Mike Pence Purges Transition Team of Registered Lobbyists

Desperate to find something negative to say about Donald Trump, the New York Times has reported that Mr. Trump’s process of selecting staff and cabinet members is in chaos.  That’s as if they would know.  The NYT, as well as other mainstream papers, jettisoned any semblance of unbiased reporting decades ago, having almost traded places with the tabloids when it comes to credibility.

All that’s needed now is a story accompanied by photos on the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post claiming that Trump is hiding in the Trump Tower some of those bug-eyed space aliens for the destruction of the last vestiges of these papers’ credibility to be complete.

All that good fun aside, here’s a look at what is happening according to CBS.

President-elect Donald Trump continues to shake up his transition with only 65 days until he assumes the Oval Office.

Mr. Trump’s advisers were coming and going from Trump Tower Tuesday amid a flurry of changes to his transition team. The Trump transition is revamping almost everything. Vice President-elect Mike Pence — who now heads the transition — purged the team of the many registered lobbyists, leaving them short-staffed but closer to Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”

That sound like remarkably unbiased reporting for an outfit like CBS.  So far, so good.

Here comes the aforementioned report from the New York Times along with Mr. Trump’s response.

On Twitter last night, Mr. Trump seemed to be responding to reports of internal chaos, saying the process of choosing his Cabinet is “very organized,” and only he knows “who the finalists are.”

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to deny a New York Times story that depicted chaos in the transition process.

Advisers insist stories of infighting are overblown, but agree there is an amateur look and feel to their first week on the job, reports CBS News correspondent Major Garrett.

Now the Southern Poverty Law Center weighs-in on potential appointees and nominees.

Also joining the national security transition team is Frank Gaffney Jr. — labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes,” and who last year defended Trump’s proposed Muslim ban as “common sense.”

The handy thing about the SPLC is that you can usually assume that someone they despise might be a good choice.  Virulently leftist, the SPLC can be counted on to aggressively oppose anything that resembles a traditional, constructionist interpretation of the US Constitution.

Rand Paul has called into question the wisdom of nominating Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton to the position of secretary of state.  Bolton, for sure, is a solid neocon, meaning he would be expected to advocate for a strong interventionist foreign policy, and likely leading us to war, especially in the Middle East.  It would be a surprise if Bolton would support Mr. Trump’s policy toward Russia and Mr. Putin.

After defense hawk John Bolton’s name surfaced as another possible head of state, Republican Sen. Rand Paul objected, calling him “unfit” for the job.

“You want to have a diplomat in charge of diplomacy, you don’t want a bomb thrower,” Paul told CNN. “I think Giuliani and Bolton are very similar, Bolton just has a more extensive cheerleading background with regard to war in the Middle East.”

So far, there is much to commend in Donald Trump’s decisions and policy announcements.  This “house cleaning” by Mike Pence only adds to the confidence that Trump will follow through on his campaign commitments.

Source:  CBS News

Photo: Gage Skidmore