Do you think Trump reads my blog? For years I have advocated moving the federal agencies out of Washington to get the bureaucrats closer to those that they lord over. Now there is increased chatter about doing so. Trump actually moved the Bureau of Land Management (the other BLM) to Grand Junction, Colorado in his first term. Eighty percent of its workers refused to move. Biden moved it back to DC. Now Trump says he will send it back to Grand Junction and said “As many as 100,000 government positions can be moved out — and I mean immediately out — of Washington to places filled with patriots who love America.”
Do it. Again, this will shake up the politics of Virginia as well.
I mused about what Majorie Taylor Greene’s reaction would be when the new representative from Delaware walked into the women’s restroom. Well Nancy Mace has introduced a resolution to have members use the restroom dictated by their biological sex. Mace said “This is a biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces and I am not going to tolerate it.” The left accuses her of being a bully, a bigot and anti-trans. To which, Mace responds that she is standing up for women’s rights. Of course, the left insists that a transperson is a woman despite biological evidence to the contrary. Incidentally, Mace was the first woman graduate of the Citadel.
It will be interesting to see what Mike Johnson does.
It will be even more interesting to see if any democrat will vote for such a resolution and face all the vitriol that rained down on the representative from Massachusetts who dared say that he didn’t want his little girls competing against boys in girls’ sports.
BTW how did the dems decide to jettison the women’s movement for the trans crowd?
Sherrod Brown and James Carville are bemoaning the dems loss of the working class. Well the working class will never return if the democrats insist on pursuing policies and an agenda that alienate the majority of Americans.
The dems are arguing that some of Trump’s nominees are not qualified. Have they looked at Pete Buttigieg’s resume? I guess he got the Transportation gig because he was known as Pothole Pete.
Matt Gaetz will not be confirmed. He will not get a single democrat vote on the judiciary committee. Even if somehow the nomination got to the floor there are probably at least four republican senators that will not vote to confirm. Perhaps this is why Trump wants a recess appointment so that he can put Gaetz in office for two years.
Bad idea.
I wonder what motivated Trump to nominate Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence since she criticized many of his foreign policy moves during his first term. I am certain that the democrats will have a field day quizzing her on her previous positions.
I would rate her confirmation chances as “toss up”.
Speaking of field days, the hearings for RFK, jr. will be must see TV. He ran his presidential campaign on “Make America Healthy Again.” He noted that Froot Loops sold in the US were less healthy than Canadian Froot Loops. He is anti-vaccine and called the Covid vaccines the “deadliest ever made” which is interesting since Trump is responsible for bringing the Covid vaccines to market. He favored the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid. He only drinks raw milk and wants fluoride out of our water systems. He has questioned the safety of pesticides and claimed that he suffered mercury poisoning from eating too much fish. He also has said that it is possible that cell phones could cause cancer. Mind you, these are just some of his views. He has been accused of spreading misinformation about all of his unconventional views. But interestingly, the research on all these issues – like most research – is not conclusive.
Needless to say, the public health/pharmaceutical/food complex is beside itself and is in a panic thinking that Kennedy will head HHS. I think that this is just why Trump nominated him.
I rate his chances of confirmation as “toss up.”
What about Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary? The main criticism is that he has no managerial experience and Defense is a massive agency. Hegseth would probably excel in Defense’s operational role but not so much in its administrative role. Clearly Trump wants a defense secretary to aggressively wind down the on-going social experiment of DEI, trans soldiers and perhaps even women in combat roles. Hegseth has been a vocal opponent of all these and more.
As to the administrative role, the Pentagon has just flunked another audit. Hey, if you are given $800 billion surely you don’t really expect for them to account for every penny? Thus, an auditing firm could not give the Pentagon a “clean audit.” Doesn’t the Pentagon have a chief financial officer? If this were a corporation, failure to get a clean audit would drive the firm’s stock price down, adversely impact credit ratings and the CFO would likely be fired. Will the Pentagon fire its CFO? Not likely since this is the seventh consecutive audit that the Pentagon has failed and no one has yet been fired.
Maybe Hegseth will pledge to hire a capable person to oversee the Pentagon’s administration and get the books finally straightened out.
I would rate Hegseth’s chances as “lean confirm” unless it gets derailed with the accusations of sexual misconduct.
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