The Guardian: Trump’s Cabinet Picks So Far
The President-Elect Of The United States, gesturing how wide income inequality will get now. Or the enormity of the speculative fuckedness of our foundation of government, society, humanity and the planet.
Now that the electoral college has done it’s arbitrary duty, it’s the appropriate time to take a layman’s look at Mr. Trump’s administration choices, the finalists of the plutocrat apprentice.
You got Rex Tillerson at Secretary Of State, the last major post that Trump decided to fill. Being the top diplomacy role, it kind of shows where diplomacy is placed in the president-elect’s priorities. This guy is the big oil man CEO of ExxonMobil, and in terms of international reputation, incidentally tight and revered by Russian president and bully dog breeder Vladimir Putin, who once bestowed Rex with a Moscow Order Of Friendship. A dubious dignitary title earned by Rex’s collaboration deal with that nation’s comparably big oil company OAO Rosneft for oil exploration in the arctic, which eventually got the kibosh from sanctions instituted when Putin decided to annex Crimea, but not for what oil exploration is doing to hasten the extreme catastrophic effects of climate change, which surely drives his contrary beliefs and his stubborn denials about it. And who will surely avoid any international summits discussing about stifling the problem and gutting legislation regulating emissions causing it. Rex’s appointment will probably lift those sanctions and will leave public service a much wealthier man as well has his heirs. It’s apparent that Trump’s own extreme vetting for the chosen magnate is his supposed denomination from his overseas buddy. And the catalyzing legend that ExxonMobil is practically a tyrannical nation state of it’s own. Maybe a tad treasonous too.
Exxon’s foreign policy sometimes had more impact on the countries where it operated than did the State Department. Take, for example, Chad, one of the poorest countries in Africa. During the mid-two-thousands, the entirety of U.S. aid and military spending in the country directed through the U.S. Embassy in the capital, N’Djamena, amounted to less than twenty million dollars annually, whereas the royalty payments Exxon made to the government as part of an oil-production agreement were north of five hundred million dollars. Idriss Déby, the authoritarian President of Chad, did not need a calculator to understand that Rex Tillerson was more important to his future than the U.S. Secretary of State.
In Kurdistan, during the Obama Administration, Tillerson defied State Department policy and cut an independent oil deal with the Kurdish Regional Government, undermining the national Iraqi government in Baghdad. ExxonMobil did not ask permission. After the fact, Tillerson arranged a conference call with State Department officials and explained his actions, according to my sources, by saying, “I had to do what was best for my shareholders”
That last quote makes the most sense for this appointment. As is the now obligatory qualification of having a conflict of interest.
The pick for Treasury is cut from the same dynastic cloth as Trump, Steven Mnuchin. This guy has become a become a blockbuster movie mogul in the past few years, which led me to think that he was picked because our new leader thinks box office totals would translate to nationwide economic improvement. Alas, the guy is predator scumbag and should technically be imprisoned for his running of a corrupt bank, OneWest, that was sadistically foreclosing on middle class homes through bad mortgages, encouraged their employees to fabricate payments through robo-signing to keep up the illusion of financial liquidity, and was blatantly discriminating against potential minority homeowners for applying for loans. The guy is a misery merchant.
Another bed fellow greedy bastard and fiendishly ironic pick for commerce head is Wilbur Ross, who has accrued billions through vulture venture capital and predatory equity via investing in bankrupt businesses including, naturally, the president-elects monument of failure, the pile of mortar, lights and shit in Atlantic City, the Taj Mahal Casino and the rust belt industries of textile, coal and steel that Trump has been pandering for votes the past year. Talk about vertical integration. And one of Wilbur’s mines killed 12 people
The atrocious pick for Labor is the owner of obesity population generator, Andrew F. Pudzer, CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. This individual has absolute contempt for workers looking to improve their personal wealth and livelihoods by vocally being against raising the minimum wage and claims such demands will justify leading to replacing human servers with basic rights with dutiful robots. This guy needs to look at how Uber is trying to illegally fast-track this philosophy in San Francisco.
Trump’s labor choice’s ideal worker
The pick is for Attorney General was dug up from the dung heap of appointment rejects past, Jeff Sessions, a career political hack who if confirmed will continue ruining the lives of citizens who prefer pot over cigarettes, homosexuals and poor women and their collective uteri. The latter which will be in more danger because of the beliefs of the pick of Tom Price at Health and Human Services.
