'Official' 2025 trump Administration Thread

[happyhoix]

Doesn’t look like Gaetz has enough votes for confirmation. Maybe as many as 30 GOPers in the senate say they won’t vote him.

Even before the ethics committee releases the report - or it leaks.

Since he quit his job already, maybe he’ll have slink back home.

The Fox News talking head is apparently a disgruntled ex military guy who left the military because they gave him a hard time about the Christian Nationalist/ white supremacy tattoo he has on his chest - plus he paid off a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her (he says she was the aggressor.)

If only there was some procedure Trump could use to investigate his cabinet picks before selecting them….🙄

[Tennesseer]

Come on now. We know from trump's first reign, he only hires the best.

[minnesotapaintlady]

Nov 18, 2024 7:57:05 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

Doesn’t look like Gaetz has enough votes for confirmation. Maybe as many as 30 GOPers in the senate say they won’t vote him.

Even before the ethics committee releases the report - or it leaks.

Since he quit his job already, maybe he’ll have slink back home.

The Fox News talking head is apparently a disgruntled ex military guy who left the military because they gave him a hard time about the Christian Nationalist/ white supremacy tattoo he has on his chest - plus he paid off a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her (he says she was the aggressor.)

If only there was some procedure Trump could use to investigate his cabinet picks before selecting them….🙄

If Trump manages to appoint him without congressional approval Gaetz will be unpaid for his position, so at least he'd be paid what he's worth. 

[busymom]

Nov 18, 2024 8:29:25 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Nov 18, 2024 7:57:05 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

Doesn’t look like Gaetz has enough votes for confirmation. Maybe as many as 30 GOPers in the senate say they won’t vote him.

Even before the ethics committee releases the report - or it leaks.

Since he quit his job already, maybe he’ll have slink back home.

The Fox News talking head is apparently a disgruntled ex military guy who left the military because they gave him a hard time about the Christian Nationalist/ white supremacy tattoo he has on his chest - plus he paid off a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her (he says she was the aggressor.)

If only there was some procedure Trump could use to investigate his cabinet picks before selecting them….🙄

If Trump manages to appoint him without congressional approval Gaetz will be unpaid for his position, so at least he'd be paid what he's worth. 

     That TOTALLY sounds like Trump.  Hire 'em, but don't pay 'em.  

[happyhoix]

Now I have a new fear.

Read about the bird flu this weekend. Started as a flu just for birds, then cats that ate infected birds could get it, now it’s shown up in people. They don’t know if it can be shared by airborne transmission yet.

Potentially fatal from 10 to 50 percent of the time. Compared to about 0.6 percent fatality for Covid-19.

What if this becomes a pandemic when Trump is in office, with RFK over the department? Will they even recognize bird flu? Certainly they won’t try to find a vaccine or require people to comply with quarantine rules. Can we trust what the CDC will say?

Given how Trump fucked up the Covid response, and how much Covid messed with our economy, imagine how much worse it will be with a higher mortality rate?

[billisonboard]

Thought this was a good and timely informational/refresher article: What are recess appointments and how could Trump use them to fill his Cabinet?

[pulmonarymd]

Nov 18, 2024 8:39:26 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

Now I have a new fear.

Read about the bird flu this weekend. Started as a flu just for birds, then cats that ate infected birds could get it, now it’s shown up in people. They don’t know if it can be shared by airborne transmission yet.

Potentially fatal from 10 to 50 percent of the time. Compared to about 0.6 percent fatality for Covid-19.

What if this becomes a pandemic when Trump is in office, with RFK over the department? Will they even recognize bird flu? Certainly they won’t try to find a vaccine or require people to comply with quarantine rules. Can we trust what the CDC will say?

Given how Trump fucked up the Covid response, and how much Covid messed with our economy, imagine how much worse it will be with a higher mortality rate?

It will be recognized. Feds don’t control state health departments or hospitals, so someone will figure it out.

2problems. First money. If the Feds don’t allocate money, then the resources needed to deal with this are not there. Speeding up testing/approval/regulatory actions. If it isn’t a priority, then it will get bogged down. So, imagine how much worse Covid would have been if a vaccine was not available for another year.

Doubt mortality will be that high. 10% would still be a disaster. In favor of it not causing a disaster is that these types of pandemics are rare. Need everything to be “perfect”, for it to happen. Just don’t think it will happen twice in 5 years

[Tennesseer]

The Borowitz Report

Proximity to Power Fails to Make Elon Musk Interesting

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Elon Musk’s strenuous efforts to obtain power have dismally failed to make him an interesting person, a leading expert revealed on Monday.

Professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, a scholar who has written the definitive study about tedious graspers, said that Musk has made “the classic misjudgment that many boring people make: believing that access to power would make them less boring.”

“He is still the reason all his employees want to work remotely,” Logsdon added.

In more upbeat news for the Tesla CEO, Donald J. Trump has tapped Musk to mastermind mass deportations, arguing, “Elon already got millions of people to leave Twitter.”

Proximity to Power Fails to Make Elon Musk Interesting

[seriousthistime]

Nov 18, 2024 9:02:03 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Thought this was a good and timely informational/refresher article: What are recess appointments and how could Trump use them to fill his Cabinet?

There are also vacancy appointments, which are temporary but long enough to do some damage. 

presidentialtransition.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/11/Partnership_Vacancies_Act_FAQ.pdf

[tbop77]

is there trouble in paradise?

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-throws-two-more-names-into-ring-for-treasury-secretary-after-musk-s-favorite-annoyed-him/ar-AA1uib9x?cvid=22b11bcee0b7440aa5ee01fd13ae2842&ei=6


Which one looks better on TV?  

[happyhoix]

Nov 18, 2024 10:39:42 GMT -5 tbop77 said:

is there trouble in paradise?

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-throws-two-more-names-into-ring-for-treasury-secretary-after-musk-s-favorite-annoyed-him/ar-AA1uib9x?cvid=22b11bcee0b7440aa5ee01fd13ae2842&ei=6


Which one looks better on TV?  

Well, Trump called Warsh handsome, so he’s the guy.

Interesting that he got annoyed at Elons buddy because he felt like the guy was enriching himself with the job.

Guess only Trump is allowed to grift off the government trough.

[billisonboard]

Nov 18, 2024 10:35:34 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

Nov 18, 2024 9:02:03 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Thought this was a good and timely informational/refresher article: What are recess appointments and how could Trump use them to fill his Cabinet?

There are also vacancy appointments, which are temporary but long enough to do some damage. 

presidentialtransition.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/11/Partnership_Vacancies_Act_FAQ.pdf

Doesn't look like he can bring outsiders in under this Act.

[seriousthistime]

I think they can hire the outsider to a high level position and after 90 days they can do a temporary appointment. 

The hiring process can be lengthy but I have seen some job postings that limit the application period to one day and the hiring process thereafter is streamlined.

[happyhoix]

Trump is going to declare a national emergency and use the military to round up illegals.

When we’ve done these big round ups before they would pick up people and if they don’t have their IDs or papers on them, the deport them, too.

What’s that sound? Wailing from Trump voters who didn’t think Auntie or Uncle or in laws would get snatched off the streets and kicked out because of how they look?

Too bad no one predicted this would happen.

[Opti]

Marian Kamensky is the editorial cartoonist for the Swiss satirical montly magazine Nebelspalter and Germany's satirical magazine Eulenspiegel and Playboy magazine.

[Opti]

[happyhoix]

Nov 19, 2024 6:57:01 GMT -5 Opti said:

Yep. If we lose the cheap labor we’ll see a jump in food prices as farmers have to pay more to get their crops in.

GOP knows this, but Trump thinks the MAGA voters will be so thrilled to see the camps of crying brown people they’ll ignore the rising costs.

[happyhoix]

Welp, that didn’t take long.

Tribune news service is reporting Elon Musk had a massive blow up with a top Trump aide last week.

Elon spent 120 million dollars helping to get Trump elected and now he wants to be in charge of things.

Can’t have two massive egos in the same space. At some point he’ll blow up on Trump, quit or get kicked out, suddenly become a Democrat again and use X to trash Trump, further destroying that company.

[billisonboard]

Is Trump spending political capital on Gaetz or strengthening his political muscle? Conventional wisdom would say the former but with the MAGA base it is hard to say. 

[Tennesseer]

And a few Republican senators think so too.  Gaetz resigned immediately after turmp nominated his so the House Ethics committee could not release their findings as he would no longer be a House representative..  

Key Democrat says the ethics report on Matt Gaetz should be made public

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will nominate Gaetz for attorney general, despite the recently ended House probe of allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee said Monday that the panel's report into GOP former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, should be made public.

