• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Trump's Cabinet -- Serious Speculation

Dumb All Over said:
Today I've been watching the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to confirm Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. I am half thinking that Mr. Tillerson would make a great future President of the U.S.
Click to expand...

Half thinking got us our next president, so why not?
 
Dumb All Over said:
Today I've been watching the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to confirm Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. I am half thinking that Mr. Tillerson would make a great future President of the U.S.
Click to expand...

Watching the hearings, I was getting the impression that Tillerson, if he passes the ethics checks and conflicts of interest reviews, might be pretty good as Sec State. Then he drooled something about climate change not being conclusive and my internal approve-o-meter dropped back to zero.
 
David Shulkin for Veteran's Affairs looks OK. James Mattis is the other one that doesn't fit into the usual mold.

This makes 2 of the announced picks that are not toadies, con artists, morons, foxes guarding the hen-house, tin-foil hat loonies, just plain evil, or some combination thereof.

Sad!
 
Last edited:
fishbob said:
David Shulkin for Veteran's Affairs looks OK. James Mattis is the other one that doesn't fit into the usual mold.

This makes 2 of the announced picks that are not toadies, con artists, morons, foxes guarding the hen-house, tin-foil hat loonies, just plain evil, or some combination thereof.

Sad!
Click to expand...

Blind squirrel - nut
 
fishbob said:
David Shulkin for Veteran's Affairs looks OK. James Mattis is the other one that doesn't fit into the usual mold.

This makes 2 of the announced picks that are not toadies, con artists, morons, foxes guarding the hen-house, tin-foil hat loonies, just plain evil, or some combination thereof.

Sad!
Click to expand...

It seems that Mattis is running into friction with the transition team because he isn't a toadie.

With only two weeks left before Inauguration Day and days before Mattis’s Senate confirmation hearing, most major Pentagon civilian positions remain unfilled. Behind the scenes, Mattis has been rejecting large numbers of candidates offered by the transition team for several top posts, two sources close to the transition said. The dispute over personnel appointments is contributing to a tenser relationship between Mattis and the transition officials, which could set the stage for turf wars between the Pentagon and the White House in the coming Trump administration.
Click to expand...
 
Trump’s pick for Education Secretary worked with an organization advocating child labor

I found this rather disturbing description of the perfect dogmatic storm in the article:
In addition to being a donor, DeVos has served on Acton’s Board of Directors for 10 years. The Institute is a non-profit research organization “dedicated to the study of free-market economics informed by religious faith and moral absolutes.”
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah. Neoliberalism and religion, a match made in heaven. I imagine the "god-given" right to carry firearms is the third turd in the Acton tropes-for-dopes trifecta.
 
Trump's cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it

Rep. Tom Price last year purchased shares in a medical device manufacturer days before introducing legislation that would have directly benefited the company, raising new ethics concerns for President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/16/politics/tom-price-bill-aiding-company/index.html

Draining that Swamp.
 
Last edited:
Hey, at least they have backed off on bringing on that woman who plagerized her PhD thesis and the subsequent book.

Apparently, there is a line there somewhere.
 
Of all the nominees Betsy DeVos is in a class by herself. She has absolutely no experience and was astoundingly unprepared for the questioning.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
My Facebook feed is full of ridicule about her saying some schools may need guns because of grizzlies.
Click to expand...

Interesting....

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for education secretary told lawmakers at her confirmation hearing that guns might have a place in schools due to the threat from grizzly bears.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it was just a lighthearted comment...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ght-need-guns-due-potential-grizzlies-n708261

More importantly:

Billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos faced tough questions during Tuesday's session, refused to rule out removing funding public schools if appointed and admitted her family may have made donations to the Republican Party totalling $200 million.
Click to expand...

Drain that swamp !
 
Nikki Haley joins the list of unprepared nominees. Not knowing what the Iran nuclear deal actually says but still being against it because that's what she's supposed to do, I guess.

ETA: Who the heck is in charge of preparing these people? Is anyone?
 
Last edited:
A YouTube commentor described the DeVos hearings as the worst job interview ever. I watched a few sessions and it was all cringe worthy. Her appointment arises out of the American egailitarian approach to knowledge where anyone's opinion is as good as an expert's, no matter how erudite the field.
 
Sideroxylon said:
A YouTube commentor described the DeVos hearings as the worst job interview ever. I watched a few sessions and it was all cringe worthy. Her appointment arises out of the American egailitarian approach to knowledge where anyone's opinion is as good as an expert's, no matter how erudite the field.
Click to expand...

As long as it's about promoting religion it's all good. Who needs to know anything about education?
 
Betsy DeVos - Shows that with a private education and a billion dollars you too can make a fool of yourself in public, something everyone should aspire to.
 
I went back and looked at the first page of the thread, to see how we did. If anything, the actual outcome is worse.

Trebuchet said:
Since Trump has managed to make the election much closer, who do you seriously believe he might appoint to his cabinet? Not the joke suggestions, who might he actually appoint?

To me, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani look solid for AG and Homeland Security, probably in that order although the reverse could also work.

Gen Michael Flynn for SecDef seems an obvious choice.

Beyond there, I'm out of ideas and hoping to hear some serious suggestions.

Perhaps another thread is in order for less serious suggestions, such as Sarah Palin for anything that would require her to actually show up and do work.
Click to expand...

Wrong about Giuliani and Christie, who basically spent a year fellating Trump for nothing. Not so far wrong about Flynn. National Security Advisior is, if anything, a more powerful position than SecDef.

Hutch said:
I think Senator Sessions (R-Alabama), who was one of his first supporters from Congress, probably would be in line for a job...Commerce, maybe? Since the Repubs wouldn't have any trouble getting a Republican elected to replace him, it would be a low-risk appointment while giving Trump some credibility with Congress.

Note, I think it's a horrible idea and Sessions would be bad in any cabinet role, but I think it is a serious possibility.
Click to expand...
And he got a far more important, and dangerous, job as AG.

Stacko said:
I can't think of a single cabinet position Sessions is qualified for unless you event a joke one. Secretary of Minority Vote Suppression works for Sessions.
Click to expand...
Yup! And he got it.

maxpower1227 said:
He'll probably try to appoint his douchebag sons to cabinet level positions.
Click to expand...

Tony Stark said:
He already suggested appointing Ivanka. He might actually try it not knowing it is illegal and persist even after being told that it is.
Click to expand...
So he appointed Ivanka's husband instead.

Armitage72 said:
While not an actual Cabinet position, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is accorded Cabinet rank and sits with the Cabinet Secretaries, and there's been talk off-and-on since the 1980s of making it an actual Cabinet position.
I can see an attempt to make that go away, with all of those oppressive, job-killing, industry-crippling, Chicken Little regulations.
Click to expand...
Scott Pruitt. Classic climate-change denier and reguluation hater.

Bottom line, as stated above: It's worse than we imagined. And then there's the SOSUS nomination....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom