! Well, it turns out, the post-election campaign wasn’t the only time Trump was money-bombing his supporters.Trump had a problem with fundraising in 2020 that he didn’t have in 2016: he didn’t have enough dedicated big donors. So he was increasingly counting on small donors, and they weren’t coming through. So in March of 2020, they started pushing out donor emails linking to donation web pages, many of which were funded through “WinRed”, a for-profit corporation set up with help from Trump as the evil twin of the Democrat’s Act Blue non-profit. WinRed gets 3.6% of every donation.So now, with the desperation of the Trump campaign and the financial incentive for WinRed, they really started honing these ask letters. At the peak, over the summer, Trump supporters saw as many as fifteen emails a day from the Trump Campaign asking for money. They honed the money bombing — those multiple opt-out check boxes that signs you up for more payments. Trump was having to cut back on ads, on rallies, etc. in critical locations, due to a lack of funds. And by September, when Trump saw that Biden was still out funding Trump, he practically went scorched earth. Where before, the money-bombs signed up unwitting donors for monthly payments, he was no going weekly. So you had some small donors thinking they had tossed Trump a couple of $20 bills, when in fact, they had spent $250-$400.So of course, it wasn’t until after the election that these people started getting their credit card bills. In November, the Trump Campaign was responsible for a full 3% of a credit card fraud in the USA. They wound up liable for over $120 million in refunds in November. So that $200+ million Trump brought in over post-election November didn’t go anywhere near the pocket-lining that was expected. And the even more comical thing is that they used exactly the same tactics to raise that money as they used to scam the money they’re forced to pay back. Where does it end? I do kind of wonder if Trump’s going to be spending most of his time running this perpetual Ponzi scheme!Looking up Trump on Open Secrets is telling! With all of these hundreds of millions supposedly coming into Trump’s Leadership PAC, you’d rather expect that PAC to be full of money. And it is, but at $31.5 million, it’s clear that Trump actually didn’t pocket much of this incoming cash. And looking at the fact that refund requests started as a flood in late May, I’d claim that a great deal of Trump’s fundraising since July has been simply to pay back refunds, which of course he’s been doing by the same tactics, leading to even more refund requests. It really is a Ponzi scheme!Read MoreSTAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP! (warning: Trump’s actual fundraising page).Donations under $8K to Trump ‘election defense’ instead go to president, RNCWhere Trump’s recount fundraising dollars are really goingDonations under $8K to Trump ‘election defense’ instead go to president, RNChttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/17/trump-keeps-losing-court-he-keeps-losing-his-lawyers-too/Trump lawyers withdraw on eve of key hearing in Pennsylvania election caseTrump’s lawyers are becoming desperate and ‘clearly planning something crazy’Trump Campaign To File For Partial Recount In WisconsinTrump falls short in Wisconsin recount he paid $3 million forTrump Takes His Donors to Graduate School at Trump UniversityThe entire Trump campaign was a scam — and it is not over

Well, this depends on a lot of things. But, I can speak to Federal Government jobs, which is where I have been for more than 15 years. Fed employment has some advantages over private sector jobs. But, they likely won’t add up to a nearly 100% difference in salary you have here. So, that’s the short answer, right there.But I will elaborate a bit for purpose of discussion. If you want to do a fair comparison between a Government job and a private sector job, you need to understand some of the unique advantages of a Federal job. They are:Retirement benefits in the form of a pension and TSP. Government employees are eligible for an annuity upon retirement until they die. Employees contribute anywhere from 0.5% to 3.8% of their pay, pre-tax, into the plan depending on when they joined Government. It is exceedingly rare for private companies to offer pensions any more. A Government pension amount depends on years of service and your highest pay rate. A typical retiree at, say 65, can expect to have a pension that adds up to about 1/3 of their annual salary each year in an annuity. The Government also allows employees to contribute to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is very similar to a 401K and has most of the same rules, although limited investment choices. The Government matches 100% up to 5% of the employees contributions if the employee puts in at least 6% of their income. Add that to Social Security, and you have the proverbial “three-legged stool” to retire on as a Fed. You can retire a soon as 57 1/2 with 30 years of service. It is hard to say what all this worth in terms of compensation because a lot depends on how long you live after retirement, when you started, etc. You can pass on the pension annuity to your spouse, but it is not something you can give to you heirs. So, it would require a lot of individual analysis in terms of what it might be worth in additional annual salary. No way to say definitely. But, it is worth a whole lot if you stay a Fed for a long time.Generous Leave Benefits. Feds start earning 4 hours of annual leave in each of the 26 pay periods. They also earn 4 hours of sick leave each pay period. At three years, Feds earn 6 hours of annual leave per pay period. At 15 years, it’s 8. While you can only carry over 240 hours typically of annual leave, and must use the rest or donate/lose it, you can carry over as much sick leave as you choose. Feds also get all 12 Federal Holidays. Feds also receive time off for Jury Duty. So, when comparing that to a private sector offering, you could do that math and determine what an equivalent financial compensation would be needed to match that if they will not offer the same leave.Generous Health Insurance. All Feds get an opportunity to enroll in some of the best health care insurance plans in the country. The