The bipartisan Ethics Committee had been investigating Gaetz, of Florida, off and on since 2021, probing allegations of sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl, illicit drug use and accepting improper gifts. But the committee lost jurisdiction over Gaetz when he resigned from the House on Thursday and has not released any public report on its probe.

Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., the ranking member on the Ethics Committee, said the report should be released, a sentiment echoed by another committee member, Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md.

“It absolutely should be released to the public. And, well, it should certainly be released to the Senate, and I think it should be released to the public, as we have done with many other investigative reports in the past," Wild told reporters, adding, "There is precedent for releasing even after a member has resigned.”

The Ethics Committee plans to meet Wednesday to discuss the report, a source familiar with the meeting confirmed earlier Monday.

The details of the report have not been made public. Several Republican senators, who will consider Gaetz’s nomination once it is formalized next year, have said they want details of the ethics investigation — whether through access to the report itself or through an FBI background check on Gaetz.

Rest of article here:  Key Democrat says the ethics report on Matt Gaetz should be made public

[Tennesseer]

GOP senators deride idea of replacing FBI background checks for Trump nominees

Senate Republicans are rejecting a proposal floated by some advisers to President-elect Trump to take the job of conducting background checks for high-level nominees away from the FBI and give it to private investigators.

Doing so could make it easier for some nominees to win Senate confirmation, but GOP senators say the FBI should retain its leading role in conducting background checks. They argue its agents have access to criminal information that private investigators simply can’t match.

And while many Trump allies don’t trust the FBI, many GOP senators think the agency sets the gold standard for professionalism and credibility in law enforcement.

The FBI also leads the nation’s domestic counterespionage efforts, serving as the lead agency for investigating and preventing foreign intelligence gathering activities in the United States. Republican senators think that role puts it in a good position to vet nominees who would have access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets.

“The FBI should do the background checks, in my judgement,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who serves as the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and as a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the FBI has access to information gathered by law enforcement on the federal, state and local levels that private firms don’t.

“If you wanted to supplement it with a private firm, I’d say OK. But the FBI does have access to information that probably a private firm wouldn’t have, even a really good savvy one,” he said.

Rest of article here:  GOP senators deride idea of replacing FBI background checks for Trump nominees

[pulmonarymd]

When you scrape the bottom of the barrel to find nominees like Trump does, you do not want competent background checks, because it is inevitable they find something. Not surprising in the least that he wants that.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

trump couldn't pass a security check. Neither could his son-in-law. The only thing he demands is a loyalty oath and nondisclosure agreement. 

[Tennesseer]

trump wants Gaetz as attornety general so that Gatetz can get all of trump's existing and future convictions either overturned or dismissed.  Nothing more and nothing less.

[billisonboard]

Gaetz is an attack dog who will go after those who Trump perceives as enemies.

[happyhoix]

Nov 19, 2024 10:02:20 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Is Trump spending political capital on Gaetz or strengthening his political muscle? Conventional wisdom would say the former but with the MAGA base it is hard to say. 

I have read a few places that this is Trump exerting his dominance over the GoP in Congress. Take these crappy candidates and get them all confirmed or you’re on my shit list.

Musk has already said he will pay a challenger to primary any GOPer who fails to toe the line.

I would hope the GOP shows some backbone but experience tells me they will not.

[tbop77]

If you read any conservative websites, this is all a master plan by Trump.  Gaetz is the sacrificial lamb.  He knows he won't be confirmed, but then DeSantis will appoint him to Rubio's Senate seat.  Gaetz can blow  up the Senate like he did the House and get rid of the Rino's.   Win/win the ethic committee report will not come out.  

[dondubble]

Nov 19, 2024 13:20:17 GMT -5 tbop77 said:

If you read any conservative websites, this is all a master plan by Trump.  Gaetz is the sacrificial lamb.  He knows he won't be confirmed, but then DeSantis will appoint him to Rubio's Senate seat.  Gaetz can blow  up the Senate like he did the House and get rid of the Rino's.   Win/win the ethic committee report will not come out.  

Hmmmm…

[pulmonarymd]

Great, he can join Tuberville as the 2 most clueless Senators. Hope the republicans choke on this.

[tbop77]

Two more pluses of their theory is:

Those that vote against Trump will be doomed to lose their seat in their next election
Will make liberals heads explode

To me it sounds like Trump is going to govern like he did during his first term.  What ever crazy idea he comes up with and then they will have to work backwards to try and make it work.  Reading several books about his first term, some of the craziness I had totally forgot about.