#department secretary

[kettle-cover]

Same story

[deadpresidents]

Do you think Elon Musk should be considered for a cabinet position?

I think the next President should create a Department of Shut the Fuck Up where the Cabinet Secretary is bricked into a room with no windows and no internet access and then just has to sit there and drink Shut the Fuck Up juice for four years.

If that were done then, yes, Elon Musk should absolutely be considered for the position.

[kimbapisnotsushi]

can you imagine being a hardworking thirty-something bouncing ball corp employee in like idk sales or some shit who spent YEARS before that trying to climb the corporate ladder and succumbing to the 9-5 workhorse race that makes you dead inside but now your boss is a college kid who shows up to important company meetings in sweats and brings his homework to the office so he can get it done on time and haphazardly stuffs paperwork and legal documents into the same binders as his lecture notes and doesn’t give a shit if you don’t properly file for time off bc he can barely be assed to email his professors the same and will still PAY you for it????? can you imagine???? i can’t but it’d be REALLY fucking funnny

[republikkkanorcs]

He’s grossly unqualified and has a looming sexual assault allegation hanging over him.

🤮

[tomorrowusa]

Matt Gaetz, the MAGA Meryn Trant, is now out of the running for US Attorney General. Not that Pam Bondi is much better in terms of policy.

But Gaetz was not exactly the only problematic Trump nominee for office.

Trump has stated that he wishes to abolish the Department of Education. Perhaps to facilitate this, he's nominated a totally unqualified individual who looked the other way when 13 to 15 year old boys were being sexually exploited.

A recent lawsuit alleges Linda McMahon, who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Department of Education, knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment(WWE) employee as early as the 1980s — allegations she denies. McMahon is the former CEO of the WWE, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince. As head of the WWE, Linda McMahon oversaw its transformation from a wrestling entertainment company into a publicly traded media empire. She stepped down in 2009 to run for Senate, but shelost in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012. As McMahon — who co-chairs Trump’s transition team — vies to be confirmed as Education secretary, a recent lawsuit raises questions about her care for children’s safety at the WWE. The suit alleges McMahon, her husband, the WWE and TKO Group Holdings, the league’s parent company, knowingly allowedemployeeMelvin Phillips Jr. to use his position as ringside announcer to sexually exploit children. The filingalleges Phillips would recruit children to work as “Ring Boys,” helping him set up and take down wrestling rings at WWE events. However, the job was a guise for sexually exploiting the children, which Phillips would do even in front of wrestlers and executives in the locker area, the lawsuit alleges. He also would often film his sexual abuse, according to the filing. The suit was filed in October in Baltimore County, Maryland, on behalf of five John Does, who say they were ages 13 to 15 when Phillips met and recruited them to work as “Ring Boys.” Each of them say they suffered mental and emotional abuse as a result of the alleged abuse.

These allegations are not exactly new.

Phillips’ alleged abuse at the WWE was reported by the New York Post as early as 1992. “It was common knowledge in the WWE — among the ring crew, wrestlers, and executives — that Phillips surrounded himself with a posse of underaged Ring Boys, including when he traveled across state lines and stayed in hotel rooms with the children,” the lawsuit alleges. The McMahons fired Phillips in 1988 after allegations about him sexually exploiting children continued to surface, according to the lawsuit. They “rehired him six weeks later on the condition that he ‘steer clear from kids,’” but he continued sexually exploiting young boys with the McMahons’ knowledge, the lawsuit alleges. “After decades of suffering in silence from their childhood trauma, these survivors come forward now to hold Defendants accountable for their conduct in allowing the systemic and pervasive abuse by Philips,” the lawsuit alleges.

The McMahons are rather typical Trump friends.

