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Trump's Cabinet and Advisors (1 Viewer)

No Trump blood there.  Not really related.

But good grief, who wants to work for their father in law?

 
I have way more issue with Flynn or Bannon than I do with Kushner.  That dude pulled Ivanka, he's got skills.  :thumbup:

 
His cabinet? Billionaires with spotty histories - yea, they care about us. 

Really disappointing Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon aren't involved, more stand-up guys that really should be helping out here.

 
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Apparently what makes this legal is that he won't be paid a salary, which the Trump team believes allows for the avoidance of both nepotism laws and the requirement for financial disclosure. 

So basically if you are rich enough that the low six-figure salary I would guess comes along with these positions isn't important to you, the normal gov't ethics rules don't apply. Awesome. 

 
Apparently what makes this legal is that he won't be paid a salary, which the Trump team believes allows for the avoidance of both nepotism laws and the requirement for financial disclosure. 

So basically if you are rich enough that the low six-figure salary I would guess comes along with these positions isn't important to you, the normal gov't ethics rules don't apply. Awesome. 
And he gets to stay on at his current position? 

 
There are real issues to discuss about our future President. He may or may not approve the repeal of Obamacare without a replacement. He may or may not create tarrifs against Mexico, and possibly hurt commerce in California and Texas with an  (IMO) unnecessary wall. He may or may not walk away from the Iran deal and threaten our trade relationship with China. 

Whatever your position is on these issues they are all very important and affect real people. Why are we wasting our time on who he hires? Let him hire his 10 year old son to run our cyber system. I don't care. Let's move on to the issues that matter. 

 
And he gets to stay on at his current position? 
No, he's stepping down but it sounds like at least some of his holdings are staying in his family. 

For the record I don't particularly have a problem with Kushner serving in an advisory capacity and nepotism is probably the least of our worries. But he should have full financial disclosure and I agree with something David Frum wrote earlier about it:

By the way, even if you’re not doing it to defeat disclosure, forgoing salary is wrong. Give the money to charity if you can afford to, but it’s wrong, offensive, anti-republican to deliver this implicit criticism of those in public service who live on their public salaries. “No, no, don’t worry about me, I’ll just help myself to what I find in the fridge” is exactly the attitude we don’t want in public officials

 
Whatever your position is on these issues they are all very important and affect real people. Why are we wasting our time on who he hires? Let him hire his 10 year old son to run our cyber system. I don't care. Let's move on to the issues that matter. 
Because there is no way that the President can do everything alone, and must rely on the people he surrounds himself with.  I would argue the cabinet is just as important as the President.

 
Because there is no way that the President can do everything alone, and must rely on the people he surrounds himself with.  I would argue the cabinet is just as important as the President.
Of course they are, but, just as with Trump, the criticism should begin once they start doing bad things, not before. Trump was elected; within reason, he should be able to appoint whomever he likes. 

Even those most critical of Obama's first attorney general (I was not one of them) didn't chime in about it until after he started doing things at his job they disapproved of. 

 
There are real issues to discuss about our future President. He may or may not approve the repeal of Obamacare without a replacement. He may or may not create tarrifs against Mexico, and possibly hurt commerce in California and Texas with an  (IMO) unnecessary wall. He may or may not walk away from the Iran deal and threaten our trade relationship with China. 

Whatever your position is on these issues they are all very important and affect real people. Why are we wasting our time on who he hires? Let him hire his 10 year old son to run our cyber system. I don't care. Let's move on to the issues that matter. 
I mostly agree with this and in many ways would prefer he lean into the crazy. That said, the side-stepping or short-cutting of full disclosure and divestiture shouldn't be tolerated. We should all follow Mitch McConnell's words on this front. The mark-up is Chuck Schumer sending this back to McConnell in regards to Trump's nominees. 

 
Of course they are, but, just as with Trump, the criticism should begin once they start doing bad things, not before. Trump was elected; within reason, he should be able to appoint whomever he likes. 

Even those most critical of Obama's first attorney general (I was not one of them) didn't chime in about it until after he started doing things at his job they disapproved of. 
I tend to agree with you, but I also think some of his picks deserve some criticism.  Off the top of my head:

DeVos (Secretary of Education) - Wants to privatize our public school system

Perry (Secretary of Energy) - On record as having said he wants to get rid of this department entirely.

Pruitt (EPA Admin) - Climate change denier and as AG sued the EPA multiple times.

There are probably a couple more I am forgetting, but I consider these to be egregious nominations.

 
I tend to agree with you, but I also think some of his picks deserve some criticism.  Off the top of my head:

DeVos (Secretary of Education) - Wants to privatize our public school system

Perry (Secretary of Energy) - On record as having said he wants to get rid of this department entirely.

Pruitt (EPA Admin) - Climate change denier and as AG sued the EPA multiple times.

