The status of all of Trump’s executive appointments so far
Link here. The article is a very detailed and thorough look at the number of Trump appointments, nominated, approved, or missing, for almost all the major cabinet positions, noting above all the lack of names submitted for many positions.
At the end of Trump’s first 100 days, only 27 of 556 political appointments had been confirmed, as compared with 69 for former President Barack Obama and 35 for former President George W. Bush.
If blame is appropriate, there’s plenty of it to go around. The administration blames Democrats for slow-rolling nominees. But Democrats and some Republicans counter that the White House isn’t sending names quickly enough. And a handful of nominees have taken themselves out of contention, mostly because of their various business interests. Since the president likes hiring business leaders, that’s proving no small problem.
The lack of confirmed appointees means agencies are severely limited in the scope of their policy action, whether it’s enacting changes made by Congress or following through on dozens of executive orders Trump has signed.
What strikes me is the feeling that probably a lot of these people are simply not needed. They are political appointees, given posh government jobs in exchange for their work helping presidents get elected. Almost across the board, the agencies involved are functioning just fine without these appointees in place. Trump can tell these civil servants what he needs done, and they can do it.
At the same time, the inability to get these appointees named and approved speaks volumes about the increasing failure of the federal government to function. They can’t even get political appointees in place, people who really aren’t needed and are really only there to pay back favors. What does this tell us about their ability to accomplish things that must get done?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here. The article is a very detailed and thorough look at the number of Trump appointments, nominated, approved, or missing, for almost all the major cabinet positions, noting above all the lack of names submitted for many positions.
At the end of Trump’s first 100 days, only 27 of 556 political appointments had been confirmed, as compared with 69 for former President Barack Obama and 35 for former President George W. Bush.
If blame is appropriate, there’s plenty of it to go around. The administration blames Democrats for slow-rolling nominees. But Democrats and some Republicans counter that the White House isn’t sending names quickly enough. And a handful of nominees have taken themselves out of contention, mostly because of their various business interests. Since the president likes hiring business leaders, that’s proving no small problem.
The lack of confirmed appointees means agencies are severely limited in the scope of their policy action, whether it’s enacting changes made by Congress or following through on dozens of executive orders Trump has signed.
What strikes me is the feeling that probably a lot of these people are simply not needed. They are political appointees, given posh government jobs in exchange for their work helping presidents get elected. Almost across the board, the agencies involved are functioning just fine without these appointees in place. Trump can tell these civil servants what he needs done, and they can do it.
At the same time, the inability to get these appointees named and approved speaks volumes about the increasing failure of the federal government to function. They can’t even get political appointees in place, people who really aren’t needed and are really only there to pay back favors. What does this tell us about their ability to accomplish things that must get done?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Someone who Trump has got to De appoint.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-james-comey-misstated-facts-about-huma-abedin-emails/
This Comey is too inside to both the Clinton organization, on the tarmac Loretta Lynch and all the rest, he has got to go. His insistence that “intent”, his interpretation of intent, related to the actions and manipulations of the Clinton election organization (read: crime and extortion family) related to her ILLEGAL email server and the many, many violations that it represents to everyone who was forced to use it is unacceptable!
http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-james-comey-misstated-facts-about-huma-abedin-emails/
(Your intent to sell or leverage secure information or not that you receive through your already illegal server may expand or diminish your consequence but it is all illegal from the jump. Intent may be mitigating but it is not exculpatory)
Comey has a 10 year Term at the FBI, and 6 more years to go, if I’m not mistaken. Getting rid of him, is almost impossible.
Referencing the Espionage Act—
“Intent” was never the bar that had to be reached. Intent is a total drive-by media-narrative, red-herring. If you mishandle classified information, as in “it’s on your server, in your guest house,” you are guilty by definition.
Unfortunately— nobody is going to be prosecuted or go to jail, for any of this, ever.
“Intent is a total drive-by media-narrative, red-herring.”
This is not driven by the media, its is driven directly by Comey and the media is along for the ride. He has made wiggle room for the Clinton operation and all that have been forced to become legally radio active by using their server system.
Talk about intent, when someone creates an illegal server system that operates parallel but outside of the secure government system, does that not establish intent? What was their “intent”? To usurp the government system.
Chew on that Comey, there is your intent. And that is why Comey must go.
LevinTV:
“110 Charges Against Hillary”
https://youtu.be/-nrrfFCKYkM
(0:54)
LevinTV: Clinton and Comey
July 2016
https://youtu.be/SEs_b2DKkVk
(1:09)
last one from me–
LevinTV:
“Intentional Vs. Grossly Negligent” in 32 seconds.
18 USC 793, aka Espionage Act.
July 2016
https://youtu.be/jw-zTxr7ziY
Related because is may be an effect of Trump:
Erdogan is making big moves because he thinks / knows Trump is obligated to not stand in his way because of Trump interests in Turkey?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/erdogan-calls-world-muslims-flood-jerusalems-iconic-mosque-protect-its-islamic-identity-1620641
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/donald-trump-s-huge-conflict-of-interest-in-turkey.html
Erdogan has been very systematically and with confidence consolidating power of the Islamic kind. Are these potential conflicts of interest a foundation to impeach Trump? Is it a cost that we will just have to put up with and pay?
Cotour–
I apologize to you & everyone else, for mucking up the FBI directors term in my previous comment. I was wrong as to the facts. ( it’s a maximum term of 10 years)
You absolutely nailed it with the “de-appoint” Comey thought, and I just heard where he was fired.
You gotta admit I was pretty prescient and ahead of the curve on this one :)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html
I better be careful what I wish for.