Allegations of sex trafficking and abuse have followed Vince McMahon for some time. In 2023, Vince McMahon paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to a former employee who accused him of rape, and he stepped down this year as executive chairman of TK Holdings following allegations of sexual assault and trafficking. He has denied the allegations. Most recently, Vince McMahon is a subject in a federal criminal investigation and a separate lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut. That lawsuit was put on hold this summer until early December. A criminal investigation around McMahon also exists in New York, though it doesn’t carry legal risk for Linda McMahon, who left the WWE over a decade ago, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

[critical-skeptic]

Dancing Through Dystopia: Smug Smiles and Dollar Fields

The normalization of mediocrity in high office, epitomized by Trump 2.0’s cabinet appointments, is a symptom of a society lulled into apathy. It’s almost as if the electorate has been trolled into a collective shrug, watching the nation’s leadership devolve into a reality show. What’s worse is the deliberate design of this decay, exemplified by Donald Trump’s partnership with his new significant other, aptly dubbed as Elania Trump, a power couple built to mock democracy with its every move.

Take the appointment of WWE mogul Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education—or worse, Elon Musk as the potential czar of the Department of Governmental Efficiency (yes, really). This isn’t just absurd; it’s strategic absurdity. Trump and his administration are crafting a system so laughably dysfunctional that it deadens the public’s ability to react. Musk’s reputation as a “disruptor” may have earned him a cult following, but his qualifications to handle government bureaucracy are as solid as a wet paper bag. His penchant for trolling, whether online or in the boardroom, aligns perfectly with Trump’s modus operandi: turn governance into a spectacle and watch as outrage cycles burn themselves out.

This is trolling on a national scale. Trump 2.0, backed by his new cohort of yes-men and internet darlings, understands that the best way to paralyze opposition is through an endless stream of outrageous appointments. By the time you’re done wrapping your head around the first wave of them, someone else equally laughable is shoved into a position of power. This tactic ensures that outrage fatigue sets in before anyone can effectively organize against this systemic collapse of competence.

The sheer irony here is that the same people who fume over the use of words like “retarded” are silent—or worse, complicit—when actual governmental retardation happens before their eyes. Trump and his allies are fully aware that performative outrage is easy to spark but even easier to manipulate. By engineering one ludicrous appointment after another, they exploit society’s focus on language and superficial moral victories, ensuring the real damage—like the dismantling of public education and governance—occurs in plain sight.

The public’s acceptance of these appointments is a chilling indicator of how far the bar has fallen. When someone like Musk, who has spent more time managing former Twitter—now X tantrums than engaging in public service, is heralded as a “visionary,” you know the con is working. The appointment of such figures isn't just a joke; it’s an erosion of the very idea of expertise, replacing it with meme culture as policy.

This normalization isn’t just apathy; it’s complicity. It’s the willful acceptance of trolling as governance and chaos as the new normal. The more absurd the appointee, the more power Trump and “Elania” wield by turning governance into a nihilistic farce. The endgame is clear: to render the public so jaded, so disillusioned, that the most unqualified, incompetent, and unhinged individuals can slip into power with little more than a collective shrug.

In the face of this, silence isn’t neutrality—it’s surrender. The question is whether society will continue to feeding the trolls by allowing them to get under their collective skin, distracted by little petulant moves of social manipulation, control the corporate media cycles by buying into their outrage bait or finally wake up to the joke being played on them and fight for whatever is left of sanity and democracy?

[davidaugust]

45’s nominee for SecDef was considered an insider threat by the military. He should never be in charge of that military. Details:

via @mehdirhasan.bsky.social

[nodirectionhome-ao3]

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in the cabinet ahahahahahahahahahhahaha I am going to walk into the ocean!!!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nick Visser at HuffPost:

President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to name Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his secretary of state, The New York Times and Reuters reported Monday night. The Times, citing people familiar with Trump’s plans, said his decision could still change but appears to have firmed up after he considered naming Rubio his running mate before settling on Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Rubio was a fierce and loyal backer of Trump during the 2024 campaign. If confirmed, he will be the first Latino to serve in the role. Rubio would enter the Trump administration with a full plate as the U.S. continues to deal with crises in Ukraine and Israel. The senator told NBC in September that the only way Russia’s war with Ukraine will end would be a “negotiated settlement.” And he voted against military aid package to help the besieged nation in April, Reuters noted.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) is set to tapped as the Secretary of State for Don The Con’s 2nd term.

