WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees at once, voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a backlog of executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats.
Frustrated by the stalling tactics, Senate Republicans moved last week to make it easier to confirm large groups of lower-level, non-judicial nominations. Democrats had forced multiple votes on almost every one of Trump’s picks, infuriating the president and tying up the Senate floor.
The new rules allow Senate Republicans to move multiple nominees with a simple majority vote — a process that would have previously been blocked with just one objection. The rules don’t apply to judicial nominations or high-level Cabinet posts.
“Republicans have fixed a broken process,” Thune said ahead of the vote.
The Senate voted 51-47 to confirm the four dozen nominees. Thune said that those confirmed on Thursday had all received bipartisan votes in committee, including deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior, Energy and others.
Among the confirmed are Jonathan Morrison, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump’s 2020 campaign and was once engaged to Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
Are you saying that the Republicans going nuclear is the left’s fault? Wow, just wow. The Republicans are destroying our government, but somehow, somehow, that’s the left’s fault. That’s like saying that every victim everywhere deserved it.
They’re saying the dems not going nuclear under Obama and Biden is the problem.
“We should have turned authoritarian before they did”, basically.
No, they should have used their Constitutional powers to follow their oath to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. But they didn’t.
Following the Jan 6 Insurrection, Biden would have been well within his Constitutional rights and responsibilities to have Trump and his henchmen rounded up as National Security threats the moment he was Inaugurated. They should have been sent to Guantanamo Bay for extensive interrogation into their nefarious dealings with Russia, and their corruption.
Sure, the MAGA following would have gone nuts, giving the a Biden administration the excuse to crush them mercilessly, and declare them a terrorist hate group.
THEN the Stolen Document scheme would have come to light, and if the Dems were playing Hard Ball like they should have, they could have combined that with his Insurrection, and used that to create such public outrage against the MAGA Party, that it would be effectively dead forever.
But he literally did NOTHING, including pressure his REPUBLICAN AG into acting more decisively. They had managed to wrest control back from the MAGAs, but instead of making sure they never succeed again, they just created a political environment that enabled and even ENCOURAGED their comeback.
After his amazing success with the simultaneous Covid Vax program, and his post-Covid Economic Stimulation program, Biden would have been considered in the top 15 presidents, but his greatest accomplishments are overshadowed by his weakness in defending America, and avoiding crushing the treasonous MAGA movement, and allowing it to grow stronger, and rise AGAIN. For that he will be forever in the bottom 15 of presidents, the way the pre-Civil War presidents are reviled for their lack of action on preventing, or even encouraging the Civil War. Biden now joins them.
I largely agree with your sentiment, but -
This is gaslighting common Americans. This was not an amazing success in my lived experience.
Life under Biden/during COVID hit so much harder than 2008 as a person living in poverty, living around other people in poverty or homelessness in an exceptionally poor area.
People barely received any direct help and all I heard about is corporations raking in record profits. People blowing their savings - racking up credit cards. Interest rates going through the roof. House prices going insane while investors buy everything up. Rent skyrocketing. Food going absolutely nuts.
I don’t know what to say besides none of this felt like enough. I know what the common responses to my expressed sentiment are and it’s okay if you disagree, but this was a necessary vent.
And most of those things were caused by MAGA-supporting corporations and Sociopathic Oligarchs, pissy that they didn’t get their way, and most people recognized that.
Sure, the MAGAs did their best to sabotage Biden’s Economic Recovery Program, but what DIDN’T happen, was that we didn’t go into a recession or depression, which was looming large, due to the virtuosic incompetence of the MAGAs.
What did happen was that inflation DECREASED, jobs increased, unemployment decreased greatly, and most people came out of Covid a bit banged up, but okay.
So you can keep your MAGA propaganda. The lack of action against MAGA treason aside, Biden had an extremely successful presidency. But add in his low impact response to MAGA treason, and allowing MAGA to rise again and retake power, and the net result of his presidency is FAILURE.
…excuse me? I’d like to request that you don’t accuse me of this.
