No, It’s Not Too Early to Grade the President Elect
I knew that Obama was a sell-out long before he was even sworn in, even though the Americans who voted for Obama thought they were going to get real change.
How?
Simple … I looked at his appointments. For example, in November 2008, I noted:
Many people argue that it is unfair to criticize Obama because he hasn’t even been sworn in yet.
[But] the elites are successfully pressuring Obama to appoint insiders like Summers, Geithner, Clinton, and Gates – who will ensure that nothing really changes – because the American people are idly sitting by taking a wait-and-see approach.
Hindsight confirms that Obama’s appointments revealed that he would be a sell-out to the powers-that-be.
Indeed, leaked emails show that Citibank dictated most of Obama’s most important appointments … before the election had even occurred.
Trump’s Appointments
Bolton or Giuliani As SecState
Similarly, Trump’s purported appointments already show that he’ll be a lackey for the oligarchs. (Caveat: None of the appointments have officially been announced. So the rumors may be wrong).
For example, Trump is rumored to be leaning towards appointing John Bolton as his Secretary of State.
Who’s Bolton?
He’s one of the key architects of the Iraq war, who previously admitted that the Iraq war was about oil, not protecting the United States from weapons of mass destruction. And see this.
He has also openly called for partition of Iraq and Syria into a number of different countries … as Bolton’s beloved Neocons have been planning for over 20 years.
If Bolton is named SecState, then diplomacy will go out the window, and aggressiveness and military response will come to the fore.
The other leading candidate for SecState is Rudy Giuliani. Rand Paul says he’s almost as bad as Bolton:
Paul said it would be “a stiff, uphill climb” for him to vote for confirmation of [Giuliani], citing his approval of the Iraq War and his ties to foreign governments. He said it was “worrisome” because “that was a big complaint of ours with Hillary Clinton.”
“And the thing Donald Trump said over and over again was that he was opposed to the Iraq War, and he learned that lesson that regime change in the Middle East was not a good idea,” Paul said. “And yet I don’t see Giuliani coming out with statements like that. I certainly don’t see John Bolton — I think both of them have been big cheerleaders for the Iraq War and for more intervention in the Middle East, so I hope Donald Trump will pick somebody consistent with what he said on the campaign trail: The Iraq War was a mistake. Regime change in the Middle East was a mistake.”
“Giuliani and Bolton are very similar,” Paul said. “Bolton just has a more extensive cheerleading background with regard to war in the Middle East.”
Indeed, Giuliani has supported terror groups in Iran.
And Giuliani is pushing a huge build-up of troops to confront China:
“We (will) take our military up to 550,000 troops (instead of) going to 420,000,” he said in Washington.
We (will) take our navy up to 350 ships, (instead of) going to 247.
Mr Giuliani said China couldn’t match a 350 ship US Navy while at 247 vessels, the US couldn’t fight a war in two oceans.
We need less foreign entanglements, not more.
Mnuchin As SecTreas
Trump’s top pick for Secretary of Treasury is reportedly Steven Mnuchin.
Who’s Mnuchin?
He’s a Wall Street hedge fund and banking mogul.
He spent 17 years at Government Sachs as a prominent banker.
Salon notes:
In 2009, Mnuchin got into further trouble when he purchased the California bank IndyMac, which had been closed by federal regulators in 2008, for $1.5 billion with George Soros and John Paulson. After renaming it OneWest Bank, Mnuchin engaged in practices that the Office of Thrift Supervision denounced in 2011 as “unsafe” and “unsound.” As a result, Mnuchin was forced to enter a consent decree to address the fact that the bank had “failed to devote sufficient financial, staffing and managerial resources to ensure proper administration of its foreclosure processes; failed to devote to its foreclosure processes adequate oversight, internal controls, policies, and procedures, compliance risk management, internal audit, third party management, and training; and failed sufficiently to oversee outside counsel and other third-party providers handling foreclosure-related services.”
Despite this, OneWest Bank’s habit of foreclosing on the homes of low-income customers prompted 100 anti-foreclosure activists to protest at Mnuchin’s $26 million Bel Air mansion in Los Angeles in October 2011. Signs read, “Steve Mnuchin OneWest Bank stop taking our homes.”
If Trump names these ultimate insiders – who have helped cause the mess we’re in today – then, instead of bringing change, he will be the same-ole-same-ole.
We hope that Trump goes with better nominees … it’s not too late for him to do so. As Scott Adams points out, Trump is big on “A B Testing” … i.e. floating positions and then changing them if he doesn’t receive a positive reaction. So we’re hoping that Trump ends up picking better cabinet members.
Postscript: We’re focusing only on cabinet-level nominees, not positions like chief of staff such as Priebus or Bannon.
