According to various news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Trump is expected to choose Andy Puzder as Secretary of Labor.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name fast-food executive Andy Puzder as labor secretary, according to people familiar with the decision.
Mr. Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants Holdings Inc., the parent company of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s burger chains, has been a vocal advocate for cutting back regulations he says have stifled growth in the restaurant industry, which represents 10% of the American workforce.
Mr. Puzder, an adviser and contributor to Mr. Trump’s campaign, has criticized the Affordable Care Act and has argued against raising the federal minimum wage higher than $9 an hour. Democrats have called for raising the federal minimum wage for as high as $15.
This is a cabinet of deplorables. Billionaires and generals. The most reactionary possible choices in every area. They will compete to see who can do the most damage to the agency and issues for which they are responsible. One will gut healthcare. Another will gut environmental protection. Puzder will diminish the rights and wages of working people. DeVos will attack public education. Is this what the ‘white working class’ wanted? How many millions of his voters will lose their healthcare?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The electorate – eyes wide shut. How many would now go back and change their vote?
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Anyone who voted for him was either a NEW Mainstream Republican(far to the right of Nixon ) in which case he is the greatest thing since sliced bread . Witness Jebby Shrub tweeting his love of the cabinet picks. Any worker who did so was too ignorant to understand who or what he was voting for. Most will get screwed and the only way they will know it is by laughing in their faces . When granny cries her medicare copay is un-affordable and the Social security COLA does nothing and has her falling behind. Tell her dog food is cheaper in the fifty pound bag and to just drop dead. If she tells you she didn’t vote for Trump, ask if there is a way you can help.
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The usual playbook calls for exempting the currently and imminently retired and elderly.
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FLERP
Very true, It is the divide and conquer tactic that Scot the Dirtbag Walker was recorded talking about . First you go after the Public Workers than you go Right To Work.
They will seek to have it take affect 5 years down the road after the next general . However as it stands now, the COLAs are not keeping up and 20% on a Medicare bill is an increasing dollar amount with inflation. Which is why the Sanders Warren wing was pushing for an increase.
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Christie eliminated the public pension COLA for current and future retirees. The GOP might be arrogant enough to go after current retirees regarding Medicare and Social Security.
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With all of the appointments, at least the writing is on the wall (pun intended). So the question is: Can they read it?
I would give money to know what transpired during the Gore-Trump meeting. I’m sure Gore can read that writing “loud and clear.” I wonder if he will give up his statesman reticence and talk-truth to the American people? Such reticence may be appropriate at times, but now?
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CBK,
Time for inconvenient truths. Gore has nothing to lose by calling out Trump. Maybe Trump wanted to humiliate him the way he has humiliated Romney and made him grovel.
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Hello Diane: I can see the groveling thing for Romney, even though there are moral trap doors still available for him. I mean by that this: he could have “applied” for Secretary of State in order to have some [as he sees it] good influence on what’s going forward–if that’s the case, Romney is actually sacrificial–precisely because of its appearance of hypocrisy and “groveling.”
For Gore, however, I saw nothing that Gore wanted from Trump (as Romney may have) besides to have an informed dialogue with Trump that would, hopefully and again, have an effect on Trump’s decisions and upcoming policy. However, since then, Trump has selection of an oil man from Oklahoma for environment, it looks to me like an “in your face” rejection of anything positive (by Gore’s estimation, and ours) that could have come from that meeting. In any case, I feel I am watching a train wreck in not-so-slow motion with “US Democracy” written all over it. I also carry around a new image of the White House with weeds growing around it and a “FOR SALE” sign outside with “SOLD” stuck to it.
I also feel for teachers in classrooms all over the nation trying to make sense of this for there students. What a mess.
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The Trumpists, right wingers, reactionaries, libertarians, Ayn Randians and plutocrats talk as if $15/hour is some incredible, fantastical, astronomical sum of money. It amounts to about $30K per annum. In other words, poverty wages, especially in the wealthier states like NJ, NY or CA, etc. The electorate (electoral collegians) have spoken, this is what they want for America: a vile vicious demagogue backed by GOP ghouls. The popular vote counts for nothing.
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Hoping to see you in Washington on the 21st of January . Also hoping it coincides with the mid winter thaw.
Yes the popular vote does count for something Republicans know their days are numbered. Hillary neoliberal democrats were the problem . They also know that mass demonstrations spur mass movements . Think back to Occupy, a movement that was crushed by POTUS in conjunction with mostly Democratic mayors.and a Republican invited to the DNC.
Income inequality was not on anyone’s agenda until they awakened the public. Inequality was the key factor in this election. Trump may represent Billionaires but his appeal was to a downtrodden white working class. Most are not minimum wage workers yet in both parties they know they are getting screwed. .
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At least the Greeks gave the Trojans the courtesy of a wooden horse. All these invaders and we don’t even get a ruse or giant tacky gift, what’s the deal?
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The giant tacky gift was the campaign promises that Trump can’t even remember.
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The other NRA: Quote – The National Restaurant Association (NRA) is a trade association for the approximately $709 billion restaurant industry, according to its own reports,[1][2] and had a total annual revenue of approximately $71 million in 2013.[3] The NRA has been a major force in keeping the federal tipped minimum wage at $2.13 for restaurant workers for 20 years. As discussed below, it and its member companies represent a lobbying powerhouse working against state minimum wage increases and paid sick leave for workers. End quote
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Restaurant_Association
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RSS: The scariest thing yet to me was Trump’s tweeting to that Union Leader who corrected him on his numbers. Trump blamed the Union leader for the company leaving the US! What would Trump want him to do?–reduce worker wages to slave level and erase benefits so businesses would stay? (Unions are such a great threat to the power of business?) Trump reminds me of that Abba glop-thing in Star Wars. And then there were death threats to the Union leader and his family, like Hitler’s group of “Brown Shirts.” RSS: Really Scary Sxxt.
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I wonder if the people who voted for Trump realize yet that he is handing the the hen house over to the foxes?
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not yet
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Joel: They’re invested now.
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