This week, we’ll begin the contentious process of holding hearings on President-Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees. This would be an unusually charged political environment based on the identities of Trump’s picks alone, but it will be even more so because the transition team has simply failed to line up all their ducks in a row. Most of their nominees have not completed their vetting process by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), or even come close.
[Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s office declined to respond to warnings by Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, who said in a letter released Friday the current confirmation calendar is “of great concern to me” because nominees have not completed a required ethics review before their hearings.
The schedule “has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews,” Shaub wrote in response to an inquiry by Democratic senators. “More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings.”
Shaub added: “I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process.”
The Democrats are ready to pounce, and they’re leading with Elizabeth Warren who is demanding a delay in all confirmation hearings until the ethics reviews are completed. Other leaders, like Sens. Patty Murray and Dick Durbin echoed that sentiment, and even usually mild-mannered Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut was reading from the same hymnbook.
The Democrats can actually exercise some delaying tactics. To use the example of the Judiciary Committee, at least two members of the minority must be present at a hearing for it the have a quorum to conduct business, and “At the request of any member, or by action of the Chairman, a bill, matter, or nomination on the agenda of the Committee may be held over until the next meeting of the Committee or for one week, whichever occurs later.”
And that’s assuming that hearings are allowed at all. According to Rule 26 of the Senate, the Democrats do not have to consent to hearings occurring on a given day if they don’t want to, although this would apply to all hearings, and it would have to be revisited every day.
5. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of the rules, when the Senate is in session, no committee of the Senate or any subcommittee thereof may meet, without special leave, after the conclusion of the first two hours after the meeting of the Senate commenced and in no case after two o’clock postmeridian unless consent therefor has been obtained from the majority leader and the minority leader (or in the event of the absence of either of such leaders, from his designee). The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall not apply to the Committee on Appropriations or the Committee on the Budget. The majority leader or his designee shall announce to the Senate whenever consent has been given under this subparagraph and shall state the time and place of such meeting. The right to make such announcement of consent shall have the same priority as the filing of a cloture motion.
The reason that this prohibition doesn’t apply to the Budget or Appropriations committees is the same as the reason that the Republicans can use the Budget Reconciliation process to attack Obamacare without needing 60 votes. They don’t want to let obstructive tactics threaten our credit rating (if Congress won’t authorize payment of our bills) or cause irresolvable government shutdowns. So, when it comes to spending money, a simple majority will do in a pinch.
The Democrats can delay almost all of the nominations, however, by not allowing hearings to occur or by having committee members ask for postponements. This can’t be sustained for long, but it can be done for a short period of time to make sure that ethics reviews are completed.
They actually have the better of the argument here, and accusations that they’re being partisan and stinky won’t carry much water after the Merrick Garland stunt the Republicans pulled.
We’ll see how much fight the Democrats have.
One of the things that we know about our Republicans is that they always lose their nerve. Yes, always: tho’ typically very late and after substantial collateral damage has been done. So the only thing to do is keep up the pressure. Never let them draw one free breath.
Perhaps at some point, but it didn’t even begin until the second Bush/Cheney term. And, in case you haven’t noticed, Trump isn’t exactly like standard issue Republicans when it comes to backing down.
This isn’t up to Trump.
From your keyboard to God’s ears.
Too bad team Obama doesn’t play chess.
This is why the Putin/Russia! hissy-fit over the past few weeks has been counterproductive. It has exhausted the attention of the general public over something that the most aren’t buying as legitimate.
Now that DP Senators have to get down and deal with real meat and potatoes stuff, how many people will listen? How many will put down any noise on this as nothing other than partisan bickering. Something most don’t like if they are aware of it.
With all eyes on Obama after his ’08 win and through his inauguration, he could have made a simple declarative statement about nominations and how the process works — each of my nominees is evaluated and vetted for qualifications and suitability for office. First, I and my team rigorously evaluated each person I chose before she or he was nominated. Second, the Office of Government Ethics performs an exhaustive review of all ethical matters for each nominee. If any nominee doesn’t pass this review, I would withdraw the nomination. Third, the relevant Senate committees conduct their own and separate evaluation and vote to either accept or reject the nomination based on their review. Only then is a nominee given an up or down vote by the full Senate and that’s not the time for partisan shenanigans. I look forward to my political opponents respecting the process and not thwarting the confirmation of any nominee that is well qualified and ethical. And he could have repeated this every single time the GOP engaged in shenanigans and the public would have respected him for doing so.
