Trump's Team

Richard Grenell is Trump's pick for NATO ambassador.

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NYT on Michael Flynn from Dec 12, 2016

Long before Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn became Donald J. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, he believed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become a political tool of the Obama administration — a view now echoed by the president-elect in his mocking dismissals of C.I.A. assessments that Russia sought to tip the election in Mr. Trump’s favor.

“They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for,” Mr. Flynn said in an interview with The New York Times in October 2015. “They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States.” He added, speaking of the agency’s leadership: “Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.....”​

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us/politics/donald-trump-cia-michael-flynn.html
 


Lori Scialabba is the woman who, as "acting director" of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (part of Homeland Security), sent out a Feb 2 memo directing her employees to defy the President and continue processing documents for refugees from the countries subject to the travel ban.
 
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So Comey says he will be saying at FBI

Here is what Kim Dotcom (founder of the now-defunct file hosting service Megaupload) is saying --
“The White House leaks are coming from a rogue group within the CIA. They want to stop the Trump presidency. This is NOT speculation.”
“Rogue group of Obama loyalists at CIA used powerful cyber warfare tools illegally to spy on Trump & fabricated Russia narrative. BIG DANGER!”​

When asked what Trump should do to protect himself he said --
“Appoint new FBI leadership.
Get FBI agents from outside DC to investigate CIA & NSA for all unlawful activities. One domino falls, game over.”​
 
Peter Thiel --
"A decade ago, Davos was a group of people who were running the world. Now, it's just a group of people who messed up the world."​
 
Peter Thiel:
"I think fracking represents a bigger economic form of progress for our society as a whole than the innovation in Silicon Valley."​
 
Dems have forced cloture on Verma
This locked down Senate for legislation for another 30 hours
So -- 12 clotures thus far
Stalling legislation for 360 hours
 
All these endless stall tactics and now Lib pressure cranking up for their Senators to block Gorsuch. Everyone knows Gorsuch is getting in one way or another.

The hearings begin in 11 days. I'd say there's a 90% chance the filibuster takes place.

Who thinks the Reps will be forced to go nuclear? Who believes 8 Dems will balk and vote to end it? Or who's the brave soul who thinks Dems won't filibuster? :smile1:

I say they filibuster, because that's what they do. I also think eventually at least 8 will vote to end it and avoid future SCOTUS filibusters only needing 51 to end.
 
Dan Coats passed Committee 13-2
Onto the Senate

The Verma Cloture passed 54-44

Friedman made it through Committee 12-9

6 nominees still slogging thru the swamp

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Brad Austin said:
All these endless stall tactics and now Lib pressure cranking up for their Senators to block Gorsuch. Everyone knows Gorsuch is getting in one way or another.
The hearings begin in 11 days. I'd say there's a 90% chance the filibuster takes place.......
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Manchin and McCaskill have both said they will not support filibuster on Gorsuch
 
Joe Fan said:
Dems have forced cloture on Verma. This locked down Senate for legislation for another 30 hours
So -- 12 clotures thus far. Stalling legislation for 360 hours
Click to expand...


Here is what Dems are keeping the Senate from addressing --
8 Reg Repeals WAITING
2 Bills in Committee
The DOD appropriations bill has also arrived

But at we do have 4 Obama Reg Repeals on their way to Trump

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I heard on the Hugh Hewitt show yesterday that Trump still needs to fill 1,900 appointed positions, only 600 of which require Congressional approval. He needs to get moving there is a real log jam and it's hurting his administration.

I also heard that "his HR department" only had 18 employees. Clinton was said to have 55 in HR by this time. Somebody in Trump Admin. needs to seize the day and get things moving.
 
Clean said:
I heard on the Hugh Hewitt show yesterday that Trump still needs to fill 1,900 appointed positions, only 600 of which require Congressional approval. He needs to get moving there is a real log jam and it's hurting his administration.

I also heard that "his HR department" only had 18 employees. Clinton was said to have 55 in HR by this time. Somebody in Trump Admin. needs to seize the day and get things moving.
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Does Trump fill these positions himself, or is it fair to say that not having his Cabinet in place is causing the slow down on this?

I'd also say Trump has accomplished more without filling those positions then Clinton or Obama. They were too busy building up their gubments. Republicans too, not just those two.
 
horninchicago said:
Does Trump fill these positions himself, or is it fair to say that not having his Cabinet in place is causing the slow down on this?
Click to expand...