This will result in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) making an appointment to fill the seat until a 2026 midterm special election to serve the remainder of Rubio’s term.

[elven-child]

sometimes.......... coworkercide...... is the answer

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE PRESIDENT & U.S. CONGRESS

Enforce Leahy! No funding to IDF troops who’ve committed human rights abuses!

354 so far! Help us get to 500 signers!

I’ve just learned from Pro Publica that “a special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses.” But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal. This in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza.

I’m livid about this. We cannot keep sending unconditional military aid to anyone, regardless of whom, if they are committing human rights abuses. We have Leahy laws to prevent it, and they are not being enforced here. It’s unacceptable.

The U.S. government needs to stop giving the Israeli government a blank check. Israel has a right to defend itself, of course, but the abuses described in Pro Publica’s report can’t be defined as self defense under anyone’s definition of the term. They’re abhorrent and our tax dollars mustn’t be spent on them. Thanks.

▶ Created on April 17 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PLLLRS to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[deadpresidents]

How many presidents served in the cabinet of another president?

I'm not including anyone who served as Vice President because the Vice President hasn't always been a member of the Cabinet. It wasn't until the 20th Century, as the role of the Vice Presidency began to evolve and become more influential, that VPs became de facto Cabinet members in every Administration. Some early Vice Presidents had virtually no role in the Administrations they were elected to be a part of.

In the first 50 years of the Presidency, five of the first eight Presidents served as Secretary of State, and it appeared as if the State Department was the stepping stone to the White House. Three Presidents in a row (Madison, Monroe, and J.Q. Adams) were elected directly to the Presidency from the State Department, and ambitious Presidential contenders jockeyed to be appointed as Secretary of State in hopes that it would launch them into the White House, as well. However, a former Secretary of State has not won an election as President in 188 years.

Surprisingly, there have only been NINE Presidents who had experience serving in the Cabinet of another President, and there's an argument that the total is only eight since I'm including Ulysses S. Grant despite the fact that he was the Acting Secretary of War for part of President Andrew Johnson's Administration.

It has been nearly 100 years since a former Cabinet Secretary was elected to the White House.

•Thomas Jefferson: Secretary of State under President Washington (1790-1793) •James Madison: Secretary of State under President Jefferson (1801-1809) •James Monroe: Secretary of State under President Madison (1811-1817); Secretary of War under President Madison (1814-1815) •John Quincy Adams: Secretary of State under President Monroe (1817-1825) •Martin Van Buren: Secretary of State under President Jackson (1829-1831) •James Buchanan: Secretary of State under President Polk (1845-1849) •Ulysses S. Grant: Acting Secretary of War under President Andrew Johnson (1867-1868) •William Howard Taft: Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt (1904-1908) •Herbert Hoover: Secretary of Commerce under President Harding & President Coolidge (1921-1928) *George H.W. Bush was Director of Central Intelligence under President Ford (1974-1977). While the DCI is a member of the National Security Council, it was only elevated to a Cabinet-level position under Presidents Trump and Biden.

[alasy]

"it died but at least it discovered the good side of humanity even for a brief moment. not many people would be empathetic towards a vulture" 😭

[generallemarc]

Link sucks, but article title is "Rubio's nomination welcomed by Uyghurs and Tibetans"

https://www.rfa.org/english/asia/2024/11/15/asia-marco-rubio-welcomed/

Alright Dems, let's see you turn this into a bad thing.

[pearl-kite]

Sent off an introduction email to 31 department heads all in one swoop, genuinely felt a spike of adrenaline aaaaa

[davidaugust]

trump’s nomination for Secretary of Defense, the weird pete hegseth, accidentally hit a West Point drummer with an axe while filming a live TV segment in honor of Flag Day. Sounds like a great person to oversee defense who can’t stop themselves from axing a soldier to honor the flag.