Morphic Tide
Well-known member
East Alaska.
United States Trump 2nd Term - Planning and Beyond
- Thread starter bullethead
- Start date
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Greater Alaska!
Looks like Haley & Pompeo are NOT invited back to the 2nd Trump administration according to the President-elect.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
The minimum wage isn't saving anything. What he needs to do is get rid of it to stem the unemployment crisis and allow for more economic growth. Thomas Sowell has already illustrated how it's a useless populist tactic. It's not like it will make the Left hate him more than they already do.
As for the welfare, it needs to be removed yesterday. But I don't think Trump has the balls to make some real welfare cuts.
In even better news, Trump is not going with NeoCons (or at least not two major NeoCons) for his cabinet:
Hell yeah. this is a promising start.
Chris Miller would be a great choice to serve as Defense Secretary.
It's nice to see Trump was being very amicable in his Truth Social Post in regards to Pompeo and Nikki Haley.
They did serve Trump's First Administration pretty faithfully I feel. Nikki Haley got a lot of rightful criticism for her actions after leaving the Administration due to reversing her promise not to run against Trump in 2024 but stated she'd support him pretty early once the primaries started and she dropped out.
I've been reading HR McMaster's book on his service while in the Trump Administration as the National Security Advisor and seeing his various podcasts and interviews since then and unlike many other establishment figures, he's mostly been positive in his statements and recollections in the Trump Administration. One of the major takeaways I got from his writings and speaking was this and I'm sort of paraphrasing.
"The first category are people who go into the administration to help the elected president determine his or her own agenda. The second group of people come into any White House or any administration to advance their own agenda. The third group of people are people who are motivated mainly by the desire to protect the country and maybe the world from the president. And I think in the Trump administration, that second and third category of people were quite large."
McMaster seemed to put people into the second category as the likes of folks like Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Omarosa etc. They joined the Trump Administration to advance their own agenda on Trumps back. There's a lot of so-called 'MAGA' individuals who tried to supplant Trump's vision with their own and still try and be under the same brand.
The third category of people was probably folks like John Kelly, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis, who would do what they personally or collectively felt was best to do and work around the President's desires.
McMaster saw himself as part of the first group who sees his job as helping the President determine and advance his own agenda. And when they both realized their visions were different I guess, he resigned. HR McMaster actually talks about how he and Nikki Haley were approached by Tillerson, Kelly and Mattis to work around the President and refused to do so and then McMaster, somehow still sounding professional, talked about how they would then attempt to work around the National Security Office and thus the White House in implementing policy and actions.
Now has Mike Pompeo done things that Trump probably wouldn't agree with? Absolutely. He supported getting Gina Haspel as the new CIA Director which was more continuance of the same. He supported airstrikes in retaliation for Iran shooting down a US Drone over international waters. But in that second case, he made his recommendation, Trump decided not to do so because it would cause a loss of Iranian lives over an unmanned drone. But Pompeo didn't do what other people did in (AFAWK) maliciously leaking to the press, or releasing a tell-all book calling him a fascist or stating he supported an insurrection on J6 etc.
A lot of people bailed on Trump in the wake of the November 2020 election results and J6 as well, including most of his cabinet, and while its a matter of perspective (ie the political elites are afraid of losing their credibility if they don't denounce and resign in protest) there's still an exceptional amount of pressure being exerted on those cabinet officials and whatnot who saw what was going on and yet... didn't abandon Trumps Administration or turn on him even in those circumstances.
It's really easy to like... state this person is establishment or that person is a NeoCon, how did they ever get into the Trump Administration, why would we ever trust them etc... but there are variances in those categories between those who are willing to serve Trump's vision and attempt to influence him, and those that try to work around him comfortable in the belief they know better. It's also important to note that in 2016 (and honestly even now) there probably aren't many faithful MAGA policymakers and officials who can competently run or curb these agencies AND get approval from Congress to serve in Trump's Cabinet and government.
TLDR Mike Pompeo might've been a NeoCon, but he was a staunch Trump Loyalist as well. All of the MAGA accounts on social media shitting on Pompeo and stating how he's demonic and evil and other bullshit... who themselves by and large never engaged in public service beyond praising Trump uncritically and posting memes, probably have an easier job and less responsibility, I'm assuming, when it came to implementing Trump's vision in his first administration. Pompeo actually... contributed... to making Trump's First Administration a successful one.