To bring the general public up to speed on this is going to be very difficult. Precisely at a time when they need to know this the most as Trump is nominating grossly unqualified people with serious ethical lapses.
Actually the general public isn’t stuck in some weird rathole of motivated reasoning where dismissing Russian interference in the election is necessary to ride their pet hobby horse. As you’d expect, people find the fact somewhere between disconcerting and outrageous.
Right Marduk — the polls are our support and refuge. Didn’t they say Hillary Clinton was going to win easily, maybe in a landslide even, if not that she might at least be on the verge of sticking Texas under her belt!
And Russia/Putin also meddled in the state and federal elections in 2009, 2010, 2012 (apparently not so successfully), 2013, and 2014. That must explain why Obama’s coattails were clipped after 2008 and resulted in the loss of:
But Hillary is the ONE with real mega-coattails which were going to turn everything around. Thus, most of the money and a total focus on nothing other than electing Hillary was all that was required.
Or perhaps, while Obama was personally popular, he never had any coattails and the 2008 wins were a continuation of 2006 when voters had had enough of the Bush gang.
This 2009-2014 trend suggests that Hillary (unless one believes she walks on water) wouldn’t have fared any better against a different GOP nominee (Dr. Ben excepted).
The polls also say that background checks for all gun purchases is overwhelmingly popular even within the GOP – and yet…
What? People supposedly say they’ll vote for Clinton and don’t—at least not in right states. Most peoplewant background checks for gun buyers, even GOPers, and their Congressmen and women don’t deliver. Parallel situations: the voter has personal agency to vote for someone but not personal agency to change a law, only to change their Congress people, but that’s no guarantee they get their wish, as we all know.
Are you working for the GOP. Or are you just a POS?
Rover 27, you’re an asshole. Why don’t you tell us why the Democrats lost so badly under Barack Obama?
His failure to seize the commanding heights of the economy in manufacturing, distribution, and finance in the name of the workers was the biggie, I’m guessing.
My guess was his inability to connect with the economic issues of the white working class.
Some of us knew this in 2008 because of his preference for arugula over parsley, but we were ignored.
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мы строим коммюнисм с энтузиазм товарищ!
когда овамачик строим комунисм он нет никакого энтузиазма!! грустыи!!
keep the personal insults out of here please.
and i’m getting fucking sick of hearing (from more than one person here) that anyone who sees things differently than you is “working for the GOP”.
Thank you! Posting here anymore is like painting a target on your back. We can still be civil.
This so sad. Marie made a false claim. I corrected it. You people need to get your act together and live in the world as it is.
Yes, I’m sad, Marduk. Where have you corrected a ‘false claim’ made by Marie3? I missed that titbit.
I was helpful enough to quote it.
Marie 3, Why can’t you keep your eye on the ball: Putin/Russia? Not even Assange/Wikileaks anymore. Within ten days this whole ‘nothing burger’ (I learned this incisive expression from the Clinton folks) will be history.
well, worse, the Clinton folks and or the dnc may be planning to do nothing so they can look good in contrast to the T corruption. unfortunately for them and us, this is how the T ppl plan to transition definitively to an oligarchy. let’s hope progressives keep their our eyes on the ball b/c it’s going to be very hard to undo this damage.
did not intend italics – ?
The best sign that an attack is working is that Trump tweets about it.
The Russian hacking stuff is the best argument we have. It splits the GOP/VIP crowd away from Trump, make Trump look weak, and plays to our base.
As I have argued before, the Russian hacking is well down the list of reason why we lost, and is absolutely being used to distract from issues with the people who ran the Clinton campaign (and who are currently trying to keep control over the party).
But it does matter, and has uses.
Why? The term, “the Russian hacking,” is a loaded term and being thrown around without 1) a definition of hack and evidence of hacking 2) who/what is alleged to have been hacked 3) evidence that Russia directed a hack and 4) what constitutes foreign interference in election.
WRT #1, while I’m okay with accepting that a successful phising scheme falls within the broad category of hacking, techies disagree. Embezzlement, burglary, and robbery are all means of theft, but we don’t call an embezzler a robber.
On #2, exactly which alleged victims of a hack is being referred to, what was taken and disseminated, and what was the harm (beyond embarrassment)? From what I can tell, the Guccifer e-mail hacks (low level guessing of passwords) of Blumenthal, Powell and others barely caused a ripple in real time. The investigations/reports on this matter seem to ignore the Podesta files. Was the information from those e-mails innocuous? It was, after all, the source of the effort to saddle the GOP with a “Pied Piper” nominee. Most, but not all, of what was captured and disseminated from DNC computers were also e-mails. But was it a hack or an inside job?
