Showing posts with label Secretary of State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Secretary of State. Show all posts

Sunday, March 12, 2017

IS TRUMP'S STATE DEPARTMENT IRRELEVANT?

One week after Trump's inauguration, his administration told four top level career State Department managers that their services were no longer needed.  While it's true most presidents appoint their own people to top posts, they usually retain experienced employees through the transition period.

Since Trump appointed Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, and Tillerson spent his entire career in the oil business and has no government or diplomatic experience, you'd think both men would want seasoned employees around for a while as he learns the ropes.  You'd be wrong.

Also, several reports indicate that Tillerson is excluded from Trump's inner circle.
More than a month after he became America’s top diplomat, Rex Tillerson is like no other modern secretary of State: He’s largely invisible.
Trump's proposed budget includes a 37 per cent cut to the State Department budget.  Is the State Department and its secretary no longer relevant in TrumpAmerica?  Or will the department become a subsidiary of Trump, Inc., with Trump remaining as CEO, and Tillerson's position as...?

Friday, December 21, 2012

POOR JOHN BOEHNER

Yes, I do feel a bit sorry for Boehner, who now has something else to cry about. He thought he was the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, but, though he should have known before now, he is not the leader of the GOP, because there is no longer a Republican Party to speak of, but only a group of individuals, each with his own agenda, who are responsible only to those who gave them money to get elected and feel no responsibility whatsoever to govern the country.  Charles Pierce says it best: 
There is no possible definition by which the Republicans can be considered an actual political party any more. They can be defined as a loose universe of inchoate hatreds, or a sprawling confederation of collected resentments, or an unwieldy conglomeration of self-negating orthodoxies, or an atonal choir of rabid complaint, or a cargo cult of quasi-religious politics and quasi-political religion, or simply the deafening abandoned YAWP of our bitter national Id. But they are not a political party because they have rendered themselves incapable of politics.
With whom does President Obama negotiate if and when talks about avoiding the fiscal cliff resume?  Obviously, Boehner cannot call the troops to order.  Is another Republican in the House capable of doing the job?  Anyway, Obama was giving away far too much in the deal, but the Republican members of the House did not have the good sense to appreciate their Christmas gift and and ended up saving the president and certain Democrats from themselves.  So it's probably off the cliff or the gentle incline - take your choice.  The Republicans really need to stop scaring investors, banksters, and financiers with their brinkmanship in this fragile economy.

Oh, and to change the subject, Obama nominated John Kerry as Secretary of State.  Kerry is an excellent choice, but he is likely to be swiftboated all over again (yawn), just as Susan Rice was swiftboated out of contention for the cabinet post, through no fault of her own.