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The Pentagon has been stripped of almost all of its political appointees from the Obama administration, but an uncertain Senate future awaits the candidates whom President Trump will nominate to remake the armed forces in his image.

Of Mr. Obamas 163 political appointees at election time, who included Senate-confirmed service secretaries, undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, only 16 remain at the Defense Department, according to a Pentagon statement to The Washington Times.

The exodus might be considered normal in the transfer of power: Political appointees are required to turn in their resignations in December.

But Washingtons bitter political climate is far different today from the last transfer of power in 2009. Senate Democrats are resisting Mr. Trump and his agenda via the confirmation process. There is a chance that some of the Defense Departments 53 appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation will be vacant for a long time.

The vacancies give Mr. Trump an opportunity to select men and women who will provide the leadership, policies and catalyst for his two main priorities: rebuilding the military and defeating the Islamic State terrorist group.

I imagine DOD cares more about getting people on board than what a nominees vote count is, said James Carafano, who directs foreign policy studies at The Heritage Foundation. If Congress is just going to partisan split all the votes, it wont damage the appointees in their relations with Congress because the votes dont really reflect anything about the nomination. DOD has to get down to the business of rebuilding the military. They dont have time for political posturing by factions in Congress that are upset about how the American people voted.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney said the Trump team has been wise in giving a cold shoulder to the NeverTrump advocates in the Republican Party.

Loyalty to the president, especially one who was as courageous as President Trump on his position against radical Islam, is important, Mr. McInerney said.

The four Senate-approved appointees still on the job: Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and three officials serving as active secretaries of the Navy, Air Force and Army.

The 163 political appointees account for a smidgen of the Pentagons 25,000 employees, yet can, in the case of President Obama, drive the ship. They developed polices that led to openly gay troops, women in direct land combat, a new war in Iraq and climate change as a national security threat.

Senate Democrats did fast-track confirmation of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps general widely respected on both sides of the aisle.

President Trump and Secretary Mattis need their team to be in place, said Jim Dolbow, a former Republican Senate defense aide. I would advise Democrats to be more like the late Sen. Henry Scoop Jackson, who put his country first instead of resorting to politics of personal destruction and delaying tactics.

At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Mattis made broad strokes on policy. For example, he testified that he has no plans to revoke the policy on women in combat. If someone tells him there is a problem, he will look at it, he said. On the Iran nuclear deal, he said, the U.S. had given its word.

People are policy

Both parties have histories of blocking nominees on tangential issues, such as a dispute with the White House or a government department. The hold is a perfect example of the power that one lone senator can exert.

Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, last spring blocked a vote on the nomination of Eric Fanning as Army secretary, not because of Mr. Fanning but because of Mr. Obamas handling of terrorist detainees at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I will be more than happy to vote for Mr. Fanning once the White House addresses my concerns regarding the presidents efforts to move Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainees to the mainland with Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the intellectual center of the Army, very high on the list, Mr. Roberts said.

Mr. Fanning eventually got the job and was one of the Senate-confirmed appointees who left the Pentagon around the time Mr. Trump was sworn in.

In his third week, Mr. Trump has only one Senate-confirmed Pentagon official in place: Mr. Mattis.

In 2008, the Pentagon put out the figure of 250 political appointees, a larger number than the one provided to The Times this week. A spokesman said there is no set number and some jobs go vacant.

Mr. Obama kept more than 150 of President George W. Bushs political appointees in 2009, including Mr. Bushs defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, who wanted them all to stay.

Mr. Trump has picked what appears to be establishment types, not conservative revolutionaries, for Navy secretary (venture capitalist and former Army officer Philip Bilden) and for Air Force secretary (former Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, an Air Force Academy graduate).

His pick for Army secretary, billionaire Wall Street trader Vincent Viola, withdrew his nomination because reconciling his extensive business ties with conflict-of-interest rules became unworkable.

Mr. Mattis ruling roundtable will be the Defense Departments five undersecretaries for acquisition, budget, intelligence, personnel and policy.

Below them are key appointments for assistant secretaries for policies on Asia, Europe and the Middle East, as well as for the top civilian for special operations forces.

People are policy, said Elaine Donnelly, who directs the Center for Military Readiness. President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis will not be able to strengthen our military and improve readiness unless they replace Obama-era holdovers with people who will end political correctness in the military.

