There’s not a whole lot Senate Democrats can do to prevent the confirmation of President Trump’s cabinet nominees unless they (or public pressure) can convince a Republican or two to join them in opposition either on the committees with jurisdiction or on the floor of the full Senate. They can delay things a bit, though, and that at least gives them and the public and the media more time to expose and oppose. Sen. Diane Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, already delayed the committee’s vote on Jeff Sessions for a week. And now Minority Leader Chuck Schumer used an obnoxious gambit to delay it one day further.
Senate Democrats used a procedural move Tuesday to stall a committee vote on Sen. Jeff Sessions’s nomination to be attorney general, one day after the growing controversy surrounding President Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim nations led to the firing of an acting attorney general for insubordination.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will reconvene at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to vote on Sessions’s nomination, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said.
The announcement came after the committee took a break to allow members to vote on the floor confirmation of Elaine Chao as Transportation Secretary.
When the meeting reconvened, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told Grassley that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) intended to invoke the two-hour rule against holding committee meetings beyond the first two hours of the Senate’s day.
A one-day delay won’t likely change anything, but considering the Monday Night Massacre only took place about 17 hours ago, it won’t hurt to let the outraged response grow and percolate a little bit.
Rather than take a defeatist attitude, I’d rather focus on something I saw on Facebook this morning:
I’m not saying that Pat Toomey is going to listen to the people who are flooding his regional offices, but I am sure he’s getting some feedback that will at least make him think about the potential consequences of voting for Sessions when he gets to the full floor of the Senate.
You now have one more day to make your senator know where you stand. There isn’t anything more the Democrats can do but give you that opportunity.
Well said.
Good tips for contacting congress critters at https://www.indivisibleguide.com
WaPo – Democrats boycott confirmation hearings for Price and Mnuchin, blocking votes
More on the AG appointment:
EdSec:
Apparently with the knowledge that Betsy DeVos appears to have plagiarized quotes for Senate questionnaire . How great is it that the incoming EdSec turned in a questionnaire with plagiarized answers? Did she hire Mrs. Trump’s speechwriter to complete the questionnaire? Looks as if a few people on the Trump team need to attend a public school that teaches English composition because at least one of them didn’t get that education as her private, “Christian” high school or college. (And that’s being generous because plagiarism is covered in junior high school.)
Mashup of The Apprentice and SC nomination:
First on CNN: Trump bringing Supreme Court favorites to Washington.
How are the betting pools going on which one it will be? Hardiman would seem to be closer to Trump’s kind, but that would be giving him too much credit for being conscious.
It would be surprising if there would be two votes that judicial reactionaries Gorsuch and Hardiman would deviate on in a decade. I’m sure they have their own nauseating personalities and idiosyncrasies, but the conservative vetting is very likely presenting Der Trumper with a judicial version of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The “conservative” goal is not to find another Scalia, but another Alito.
An interesting question is, do the Trumper WH handlers think he is essentially an ignoramus who has to be managed, or are they True Believing idolators (like Goebbels and Field Marshall Keitel), who believe their Fuhrer to be a unique world-historical genius?
Exactly correct. While their preference would be another rightwing judicial featherweight like Thomas, they know better than to push their luck on that and a rightwing judicial lightweight like Alito is close enough without putting the confirmation in jeopardy.
wrt to your question, can’t it be both?
When the Democrats cannot keep their caucus united, what Republican is likely to join them?
And who exactly has stopped talking about Putin enough to organize pressure on Republican elected officials? They have been given a pass for a decade and a half because they are so hardnosed about their position. Interesting that strategy.
And how exactly would you know how many of us have called our Republican Reps / Senators? THAT’s who’s putting pressure on them.
Hah! Hah! Mine are supposedly Democrats. I might have a better chance of their listening if they were Republicans.
Maybe instead of calling my rep, I should just call DWS directly.
Those of you in California: How successful have you been calling DiFi?
Got an answer on the first ring at DiFi’s LA office today.
And did it make any difference in her votes?
Got no commitment but at least she did the right thing on Sessions.
So far Feinstein has a 100% with Trump voting record.
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=press-releases&id=C81A422A-B6C7-4A0D-9300-23B
94C021B98
No cookies for doing the right thing, but props for doing good jobs in detailing the reasons for the rejections.
