Discussion: Trump Signs Executive Orders To Freeze Hiring, Withdraw From TPP

And China cheers. And does this hiring freeze mean that Donny can’t hire anybody either?

17 Likes

Responding to my question about emoluments lawsuit, Trump calls suit ā€œTotally without merit.ā€

According to a recently published Propublica story, neither Trump nor Ivanka have relinquished control of their businesses.

(edited: typos/correction)

12 Likes

He still has over 3000 government administration positions to fill.

Does this mean he will leave all those positions (mostly within the Security/Intelligence agencies) unfilled?

Oh. Your. God.

10 Likes

And so it goes, with the corruption increasing in subtle, barely perceptible ways. Loudly announce you’ll do a thing that somehow never gets around to actually happening. Anyone who hasn’t read Animal Farm, which is proving to be much more prophetic than 1984, go and read it. Read Brave New World too. And read the serious news outlets like this one.

15 Likes

I can’t find the hiring freeze Order’s language online, but knowing Trump, the Order isn’t fine-tuned enough to differentiate between ā€œnewā€ hires and ā€œreplacementā€ hires. The Feds are facing increasing Baby Boomer retirements, so a complete hiring freeze could begin to cripple organizations across the federal government . . .

18 Likes

Responding to my question about emoluments lawsuit, Trump calls suit ā€œTotally without merit.ā€
I believe he said the same thing to the trump U lawsuits. Just saying…

8 Likes

ā€œMy fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over just beginning.ā€

21 Likes

As I said with Tillerson, the Cabinet that Rump is bringing in have no knowledge of government at all, let alone their respective jobs. And with so many former employees leaving and no one replacing them, they have nothing to go on. Clearly the feral trumpers think it is a good thing to have no one who has knowledge of a position to keep the gov’t. running.

11 Likes

By sabotaging TPP, Trump inadvertently is handing China much more power in the Pacific.

He’s more concerned about crowd sizes than matters of real importance, such as him being a Putin puppet.

16 Likes

Baby boomer about to retire here – at the earliest possible moment because I don’t want to work for President* Trump.

10 Likes

I’d say that I was surprised, but the ā€˜punchline’ from that press conference were that mountain of folders on that table that allegedly signaled divestment.

Its fine by me.

The major problem with that emoluments subject, is that his continual lies keeps the matter going and going and going. So much so that folks will have to bookmark the exact moment on how this case started.

By the way, that hotel lawsuit that he started, will be in play soon, yea.

6 Likes

Feature, not a bug /s

4 Likes

Excellent commentary. Trump’s fatal error will be in not paying attention to CREW. Trump must sign his businesses over to a blind trust, or face a barrage of lawsuits from injured parties with true standing who have a legitimate case when his trade tariff or taxation decisions affect their business with him. And these suits will be resolved in units of an independent coequal branch of government.
Trump makes two careless errors here. He claims he is above conflict of interest laws, which may or may not be technically true. What is true is that these rules are at the heart of corruption managment. Just the appearance of tolerance of corruption will lose him public support. Thus, attempts to circumvent or nullify conflict of interest guidelines in the press or in court will bring down his presidency in a flash.
His second error is not immediately forming a blind trust. A simple act such as that will diffuse these issues immediately, and give him cover regarding withholding his financials. There’s no quicker way for his tax returns to be revealed than in a deposition.

9 Likes

Question: EVEN IF Rump were willing to enact a blind trust, how would that solve his problems? All a blind trust will do is to make it so Rump doesn’t know how his assets are managed. He/the family would still be receiving assets/emoluments.

Anything less than divestment seems inappropriate.

4 Likes

If I recall correctly, he never said he would divest from any of his business interests, only that he would give up day to day control of them to his sons. Same for Ivanka, she was going to turn over control to her executives. They specifically said it would cause him to incur ā€œan unreasonable lossā€ to have to divest. The question is whether he has done anything to turn over control of the businesses (not that that means anything to the emoluments issue).

2 Likes

He didn’t sign any paperwork.

That recent PP article was quite clear, about where he (or Ivanka) could go to file divestiture documents.

As for whether he’s immune to the emoluments clause, right now that’s on the courts. If they rule for him (and that’s 50/50), then its on Chaffetz.

yea

5 Likes

No public protection or public health, eh. Just military. Military used to recruit heavily in red rural areas as kids had few options for jobs. So that will read well with them even as defense contrators get their moles into DOD DC offices.

4 Likes

Trumpisms: Military is not bloated…more recruits NOW. International organizations who either support or provide abortions won’t receive USA funding because…well…because…free speech is only for Americans. Pacific nations MUST trade with China and not the USA. America first…

Most damaging is the boost to China. What an idiot…

6 Likes

Limit abortion funding overseas.

I guess no money for Israel as they have govt subsidized abortion and health care.

6 Likes