Transition Team/Cabinet Thread

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Who wants a President busy doing the job? Torturing political rivals is so much more fun.

What a useless piece of trash. He should go back to reality TV, where he belongs. Too bad America has so many idiots who voted for him.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Not a Mittens fan, but, God, Trump has the maturity and professionalism of a twelve-year-old.

There were a number of classmates I really, really disliked when I was twelve, but I wouldn't have pretended to hold any of them in higher regard than I did just so I could make them feel real bad later. What the Christ.

That's because President-elect Pussygrabber does not just have the mentality of a young, teenage boy. It's the mind of a 12-year old who is also an entitled and spoiled rotten bully.  (Thanks, Republicans. Remember, every single thing he does, you own. I'll bet when the economy tanks, he'll have some great fart jokes to fix it with.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

And here we go...

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  2m2 minutes ago
I will be making my announcement on the next Secretary of State tomorrow morning.

What will the President-elect do when he can't host The Cabinet Apprentice anymore?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Perry to be tapped Energy Secretary.

Rick Perry, the Secretary of Oops?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Perhaps President Pussygrabber could relocate to Moscow for the duration of his term of office?

I'm sure Putin & Co could promise him nothing but favorable media coverage, lots of big rallies, and a steady supply of "willing" Eastern European models.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump has only appointed 2 women to actual cabinet positions, one of which has been in Washington forever. He needs to appoint women to both agriculture and sec. Vet Affairs if he wants to show the gender proper respect.

Also, Carson looks more and more like the token black (and Chao like the token Asian).  Pathetic.

I'm surprised he bothered with tokenism. I expected a clean sweep of rich old white male serial polygamists.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ryan-zinke-interior-secretary-trump-232590

Politico reporting that Zinke has been selected as Interior Secretary. No word on if he has accepted the offer or not. I hope this is true, because this will eliminate Tester's toughest challenger!

Whoa, color me surprised. Maybe Tim Fox will give it a try, he'd be a strong candidate as well. Or more likely... Gianforte?

Gianforte is a raving right wingnutjob, who couldn't beat a not-that-popular governor in a generally good year for Republicans. Tester is probably hoping  that he gets to run against him.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ryan-zinke-interior-secretary-trump-232590

Politico reporting that Zinke has been selected as Interior Secretary. No word on if he has accepted the offer or not. I hope this is true, because this will eliminate Tester's toughest challenger!

Whoa, color me surprised. Maybe Tim Fox will give it a try, he'd be a strong candidate as well. Or more likely... Gianforte?

Gianforte is a raving right wingnutjob, who couldn't beat a not-that-popular governor in a generally good year for Republicans. Tester is probably hoping  that he gets to run against him.

Except Gianforte is neither a right-wing nutjob (he's a somewhat Trumpish businessman) nor is Bullock "Not-that-popular". Nice try, though.

Bullock was polling in the mid-40s in the run-up to the election. He won with over 50%.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxpEMTW3kArck4xWGRaUEVid1U/view
http://www.politico.com/2016-election/polls/person/latest/steve-bullock?filterDate=

Gianforte funds a museum to creationism that denies evolution and pretends the Earth is only thousands of years old.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/features/magazine/dinosaur-museum-presents-biblical-view-of-origins/article_1c9ac218-bab0-11de-84f1-001cc4c002e0.html

I can't blame you that much though. If I were a Republican, I wouldn't want to admit how deplorable my party was either.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Honestly, I don't think Zinke and CMR have THAT different on views regarding BLM and such Interior matters. CMR would have brought more of a focus on hydropower (fine by me) but other than that no big difference.

So why dump her for the GOP's best crack at Tester? Doesn't make sense

Only so many token girls allowed in the club?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Bullock was polling in the mid-40s in the run-up to the election. He won with over 50%.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxpEMTW3kArck4xWGRaUEVid1U/view
http://www.politico.com/2016-election/polls/person/latest/steve-bullock?filterDate=

Gianforte funds a museum to creationism that denies evolution and pretends the Earth is only thousands of years old.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/features/magazine/dinosaur-museum-presents-biblical-view-of-origins/article_1c9ac218-bab0-11de-84f1-001cc4c002e0.html

I can't blame you that much though. If I were a Republican, I wouldn't want to admit how deplorable my party was either.

Uh... that's ONE questionable poll from a very questionable pollster who got many races wrong this year. Most people predicted that Bullock would reelection by a somewhat comfortable margin. In fact, he was up eight points (48-39) in the Atlas polling average, so you could argue that he underperformed expectations on election day. Nice cherry picking right there. Just get a D-CO avatar already and check the facts.