Officials. To name a couple
Cruz, Cornyn Offices Overwhelmed by Constituents Who Actually Want to Talk to Them
http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/01/26/cruz-cornyn-offices-overwhelmed-by-constituen
ts-who-actually-want-to-talk-to-them
Dozens of protesters arrested outside Hatch’s D.C. office
http://www.sltrib.com/home/4885792-155/dozens-of-protesters-arrested-outside-hatchs
Also did you not read that facebook post Booman posted? Toomey’s offices are being overwhelmed.
very interesting. heard an Indivisible program on radio yesterday. very interesting
See my comment on another Booman thread
From Counterpunch.
Or just go here.
The Resistance and Its Double by C. J. Hopkins”
AG
That pieces is full of so many straw men and false quibble cues it was like reading a Bizarro David Brooks column. So many rotten analogies and incorrectly and unfairly projected motivations, that
I suspect that it was meant purely for trolling pleasure and blog clicks.
So if 4 million people at the various US marches looked X% different than the author assumes they all did (from his Maureen Dowd like pronouncements) or he had mind-read different thoughts than the ones he clearly thinks he did, it would have been an “authentic” March for something other than neoliberalism?
Utter pompous entitled bullshit.
Wow… “false quibble cues” might be the best autocorrect (of “false equivalencies”) in history.
Actually, “false quibble cues” is a pretty accurate description of the linked article.
Yeh, no wonder Arthur loved it.
I’m beginning to wonder if you’re mentally ill. Seriously.
All I know is we are in the fight of our lives and you stand there on the right sidebar offering nothing but defeatist whining. You’re about as helpful as a teenage suicide.
Just one sad trombone after another.
Has anyone ever met Arthur? Or he sitting back on his Lazyboy in Macedonia?
Arthur, at home:
I am beginning to wonder the same thing, Brendan.
If you fools do not recognize that the choice of either of two wrongs does not by any means make a right, then why the fuck would a sane person continue trying to get through to you?
Beats me…
AG
One certainly hopes that these sort of obscure procedural gambits presage a united Dem vote against the appalling Jefferson [Davis][PGT] Beauregard Sessions III.
If not, then does the right hand know what the left is doing? Any Red State Dem that thinks voting for The Littlest Confederate saves them in 2018 is whistling Dixie…
The bigger problem is that it appears most white Americans want a discriminatory AG/DOJ and despise the racially pluralistic nation the US has become. But first things first, haha.
Did you see that Adam Schiff is pissed because Trump is radicalizing Democratic voters? Has that asshole been paying attention these past 6 years?
facebook post, all very interesting
And how will Schumer vote? Is the delay because he is busy counting his thirty pieces of silver?
Be nice. So far Schumer only has a 71.4% with Trump voting record. Not as bad as fourteen other Democratic Senators, but not as good as your two senators. The worst is DiFi, but perhaps she’s decided that this is her last term and she unleash her inner Republican.
My jr. senator has the best record of the bunch at 14%.
It’s a guide and your comment indicates to me that you aren’t considering and haven’t looked further than a composite score.
The only low scores that I’m currently viewing as authentic are: Warren, Sanders, Merkley, and Udall. Because their votes are consistent with their records wrt political orientation and their personal styles, including thoughtful consideration of questions before them and a preference for comity whenever it can be had but not when the price is high.
Booker and Gillibrand’s votes are at odds with their records and style. This sort of scorekeeping is quantitative and not qualitative. It’s how Clinton racked up a “very liberal” voting record that was used by her and her supporters to claim that she isn’t a neoliberalcon.
Fully expected this response. Was not disappointed.
Ah — DiFi soiled her 100% with Trump record. Tillerson was just a bridge too far her. But a few took advantage of that opportunity to boost their “with Trump score:”
Manchin
Warner
Heitkamp
King
No surprises there.
Warner flipped a coin with Kaine; the winner got the cast a yes vote on Tillerson.
RE: technically illiterate. According to a recent survey nearly 80% of the US population does not use Twitter. I think it’s a mistake to place so much importance on a social media tool a minority of minorities uses, just because Dear Leader uses it.
How many of DT’s tweets were repeated by the MSM, the primary news source for the “technically illiterate,” and ended up in the email boxes of all those that don’t tweet?
Thanks for reposting the Facebook comment. It’s, at least, a glimmer of hope, and I’ll take any speck I can find at this point.