And the vote is officially 50/50. Fuck Betsy DeVos.

Money wins again. DeVos is the new Education Secretary. Hide your kids! At least Murkowski and Collins stuck by their guns on this; I think they deserve a lot of credit.

traderdave wrote:Money wins again. DeVos is the new Education Secretary. Hide your kids! At least Murkowski and Collins stuck by their guns on this; I think they deserve a lot of credit.

Yup. When it was clear it would only be those two, they could have switched sides to avoid some slight to the GOP party.

slugsrbad wrote:

traderdave wrote:Money wins again. DeVos is the new Education Secretary. Hide your kids! At least Murkowski and Collins stuck by their guns on this; I think they deserve a lot of credit.

Yup. When it was clear it would only be those two, they could have switched sides to avoid some slight to the GOP party.

This is a vote that could come back to haunt some Republicans though. The pay to play angle is a pretty easy one to exploit.

every Democrat voted against this starkly unqualified nominee; but, i guess she's qualified to do what is being asked of her...

I was focused on the DeVos confirmation, anyone mention how Trump "joked" about destroying a Texas state Senator's career today?

slugsrbad wrote:I was focused on the DeVos confirmation, anyone mention how Trump "joked" about destroying a Texas state Senator's career today?

no, i'm trying to listen/read less about what he says and try to focus more on the crap he does

still, how pathetic

A treatise on the subject of Trump and incompetence vs. grand scheme vs. malice: he is running the White House like he ran his campaign and like he ran his businesses because he thinks this is the way to run organizations. I don’t think this is any grand plan or 8 dimensional chess to set the stage for some major power grab. And he's trying to succeed because he wants to be liked. The way to change how things are being run would require convincing him he's wrong, and from everything that's been demonstrated so far, that doesn't seem like an easy thing to do.

During the campaign Trump did nothing traditional in rolling to the nomination, and his campaign was derided by many (myself included) pretty much until 7:45 on Election Night. There were multiple power centers within the campaign – Kushner/the family vs. Corey, then Kushner/the family vs. Manafort, then Kushner/the family vs. Bannon vs. Kellyanne – with various figures not within Trump Tower (RNC/Reince/Spicer, the Mercers, etc.) all exerting different levels of influence at different times. From various press accounts this led to paralysis in decision making, encouraged unprecedented levels of leaking to the press about inner campaign strife, made developing a consistent message for the campaign impossible, etc. All of this was made worse by who the candidate was above and beyond his campaign’s structure, but it contributed to the issues. Trump made clear during the campaign that he *liked* this arrangement with different power centers & no clear chain of command, and that was how he’d run his business. People compete for his favor and people compete among themselves to come up with the best ideas. People fall in and out of favor pretty quickly. It may be an OK way to run a business (though several bankruptcies could suggest otherwise). It seemed like a bad way to run a campaign (though he did win). It seems like an insane way to run the country. It’d be one thing if this was some Team of Rivals ideal with people marshalling different opinions and expertise and ultimately settling on a decision after it’s been tested with strong counterarguments. But it seems like the goal of this set up here is to fluff Trump’s ego more than anything else.

His campaign was pretty dysfunctional and he did only get 46% of the vote, but he won anyway. For him it worked, treating something that happened in spite of multiple decisions as if it happened because of them. Maybe this is too harsh on his overall concept of organizational management. He did win and even now a lot of his stuff is less unpopular than you would think based on coverage. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll found 48% of people support suspending immigration from terror prone regions even if it means turning away refugees (49% of Indies, 24% of Dems), and 53% support requiring immigrants from Muslim countries to register with the federal government (whatever that means). I know other polls have found more opposition to some of his immigration stuff & it’s question wording dependent, but I don’t think their wording is too bad. Getting kind of off track here, but I have to remind myself that in these waves of outrage we’re seeing in protests and me not talking to anyone who thinks these things are good ideas in my day to day life that these aren’t 25/75 issues. But he has historically high disapproval ratings for a first term president and I’m not really sure we’re gonna see them improve.