Actually, it's two polls, but I'm hardly surprised that someone who supports creationists and other deplorables has problems with basic reading comprehension. At least you have enough decency to be embarrassed about it. (Or, rather than avoiding admitting what a nutcase Gianforte is, did you just have problems reading that, too?)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I wish Lindsey Graham and John McCain would both STFU and go away for good.

the gop has no place anymore for patriots and conservatives i guess...especially for those who support democracy.

No, it doesn't. It's support of Trump has made that very clear.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Lindsey Graham and John McCain should just leave and shut the hell up.

...because they don't agree with you?

Be glad he's just "asking" them to leave. Give the Trump cult a few more months, and they may start  talking camps and mass executions, just like their idols.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I imagine Otter would want the pick so that Little can become Gov and block out the Labrador faction

I don't care for Labrador but he seems like the type who would still primary an incumbent. There were rumors he wanted to primary Risch and then Crapo in 2014 and 2016, respectively IIRC.

David Friedman appointed Ambassador to Israel, he's pro-settlements and is to the right of Netanyahu and supports moving the Embassy to Jerusalem.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/15/politics/trump-picks-campaign-adviser-friedman-as-us-ambassador-to-israel/index.html

This counters James Mattis on that issue. Also proves that early reports of Huckabee getting that are false. I still expect Huckabee to get some ambassadorship. Any word on who gets the Ambassadorship to Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Russia, etc?

It won't be any of those - probably someplace backwards where he can get some slaves.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Zinke nomination is a disappointment, the government has no real interest in continuing to hold so much western land

Sure it does. In preventing it from being sold off for short term gains to well-connected insiders profit. Like the post-office sell-off.

In other words, exactly the sort of thing I WOULD expect Trump to be in favor of.  We'll have to see how it plays out, but Zinke is the one appointment where I'm very cautiously optimistic, at least in the "probably as well as we could have done under the GOP" sense.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Does anyone have an explanation as to why Trump hasn't nominated someone to Agriculture or the VA yet?

Perhaps President-elect Pussygrabber got bored with doing The Cabinet Apprentice, but he's been too busy watching TV and tweeting authorized Acting President-elect Pence to fill the positions yet?

Alternatively, maybe President-elect Puppet is waiting on orders from the Kremlin on who to appoint to the positions? But the intelligence investigation has compromised Putin's channels of control communication with the Puppet-elect, so he's left unable to act.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

House Democrats are threatening to revolt over the waiver needed for James Mattis to serve as defense secretary after the Trump transition team blocked him from testifying before the House Armed Services Committee.

Plan was since his announcement that he would testify to both sides of Congress, but the transition team has pulled him out of House testimony. House Republicans aren't happy either, but they are planning on voting for the waiver anyway.

If they think the restriction is outmoded, why isn't the GOP calling for a full repeal of it, rather than a one-time waiver?  There's absolutely nothing special about either our current defense needs or this nominee that warrants waiving the rule just for him just this one time.

The GOP is probably figuring that laws in general will be irrelevant by the time the Trump-Pence administration is over.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Fun Fact: Trump is the first president since Carter to not have a Hispanic member of his Cabinet.

I’m not surprised by this. Perdue is probably not the worst choice and not somebody who worries me. But he should have picked Abel Maldonado. I think it’s troubling that 80% of his cabinet members are old white men. Actually sad, because we’re a more diverse nation. Especially the number of women should be significantly higher.

Oh my God, give me a break. It shouldn't be troubling at all that he picked his cabinet in the way he did.

It's very troubling that he picked a cabinet based on how they look on TV.

It's almost like he's an insane idiot who thinks he's playing the President on a Reality TV show.

(Maybe he really is the heir to Reagan! /snark)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Perry is doing better here than he ever did in either of his presidential campaigns.

For all the jokes about "oops" I actually don't think he's a terrible choice for Energy

Moniz is a nuclear physicist.  Perry barely graduated college.  The department of Energy is in charge of the nuclear energy.  Do you want the guy from Dancing with the stars in charge?

You ignore the fact he was a successful Governor for literally almost 15 years. Dancing with the Stars is meaningless, you act like that is his only accomplishment.

That's your opinion.  But even if what you say is true, that doesn't mean he's qualified to lead the Dept. of Energy.

That's not your decision to make.

No, but according to the U.S. Constitution I have the right to express my opinion and criticize the corrupt idiot that made the decision.

I'm sure that given a little time, the Pussygrabber administration will describe that as "fake news" and present their "alternative facts" about what the Constitution really means.