Mrs. Donnelly believes Mr. Obama shifted the Pentagon emphasis to his social agenda and political correctness at the expense of readiness.

Listing senior posts, she said, All of these positions should be filled by qualified people who share Secretary Mattis stated paramount goal: mission readiness and lethality in battle.

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Obama appointees flee Pentagon; Trump left with scores of vacancies to fill - Washington Times

You won't be seeing Sen. Rand Paul, a bottle of fine Kentucky bourbon under his arm, paying a social call on President Donald Trump at the White House anytime soon.

"You know I don't think I'm going to be invited to their Christmas party next year," Paul told me on Wednesday during an interview for "The Chicago Way," my podcast on WGN radio. "But it's sort of been that way from the very beginning."

We talked of Trump and bourbon but also about the Constitution and the need for originalist, conservative justices on the Supreme Court to check the power of this and every other president, something liberals trapped in partisan hysteria seem unable to understand.

But we also talked of Paul's war with the neoconservatives the brains behind the Republican War Party wing that drove us into the Iraq War that broke open this week.

You declared war on the neocons, I said.

"You interpreted that pretty well correctly," the libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky said.

Paul, a former candidate for president, has kept Trump at arm's length, supporting Trump's talk of tax cuts and cutting government regulations, but breaking with him loudly this week over reports that the president was considering bringing leading neoconservative Elliott Abrams onto his team as deputy secretary of state.

Abrams worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He was convicted of two counts of "withholding" information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal and was pardoned by Bush. The neoconservatives despised Trump for his criticisms of the Iraq War and for their failed "nation building" policy. Many neocons joined the #NeverTrump movement and sought refuge with Hillary Clinton.

Reports of Abrams being considered for a top Trump administration post baffled and angered Paul, and he publicly went nuclear.

"One of Elliott Abrams' statements during the campaign was that the chair that Washington and Lincoln both sat in, Trump was not fit to sit in," Paul said on "The Chicago Way." "He was very anti-Trump, but he was also very anti what Trump was saying. Trump would say the Iraq War was a mistake. Elliott Abrams, (who) was one of the key architects of Iraq, would disagree.

"And I hope (Abrams' appointment) won't happen. But it is somewhat unnerving that he would be considered for a post when he was viscerally and loudly opposed to most of what Trump brought that was a change in regards to foreign policy," Paul said.

What's odd about all this was that at the beginning of the Republican presidential primaries, it was Paul who was condemned by the GOP establishment and neocons as something of a dangerous "isolationist." Democrats aren't the only ones who try to shut down debate about what threatens them by demonizing their opponents with alleged sins. But there is another word for isolationist: noninterventionist.

The American people don't want another war, not in the Middle East, not with Russia, not with anyone. The people aren't crazy about intervening, because they know who bleeds, and it isn't the careerist war architects in Washington. Members of our armed forces are the ones who bleed.

"I've been unafraid to say that we need to have a foreign policy that's constitutional," Paul said, "that separates the powers, that understands that our Founding Fathers said that Congress shall declare war. One of my biggest pet peeves right now is that we're at war in Yemen and nobody's even talking about it.

"So I will support Trump when he's against regulations and when he's for balancing the budget or lower taxes, but when he strays and he's for a foreign policy that endangers or threatens to get us involved in more war in the Middle East, I'll have to oppose him," Paul said.

And so he has.

But there was no way I would spend time talking with Paul and not talk about the Constitution. I had written a recent column about why originalist justices are needed on the Supreme Court to check the political appetites and impulses of a growing Imperial Presidency and that Trump's most vocal critics should understand this. Paul read it and reached out to say he liked it.

"I appreciated the article I believe you wrote talking about how believing in separation of powers should be exactly what (Trump critics are) for, because that means that the executive branch doesn't get to act unilaterally on its own, if you have justices that actually believe in separation of powers," Paul said.

Paul said he doesn't think his criticisms of Abrams represent a total break with Trump.

"I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, so I don't purposely set out to challenge the president of my own party."

So what kind of Kentucky bourbon do you pour into that half-full glass?

"You will get me impeached from office if I chose one bourbon over the other, but I will make sure your listeners know that all bourbon has to come from Kentucky if it wants to be called bourbon. And so we're very proud of our bourbon trade. We welcome people from Chicago to come on down and sample our bourbon."