OK, so steering back toward where I meant to be going. The White House certainly seems to be modeled on the same randomness that his businesses and campaign had, except there are even more people competing for Trump’s ear. Reince is CoS, so he’s going to win some fights, but Bannon’s clearly the larger influence in some aspects of policy. Pence has been the driving force behind a lot of the cabinet stuff and the SC pick. Kushner and Ivanka seem to be whining about being marginalized, but they’ll be back. Etc. With the immigration EO, it seems clear from the outside some important stakeholders (Bannon/Miller) drove it through without consulting many other important people. The blowback seems to have reached home at least a bit with Trump, but he’s not changing the basic disorder that led to the problem happening and will lead to issues as the policy challenges the WH confronts are more complicated. And the leaking and under the bus throwing is incredible so far - less than a month in.

On top of the organizational chaos on the policy front, there is a distinct lack of appetite for jobs among many in the Washington professional, permanent GOP establishment types that want nothing to do with the administration. And among those who are willing to work for the admin, there might be pushback from the WH on their hiring if they were publicly critical during the campaign. So the people going into the administration aren't necessarily going to be a top notch bunch, which can't help. Anecdotally, I only know of one person looking to get a job in the administration. Typically getting a gig in the WH or some political appointment in a cabinet department is a huge resume line and big selling point. Not so much this time, either because people think he’ll be a failure/it will be a black mark on their hopes moving forward or because they don’t agree with him or some combo of those things. The guy I know has a direct link to one of the pending cabinet nominees through campaign work he’s done, and has been told there’s a job for him once his guy is confirmed. He hasn’t been able to nail down what exactly this role would be, and has been told each time he’s asked that his resume is stuck in the White House. It’s not stuck for #NeverTrump reasons or because he's got vetting issues, just they’re super slow. I don’t know how atypical this is from past administrations, but from what I’ve heard and read, it seems worse.

I’m sure the pace of confirmation of cabinet level and other people who need to go through the Senate is also adding to the strain – getting your team in place when you aren’t in charge of the department is tricky. And along with that there’s unprecedented unease with career federal government folks, and lingering Obama people like the Yates thing. All put together it's a great little clusterfuck.

This level dysfunction is occurring while things are (relatively) peaceful and stable in the country & world. We’re not in a recession, no massive natural disasters, aren’t facing terrorist attacks, etc. The administration can’t staff up and can’t implement its own executive orders without turning things into a mess. Once external forces start weighing in things will be worse.

When people here talk about how the WH is going to usher in some right wing paradise, I think you all have both more and less to worry about. It’s mostly going to be a disorganized shitshow with governance subject to the whims of our thin-skinned child/old man who gets tired after three phone calls president. There will be a never ending stream of stories about infighting and who is in/out of the inner circle, all while they keep stepping on their own dicks and don't get anything major signed into law. Who is the last person to talk to him? Who is wearing the nicer suit? Was he watching Morning Joe or Fox & Friends while eating breakfast? These things will matter more than the specific facts at hand or any guiding ideological principles. The White House cannot speak with a clear voice or pursue coherent policy goals because there are 4-5 voices all serving under a president who doesn’t know/care about much of anything. This will make accomplishing anything big really difficult. Maybe enough mornings with Joe and Mika chastising him will make him switch things up and try to get his administration more functional and less haphazard. But seems like we’re going to keep going down this same path. You don’t get 70 year olds to change their ways very often – especially one as in love with himself as Trump (and has at least some reason to believe he’s right since he got elected president of the United States). When bad things happen – and bad things inevitably will happen – the lack of competence/coherence/structure will be not good. It may lead to scary authoritarian lurches, but again I don't think that's the goal of how he's set up his administration, just a potentially bad byproduct. In the meantime, it'll just mean he's less effective at pursuing his agenda (or allowing the GOP in Congress to pursue theirs) because he'll be bouncing from one self inflicted controversy to another without actually accomplishing anything.

slugsrbad wrote:I was focused on the DeVos confirmation, anyone mention how Trump "joked" about destroying a Texas state Senator's career today?

could very well be a Republican woman who he was unknowingly threatening too. at least if that the legislation the police guy was talking about is the thing she introduced, which is likely

TenuredVulture wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

traderdave wrote:Money wins again. DeVos is the new Education Secretary. Hide your kids! At least Murkowski and Collins stuck by their guns on this; I think they deserve a lot of credit.