As far as we know, Hillary’s e-mail/server wasn’t hacked. However, Wikileaks took on the task of organizing in an electronic format, the Clinton e-mails that have been (and continue to be) publicly released in a piecemeal fashion by the State Dept. Some of those communications are not innocuous.
The DNC is a private club — as Clinton supporters reminded Bernie supporters for months and months. As such, and like private citizen Podesta, it isn’t entitled to anymore protection by government law enforcement than any other private entity. Theft is a crime, but it’s not (or shouldn’t be) viewed as a declaration of war.
On #3, it’s bizarre to me that Putin/Russia is assumed to the only actor in the world that had the motive and means to pull off a theft of DNC and Podesta records. The content of those communications would have been far more damaging to Clinton’s campaign had they surfaced in February or March. Thus, that someone either didn’t get into those records soon enough or was just fine with Hillary as the Dem nominee.
Finally, that election interference thingy. Is this not foreign interference? Would Americans have been fine with Putin standing on US soil and pleading for voters not to choose Clinton?
Nixon 1973 (at 11:07).
Obviously, his plumbers stealing secrets from the DNC was okay, but undefined as to what his team would have done any secrets they could make use of. Doubt that if any had existed that they wouldn’t have ended up being published in a newspaper.
Who and what Nixon was referring to were Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Liberals disagreed with Nixon on this point even though the PPs only covered what the LBJ administration had done in Vietnam. If the private words of powerful people impugn them when those words are made public, rational people have no use for the bellyaching over the exposure.
One last point because younger people don’t seem to get why older lefties are so outraged by this Putin/Russia brouhaha. It’s because we’ve seen it before. Not just the USG/CIA/national politician’s lies and disinformation but also as Nathan Watson pithily reminds us:
It was even on full display in the early episodes of “All in the Family” with Archie calling anti-Vietnam War Mike a “pinko commie.”
Thanks for the recap. You are right about the smearing, it WAS a big part of why blue collar workers went right.
Curious timing of this just signed by Obama? Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 H.R. 5181 would task the Secretary of State with coordinating the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” which will pinpoint sources of disinformation, analyze data, and — in true dystopic manner — `develop and disseminate’ “fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.
And this was in advance of the “Fake News” blacklisting, too.
Step by step, pushing us back into the gatekeeper’s corners, which social media had broken open. They have created a legal underpinning for crackdown on any news that dissents from or exposes the government line–it becomes fake news.
With conventional media increasingly viewed by the public as owned, they are even turning TO social media for help in erecting barriers. Look at Google’s search function during the campaign. Facebook’s moves. And with internet ownership at real risk again, I think this is a trend, not an aberration.
National security will trump freedom of press/association every time.
Technically it is not a violation of the First Amendment. You know that I am sure – but unless they restrict speech they are not breaking the law.
There are 3 arguments made against parties in power (listed in order of effectiveness )
The Russia story hits on the first 2. It creates problems in Trump’s base, and focuses on anger among Democrats
Yes, I am assuming the FBI and the CIA are telling the truth at some level. This is always a questionable assumption.
Having said this I can’t think of a political argument that accomplishes so much.
I’m just saying be aware it is a tool that can be turned on US. Trump is the one deciding what USA’s reality is for the next four years–at least information-wise.
That H5181 could not pass as a stand alone bill because of legislator’s reservations at handing over that authority. It had to be inserted in a must-pass.
It would probably pass easily today….
Trump is the one deciding what USA’s reality is for the next four years …
Only if there are no defectors from the GOP, the opposing parties and members are ineffective at exposing the lies, half-truths, etc. and with that punching down Trump, the MSM folds like a cheap suit as they did for Reagan and GWB, and the millions of government employees and contractors keep their powder dry and heads down.
Trump is a thin-skinned, ignorant bully with a twitter account. So far he’s only had to go up against thin-skinned bullies with personal agendas that haven’t figured out how to effectively catapult the propaganda with the twitter machine. Trump’s “reality” only slightly better speaks to the ordinary person than the Beltway “reality,” but an honest ordinary person knows that both are a load of bs.
The FBI wasn’t given access to the DNC server(s) and therefore, didn’t perform any forensic analysis. They are accepting the Crowdsource verdict. This would be like the FBI accepting Arthur Anderson’s opinion — no material misrepresentation — on Enron’s financial statements and financial condition.
