I can understand and condone resigning in disgust. But what's the ultimate goal? If the goal is to get Trump to in some way change his behavior, part of the pathology of narcissistic personality disorder is the inability to view this sort of thing as evidence to change one's own behavior. If anything, I imagine Trump doubling down on his whole "it's the rest of the world fucking with me, why don't [other candidates/the media/liberals/bureaucratic underlings] just stop" viewpoint. I simultaneously applaud this sort of civil disobedience (is this civil disobedience?) and worry that it will have no positive effect. What a shitty, shitty rock and hard place.
I hadn't even considered. Am awaiting further coverage and analysis.Supposedly they were asked to resign.
I don't know about you, but if I'd served the Bush administration and then the Obama administration and then two days after the new guy comes to office see four different departments hit with gag orders over tiny, tedious, fundamentally inoffensive little things... ...well, I wouldn't contemplate if I was going to resign but when and then maximize my benefit/minimize my pain. These aren't folx that are gonna go play shuffleboard in Ft. Lauderdale. These are guys who are going to join corporate boards, become named partners at lobbying law firms, and otherwise benefit from the swing of the revolving door. If they pull the ripcord now they can argue that they're ready and open to positions that form the basis of a "government in exile" (because make no mistake - all these "unofficial" moves by various departments are basically setting up a defiant structure) and when the government in exile regains power, they step right back into whatever they were doing. During the Bush administration, Kim Jong Il didn't negotiate with George W Bush or any of the administration's people in the state department or diplomatic corps. He met and negotiated with Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, former head of the DOE and former ambassador to the United Nations. Li'l Kim didn't give a fuck who was president, he wanted to talk to the adult in the room. Expect to see more of this: clearly, the Trump administration has no ability to act seriously enough to be allowed to the big kids' table so expect the big kids to find another table.
Put another way: There's the shit that happens through the legislative process, and there's the shit that happens before the legislative process. One of the principle complaints of civil libertarians is that citizens have effectively zero recourse through the latter, which is one reason lobbyists etc. work on it the hardest. The unfairness is related to the fact that the results of each process are similar, where one has input through government while the other does not. We are currently in a peculiar position where our executive branch appears to care not a whit for the standards and practices of the rest of the United States, let alone its desires. As a consequence, expect far more back-room stuff. Let's step back for a moment and consider the fact that the country is de facto in the hands of a man who gets up at 6am to watch TMZ and whose executive actions take the form of shouting at an assistant to blast something out on Twitter via an unsecured android phone. An end-run around that last sentence becomes an expedient and logical maneuver.
Awesome. TIL.During the Bush administration, Kim Jong Il didn't negotiate with George W Bush or any of the administration's people in the state department or diplomatic corps. He met and negotiated with Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, former head of the DOE and former ambassador to the United Nations. Li'l Kim didn't give a fuck who was president, he wanted to talk to the adult in the room.
HOW it happened is unsettling to start. But one way or another, all things must end. They've served a LONG time and despite my ignorance of these individuals of yet, I think it'd be easy to gamble their time under Trump would have been short given their tenures' accomplishments. Who ends up replacing them is more important to look out for, in my young-inexperienced opinion.
This sort of thing definitely results in (greatly) reduced capacity to project and preserve American interest, reduced stature in the international community, and attendant material resources to train or otherwise correct these losses. It possibly signals to Trump that he should stop being a dick. Or something. But at the same time, looking at that equation... I still can't help but side with the managerial staff in their decision. I straight up don't know what the right course is.
And how sure are we that they "resigned"? Edit: Yeah, you guys are on top of it, was in a big hurry earlier, sorry. kleinbl00, have you previously covered the deplorable Rex Tillerson, new head of the state department?
I don't know a lot about Rex Tillerson. I've had the impression that he's an oil man, doing what oil men do. Considering oil comes from Texas, Alberta and a long list of shady lookin' places, you end up with a lot of Texans and Canadians who deal with the shady. I suspect that Tillerson is primarily motivated by money, and if he couldn't make more money by being the head of the State Department than being the head of Exxon, I doubt he'd do it. Expect things to benefit oil companies and oil company shareholders at the expense of others. Do not expect space shuttles filled with deadly orchid venom to loft forth to secret space stations.
Lollerskates. That makes me like him more. I mean, he might bathe in the blood of babies for all I know but beating someone up because they get along with Putin is fuckin' retarded if Exxon sent him to Russia to get along. I mean, the dude got a CivE and started working for Exxon straight out of undergrad.
Any thoughts on whether Trump or Tillerson will hire a man with metal teeth as personal security?Do not expect space shuttles filled with deadly orchid venom to loft forth to secret space stations.