Trump Cabinet

[screen glare]

Imagine all Trump's generals - now advisers or helping to run his show in the cabinet - sitting with him 'round a table in his gaudy NYC gold penthouse. Their uniforms on - bedecked with medals, stars, and battle ribbons - sunglasses peering out from under the visors of their hats.

Certainly completes Trump's Banana Rebublic Dick-tator image.

The pipsqueak bully who got five draft deferments so he didn't have to fight in Vietnam - now puffing himself up to his vain Narcissistic Personality Disorder standards. Trying to varnish over his selfish, cowardly soul.

What a mentally ill con man. And to the easy marks who voted for him? Well - as P. T. Barnum would say - there's a sucker born every minute.

[Deleted User 8570]

Absolutely!

Rex Tillerson the CEO of ExxonMobil and a someone closely tied to Russia is rumoured to be very close to a nomination for Secretary of State.

Tied? What does tied mean exactly? No matter, I think back to the adage, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Anyway, the best news is that although Tillerson will be SOS, John Bolton will be the deputy director in charge of the day to day operations. THAT is a beautiful thing. Win/Win.

Russia is an enemy... Putin is up to no good and he'll play the Donald like a fiddle. Putin is out of Trumps (and Tillerson's) league unless the goal is to placate Putin by allowing him to annex things in exchange for giving Exxon favorable deals or something like that. Nominating a guy with no chops at all is a terrible idea.

When exactly did you folks become the party of Putin is our friend?

[Bryce]

Russia is an enemy... Putin is up to no good and he'll play the Donald like a fiddle. Putin is out of Trumps (and Tillerson's) league unless the goal is to placate Putin by allowing him to annex things in exchange for giving Exxon favorable deals or something like that. Nominating a guy with no chops at all is a terrible idea.

No chops? LOL, he has been dealing with around 50 foreign countries for years and runs the largest oil company in the world. What exactly were HilLIEry's "chops" prior to becoming SOS? What did she accomplish?

When exactly did you folks become the party of Putin is our friend?

Evidently you missed the "enemies closer" part of my post.

Now, let me get this straight. You didn't have a problem with HilLIEry giving away 20% of the uranium mining rights in the U.S. to a Russian company while Bill was getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to give a few speeches to people connected with that company, but because the new guy has been doing business and negotiating favorable deals for his company with Russia he's a problem?

PUHLEASE!

[Deleted User 8570]

Russia is an enemy... Putin is up to no good and he'll play the Donald like a fiddle. Putin is out of Trumps (and Tillerson's) league unless the goal is to placate Putin by allowing him to annex things in exchange for giving Exxon favorable deals or something like that. Nominating a guy with no chops at all is a terrible idea.

No chops? LOL, he has been dealing with around 50 foreign countries for years and runs the largest oil company in the world. What exactly were HilLIEry's "chops" prior to becoming SOS? What did she accomplish?

When exactly did you folks become the party of Putin is our friend?

Evidently you missed the "enemies closer" part of my post.

Now, let me get this straight. You didn't have a problem with HilLIEry giving away 20% of the uranium mining rights in the U.S. to a Russian company while Bill was getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to give a few speeches to people connected with that company, but because the new guy has been doing business and negotiating favorable deals for his company with Russia he's a problem?

PUHLEASE!

Having some idea how government and diplomacy works put her ahead of ol Rex... by a mile. When it comes crashing on your heads you can't blame us... it's not our fault and we aren't there.

[Bryce]

Having some idea how government and diplomacy works put her ahead of ol Rex... by a mile.

LOLOL Yeah, doing business deals with foreign governments and companies doesn't require ANY diplomacy at all...

[Deleted User 8570]

Having some idea how government and diplomacy works put her ahead of ol Rex... by a mile.

LOLOL Yeah, doing business deals with foreign governments and companies doesn't require ANY diplomacy at all...

There's diplomacy to favor America and diplomacy in the name of America to favor Exxon... which is Rex?

[Turkeytop]

What exactly would a minimum wage hike do to help the "working class"? Well, except increase pay for certian union members, that are paid much more than minimum wage, but have a contract where their wage increases are tied to the minimum wage..

I've read a lot of collective agreements and bargained quite a few of them too. I've never seen one that ties Union wage increases to the minimum wage. I can't imagine why any Union member would want that. If we had to wait for governments to get around to increasing the minimum wage, we'd never get increases. We bargain wage increases on a schedule to which the Union and the employer can both agree. We don't rely on the whims of politicians.