3. What constitutes an intervention and what constitutes “sought an intervention?” Can we add efforts to refrain from an intervention under this charge? Somehow Trump was both an anti-Semite and seeking support from Bibi and Adelson. Does Obama’s big new military aid package to Israel count as an attempt to silence Bibi wrt the US election?
Is this foreign interference in a US election: “Rather than say anything about Mr. Trump, I will say this about Hillary Clinton,” Blair said at a Reuters forum in New York Tuesday. “She is someone in my view who I personally would trust completely. I think she is of enormous wisdom, common sense and integrity.” If not, why not? Did Clinton or other members of her team not seek such support?
4. All that is currently known is that some private communications among team Clinton and DNC employees (who were supposed to be but weren’t neutral during the primary) were copied, passed along to Wikileaks, and were made public by person(s) unknown. Also that the communications weren’t altered before being released (although early on team Clinton did claim that they weren’t authentic). We don’t know if more on this will become known in the future. What will never be known is if it had any impact on the election.
Do you think that GOP elites appreciated getting stuck with Trump as their nominee? Who/what facilitated the rise of this monster? The same entities that thought it would be cool to foist him on the GOP because then he would be easy to beat in the general election. Oops! That was real interference in both the primaries and general elections that produced real results; although Trump as the president-elect wasn’t the intended outcome.
The monster they helped create escaped from the cage he was supposed to remain in. Who got 90+% of the media and celebrity endorsements? And still it wasn’t enough. Not like the old days when only 50% was needed to elect Nixon, Reagan, and Schwarzenegger and something on the order of 70% to elect Obama. Hell, who facilitated the rise of the “Birthers” and Tea Party? Compared to the size of the numbers of Americans that wanted the banksters to be held accountable for their dirty deeds, the birthers and TP folks were small in numbers and nutty as well. But they sure helped the media to turn our 2009-2016 elections into nothing other than horse races.
I am shocked, shocked to find the Con-man-in-Chief and the Trumpi movement don’t respect traditional government processes!
Every inch of ground must be fought for. If McCaskill and Heitkamp quail at the prospect, let them. They can keep a low profile, and vote for the turds if they wish.
Now this is something worth doing! (instead of creating a Maginot Line of giant [Easter Island type] heads of FDR and RR in Europe).
What’s the plan? Shut down the federal government for the next 4 years?
Tit for tat
I’m a native of South Carolina. I learned the state motto in school.
It is: Dum spiro spero. [look it up]
That is my response to your title question.
If I were from Missouri, I’d be saying “Show me.”
They speak ancient Latin in S.C. or is that Church Latin?
They might still be struggling with contemporary English.
For me, it’s Mississipi. Can’t understand a word. Both Carolinas are OK. Sometimes a thick New England accent is hard to follow, but I literally need an interpreter in Mississipi. Louisiana and Alabama are OK, except for some of the Cajun (I don’t know French).
heh — at a dinner for company trainees and a few trainers, I ended up as the designated interpreter for the one foreign trainee. A public school Londoner — very posh accent.
I remember an Indian programmer telling me that I don’t speak proper English – too fast and with too much slang. I told her, “I’m a native speaker. Get used to it.” The same woman told me,”We Indians are superior to the Chinese because we all speak English.” I thought but didn’t say, “You only think you speak English, Lady.”
“superior?” Because Britain occupied India and not China? Although that sentiment may not be absent from natives in other previous colonial countries.
At IH, I worked with an Indian mechanical engineer whose wife was from another part of India and spoke a totally different language. They met at the University where classes are in English. He told me that India was officially bilingual, Hindi and English. He said the Hindi speakers wanted it to be Hindi only, but the other five(?) major language speakers would rather speak the colonial language than some other Indian language.
He was from inland and his wife was from the coast. he told me that inland the rivers and lakes are polluted and no one eats fish. He was Hindu, but their district had many Muslims so the family eschewed pork as well so that their neighbors wouldn’t look down on them. His wife doesn’t like vegetables and he doesn’t like fish. When I asked them what they ate, he answered,”Mostly pizza”.
Just had to add that he liked McDonald’s burgers because,”They don’t taste like beef”.
And she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t, eventually got trained, and has a museum honoring herein an abandoned store in Smithfield NC.
From the Wikipedia bio (Those were the days!!!)
For the youngsters who don’t recognize the name, watch the movies Mogambo and The Night of the Iguana, the only ones for which she received an Academy Award nomination.
She was in Seven Days in May and On the Beach, two movies of renewed relevance however.
I just through that in for fun. She did learn to act and speak. Night of the Iguanais probably my favorite Tennessee Williams play and Gardner was great in the movie (Although I disliked playing Charlotte in a little little production of it and only did it as a favor to the director.)
