During the campaign nothing about Trump really impressed me. Now, that he has been elected, I'm impressed with his cabinet formation. While his opposers are complaining about appointing the rich, fat cat capitalists, after he swore to drain the swamp, he indeed is doing as he pledged. These people are not being picked for their skin color or gender. They are not being picked because they need a paycheck or career. Each will actually sacrifice economically to serve.
What is prompting this post, at this time, is Trump reportedly has picked Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, along with John Bolton as his deputy. Tillerson, a $25 million a year CEO of Exxon Oil, didn't need a job or prestige. He doesn't need to be Secretary of State to help Exxon, as American Voice of Reason, claim in the facebook notice shown above. When Trump ran he pledged to bring the best people into our government, and he seems to be doing just that.
No clueless intellectuals from any of our esteemed universities. That is a good sign and bodes well for America's future.
ReplyDeleteHow will this government ever function without career politicians and academics?
ReplyDeleteSecretary-Designate Tillerson has a history of being an extraordinary negotiator, and isn't this what Secretaries of State do?
As a bonus, he already knows the world's leaders.
I remember Ronald Reagan saying, "If the President is the smartest fellow in the Cabinet Room, he's not doing his job."
ReplyDeleteI thought that was brilliant then, and President-elect Trump seems to be taking it to heart now.
Godspeed to him...
Given that nearly every Cabinet pick has been a politician or a recent government/military employee, I'm not sure your math adds up.
ReplyDeleteGas prices will reach $3.00 a gallon by mid-March. That's what this Cabinet pick post means, along with the privatization (i.e, sell off)of national parks/land to fossil fuel corporations. And no regulations for them to dump their toxic wastes into our drinking water.
ReplyDeleteSelecting opponents of the agencies they will lead is the name of the game. Draining the swamp.....what a joke. Clinton merely gave pablum speeches to the grunts at Goldman Sachs....Trump has appointed the Executives of same to his Cabinet.
The miners in West Virginia/Kentucky/southwest Penna. went all in for Trump.....who said not one word on their behalf when McConnell last week wouldn't even bring up Senator Manchin's bill request to extend their health benefits. Republicans plan to repeal Obamacare and cut funding for Medicad/Medicare. Their health plan is if you get sick, just die if you are poor or middle class. The rich can afford to go to doctors.....it's God plan, you see. Unemployment insurance & Social Security are communism....need to be privatized for Wall Street to rape. It's only tax payer funded assistance/deferred taxes/subsidies to corporations that are permissible.
The blue collar/white non college educated in the non urban cities who voted for Trump probably won't realize they were coned because talk radio & Fox will continue to misdirect them with the guns/gays/war on Christians /abortion/immigration BS...just like the war monger Bolton tried with his "false flag" nonsense on Fox on Sunday defusing the Russian hacking for Trump's benefit.
But, after several years of getting it in the rear and losing more of what little they have and get now, will enough of them still be happy to vote Trump in four years? Will having their sons fighting & dying for Bolton's wars and getting horribly maimed for life in crap holes in the middle & far east for Haliburtion & General Dynamics compensate for keeping the Mexicans/Blacks/Immigrants/Gays "down?" Maybe,,,it's certainly worked so far.
But, I think it's just possible the BS tolerance of the low information & Fox fake news viewer will begin to erode, and that Trump may end up an even more perceived consensus idiot disaster than Bush 43.
Trent,
ReplyDeleteIn 1980 I was all in for Carter. And why not, I was an avid NPR listener. I believed Reagan would destroy the world, that's what the people I trusted for news told me. When it didn't happen and in fact things improved I was forced to re-think what I believed. In other words, develop critical thinking skills. Long story short I told both my sons to distrust everything. To look at every side and try to sort out the truth. When eventually they told me they both leaned to the right I told them they should then only read the essays of those on the left.Challenge your assumptions and everything everyone who thinks they know better tells you. They do, and get quite a kick out of it. Yes I listen to Rush Limbaugh because I enjoy the show and read the National Review, but in scanning news sites daily I still seek out informed opinion from the "other side" routinely. Many of my conservative friends do the same. It isn't an accident people are conservative. It happens only when one consciously rejects the thinking of the mainstream media, Hollywood, and popular culture. Republicans are today's cultural rebels.
If gas prices rise in the next year or so it will because the economy is rising. I'll take it as long as the market dictates prices, not the government.
ReplyDeleteJosh.....Oil prices are like diamond prices.....they are established by cartels, not by the forces of the market economy. Diamonds & oil are not rare.....they are in reality quite plentiful...it is advertising that suggests otherwise, not actual supply & demand. The respective cartels set the price, the same way Big Pharma does. By restricting distribution they unilaterally raise prices & profit. With a Cabinet of, and by, and for, the oil & gas & Wall Street sectors, the public gets shafted.
ReplyDeleteWith regulators banished from the regulatory agencies (Trump still demanding Dept. of Energy climate investigators' names be provided) and Corporate CEO's and political hacks running the show, we will resemble the polluted air & water of Russia/China/India that Republicans admire. It's only the air & water we breathe & drink...not important as long as we can mandate anti-abortion signs be posted in all public bathrooms & miscarriages or aborted fetuses be buried.
A significant backbone of the Trump "victory" (not actual votes....but, counties dis proportionally influential under the agreed rules...the electoral college) rural workers, miners, blue collar, lower - middle class non college white are expecting results. But, they are the ones who will suffer the most from Republican plans to cut/repeal/dismantle social/health/wage measures.
Even the vaunted Teamsters Union.....the God Fearing, super patriotic, hard charging truck drivers of America who idiolize Trump and haul the goods all over the country listening to talk radio and watch Fox News at the pubs while grabbing a beer & chow, can't see that Big Business is pushing for the rapid development & installation of driverless vehicles that will eliminate their jobs...just like Big Coal did to the miners with technology & strip mountain mining.
No, Scott, it isn't the end of the world, but, winter is coming.
Trent,
ReplyDeleteThanks for highlighting liberal thinking for us. And thanks for reminding us why we aren't one.