Morning Quiz: Betsy De Vos is the Trump appointee for heading the Department of Education. Who is her brother?
Finally, Bernie gets a reply from an adult -- why did Hillary never do this during their primary battles?
Never ending source of humor --------------------- but we know the depth of Hillary's love & care for this position, courtesy of Wikileaks --
Because that kind of reply isn't persuasive to Democratic primary voters. If Hillary had said that nothing is free, then Sanders would have said that the top 1 percent are going to pay for it, and it would have been a big applause line.
I guess few people wanted to play. Congrats to Phil for a good try. The answer is Erik Prince, founder of Academy, formerly known as Blackwater.
She might have asked Bernie how much high school students value their "free" HS education. On second thought, her answer was better, but not as much fun.
Most of Trump's cabinet picks seem intentional. There are a few that leaves one thinking they were simply a reward for supporting his candidacy. Ben Carson and Rick Perry both come to mind in this category. Neither seems to be a fit for the role they've been tapped to take on. Weren't there some cushy ambassador jobs for them to take?
We need to rid ourselves of ISIS. Are those novel ideas though? I'm going to assume he'll change tactics to achieve those tasks.
Trump names Ajit Pai to be the FCC Chairman. Net Neutrality is officially dead. It will be open season for media, cable and telecom mergers. Ajit Pai is a former counsel for Verizon. How few cable and wireless telecom companies can we have? Trump's supporters won't care enough about this but these mergers will likely have a greater outcome on their lives than anything else he does. When Sprint/T-Mobile consolidate the "disruptor" low cost provider will be removed. Already the cable companies are leveraging their copper-wire monopolies to become mammoth ISPs. With no speed/bandwidth competition expect the prices to soar. I'm sure Comcast is wishing it would have held out a few years longer before putting their bid in for Time Warner. The next administration will be stuck trying to break up the next Ma Bell.
When I read about the Net Neutrality law it actually did the opposite of what was advertised, but has been a few years. Treating the internet as a public utility put it under the authority of government agency and would be regulated as such. I work in the electrical power industry which is one of the most heavily regulated their is. We use 100 year old technology. The government (and other agencies) kill innovation and reward incumbents. The same would probably happen with the internet. Now there should be more freedom to innovate and allow cheaper options to enter into the market. In fact Googel fiber is already doing it along with some cheaper cable companies. Prices may rise short term but long term this will be a good thing I think.
More charming Democrats at work ".... Kellyanne Conway is getting Secret Service protection after receiving suspicious “white substances” at her home http://nypost.com/2017/01/24/conway-gets-secret-service-protection-due-to-death-threats/
To carry that analogy further, would you let your utility company decide who gets more power and who to starve? Should Walmart get more power than Costco? What if Walmart said, "I'm willing to pay more if you ensure Costco gets less"? Clearly nobody wants the internet run completely like a public utility but ensuring there is no preferential treatment to throttle certain sites is critical to every new entrant on the web. If not, the big players can essentially lockup their market share and it will be decades before another Netflix or Youtube emerges. Or at least until a new no Internet platform emerges.
running Confirmation Tracker here, if interested 3 Nominees DELAYED by Democrats in committee 4 nominees WAITING on Democrats for a floor vote https://davenysite.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/trumptransition-tracker/
I don't like companies charging more or less to different entities. However, I see the solution to that as allowing more competition, not having a person in DC play traffic cop. The traffic cop can be a source of partiality too. Government workers are as self serving as private employees.
You didn't answer the question. Republicans can do this without the Democrats, right? Democrats can stomp their feet and whine about the nominees but don't have any real power in this situation. If the nominees haven't gone to a floor vote them more than likely it's some Republicans holding out. We also know that several nominees were slow to submit their requisite paperwork to the OGE for evaluation.
They can delay the votes, as they have, but that's about it They were not the only dicks, if this is what you meant, McCain, Graham and Rubio were all holding out for something. I dont know what they got, maybe we will never know?
