Con_Alma;1828283 wrote:Sounding like Rick Perry for Secretary of energy. No announcement made yet.

Oh good. Rick Perry is just the sort of person Washington needs added to the Cabinet.

/sarcasm

Texas did pretty good for themselves for awhile. I'd have to actually look up their energy policy, but Texas is the only state that could actually secede and survive.


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iclfan2;1828373 wrote:Texas did pretty good for themselves for awhile. I'd have to actually look up their energy policy, but Texas is the only state that could actually secede and survive.

Well, CA has like the 7th largest GDP in the world, so they may be ok (believe they are net negative in their tax dollars back from the feds). Not sure they could sustain themselves on energy, but so they're just a net importer like anyone else?

TX economy is not nearly as diversified as CA, and probably some others (I don't think).

fish82;1828232 wrote:Tillerson represents his only real whiff so far on cabinet appointments.

Is it really a whiff though? I don't see what's so bad about. Guy ran one of the largest companies in the world.

fish82;1828232 wrote:Tillerson represents his only real whiff so far on cabinet appointments.

Huh? You don't consider Ben Carson for HUD a "whiff"?

So the guy that ran Exxon is Sec State, and the idiot that ran TX is your Sec of Energy?

BoatShoes;1828378 wrote:Is it really a whiff though? I don't see what's so bad about. Guy ran one of the largest companies in the world.

Perhaps you have not heard he is best buds with Vladimir Putin.

gut;1828374 wrote:Well, CA has like the 7th largest GDP in the world, so they may be ok (believe they are net negative in their tax dollars back from the feds). Not sure they could sustain themselves on energy, but so they're just a net importer like anyone else?

TX economy is not nearly as diversified as CA, and probably some others (I don't think).

Didn't California have to write iou's for tax refunds one year? It may have been a few years but I think there were only a few states that were net positive. The only reason I commented on Perry is bc I saw an article where some of his energy policies were big players in the economy for Texas which has been a strong one.


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iclfan2;1828387 wrote:Didn't California have to write iou's for tax refunds one year? It may have been a few years but I think there were only a few states that were net positive. The only reason I commented on Perry is bc I saw an article where some of his energy policies were big players in the economy for Texas which has been a strong one.
That said, Trump definitely isn't "draining the swamp".

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Umm y'all do know that well over half of the Energy Dept budget is nuclear weapons and national labs?
Perry would be an awful pick for that.

gut;1828380 wrote:Huh? You don't consider Ben Carson for HUD a "whiff"?

Not a home run, but not really a whiff either.

gut;1828380 wrote:So the guy that ran Exxon is Sec State, and the idiot that ran TX is your Sec of Energy?

TX did pretty well under the idiot, so.....

BoatShoes;1828378 wrote:Is it really a whiff though? I don't see what's so bad about. Guy ran one of the largest companies in the world.

Solid from an administrative standpoint, no question. Of the "known" candidates, Mittens seemed to be the obvious choice IMO.

fish82;1828391 wrote:TX did pretty well under the idiot, so.....

I hardly think he was a driving force in aiding Texas' energy industry.

The point, I think, was that it seems like the two should be switched, assuming they're the final choices. The guy who ran a multi-national energy company seems better suited to be SecEn between the two, while the former governor ... having overseen a more wide swath of topic in governance of a state ... would probably be better suited for SecState between the two.

It's a fair point.

Beyond this, all that "drain the swamp" nonsense seems to have been nothing but hot air. Cabinet picks have been either faces already familiar in Washington or people who've been shaking hands with Washington for years.

That Washington outsider is acting an awful lot like an insider.

O-Trap;1828400 wrote:That Washington outsider is acting an awful lot like an insider.

Which no one should be surprised by, as "Make America Great Again" is the sort of thing that sounds like it was brought to you by the team that invented "Hope and Change".

iclfan2;1828387 wrote:Didn't California have to write iou's for tax refunds one year? It may have been a few years but I think there were only a few states that were net positive. The only reason I commented on Perry is bc I saw an article where some of his energy policies were big players in the economy for Texas which has been a strong one.

They were in trouble bigly with their debt at one point. But if they seceded they would then just be able to print their own currency and worry about inflation and default risk on their own.

I think the only state that would have to worry about being able to go on its own would probably be Alaska if Putin got an itch to go polar bear hunting. Iowa would probably not worry about being invaded and having to have its own military.

Heretic;1828412 wrote:Which no one should be surprised by, as "Make America Great Again" is the sort of thing that sounds like it was brought to you by the team that invented "Hope and Change".

That's what marketing people do....take a successful idea and figure out how to re-brand it to make it their own!

O-Trap;1828400 wrote: Beyond this, all that "drain the swamp" nonsense seems to have been nothing but hot air.

That's a bit disingenuous if every successful person - who most acknowledge is an important qualification for this - is just going to be labeled as connected or an insider. You're not going to limit yourself to burger flippers for Sec State just because those are the only people 100% completely unadulterated by insiders and industry.

I mean, who do you suggest he picks? Take an experienced military person = insider. Take a successful exec = crony capitalist. Take a governor = insider. Someone from Wall Street = crony capitalist. Ben Carson for HUD = unqualified. What does an "outsider" actually look like to you?

fish82;1828391 wrote:Not a home run, but not really a whiff either. .