Honestly, so did people who did "betray" Trump like Mike Pence and Anthony Barr. Call them traitors, but for 99% of their service in the Trump Administration, they seemed to be pretty faithfully carrying out Trump's vision and policies as well until the disputed election. You don't got to like them, but whether you like it or not, they helped Trump a lot in his first term and trying to erase them and others contribution is just rewriting history.
With that said, I'm not in disagreement over not having Mike Pompeo, and especially Nikki Haley in a second Trump Administration. If Trump can, he should get more MAGA people into office if he can get them confirmed by Congress. Just make sure its actual competent people who won't fuck over Trump's Administration with nonsense distractions and legitimate scandals and corruption and the like that can be easily exploited.
What's the sitch?
Well-known member
I get what your saying, and thats all well and good in an ideal world where both the democrats and everyone else are on "Americas side", but we need people that want to WIN and willing to actually fight and put themselves in harms way or actually risk their political careers, because the democrat leadership and its far leftist base are actively anti america and want to see it destroyed. Sure it's good to pad the numbers with fair weather friends, but they are only here after the initial victory was won or apparent. A lot of these people mentioned are probably decent IRL but don't seem to truly understand the stakes or are so insulated by their own personal wealth they do not understand.
I think the best (pausible) choice for Defense Secretary would be David Norquist (who happens to be the Brother of infamous Anti-Tax Activist Grover Norquist) since he was the one who did the largest audit of the Department of Defense back in 2017.
The main asset of Christopher Miller is that he said he'd be able to cut Defense Spending by 50% without compromising National Security, which sounds like absolute bullshit, but I admire the idea of it. So I'm not opposed to him, but I am opposed to basing government positions on just hopes and dreams.
What I really want to see at the Department of Defense, that would save money, is all of the fucking price gouging.
How the Pentagon falls victim to price gouging by military contractors
Almost half of the Department of Defense's massive budget will go to defense contractors. Experts in the field say those contractors are overcharging the Pentagon.
www.cbsnews.com
The Pentagon, ironically, needs to prevent monopolies from occurring in the Defense Industry so that the Pentagon (as well as other government contractors) aren't getting price gouged for things that are needed. Maybe there needs to be an investment in more actual Buyers and Negotiators from the Private Sector that can actually hold these Government Contractors in negotiations. And it's not a simple thing when you have single suppliers, but there's ways of working around it and someone has to start doing it.
<US Rep. Mike Rogers being considered for secretary of defense under Trump | Fox News>
> House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., is being considered to serve as secretary of defense in a second Trump administration.
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> A source familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital Rogers has been contacted by the Trump transition team.
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> Another potential candidate for defense secretary is Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Green Beret. In addition to serving in the military before joining Congress, Waltz was an adviser to defense secretaries Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld and spent time in the private sector as CEO of defense contractor Metis Solutions.
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> He sits on the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, in addition to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Saw this recently
> House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., is being considered to serve as secretary of defense in a second Trump administration.
>
> A source familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital Rogers has been contacted by the Trump transition team.
>
> Another potential candidate for defense secretary is Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Green Beret. In addition to serving in the military before joining Congress, Waltz was an adviser to defense secretaries Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld and spent time in the private sector as CEO of defense contractor Metis Solutions.
>
> He sits on the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, in addition to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Saw this recently
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
Not much of a ringing endorsement.
Doomsought
Well-known member
There is a lot of bullshit going on with geared turbines on warships. It might be worth the performance drop the swap to turbo-electric transmission just for the rather significant cost savings.
The Losertarian Magazine Reason actually had an interesting article on how to actually fulfill Elon Musk's promise to cut two trillion off of the Federal Governments $6.8 trillion dollar budget by first pointing out just five years ago the budget was $4.4 trillion in 2019.
reason.com
How Donald Trump and Elon Musk could cut $2 trillion in spending
If Musk is truly serious about fiscal discipline, he'll advise the president-elect to eschew many of the policies he promised on the campaign trail.
reason.com
Guardian Box
Radioactive Cognitohazard
...anyone else wants Trump to appoint Alex Jones as his press Secretary?
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Guardian Box
Radioactive Cognitohazard
It's not like the traditional media is going to be fair to Trump anyway, or even are that relevant these days.
Having them deal with Alex calling them pot-bellied goblins every day would be just amazing.
Tucker Carlson: Elbridge Colby Interview on Republicans/foreign policy