StrangeSox

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 14, 2016 -> 09:27 AM) This is perhaps more disconcerting than Rick Perry's nomination. This s*** can end the world. I know DoE does nuclear weapons research, testing, development, and production, but actual warheads are under the control of the DoD, right? Honestly given what we've seen so far, them ignoring that aspect of the DoE and letting it chug along at its own pace under competent civil servants is probably the best we can hope for.

Montana congressman nominated to lead Department of the Interior Somewhat of a mixed bag, which, for this cabinet, means he's an amazingly competent selection who probably won't be actively sabotaging his own department. edit: he did call Clinton the antichrist while campaigning, though, so the insane demagoguery is still there in force. Don't really see anything in his background that makes him an obvious candidate for Interior, either.

Betsy DeVos and God’s Plan for Schools

Energy Dept. rejects Trump’s request to name climate-change workers, who remain worried

Every single thing that came from Trump's campaign was just projection.

Tillerson would have made more sense for energy, too, but these positions are being intentionally filled by people who will destroy the departments from within.

This really sums up the typical opposition to social programs from white people who benefit from them in general. And hopefully I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that even after Republicans destroy many of the things they depend upon, they're still going to keep voting for them. It's like those surveys in 2012 where most people simply didn't accept that Paul Ryan's plans were what they were-it's like Republicans have figured out that if your proposals are just explicitly absurd and harmful, people won't take you at your word and will elect you anyway.

I really don't get the huge revolt against common core from both the right and the left. 99% of the crap I see are complaints about individual assignments or problems but very little if anything about the standards themselves.

Similar story last year with Bevin in Kentucky. He explicitly promised to demolish the state exchanges that enjoyed wide support, and then his voters were shocked when he stated doing it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 13, 2016 -> 09:58 AM) Everyone realizes that managing oil and gas reserves, what Rick Perry would do in Texas, is not what is done by the department of Energy correct? Nuclear weapons, electricity grid, etc? The part dealing with oil and gas extraction is under Interior a lot. Yep, national labs too (though that crosses over with nukes a lot too)

Tillerson is also notable for funding private armies in Africa. This is a Legion of Doom cabinet. I honestly can't even comprehend what drives people to vote for Republicans at this point.

I don't expect it to ultimately hold, but there are a handful of Republicans that have at least questioned some of these nominations, such as Rubio on Tillerson. On the other hand, former Sec. Rice and Robert Gates strongly recommend him, and oh they just happen to own a consulting firm that has Exxon-Mobile as clients. Drain the swamp!

I can't find anything recent on what his current support levels are, but I'd be interested to see if he generally has the backing of the people still. My understanding from a Filipino customer I was working with this fall is that there's a lot of class and ethnic/regional divides within the Philippines.

His white nationalist chief adviser's stated goal is to dismantle the federal government. Looks like Republicans are going to blow up about a century's worth of progress in a few short years. His true believers are in a cult of personality and won't ever admit any faults of their dear leader, but hopefully enough of the soft Trump supporters and reluctant Democratic non-voters this cycle pull their heads out of their asses.

A guide to the billions of dollars trump and his companies owe, much of it to foreign entities. http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/...nald-trump-debt And of course trump has postponed his press conference where he was supposed to discuss how his many, many conflicts of interest would be resolved until after the electoral college meets.

Tillerson for Secretary of state. He has zero diplomatic and foreign policy experience, but he does have business ties to Russia. And, even more absurdly, Rick Perry for department of energy. This was one of the departments Perry wanted to eliminate.

The coming Trump kleptocracy, perfectly captured in a single sentence We have no real idea what all of Trump's business connections and debt obligations are.

Arrival was a really solid move. Wolfram has a long article on all of the mathy stuff they did for the movie, including actually writing working software that translates the language in real time that you see several times during the movie.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/polit...crats.html?_r=0 He is also categorically rejecting any and all suggestions that Russia played a role in his election and that they were actively in favor of him, contrary to the conclusion of the intelligence community.

NYT normalizing neo-Nazis for some reason. And twitter restored Richard Spencer's account, so we're giving literal neo-Nazis more and more of a platform right as a man who ran on white nationalism comes into office with a white nationalist as his chief policy adviser.

Joint statement from McCain, Graham, Schumer, and Reed. https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/...src=twsrc%5Etfw

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 10, 2016 -> 07:27 PM) Why would the CEO of Exxon want to be SOS? That is quite the pay cut. Future potential earnings? Does he have to resign his position as CEO to take the job? I would imagine he already has more wealth than he could spend in several lifetimes. What possible qualifications he has, aside from "has received awards from Russia", is beyond me.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 10, 2016 -> 07:48 PM) Here's some more backing this up https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/8...src=twsrc%5Etfw Remember that the completely empty letter from comey was leaked to the trump campaign before it went public, with Rudy foreshadowing it on fox news a day or two before.

Seriously, f*** these traitors. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/...l-to-power.html

Remember when trump asked Russia to hack the Democrats and help him win? And now the Republican party is running interference fit Russian influence over the election.