[Deleted User 8570]

What exactly would a minimum wage hike do to help the "working class"? Well, except increase pay for certian union members, that are paid much more than minimum wage, but have a contract where their wage increases are tied to the minimum wage..

I've read a lot of collective agreements and bargained quite a few of them too. I've never seen one that ties Union wage increases to the minimum wage. I can't imagine why any Union member would want that. If we had to wait for governments to get around to increasing the minimum wage, we'd never get increases. We bargain wage increases on a schedule to which the Union and the employer can both agree. We don't rely on the whims of politicians.

Yeah Bryce has no clue on that. CBA's source the pay increases not any minimum wage.

In the US where an increase is rare in the minimum wage it would be a horrible deal.

[Bryce]

The Center for Union Facts analyzed collective-bargaining agreements obtained from the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards. The data indicate that a number of unions in the service, retail and hospitality industries peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage.

The Labor Department's collective-bargaining agreements file has a limited number of contracts available, so we were unable to determine how widespread the practice is. But the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union says that pegging its wages to the federal minimum is commonplace. On its website, the UFCW notes that "oftentimes, union contracts are triggered to implement wage hikes in the case of minimum wage increases." Such increases, the UFCW says, are "one of the many advantages of being a union member."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 1000422454

[Turkeytop]

The Center for Union Facts analyzed collective-bargaining agreements obtained from the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards. The data indicate that a number of unions in the service, retail and hospitality industries peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage.

The Labor Department's collective-bargaining agreements file has a limited number of contracts available, so we were unable to determine how widespread the practice is. But the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union says that pegging its wages to the federal minimum is commonplace. On its website, the UFCW notes that "oftentimes, union contracts are triggered to implement wage hikes in the case of minimum wage increases." Such increases, the UFCW says, are "one of the many advantages of being a union member."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 1000422454

Why don't you quote from a real Union? UFCW ties it's wage increases to the minimum wage because many of its dues paying members are working for minimum wage. No, self respecting, militant Union would bargain those kinds of agreements.

[Deleted User 8570]

The Center for Union Facts analyzed collective-bargaining agreements obtained from the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards. The data indicate that a number of unions in the service, retail and hospitality industries peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage.

The Labor Department's collective-bargaining agreements file has a limited number of contracts available, so we were unable to determine how widespread the practice is. But the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union says that pegging its wages to the federal minimum is commonplace. On its website, the UFCW notes that "oftentimes, union contracts are triggered to implement wage hikes in the case of minimum wage increases." Such increases, the UFCW says, are "one of the many advantages of being a union member."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 1000422454

Nearly everybody they represent starts at the minimum...

[Bryce]

So my original question goes unanswered. How exactly does a minimum wage increase help the "working class"? Where, at least in the U.S., only 2.6% of all wage and salary workers are paid at or below the mandated federal minimum wage. Many of these are tipped employees. Over half are between the ages of 16 and 24.

In my mind, would hurt unskilled people much more than it would help.

[Turkeytop]

So my original question goes unanswered. How exactly does a minimum wage increase help the "working class"? Where, at least in the U.S., only 2.6% of all wage and salary workers are paid at or below the mandated federal minimum wage. Many of these are tipped employees. Over half are between the ages of 16 and 24.

In my mind, would hurt unskilled people much more than it would help.

You dismiss the 2.6% figure as though it's insignificant. It's still 2.6 times greater than the 1% who control the nation's wealth.

[Deleted User 8570]

So my original question goes unanswered. How exactly does a minimum wage increase help the "working class"? Where, at least in the U.S., only 2.6% of all wage and salary workers are paid at or below the mandated federal minimum wage. Many of these are tipped employees. Over half are between the ages of 16 and 24.

In my mind, would hurt unskilled people much more than it would help.

Those that are paid the minimum see a pay increase, that's how. To bring a different group, tipped employees, into this is disingenuous since that's a separate conversation. Nice try.

[Deleted User 8570]

One I didn't put here yet is KT McFarland, formerly a FOX News Security Analyst is going to be doing the arguably harder Deputy National Security Advisor gig... people are questioning how well she can handle being under Flynn plus the extreme workload after being out of the mix for decades...