There are probably a couple more I am forgetting, but I consider these to be egregious nominations.
They're egregious to me too, but that is because I probably share your "liberal" philosophical views on these subjects. But none of them are incompetent picks; in each case they represent mainstream conservative arguments that have been made for decades now. 

Should it be a mainstream conservative argument that climate change is a hoax? IMO, absolutely not. But it is. 

 
There are real issues to discuss about our future President. He may or may not approve the repeal of Obamacare without a replacement. He may or may not create tarrifs against Mexico, and possibly hurt commerce in California and Texas with an  (IMO) unnecessary wall. He may or may not walk away from the Iran deal and threaten our trade relationship with China. 

Whatever your position is on these issues they are all very important and affect real people. Why are we wasting our time on who he hires? Let him hire his 10 year old son to run our cyber system. I don't care. Let's move on to the issues that matter. 
I would agree with you if we were just talking about policy or intellectual disagreements with his nominees.  But stuff like hiring his relatives as advisors is a big step too far.  Trump is showing every sign of using his office as a vehicle for his own personal enrichment.  In principle, all of us should agree that that is terrible and way over the line.  I know you're fine with this sort of thing from the now-deleted Hillary thread, and I will give you credit for being consistent, but you're still wrong.

 
There are real issues to discuss about our future President. He may or may not approve the repeal of Obamacare without a replacement. He may or may not create tarrifs against Mexico, and possibly hurt commerce in California and Texas with an  (IMO) unnecessary wall. He may or may not walk away from the Iran deal and threaten our trade relationship with China. 

Whatever your position is on these issues they are all very important and affect real people. Why are we wasting our time on who he hires? Let him hire his 10 year old son to run our cyber system. I don't care. Let's move on to the issues that matter. 
I've heard that he's dangerous

 
Trump won, he can pick his cabinet.  What he can't do are ignore ethics rules, nepotism rules, and just do whatever the hell he wants as president.  

We have a system that has checks and balances and if we're not allowing it to work, then we're setting ourselves up for problems.  Let him pick whoever he wants, but let them go through the appropriate vetting process, and be sure they pass whatever rules there are to prevent conflicts of interest, or other issues.  Skirting ethical and nepotism laws is a pretty concerning way to kick off your administration, but hell, he is unethical and he breaks a ton of rules and it got him the presidency...nothing he's seen so far has shown him that he can't just do whatever the hell he wants.  If we accept his mindset and have no problem with what he's doing, we're basically enabling him to trample important things in our democracy and government.  

 
I would agree with you if we were just talking about policy or intellectual disagreements with his nominees.  But stuff like hiring his relatives as advisors is a big step too far.  Trump is showing every sign of using his office as a vehicle for his own personal enrichment.  In principle, all of us should agree that that is terrible and way over the line.  I know you're fine with this sort of thing from the now-deleted Hillary thread, and I will give you credit for being consistent, but you're still wrong.
I'm not fine with it. But "showing every sign" is not the same as actually doing it, which is the point I made in defense of Hillary. I don't care what buddies and relatives Trump hires. I DO care if he uses the office for personal corruption, But you need to prove it. And until you do, we're wasting time discussing it as it's inevitably used as a partisan issue to prevent an effective presidency.

 
That sucks but I bet if more reporters did in-depth investigations on various Administration's staff histories they'd find plaigiarism all over the place. Hell, Biden plagiarized a speech and he's Vice POTUS.
What's worse is that her dissertation had to do with altruism in Otospermophilus beechey

 
That sucks but I bet if more reporters did in-depth investigations on various Administration's staff histories they'd find plaigiarism all over the place. Hell, Biden plagiarized a speech and he's Vice POTUS.
Good point about the plagiarism but why did you decide to not go full acronym with  VPOTUS? 

 
There was a pretty in-depth article a while back on Kushner that revealed how he is basically to be credited with Trump's win. He was instrumental in alot of social media micro targeting of voters. He's basically Donald's right hand man.

 
Apparently what makes this legal is that he won't be paid a salary, which the Trump team believes allows for the avoidance of both nepotism laws and the requirement for financial disclosure. 

So basically if you are rich enough that the low six-figure salary I would guess comes along with these positions isn't important to you, the normal gov't ethics rules don't apply. Awesome. 
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/01/09/the-antideficiency-act/

The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from

making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(A).

involving the government in any obligation to pay money before funds have been appropriated for that purpose, unless otherwise allowed by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(B).

accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342.

making obligations or expenditures in excess of an apportionment or reapportionment, or in excess of the amount permitted by agency regulations. 31 U.S.C. § 1517(a).

Federal employees who violate the Antideficiency Act are subject to two types of sanctions: administrative and penal. Employees may be subject to appropriate administrative discipline including, when circumstances warrant, suspension from duty without pay or removal from office. In addition, employees may also be subject to fines, imprisonment, or both.

 

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