Some Optimism

And it's sobering to think that the incoming administration not being prepared to fill crucial roles in the agencies and departments can be considered "optimistic." From BooMan:

If you think Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson are going to be guiding the pulse of their departments, you must not have watched any of their confirmation hearings. They know absolutely nothing about what their departments do. They’ll have a few big items on their get-done list, but they wouldn’t know how to shape legislation to name a post office.

Because the folks who will actually need to transform law and policy won’t be fully in place until late spring or early summer, the amount of damage the Trump administration can do in its first year will be reduced.

I suppose it’s possible that the reverse could happen in some select cases. In these cases, the skeleton crews might have been a moderating influence on a radical Congress if they had been staffed up and ready to engage. Overall, however, I think it will prevent the administration from translating The Leader’s will into action.

It's a measure of the sheer ineptitude of not only Trump but his entire team that they have managed to pull off the worst transition in history and will take office completely unprepared to deal with anything.

But then, that's probably what the Russians wanted. #PutinsPuppet