Gardner and Debbie Reynolds were also good friends.
Well, that’s what California does to people. Shoves them out of their parochialisms into doing something better than they left behind. Being a tobacco farmer’s wife likely was not Gardner’s main life goal.
Interesting footnote. My parents stationed at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, commandeered by the War Department for the duration of WWII, drove back from there in December 1945 mere months before my birth so I would be born in South Carolina. My dad had received notice that he was to be mustered out but had not gotten the travel arrangements but did have leave to go and return to California. He processed mustering out papers for a lot of returning Pacific Theater guys before he himself could leave. Back in the day, there was a category, V-J babies, that covered the timing of my birth.
We are not in fact separate countries, these 50 states.
So, you are maybe six months younger than me, you mere child! 🙂
Obviously, it was plantation founding fathers Latin. Staking out their classical claims to a little Roman republic, slaves and all.
Dum spiro reminds me of a certain former Governor of Maryland/Vice-President.
I thought of that a lot during the first part of the Nixon administration.
It doesn’t look like very much:
Jeff Sessions should have been a tough sell in the Senate, but he’s too nice
It reminds me all so very much of Bob Buckhorn, the Tampa Mayor, and one with statewide ambitions, holding a joint fundraiser for Pam Bondi.
When the Fl Progressive Caucus noticed it, Buckhorn retreated.
The Tea Party cured this among Republicans. We have no analogous group with comparable power.
We should be raising hell about Sessions.
But the Senate club now works only way: for Democrats to support Republicans.
Again, why are hearings being held on the nominees of a man who is not yet President? Only President Obama has Constitutional authority to appoint executive branch officers (subject to the Sdvice and Consent of the US Senate).
When Trump is sworn in, THEN he can make whatever appointments he likes and the Senate can hold hearings. Right now, they have no more business holding hearings on Trump’s nominees than they do on mine.
To expedite a transition, a president-elect names those he/she intends to nominate and the paperwork to the OGE begins to flow and is acted on by OGE personnel. That way a lot of the work is done before the official nomination and the relevant Senate committee(s) can get to work on it. SOP.
Paperwork, vetting and such, I can see, but unless the outhoing President makes the formal nomination, the Senate shouldn’t start hearings. Prepare for them, schedule witnesses and such, OK.
Obama had many of his nominees approved on the day he took office.
Pretty normal. Clinton’s SoS confirmation hearings began a week before Obama’s confirmation hearings. The hearing schedule to rubber stamp them and ignore ethics is not normal.
A week before Obama’s inauguration*
Wasn’t right. The vetting OK, but Obama didn’t have the authority until he was sworn in, unless Bush did the formal nomination.
No it wasn’t, but I can’t recall that it was even raised as an issue as Clinton’s confirmation hearing was held on 1/13/09. It’s possibly SOP. One that doesn’t leave Democrats any room to gripe about pre-inaugural confirmation hearings for this president-elect’s nominees.
So, I guess we in the peanut gallery should close our traps on this.
I guess!
I most definitely disagree with your conclusion. Have you seen the circulating copy of McConnell’s letter to Reid on Feb 12,2009:
From http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/schumer-sends-letter-back-mcconnell-confirmation-trump-nominee
s
The GOP letter is dated after Obama’s inauguration. Of course, we all know that since SOS nominee Clinton was having her hearing on Jan 13,2009 then there are simply NO grounds for Democrats to push back on McConnell’s 2016 timeline? Or can it simply be that what McConnell asked for in 2009 (and presumably got) is fine because we all live, even now, in IOKYAR world? Particularly if HRC can be used as the primary reason in support of the other side’s viewpoint.
I’ve honestly never seen the likes of this anywhere else in the progressive/liberal/Democratic blogosphere. Where a defeated candidate gets continually and unmercifully flogged and blamed for all sins of ommission/commission in Democratic party politics.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome is alive and well in the Pond.
Is the inference that the FBI is late?
I hope I’m wrong, but doubt it, given their record of being relative milquetoasts by comparison to the GOP, and the fact that they haven’t had much of an effective “fit” thus far. Why wait for the open session? The right sure hasn’t. Besides the Russia hacking thing, a lot has happened to give us all fits.
Withhold “unanimous consent” for EVERYTHING.
Demand recorded role-call votes for EVERYTHING.
Make numerous and repeated “points of order” and “points of information”.
All of the above can be done by a small minority of the Senate, and slow it down to a crawl, even without a filibuster.