Har…
What’s that Stephen King movie, about the guy who can see your future if he can shake your hand?
I would now say that Hillary and her whole crew (including president Obama who participated in her scheme) might be a bit unnerved tonight.
And that is how it should be.
“THE DEAD ZONE”
Cotour–
thank you, that’s it!
The Left is wringing all it can out of this Comey firing, you know, the firing that had to happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/what-were-losing-in-james-comey.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
In this NYT’s article (written by a friend of James Comy’s by the way) the writer tells of the realization by the American people that we were better off with James Comey rather than without him. (What a load of BS).
The moment James Comey allowed Loretta Lynch to politicize and draft him into being the Attorney General because she would never do what really should have been done, indicted Hillary Clinton, he laid the foundation for his firing.
He may be a fine person and a good FBI agent but he has sadly failed in attempting to ride the political knifes edge that was foisted upon him by the likes of Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and the rest of them. Truth be told at the end of his 13 minute laying out what Hillary Clinton actually set in motion and actually did he comes to the conclusion that she had no bad “intent” so no indictment. What he needed to do if he wanted to keep his job was to objectively give a report to Loretta Lynch laying out the situation and evidence and not allow her to dictate his agenda and do her damn job!
So, James Comey, you deserved to be fired by this president, you surrendered your fiduciary responsibility as the FBI director to politics and your political cronies. You allowed yourself to become a political tool of the Left and you received what you earned. (Too bad Hillary and all of the others that she forced to use her illegal and treasonous email server, including president Obama, will not be getting what they all earned by not, as this article above points out, “talking truth to power”. What EFN drama, Liberals are full of EFN drama, I see it all around me and I stomp it out all of the time)
There are supposedly polls that say that only 26% of Americans agree that Comey should have been fired and this article above points out that everyone is now worried, wringing their little Liberal hands that Mr. Comey is not where he needs to be. I say that this poll must have been done including no one who is able to understand what actually went on and it is a fraud.
President Trump, I point out to all who need some truth spoken to them that you are a disruptor and you are exactly the kind of disruption that Washington needs. Anyone who thinks that things are too chaotic and confusing needs to understand that they are sick, they no longer understand how to properly think because they have been brain washed for their entire lives. If they are uncomfortable that is how I know we, America, is going in the general correct direction. Please continue to disrupt as only you can.
Now I have some problems with you here and there president Trump and I will be expressing my displeasure with you in no uncertain terms when I think it necessary, but I say firing James Comey was very much needed and thank God you had the stones to fire him when you did and take this BS Leftist narrative heat for it.
Lets all keep in mind that the Democrat party is in a shambles as they now continue their drift to the Left and as Hillary Clinton continues her attempt to effect the next elections by starting a new PAC (thats the rumor anyway). Some Democrat please put a metaphorical political stake in her heart so she can no longer “help” you.
It probably works for the Republicans though.
Cotour wrote,
“What [Comey] needed to do if he wanted to keep his job was to objectively give a report to Loretta Lynch laying out the situation and evidence and not allow her to dictate his agenda and do her damn job!”
I knew nothing about Comey before his press conference on Hillary, other than hearing from many that he was a man of integrity and would do the right thing. Taking that at face value, I expected him to give a report to the Attorney General, and if he had strong feelings that Hillary should be prosecuted and the Attorney General refused, he might tender his resignation.
It’s hard to know what his motivations are, but I wonder if Comey thought Hillary should be prosecuted, knew that Lynch would refuse to do so, and made his conclusions match what he knew would happen. If so, then he was trying to justify what he knew could not be justified, probably fooling himself in the process.
If this is true and he truly had integrity, Comey would have submitted his report recommending prosecution, and when Lynch refused, he would have resigned, at which point he could have publicly criticized that decision.
I think Comey is a coward, and let his fear of losing his job (through firing or resignation) sway him into some twisted logic. The goal should not be to hold the job, but to do the job right. I have seen many examples of this firsthand.
The most underestimated force in the universe is the human mind’s capacity to rationalize almost any action.
Gary, you are precisely correct.
Comey played the political game when he is required to never be political and so he received what he earned.
Keeping in mind that they all (Lawyers) have all worked together in various offices through the years and are all incestuously interconnected. Compound that with the Hillary Clinton 2016 election machine along with BJ Clinton and his blatant attempt (successful) at influencing the Attorney General in favor of his wife and you have Comey folding to extreme pressure.
But pressure or not his decision’s and tap dancing brought upon him his own firing and he deserved it.
Garry–
Comey is no Boy Scout, nor was/is he a disinterested person. He goes way, way back– to Whitewater and Scooter Libby to name but 2 touchy subjects.
Personally– I don’t give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and his actions speak for themselves.
I’d throw in a few links as supporting evidence, but I’m totally sick of the Guy [Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!] and all his, what I would characterize as— endless lies, distortions, and dissembling.
As to the original post— personnel is Policy, and the Trump Administration needs to get rid of every political-appointee at every level, as soon as is practicable. (This assistant acting-director FBI guy, is a hard core Obama-drone and needs to go as well.)
McCabe will be gone within 30 days or so after a new FBI director is installed. Another “secret” political operative? I believe his wife received $600 K from Terry Mcaulif for her failed run, I think as a Democrat. McCabe is not a disinterested and non partisan party IMO.
Cotour–
good stuff. Thanks for filling that in.
-I need a spread-sheet to keep track of all the corrupt interconnections. Suffice to say, they all need to go.
(if I’m not mistaken, the IRS commissioner still has his job?)