Government pays a lot towards the premiums as well. In most cases the Government will contribute more than 75% of the premium. You can do the math to find out what that is worth, but it is substantial compensation. These plans are great, and the buying power of the huge Federal Government means they are going to stay that way.Job Security. It’s a bit of myth that you can never fire a Fed. It is not all that difficult, however it is certainly not as easy as in the private sector. Protections are in place for Feds that ensure that employees are given due process prior to termination. This is unlike many private sector jobs, which are often ‘at will’ and the employee has no recourse unless they are fired for violations of Federal discrimination laws. But, it is true in my opinion, that Federal jobs are generally much more secure than private sector jobs. Supervisors are generally too lazy to follow through on the termination processes, so many bad Fed employees just get moved around, or let to slide for poor performance. I hate that part. The Government hardly ever shrinks either. It does slow it’s growth occasionally, but it is rare for Feds to face lay-offs. What’s that worth to you? It is really hard to say, but for some people that security is really important.Decent Pay. Federal pay is often compared with private sector pay, but a lot of times it’s an apples to oranges comparison. Many of the jobs as a Fed require higher education and more experience, so they tend to be higher paying. In general a white collar, college-educated professionals can earn more in the private sector than in Federal employment. Believe me, I have contractors who make a lot more than I do (but they have to do what I say anyway!). Pay raises are mostly automatic as you build years of service, and move up the steps within each grade. Promotions are often available too, but as you get towards the top of the GS scale, much harder to find, and there is a hard cap on the system at GS-15. Google up GS pay scales to see what the most you can make is. Right now in the DC area, it’s about $165K a year. There is a Senior Executive Service (SES), who can make more, but no Fed can make the kind of money a private sector C-level exec can make. The top executive in the whole of Government, the President, caps out at $400K a year. You don’t get into Federal service to get rich. But, it’s a good living, no doubt.Service to your Country. As a civil service employee, you are serving your country every day. Yes, there is bloat, waste, and disagreements on how much the Government should be doing to/for people. Congress is supposed to figure that out. But, when you work for a Government agency, you chose it. And, you hopefully share in that agency’s vision and mission. You don’t serve stockholders. You serve America. What is that worth to you? I couldn’t tell you.

How do I ask for leave directly to the boss?I worked most of my career for the US Federal government. When I was working, a person would request sick leave, annual leave, or LWOP (leave without pay) on a form SF-71. There are Federal procedures in place to ask for LWOP, advanced sick or annual leave, maternity leave, and family leave. There are additional policies in place to ask for leave donations.Many Federal agencies have a handbook in which various policies, including leave, are spelled out. If you are in a unique position in a small office, you may need to request leave for a week or more in advance unless there is either a personal/family emergency. Be truthful. If you have a medical reason, get a document from your physician that supports the time off. If your reason for requesting time off is reasonable and you don’t abuse leave, hopefully you can be accommodated.Regardless of your reason, don’t lie. Workers’ compensation has totally different laws and regulations than any other kind of leave. It must be fully supported by medical documentation. Follow the policies of your agency and office. When I worked for the Navy, we had a case of fraud. The employee in question was lucky not to go to jail and pay a fine. He claimed to have a torn rotator cuff and then bowled in a league. My supervisor obtained a copy of the score sheet and sent it in to the Office of Workers’ Compensation. At the very least, he was required to pay back the leave he was taken and was probably suspended or fired.If you and your supervisor can’t come to an agreement, I recommend that you visit your Human Resources office to discuss the problem with them. If you are a chronic leave abuser, there may be an issue. If you feel that you are being discriminated against, be prepared to provide your EEO office with documentation.REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION, DON’T JUST DISAPPEAR IF YOU EXPECT TO COME BACK TO THE JOB! Leave is something people earn. They are expected to take a certain amount each year. If you can avoid being out for a lengthy period during the busiest time of the year, I recommend against doing so. If you need at least a week or two off, I recommend submitting your request at least a few months in advance. Most people know several months ahead of time if they are going on a cruise for a few weeks.I only worked a short time in the private sector and was doing temporary work most of that time. I let the organizations know when I was available, and they often found work for me based on my availability.However, the smaller the organization, the more difficult it can be to obtain an extended period of leave.EDIT 09/16/2019: I was the civilian leave officer at the Naval hospital for a few years. My supervisor there never challenged any of the leave that I took for sick purposes. I had documentation, and he knew that I could prove the one hospitalization that I had during that time. In retrospect, although he wasn’t a pushover, he was probably one of the more respectful supervisors that I had. Several tried to challenge my leave for health purposes, even with medical documentation. Most of them found that when I was almost able to cite specific regulations off the top of my head, it was best to avoid challenging me on them, since I would have had them scrutinized by the EEO office and/or Employee Relations. They also didn’t want their ignorance of regulations brought to light.