Letter to the editor: Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks

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During his campaign Mr. Trump vowed to work for the middle class and the country’s workers. But with each new cabinet pick he seems more interested in appointing billionaires to his team than champions of the poor and those who have felt exploited by big money.

Take just some of his picks and their views: the questionable civil rights views of Jeff Sessions; the Wall Street and big banking connections of Steve Mnuchin; the financial links to Trump’s businesses of billionaire Wilber Ross; the questionable educational record of another billionaire, Betsy DeVos; and, most recently, the disturbing pick of Scott Pruit as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Oklahoma Attorney General Pruit has a long record of hostility to the very agency he’s been chosen to lead and, in the past, has sued the EPA to stop environmental protections that were unacceptable to big business. Also, the financial and political support he’s gotten in the past from fossil fuel industries should give us pause. With his appointment, it’s difficult not to fear for the environmental advances the EPA has made since its 1970 founding by President Richard Nixon.

    
One can only hope that when the time comes for Senate confirmation (or denial) of Mr. Trump’s choices, our Senators will closely examine the special interests (and abilities) his cabinet picks hold, and especially their antagonism to many of the principles of the agencies they would lead. Change is not necessarily bad, but to completely reverse the progress our country has made in some of these areas could become disasters of the first order.

Richard Matthews
Phillips

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17 Comments

  1. Gosh Richard… Give the man and his crew a chance if you can. I am guessing that you are still upset because your choice in the last election lost. It’ s time to make a change in some of the ‘progress’ that we made… The current Prez didn’t always pick the ‘cream of the crop’ for his cabinet and czars…

  2. Cronyism. What the president elect criticized the Clinons for engaging in. But we know that everything he says is true only for the moment in which Mr. Trump says the words, then only true in some hazy, metaphoricaL way. If it’s not a bald-faced lie, that is. This next few months will not be pretty for any of us.

  3. Session’s civil rights views? His office filed to prosecute 2 Klansmen that ultimately lead to death for one and life for the other and a 10 million dollar lawsuit for the victim’s mother. Sessions doesn’t cow to racist groups like the Klan or the NAACP there is nothing wrong with that. He’s against illegal immigration, as all Americans should be. The EPA under the current administration is a joke. The EPA should have jumped all over the Flint,MI mess, which it didn’t. Trump’s picks still have to make it through the senate confirmation hearings.

  4. @ Hrtless Bstrd: Mr. Matthews’ examination of the situation doesn’t depend on fake news. “Trump’s nominee for attorney general claims to have “filed 20 or 30” desegregation cases as U.S. attorney in Alabama, but there’s little evidence to support that.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/which-schools-did-jeff-sessions-desegregate/509867/

    “…he called the ACLU and the NAACP “un-American,” and that he’d joked that he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “an OK group of guys” until he found out they smoked pot.” http://www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502594151/trumps-pick-for-attorney-general-known-for-hard-line-immigration-stance

    (January 21, 2016) “FLINT, MI — The federal government told the state more than seven months ago that the chemistry of Flint River water was apparently causing transmission pipes to leach contaminants such as lead into city water,…” “But the state Department of Environmental Quality continued to operate under the incorrect assumption Flint wasn’t required to develop and implement plans for controlling corrosion, something the agency didn’t acknowledge was a mistake until Monday, Oct. 19.” http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/10/emails_show_feds_told_state_of.htmlaccording to emails among environmental regulators.”

  5. Far as I can see w/ a Republican controlled House and Senate, unless you have some members with some scruples, the whole confirmation process is going to be a farce.

  6. I think it’s time to give some highly successful business people a chance. Politicians, left, right and center (whatever that means) have let the American people down for a very long time. Stop with the class division. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with being wealthy because you have above average ability and/or drive.

  7. Eight years ago, many of us on the Right were very concerned with the hard Left turn BHO was taking with his policies and cabinet choices. The response we got was: He won. Get over it.

    Payback’s a *****, isn’t it?

  8. I have problems with his cabinet choices they’re all too liberal ! All I have to say is thank God the grown ups are back in control of Washington. In with the people with real world experience, out with all the academics with theories that work in books but not real life. With a little luck the first 100 days of Trump’s Presidency will totally wipe clean the ERROR that was obama.

  9. Remember Obama’s “Reward our friends and Punish our enemies!”, which he did at every opportunity. I hope that Trump will do the same, only more so! A lot of lefties have it coming!

  10. I agree with Richard. We are in a scary situation. I find it hard to believe that voters didn’t see through
    Mr. Trump during his campaigning. I just hope that somebody will hold the reins on Mr. Trump!!!

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