Yup. When it was clear it would only be those two, they could have switched sides to avoid some slight to the GOP party.

This is a vote that could come back to haunt some Republicans though. The pay to play angle is a pretty easy one to exploit.

lol no it won't. It's over. There won't be elections in four years.

i think that's a really good post but I do wonder about this:

It’s mostly going to be a disorganized #$!&@ with governance subject to the whims of our thin-skinned child/old man who gets tired after three phone calls president

This is all true, but in the meantime Congress will do what they want and get him to sign what they pass. This is what I worry about domestically.

I hope he keeps them from accomplishing their agenda, but I'm doubtful on that. I do find it slightly amusing how unprepared they seemed to be to govern. No one on their side thought they'd win, not Ryan, not McConnell and not Trump. They've basically squandered any semblance of a honeymoon period with Trump's crap during the transition and now the Republicans are squabbling among themselves about the ACA. I worry they'll get their acts together and Trump will rubberstamp lots of stuff once he gets past his 'promises'.

Soren wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

traderdave wrote:Money wins again. DeVos is the new Education Secretary. Hide your kids! At least Murkowski and Collins stuck by their guns on this; I think they deserve a lot of credit.

Yup. When it was clear it would only be those two, they could have switched sides to avoid some slight to the GOP party.

This is a vote that could come back to haunt some Republicans though. The pay to play angle is a pretty easy one to exploit.

lol no it won't. It's over. There won't be elections in four years.

Come on guy, you sound like the left-wing brantt with this tired chicken little nonsense.

Seriously. Even Russian holds elections, Soren!

I hope it is remembered when the time comes that when the GOP had an opportunity to do the right thing and say no to Trump, they were brought to heel. They have proven completely that they do not have the wherewithal to oppose the president who is leading with fear, and they themselves seem to be incomplete here. So for any of the Bluster about the deficiencies of his cabinet, it must be noted that when the time came they did nothing.

I enjoyed this and find pretty much all of it a superb analysis. If a tagline's needed, I feel it boils down to this:

jerseyhoya wrote:.... disorganized shitshow....

and feel the opposite of this

...This will make accomplishing anything big really difficult...

is the more worrisome - that it makes fucking up dealing with anything big that has to be handled well really easy. Feels like drumpfco is & will be staffed ONLY with Brownies


I'd also point out that we already have one PtK and that you're already in our Hall of Heroes

It's done. It's done and it's infuriating.

Also I should add, having seen the business that is private schools operate, I have very little faith the vouchers will be put to good use bettering our communities rather than lining the pockets of some greedy people who figured out a new way to play a game. As to the quality of the education, that is highly suspect in a lot of these organizations as well.

thephan wrote:I hope it is remembered when the time comes that when the GOP had an opportunity to do the right thing and say no to Trump, they were brought to heel. They have proven completely that they do not have the wherewithal to oppose the president who is leading with fear, and they themselves seem to be incomplete here. So for any of the Bluster about the deficiencies of his cabinet, it must be noted that when the time came they did nothing.

They had that same opportunity during the primaries, and then during the general. Other than Mittens, Kasich, and the Bushies, they are all craven cowards.

Once you got TrumpStink on you, it never goes away.

Hester Blum ‏@HesterBlum Feb 3
I just asked a @SenToomey staffer what Betsy DeVos's qualifications were, in Sen's mind. He literally said "she spent millions of dollars."

Seems reasonable?

thephan wrote:I hope it is remembered when the time comes that when the GOP had an opportunity to do the right thing and say no to Trump, they were brought to heel. They have proven completely that they do not have the wherewithal to oppose the president who is leading with fear, and they themselves seem to be incomplete here. So for any of the Bluster about the deficiencies of his cabinet, it must be noted that when the time came they did nothing.

While this may be applicable in other instances, DeVos is of the party, not a Trump person. She was state party chair back when Trump was still a Democrat, and was introduced at her hearing by Jeb!