He literally said he knows what he's doing because he grew up in subsidized housing.

"My career and education in medicine doesn't qualify me for Surgeon General....But growing up in low income housing - HUD I got this"

gut;1828421 wrote:That's a bit disingenuous if every successful person - who most acknowledge is an important qualification for this - is just going to be labeled as connected or an insider. You're not going to limit yourself to burger flippers for Sec State just because those are the only people 100% completely unadulterated by insiders and industry.

I mean, who do you suggest he picks? Take an experienced military person = insider. Take a successful exec = crony capitalist. Take a governor = insider. Someone from Wall Street = crony capitalist. Ben Carson for HUD = unqualified. What does an "outsider" actually look like to you?

There is truth to that, especially since "drain the swamp" was another of those marketing terms used to make the rubes think they were actually voting for an outsider who was going to shake things up. Since "say what they want to hear" is always replaced with "do what you want" when the need to pander is over. Which will be extremely effective for Trump, since I tend to believe a sizable number of his supporters are the CC types who're in love with his outspoken ways, so they'll be on his side no matter what he does as long as he keeps taking breaks to bitch at people on Twitter.

Heretic;1828424 wrote:as long as he keeps taking breaks to bitch at people on Twitter.

I'm hoping he takes breaks from Twitter to do actual work

gut;1828421 wrote:That's a bit disingenuous if every successful person - who most acknowledge is an important qualification for this - is just going to be labeled as connected or an insider. You're not going to limit yourself to burger flippers for Sec State just because those are the only people 100% completely unadulterated by insiders and industry.

I mean, who do you suggest he picks? Take an experienced military person = insider. Take a successful exec = crony capitalist. Take a governor = insider. Someone from Wall Street = crony capitalist. Ben Carson for HUD = unqualified. What does an "outsider" actually look like to you?

They are people the Democrats would have installed.

I still think Trump is a national embarrassment and his cabinet picks are atrocious, however I also remember conservatives slamming Obama's cabinet picks for years. Shoe is just on the other foot.

sleeper;1828432 wrote:They are people the Democrats would have installed.

I still think Trump is a national embarrassment and his cabinet picks are atrocious, however I also remember conservatives slamming Obama's cabinet picks for years. Shoe is just on the other foot.

I guess my point having some alligators doesn't prevent you from draining the swamp - alligators eat their young....

gut;1828433 wrote:I guess my point having some alligators doesn't prevent you from draining the swamp - alligators eat their young....

I mean, he is kinda draining the swamp. He's picking non-politicians from industry for most of the positions which is entirely different than how HRC would have built the team.

Heretic;1828412 wrote:Which no one should be surprised by, as "Make America Great Again" is the sort of thing that sounds like it was brought to you by the team that invented "Hope and Change".

There wasn't even that much effort put into it. He just took it from one of Reagan's campaigns.

gut;1828421 wrote:That's a bit disingenuous if every successful person - who most acknowledge is an important qualification for this - is just going to be labeled as connected or an insider. You're not going to limit yourself to burger flippers for Sec State just because those are the only people 100% completely unadulterated by insiders and industry.

I'm not suggesting one would limit themselves to burger flippers. However, I think there is certainly more of a spectrum than minimum wage employees and Fortune 100 executives from companies with ties to political pockets.

There are certainly successful people who didn't inherit or interview their way into an already-successful company. In fact, I'd say a successful entrepreneur is a better demonstration of "successful" than someone who was hired as a CEO of an already-successful company. That isn't to suggest that there isn't effort or skill required in either, but if you're going to campaign as though your administration will be more than a changing of the guard, it should probably look like more than a changing of the guard.

I'm not even necessarily suggesting that the strategy of picking political figures and chronic corporate execs is inherently wrong. It has been a fairly consistent strategy to date.

But if you're going to do the same thing your predecessors have done, perhaps pitching yourself as a big agent of change is the real place for the "disingenuous" label.

gut;1828421 wrote:I mean, who do you suggest he picks? Take an experienced military person = insider. Take a successful exec = crony capitalist. Take a governor = insider. Someone from Wall Street = crony capitalist. Ben Carson for HUD = unqualified. What does an "outsider" actually look like to you?

That's a fair question, and we could discuss that, but my point isn't that he should absolutely do so. My point is that if he ISN'T going to do so, he shouldn't campaign on the promise that he will.

O-Trap;1828436 wrote:In fact, I'd say a successful entrepreneur is a better demonstration of "successful" than someone who was hired as a CEO of an already-successful company.

They are usually pretty different skill sets. Founders of companies aren't usually the ones to grow it and go public to become a F1000 company. The ones still there in those cases usually hired someone with the skillset and themselves assume the role of Chairman or President.

People are going to make the case that pretty much any F1000 exec is an "insider" because under constant assault from regulations, taxes, lawsuits and global competition you aren't going to find many F1000's that aren't active lobbyists and campaign contributors.

Having a man who "overcame"(that's how you use this word right? like it was an illness) being poor to become one of the best in his field overseeing a program that is probably filled with people that think subsidy is the only way to fix low income is a good thing. A leader by example who will no doubt never have the chance because he will be fought from day one by media and entrenched purveyors of handouts.