Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Don't Blame Donald

Rich Galen

Thursday December 15, 2016

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As you know, I am a Trump Agnostic. I was never a #NeverTrump. And I have not been a Trump Denier. He's going to be President, he won fair and square (however improbably), and at noon on January 20th he will be invested with all the rights and privileges pertaining to being at the top of the Article II food chain.

What I am not certain of, is how he will react to the inevitable challenges that will darken the door of the Oval Office. We know that, even now, he reacts - overreacts - to any verbal attack he perceives as personal. He has not had to react to an attack - verbal or otherwise - on the United States because he is still 36 days from having to react to an attack - verbal or otherwise - on the United States.

He is moving ahead with his major picks for high office. There are about 4,000 federal jobs that involve a Presidential appointment. Of those, about 1,200 also require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

That's a lot of people to hire and, they won't all be on board by Inauguration Day. Far from it.

In my mind a President gets to have the people around him that he thinks will do the best job. If some of them are mistakes, the Constitution rides to the rescue. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 reads:

[The President] shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint � Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States �"

Naturally, President-elect Trump's appointments reflect his take on the world. His nominee for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder, is the CEO of the company that runs fast food outlets Hardees and Carl's, Jr. His take on raising minimum wages is different from someone who has been a, I don't know, Community Organizer.

Trump's pick for EPA Administrator, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has been a leading antagonist of what he has considered regulatory overreach, suing the EPA on behalf of the people of Oklahoma.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry as the incoming Secretary of Energy will provide years of giggles as the "Oops" moment is replayed over and over again. For those who slept through that class, in a 2011 debate, Perry said he would dismantle three Departments: "Commerce, Education and �"

He couldn't remember the third one, which turned out to be the Department of Energy, and when he continued to draw a blank he simply said, "Oops."

These are three of the appointments, not the only ones, certainly, that Liberals point to as the end of the domestic world.

They are angry with Donald Trump for picking them and they are vowing to fight to keep them from being confirmed or, if they are confirmed, being effective.

Guess what?

Their ire is misplaced.

If you want to be angry about Donald Trump's picks, blame Hillary for losing the election.

FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to the Congress about finding thousands of State Department-related emails on the laptop belonging to the husband of one of Hillary Clinton's top aides, Huma Abedin.

No one has ever explained how Huma's emails ended up on Anthony Weiner's laptop, but here's what we DO know: if Hillary Clinton had never evaded State Department rules and protocols and set up her private email system, those emails wouldn't have ended up on Weiner's laptop and Comey would have had nothing to investigate.

The hacking of campaign chairman John Podesta's Gmail account which accounted for daily giggles for Washington insiders occurred because he was told to click on a phishing email telling him to change his password.

He did and his password immediately became the front door key to steal his emails and have Wikileaks publish them.

If the voting public conflated Podesta's email problems with Hillary's, that was not Donald Trump's (nor James Comey's) fault.

Finally, the Democratic National Committee and the FBI acted like a Mack Sennett movie when the DNC's computer contractor thought the FBI agent who called to suggest their system had been hacked might be a joke.

The FBI, as the New York Times pointed out, was a half-mile up the street from the DNC but never thought to send an agent over to speak to an actual senior official about the situation which turned out to be (a) a very big deal, and (b) not the fault of Donald Trump.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: LOTS o' links today including Rick Perry's "Oops" video, FBI Director James Comey's letter, Anthony Weiner's laptop, the NY Times piece on the hacking of the DNC, and the Wikipedia entry for Mack Sennott.

The Mullfoto is from taxicab in downtown DC yesterday.

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