Free Republic

President-elect Donald Trump is getting his share of criticism for appointing effective, wealthy business executives and leaders from the private sector to his Cabinet. Democrats would have you believe that people who have been magnificently financially profitable in America are somehow disqualified from helping shape American policy. But here’s a different way of looking at the Cabinet Trump has assembled: This may be the most successful group of people brought together to serve a common purpose in Washington in at least the last 50 years. The list of those willing to bring their expertise to the aid of their country...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster and strategist who helped guide President-elect Donald J. Trump to victory in November, will be appointed counselor to the president, becoming the highest-ranking woman in his White House, the transition team announced early Thursday. Ms. Conway, who took over as campaign manager shortly after Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination over the summer, guided her candidate through a brutal and divisive campaign, often appearing on television to vouch for him during periods of scandal or controversy.

Donald Trump might have been a conservative hiding in plain sight this whole time. The President-elect, who ran on populism rather than ideology and was once viewed as a political apostate by many conservatives, might represent the movement's most significant governing moment since Ronald Reagan. Trump is assembling a conservative dream team of domestic Cabinet appointments that promises to move swiftly to dismantle the Obama administration's legacy in health care, education, labor and environmental policy. They will be aided by a Republican-controlled House and Senate that will coordinate on legislation. "I think most conservatives are pretty pleasantly surprised," said Matt...

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated as his Army secretary Vincent Viola, an Army veteran who became a billionaire after founding an electronic trading firm and went on to buy the Florida Panthers hockey team. Viola is a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and funded the creation of its highly regarded Combating Terrorism Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A former infantry officer and Ranger School graduate, he has pressed for innovation in cyber warfare, saying at a conference five years ago that the Army of the future will be built on a “gestalt...

Personnel is policy.” That’s one of the great cliches of Washington staffing, and we have an example of its truth in Donald Trump’s nomination of the New York bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman to be his ambassador to Israel. Much will be made of the blunt Friedman’s very harsh words about left-wing Jewish groups and about President Obama, and these will be used in an effort to derail his nomination. Friedman wrote an op-ed earlier this year likening JStreet to the kapos—the Jews who worked for the Nazis policing their own people. It was wrong of him to do so, but...

My purpose in posting this is for historical reference and discussion of President Elect Trump cabinet positions nominated so far. Does anyone forsee any obstacles to confirmation for any of these choices so far.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Propelled by populist energy, President-elect Donald Trump's candidacy broke long-standing conventions and his incoming Cabinet embodies a sharp turn from the outgoing Obama administration. Trump, a Republican who pledged major changes after eight years of a Democratic White House, has assembled nominees for a Cabinet that includes many business executives who have never served in government, and military leaders are in line to oversee defense and homeland security. In one case, Trump has named someone who once called for dismantling the agency he'd lead. A change of political parties at the White House almost always brings policy...

...With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump’s cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation. Trump, who says Washington is "broken" and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses. Trump's roster of agency heads and advisers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents...

(New York, NY)— President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his nomination of U.S. Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina as Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Congressman Mulvaney brings a wealth of experience on economic, budgetary, and fiscal issues to his new role. Rep. Mulvaney has long been a strong voice in Congress for reining in out-of-control spending, fighting government waste and enacting tax policies that will allow working Americans to thrive.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Mick Mulvaney, a conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina who is known as a budget “hawk”, as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Donald Trump accuses China of 'unpresidented' act over US navy drone Read more In a statement issued on Saturday morning – shortly after Trump tweeted an inflammatory comment about China’s seizure of a US navy drone in the South China Sea – Trump called Mulvaney a “very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink”. Trump...

Determined to hold around two dozen Senate seats in 2018, Democrats will use the coming series of confirmation hearings to try to distinguish themselves from President-elect Donald Trump’s billionaire nominees and convince working-class voters who elected him that he’s not on their side. While Democrats have little leverage to stop the Republican’s picks in the Senate, they still plan a fight. To highlight what they say is the hypocrisy of Trump’s campaign promise to be a champion for the economically struggling little guy, they’ll focus on the nominees’ wealth, ties to Wall Street and willingness to privatize Medicare, among other...

Determined to hold around two dozen Senate seats in 2018, Democrats will use the coming series of confirmation hearings to try to distinguish themselves from President-elect Donald Trump's billionaire nominees and convince working-class voters who elected him that he's not on their side. While Democrats have little leverage to stop the Republican's picks in the Senate, they still plan a fight. To highlight what they say is the hypocrisy of Trump's campaign promise to be a champion for the economically struggling little guy, they'll focus on the nominees' wealth, ties to Wall Street and willingness to privatize Medicare, among other...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet, it's looking less like America's population and more like the world Trump has always orbited: wealthy, white, male-dominated and business-minded. Trump, who railed against what he called "politically correct crap" during his no-holds-barred presidential campaign, is on track to create the least diverse Cabinet in a quarter-century.

WELCOME TO THE TRUMP FAMILY TRAIN We are in the fifth week since the election until the Inauguration Several wonderful THANK YOU rallies have been held and Nikos1121 has been a trooper to again keep the rally threads posted. There will be some overlap with the two threads but we will keep these going for the NON RALLY DAYS..

Pull it together, libs. You're embarrassing yourselves As president-elect Donald Trump nears completion of his top Cabinet nominations (VA and Agriculture undecided), the liberals and the Democrats continue to try and distract from the speed and quality of these nominations. They have one big problem. The public is getting sick and tired of their snarky, sniveling and irrational attacks on every move, every word, and every nomination by Donald Trump and his advisors.

Energy: With a spate of major Cabinet picks, President-elect Donald Trump has made one thing abundantly clear: He intends to make reform of U.S. energy policy a major theme of his administration. On Tuesday word leaked out that Trump would choose former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as his new Energy Secretary. Perry, whose economic success as Texas governor speaks for itself, is a terrific pick who'll need very little on-the-job training about what plentiful energy means to real people in the real economy — especially when compared to President Obama's energy secretaries, the UC Berkeley physicist Stephen Chu, who focused...

According to almost every media report, President-elect Donald Trump has selected Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as the nominee for Secretary of State.  The announcement is anticipated to take place this morning.  Here’s our previous outline anticipating T-Rex: It has also been reported that former Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, would be utilized as Tillerson’s deputy at the State Department. Suffice to say, anyone who has followed politics for any substantive amount of time knows the inherent issue with an operational entity, The U.S. State Department, whose entire mission has been at the epicenter of left-wing globalist advocacy. If...

Mr. Tillerson emerged as a contender on the strong recommendations of James A. Baker III, the secretary of state under President George Bush, and Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, according to a person briefed on the process. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, advocated strongly for Mr. Tillerson, and the president-elect became intrigued.

Trump said in a statement. “He is the right person to spearhead the urgent mission of stopping illegal immigration and securing our borders, streamlining TSA and improving coordination between our intelligence and law enforcement agencies." Accepting the appointment, Kelly said that "the American people voted in this election to stop terrorism, take back sovereignty at our borders, and put a stop to political correctness that for too long has dictated our approach to national security.

News reports suggest that West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is a finalist for the job of energy secretary in the Trump administration. While Beltway insiders and the mainstream media get oddly giddy about the prospect of a politically-diverse presidential cabinet, Manchin would be a troubling pick. He has failed his constituents again and again by supporting disastrous policies, and Manchin’s brand of crony capitalism is likely to make even Bill and Hillary Clinton envious.