Buddy System

Do you remember when you were in your American history class and learned about cronyism?  In case you forgot here is the definition:

The practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations.  

Now that you are refreshed lets look at the current storyline of Trump's cabinet setup.  The Trump platform promised to "drain the swamp" aka take undue influence out of politics.  Anyone with clear foresight knows that a shrewd businessman and a clever politician are two sides of the same coin so it should not have been a surprise at the people he has been nominating for his cabinet.  Speaking of which, let's look at some of his picks so far:

• Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
• Tillerson is the CEO of Exxon, makes $27.2 Million a year, and has ties to Russia (for proof see his Russian Order of Friendship)
• Secretary of Treasury: Steve Mnuchin
• Former Goldman Sachs banker and hedge fund manager.  
• Secretary of Defense: James Mattis
• Mattis hasn't been retired for longer than seven years which means Congress will have to waive his ineligibility.  He does believe that Trump's statements towards Russia are ill-informed.  
• Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
• Anti-immigration and wants Trumps wall to keep illegal immigrants out.  He also wants to limit legal immigration.
• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price
• Voted to prohibit funding to NPR and to extend the PATRIOT Act.  Also voted on HR 6910 to extend oil and natural gas drilling.
• Secretary of Labor: Andrew Pudzer
• Chief executive of CKE Restaurants.  Previously he was a prominent pro-life lawyer, is against paid sick leave, and wants to appeal the Affordable Care Act.  Also note-worthy is that he donated $332,000 to Trump's campaign.
• Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos
• DeVos wants to have more religion in public schools as well as increase the use of vouchers for private/charter schools. 
• Secretary of Energy: Rick Perry
• Perry is being nominated to a department he wanted to eliminate... which he had to say "oops" when he could not remember that he said he wanted to get rid of said department.

This is not draining the swamp, this is covering it with concrete and putting a Trump building on top of it.  Outside of Mattis, every person in his list satisfies his checklist of being either extremely rich, far-right politics, and/or a major contributor to his campaign.  Many of these people will undue the every inch of progress that has been made to make the US a better country as well as having a better standing in the world after the Bush Administration left the US to be a laughing stock. 

The people I am most concerned about getting their nominations approved are DeVos, Pudzer, Tillerson, and Perry.  Perry will do what he can to make the Energy department be so bad that it will become null-and-void, DeVos will do her best to break the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, Pudzer will get rid of unions if he had his way, and Tillerson will do what he can to bring Russia oil to our tanks.  Along with having a global warming denier for head of the EPA, just how much damage will Trump cause to our way of life?

Just remember this crucial point: all positions are just nominations and have to be approved by Congress.  Even though Congress is Republican controlled, it will be interesting to see how many of Trump's picks will actually get the go-ahead.