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Thu, Nov

An All-But-the-Kitchen-Sink Cabinet Charged With Creating Chaos

VOICES

ACCORDING TO LIZ - The Fast-food Führer’s win is fueling a market frenzy as the business community and investors yo-yo in anticipation of tax cuts and deregulation but fear what may lie ahead with the Clown Prince and his egotistical erraticism.

But it’s his choices for cabinet-level positions that will shape the next four years that are the most disconcerting for American democracy.

In the president-elect’s choice of combative sycophants, many of whom could have trouble being confirmed, he is deliberately declaring war on the Senate, demanding that they all put their tails between their legs and acknowledge him as top dog.

The president-to-be’s point of placing loyalists in positions of influence isn’t to make the government work; it is to bend the government to the his will, and even Senate Republicans are split on if they should recess the chamber to let the Fuming F*head make recess appointments without their approval under the Vacancy Act.

Which has raised constitutional questions about executive power and Senate prerogatives. 

So far the nominees are, drum roll please…

 

  • Dr. Mehmet Oz TV bobble-head and promoter of health misinformation to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, specifically tasked by Dictator Donny to “cut waste and fraud within our Country's most expensive Government Agency” which, based on the Project 2025 guidelines would mean privatizing Medicare, erecting further service barriers for 65 million seniors, and booting many needy Americans off Medicaid… bring us your poor – hah!
  • Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new office to be called the Department of Government Efficiency entrusted with eviscerating large parts of the federal government and remaking it in the Nasty Narcissist’s own image; Musk has a history of decimating budgets, destructively cutting too much to deal with the fallout… meh, later – 80% layoffs at Twitter/X? meh, his companies, his budgets… but now he could hold his axe over every American’s neck…
  • Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense – another TV bobble-head with no government experience known for racist ranting who, as co-host for “Fox & Friends” fellated the Führer-to-Be’s ego, pushed for preemptive strikes on North Korea, and celebrated U.S. support for Netanyahu’s genocidal assaults; he also advocated for pardons for three court-martialed officers convicted of war crimes and serving long sentences for murder, one of whom – described as “freaking evil” by a member of his own platoon – stabbed a defenseless teenage captive to death, indiscriminately sprayed neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire executed a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper roost… ah, yes, just the man to rev up America’s military-industrial complex; he also paid off at least one woman who accused him of sexual assault denying any wrongdoing – sound familiar?
  • How much intelligence did it take to come up with Democrat turncoat Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence? now a Trumper-True-enabler and known sympathizer with despots Narendra Modi of India, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and Vladimir Putin…
  • Florida senior senator Marco Rubio who has termed Gazan civilians savages that deserve to be eradicated as Secretary of State
  • Failed presidential candidate and ardent Netanyahu apologist Mike Huckabee to be   America’s Ambassador to Israel
  • Matthew Whitaker who with absolutely foreign policy and national security has been tapped as the next U.S. Ambassador to NATO; this a law-and-order dude who, before hitching his wagon to the Criminal Curmudgeon’s star, acted as an advisor to a company fined millions for swindling “thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars”
  • South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, celebrated canine killer who sent state National Guard troops to police the U.S.-Mexico border last year, to run the Department of Homeland Security
  • North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, another failed presidential candidate and fossil fuel fan, to lead the Department of the Interior
  • Fracking CEO Chris Wright with nada in the way of government experience to oversee the Department of Energy
  • Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, defender of the Jan. 6 debacle and strident pro-Israel supporter, for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
  • Uber-conservative Noo-Yawker Lee Zeldin, another Jan. 6 justifer and Delegitimizer-in-Chief cheerleader with an unwavering allegiance to the fossil fuel industry to let loose the climate denial deregulationist dogs on the Environmental Protection Agency
  • Doug Collins, an Air Force Reserve Colonel and legal counsel for the MAGA-Mob-Maestro, as Secretary for Veterans Affairs; the uber-conservative Collins is an ardent ally of the One-Who-Was-and-Will-Be who subversively signed the amicus brief opposing the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 win, and opposes abortion, mitigating climate change, Obamacare, and Muslims
  • John Ratcliffe for Director of the C.I.A. – despite serious concerns raised by Senate Republicans, the media, and the intelligence community during the Orange Julep’s earlier reign that Ratcliffe, during just a few months of tenure as Director of National Intelligence in 2020, exaggerated his qualifications, politicized the position, contradicted the intelligence community's assessments, and sidelined those who opposed him
  • Sean Duffy, another Fox News bobble-head and ex-reality TV personality, as Secretary of Transportation; in blindly supporting a panoply of the Pigheaded Potentate’s positions from immigration to anti-environment legislation to oversight and economic deregulation, who knows what mischief he could create for the country’s failing infrastructure, its bridges, roadways, railways, and skyways?
  • Linda McMahon, friend and billionaire professional wrestling mogul who poured ducats into the Don of Divisiveness’ campaign but has absolutely no relevant experience to be Secretary of the Department of Education, now poised to slash funds for public schools to pay for more tax breaks for multi-millionaires
  • Howard Lutnick, billionaire CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, as the Secretary of Commerce with  conflicting commitments – to keep the economy booming while implementing the Greedy Gutter’s tariffs
  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who as head of Health and Human Services has vowed to fire F.D.A. personnel who rejected using illusory internet-driven snake-oil cures including ivermectin to treat Covid, and who opposes fluoridation and junk food… while some may support the latter, many under the Republican big tent will rise up against his support for abortion
  • The elevation of Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 co-author who currently sits on the FCC Commission, to chair it; yes, he’s a vocal critic of Big Tech saying the agency should regulate the tech industry... but that may take bigger cojones than anyone has if Elon and co. have the Flip-flop Fu*k’s ear
  • Ex-Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General in a blatant attempt by His Overlordship to weaponize the DOJ with a unquestioning loyalist, one who recently resigned before the House Ethics Committee could release a report detailing illicit drug use, child sex trafficking, sharing of inappropriate images/videos on the House floor, misuse of state identification records and conversion of campaign funds for personal purposes – a report that Republican committee members just quashed
  • Deputy AG, Pea-Brain’s pet defense attorney Todd Blanche

“while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned”
 

What a mix of warmongers and sexual predators, billionaires and fools! 

The Tee-Bird’s critics may rightly call many of those listed above as underqualified and lacking in judgement, but many of Oily Oinker’s disciples celebrate them as mavericks recruited for the end-of-times battle to shake up Washington. 

Others call it a scrambled egg approach with the whites of the eyes of obsequious Ever-Trumpy-True-Believers beaten into the yolks of the ubiquitous hawks he has assembled. When pressure is applied, the results may be unpredictable but will certainly beget bedlam. 

As James Bouie of the New York Times writes: “You don’t need experience to lead government agencies if you don’t want those agencies to work… Neither chaos nor dysfunction nor incompetence is an obstacle to Trump’s lawless intentions. If anything, they’re assets.” 

Testosterone Tromp clearly plans to govern with a sense of vengeance, and personal loyalty the Bitcoin of the anti-Camelot, with so many of his cabinet selections auguring a return to “might makes right” American imperialism. Despite decades of counterterrorism operations proving that wars, declared or not, are entirely ineffective. 

Other than to drain treasuries. 

Clearly the Fumbling Fool can’t surround himself with too many court jesters.

(Liz Amsden resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about.  She can be reached at [email protected].)