I can't imagine this isn't a huge part of it. Think of a massive corporation. Would the CEO hire top managerial positions within each division? More likely each division's V.P. would staff top roles within his own expertise following the corporate vision of the CEO.
 
Mr. Deez said:
Because that isn't the real reason. Vouchers or tax credits have the potential to break the financial and ideological monopoly that public education (and therefore the Left) have on educating American children. That's the real reason they oppose vouchers and ridicule DeVos.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2017/03/01/undermining-academic-achievement-n2291253
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, "The president's decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country." Expressing similar sentiments, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond said, "I expect that Mrs. DeVos will have an incredibly harmful impact on public education and on black communities nationwide." Those and many other criticisms of Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could be dismissed as simply political posturing if we did not have an educational system that is mostly mediocre and is in advanced decay for most black students.

I'd ask Sen. Schumer how it would be possible for Secretary of Education DeVos to make education any worse than it is for many Americans. I'd suggest to Rep. Richmond that if the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan were the Secretary of Education and wanted to sabotage black academic achievement, he couldn't find a better method for doing so than keeping our public school system as it is. Many black politicians and educators would never have their own children attend the rotten, dangerous schools that are so much a part of our big cities. Many black parents, captured by these schools, would like to get their children out. But that's not in the interest of the education establishment, which wants a monopoly on education. Black politicians and academics are the establishment's facilitators. That explains their hostility to Betsy DeVos. She would like to give more parents a choice.

According to The Nation's Report Card, only 37 percent of 12th-graders were proficient in reading in 2015, and just 25 percent were proficient in math. For black students, achievement levels were a disgrace. Nationally, 17 percent of black students scored proficient in reading, and 7 percent scored proficient in math. In some cities, such as Detroit, black academic proficiency is worse; among eighth-graders, only 4 percent were proficient in math, and only 7 percent were proficient in reading.
In 2014-15, graduation rates at District of Columbia Public Schools, just as they did nationally, climbed to an all-time high. At H.D. Woodson High School, 76 percent of students graduated on time; however, just 1 percent met math standards on national standardized tests linked to the Common Core academic standards. Just 4 percent met the reading standards.

The low black academic achievement is not restricted to high-school graduates of D.C. schools. The average black high-school graduate has the academic achievement level of a white seventh or eighth-grader. As such, it stands as unambiguous evidence that high schools confer diplomas attesting that students can read, write and compute at a 12th-grade level when in fact they cannot. That means they have received fraudulent high-school diplomas. There are many factors that affect education that educators cannot control. But they have total control over the issuance of a diploma.

Educators often complain that there's not enough money. Census Bureau data show that as early as 2009-10, Washington, D.C. spent $29,409 per pupil. Starker proof that there's little relationship between spending and academic proficiency is in the case of Detroit's public schools. In 2009-10, the nation's elementary and secondary public school systems spent an average of $10,615 per pupil. According to the Census Bureau, Detroit schools spent $12,801 per pupil. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy claims that Detroit actually spent $15,570 per pupil that year. There's not much payoff for education dollars. The National Institute for Literacy found that 47 percent of the city's adults are "functionally illiterate." The Nation's Report Card reports that Detroit students score the lowest among the nation's big-city schools, and Washington is not far behind.
 
Brad Austin said:
I can't imagine this isn't a huge part of it. Think of a massive corporation. Would the CEO hire top managerial positions within each division? More likely each division's V.P. would staff top roles within his own expertise following the corporate vision of the CEO.
Click to expand...
That is what I was getting at. The Secretaries would be like department VPs. Without having all his Secretaries confirmed, or the delays on getting them confirmed, filling positions in the departments would be pretty difficult to achieve. Yet, Trump and the admin are criticized for it.
 
horninchicago said:
Does Trump fill these positions himself, or is it fair to say that not having his Cabinet in place is causing the slow down on this?....
Click to expand...

The Dems have slowed down everything. Not just appointments but bills as well. It is a break from the tradition of comity normally extended to new administrations. But Dems only care about tradition when it is to their benefit. Some day in the future, this will come back on them.

It is also worth noting that Trump never intended to fill all those lower positions. All part of a plan.
 
Dan Coats was confirmed 85-12
Director of National Intelligence

Senate now voting on whether McMaster can keep his military post and rank while serving in the Trump Admin. Should be another easy win.

update - the McMaster thing passed
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