And you're welcome to come up here and watch Mayor Rahm Emanuel begin to self-destruct.

"That's bad enough from a distance," he said. "I don't think I want to see that from up close."

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast with John Kass and WGN's Jeff Carlin here: http://www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.

jskass@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @John_Kass

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Sen. Rand Paul's war with the neocons - Chicago Tribune

Rare.us

Rand Paul: It would be a really rotten, no good, bad idea to have ground troops in Syria Rare.us In 2015, I asked, Why is Rand Paul the only Republican who knows our foreign policy is crazy? Among the crazy characteristics is the U.S.'s constant habit of intervening militarily in other nation's civil wars. It was precisely this sort of ...

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Rand Paul: It would be a really rotten, no good, bad idea to have ground troops in Syria - Rare.us

Being Libertarian

China Begins Talks to Regulate Bitcoin Being Libertarian China's central bank held a meeting on Wednesday with several different Bitcoin exchanges amidst rumors that China could begin to strengthen regulations and oversight of digital currencies. Representatives from China's digital currency trading venues ... China Central Bank Said to Call Bitcoin Exchanges for TalksBloomberg all 60 news articles »

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China Begins Talks to Regulate Bitcoin - Being Libertarian

It is obviously very early in the 115th Congress, but its easy enough to look back and compare where the Republican government is today with where previous unified governments were in the past.

By this time in 2009, Obama had expanded the State Childrens Health Insurance Program to cover more children in families living near poverty, and had signed legislation making it easier for women suffering from pay discrimination to file lawsuits. By February 17, he had signed an $800 billion economic rescue bill, and his congressional caucuses were aligned in principle behind the health care reform architecture that ultimately became Obamacare. He had filled nearly every cabinet vacancy, with people who were qualified to run their respective departments, and none of his executive orders had triggered global crisis or destroyed the countrys credibility.

The Bush administration had a slower start, but this was at least partially attributable to the fact that Bushs transition didnt begin until after the Supreme Court had installed him into the presidency in mid-December. By June, hed passed a large income tax cut, with modest bipartisan support.

Trump has thus far signed one bill: to exempt his secretary of defense from the law prohibiting commissioned officers from running the Pentagon unless theyve been retired for seven or more years. As youd expect of any Republican White House, his aides are drawing up plans to deregulate polluters and financial practicesdoing the kinds of things that have Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying there is a high level of satisfaction with the new administration.

This is another way of saying Republicans on the Hill are getting some things they want.

But they are also getting to cast votes on the worst, most unqualified, and corrupt cabinet in modern history. They are getting to answer for Trumps broadsides against the judiciary, and to clean up his disastrous ad hoc haranguing of American allies. They are getting to pretend McConnells decision to discipline Senator Elizabeth Warren for quoting Coretta Scott Kings criticism of Jeff Sessionsin the middle of black history monthwas a stroke of genius. (Corralling nearly every Republican senator to vote for that censure was apparently part of that master plan.) They are getting to make excuses for Trumps undisguised efforts to enrich himself and his family. And theyre getting to do all this as members of the most important national institution to fully corrupt itself on Trumps behalf. (Democrats, judges, consumer brands, civil society organizations, and government bureaucrats, have all conducted themselves with enough basic integrity to preserve a glimmer of hope that Trump cant just shamble Kool-Aid man-style through the entire social fabric.)

Its possible that a major payoff awaits the GOP. Perhaps they really will repeal and replace Obamacare before the end of the year, even though, according to Senator Bob Corker, theres not any real discussion taking place right now. They seem no closer to a major supply-side tax reform or infrastructure bill or welfare rollback either.

Republicans will presumably fill the Supreme Courts vacancy in the coming weeks, but that is less a dividend Trump is paying them than one they carried over themselves from the last Congress. And their nominee, Neil Gorsuch, is already condemning Trump in closed door meetings with Democratic senators.

Trump, meanwhile, is about as unpopular now as Bush was in late 2005before the Democratic Partys midterm landslide in 2006, but after he had locked in his biggest legislative accomplishments. Republicans made a Faustian bargain with the president, and theyre in the process of getting stiffed. Its just unclear why they thought Trump would treat them any differently than anyone else hes partnered with.

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The Republicans Are Off to a Pitiful Start - New Republic