The picks for Energy and Housing are defiantly lazy and set up to provoke laughter and induce nausea. Rick Perry did not even remember the dept. he will lead during a primary debate 4 years ago. And Ben Carson, the only African-American picked, was chosen possibly, no cynically because he’s black, which makes up the majority of tenants in public housing, recently commented after refusing the HHS position that he would not accept a position he’s not qualified for even though he thought he was qualified to be president. These two are fucking idiots.
Scott Pruitt is the pick for the EPA, an opponent of climate change regulations, poster boy for the merchants of doubt, and toady stenographer for big energy companies including ExxonMobil (Hi, Rex!). Interior pick Ryan Zinke, allegedly an avid outdoorsman, is looking to revive construction for the justifiably rejected Keystone XL pipeline.
The pick for Education is a doozy floozy, Betsy Devos. Made a billionaire from inheriting wealth from her father’s parasitic pyramid empire AMWAY and her abominable privatized charter education program, which has been confirmed as a ineffective institutional failure and destroyer of schools.
The pick for the CIA, an department that has been terribly utilized, has caused worldwide strife and chaos and should be abolished, Mike Pompeo, apparently thinks the biggest enemies are ourselves, Americans, for his support of the NSA’s idiotic haystack or ball pit data mining of everyone’s personal data and has called, like others including supposed liberals, for the execution of Edward Snowden. He also thinks that our soldiers should continue utilizing war crime methods like torture, which led to all that insurgency in Iraq and the ensuing ISIS caliphate in the first place.
After failing to get a senate seat twice in Connecticut, the inspiring pick for Small Business Administrator went to WWE matriarch Linda McMahon. Which should make future legislation regarding policy very intriguing.
As for the M.I.C. aka the defense department, to head the pentagon there’s General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. He commanded missions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the infinite War On Terror or the war on notions. The war that Trump advocated then was against, which to be fair a lot of people did, a massive majority did, and subsequently has led to millions of deaths, injuries, displacement and blowback, and maybe the rise of heroin production and trafficking. Despite the surges, the random drone attack and the deaths of dictators, iconic ghouls and cult of personality monster types like Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, and Khaddafy. Reportedly, Trump picked the Mad Dog for his approach on interrogation as offering cigarettes and booze to get what he needs instead of the counterproductive torture methods that were used that led to this current malaise in the Middle East and now parts of Africa. I think he picked him because his nickname is Mad Dog. His Homeland Security pick General John Kelly was running Gitmo when the captives there were engaging in hunger strikes, which were subject to cover ups. But those two are just moderate figureheads to balance the wild man radical loose cannon, retired General Michael Flynn, who will be doing the most action in his role as NSA advisor. This guy was at the forefront of Obama’s pathetic and duplicitous policy towards Syria, which has led to the destruction of major metropolitan cities there and millions dead, disenfranchised of their human rights and displaced of their homeland, leading to a refugee crisis not seen since World War II. This guy is qualified because of his insight into the mess there, but it’s negated by his generalization of the muslim population, which can lead to further tensions and draconian policies. He will be the first to alert Trump if there are any threats to the nation and to move forward with any defensive or offensive actions (only when Trump feels like hearing it). There is a Gen. Jack T. Ripper vibe about this guy that’s a bit unnerving. And he doesn’t need senate confirmation either.
And neither does Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. Rewarded with counseler and strategist for their manipulative architect work of Donnie’s mutant Elmer Gantry / Greg Stillson campaign.
Let there be no doubt that they are all in for themselves and their portfolios. And they all have conflicts of interests in their lucrative fields. But as the president elect said of his role, the first job he ever applied for, that the president doesn’t have a conflict of interest, which he assumes extends to his cabinet. Emoluments clause be damned.
This is what running government as a business looks like. Although someone running a real business would have kick these asses out the door for their lack of qualifications and inherent criminal behavior.
This assemblage by Trump confirms in general the most cynical beliefs of bureaucracy and a country in distress. This is the newer normal. And normal. Is. Truly. Fucked.
This is not the cabinet of deplorables, it’s the SNAFU administration
Update: Trump recently courted Slyvester Stallone to head the NEA, which the actor/director respectfully and thankfully declined. Which shows that someone out there actually saw all 294 films chronicling the life of Rocky Balboa. And maybe someone that doesn’t see the glorious demented camp of a movie like Rhinestone and appreciates it for a bedazzled filmwork and an actor branching out into new realms of artistic expression..
Impunity City 