Sure seems like it to me that the price of goods multiplied and cost of living vastly increased, while the minimum wage stayed stagnant (or effectively close to it) in most areas and wages generally didn’t rise proportionately - Americans clearly had less and less purchasing power over Biden’s term. Unemployment is an obvious gamed statistic, as well.
Who the literal fuck cares about terms like “inflation”, “recession”, and “depression” - America was destroyed before Biden left office and performing the bare minimum of first aid to stop the bleeding is not an amazing success. I don’t care about macroeconomics - higher interest rates hurt average people. People need vastly more support to properly get back on their feet.
Biden giving Americans healthcare assistance in a literal pandemic would’ve be nice too - it’d be awesome to go out in public and not see vast swaths of people visibly in distress every single time because they are underserved by the healthcare system and can’t afford help and tell me as much. It’s especially heartbreaking seeing these people help me as a part of their job duties when they are doing so poorly. No matter who is in in office, even fucking Obama, this has been a persistent reality for me - I am TIRED of seeing this shit.
Nope. You are living in a bubble.
I already told you that you are free to disagree, but I’m going to push back on gaslighting when I see it. You were free to not engage, accuse me of MAGA propaganda, and repeat all the common talking points that milquetoast liberals repeat like it’s their job. The economy can go to hell if its maintenance requires sacrificing regular people while convincing them that everything is actually okay.
It’s a valid point when the republicans were telegraphing their intentions to do so the whole time. Should have seized power, disposed of the traitors and restructured the laws to fix the loopholes that allowed it to happen in the first place. Biden would have been great for this since he was already old as shit and they could have thrown him under the bus after the fact.
Implementing fair voting laws is not authoritarianism.
Neither is playing Hard Ball, and forcing the MAGAs to follow the Constitution.
This idea that it is AUTHORITARIAN to insist that everyone abide by the Constitution, is insane.
Have you considered that the constitution is part of the problem?
No, I fucking haven’t, because it’s not the problem. The problem is people who think it’s a problem.
And how does one “implement a law”?
Schoolhouse Rock can explain it to you better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8psP4S6BQ
I’m still confused a little bit on the part where they vote on it. It doesn’t seem to indicate the people who vote no to all attempts at fair voting laws.
SNL updated it for the Executive Order era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDSeb2zHQ0
You’re seriously asking how members of Congress can “implement a law?”
No. I’m seriously asking how people expect Democrats to get a damn thing done with republicans preventing everything. Everybody wants to point to the ten minutes when Democrats had both houses and the president, but I think that’s really naïve.
This is just a long worn out excuse that I’ve been seeing people claim for decades now. When Democrats are in power, they always claim they can’t accomplish anything meaningful because of Republican opposition. When Republicans are in power, Democrats always claim they can accomplish anything meaningful because they can’t oppose anything. The reality in both cases is that Democrats capitulate to Republicans every time. This is because they don’t work the American people. They work for their wealthy donors who are the same wealthy donors the Republicans work for. The rest is just an act to convince people that the parties oppose one another when they really don’t.
When Obama was president and Dems controlled both chambers of congress, they still watered down their own legislation in order to “reach across the aisle” even though it didn’t accomplish a damn thing and didn’t help a single American. They also handed over Obama’s SCOTUS nomination to Republicans and then gave what should have been Biden’s SCOTUS nomination to Trump without a fight which is how we got a 6-3 stacked Supreme Court. Currently we have people like Schumer passing Republican legislation, hundreds of house Dems voting against impeaching Trump, both parties in complete alignment on Gaza, both parties voting unanimously to pass dystopian legislation like The TAKE IT DOWN Act.
Both parties are rotten and working toward the same goal. To think anything else is naive. Stop falling for the kayfabe.
I know what they’re saying, lol. It’s Obama’s fault that the Republicans are pieces of shit.
Psst. See Murc’s Law.
Wouldn’t “holding them responsible” mean prosecuting them? Who has the power to do that?
The majority. When the dems had majority, they impeached him. The republican majority let him go.
The dems appointed an AG who chose not to prosecute Trump because that would be political.
A REPUBLICAN AG. At a time when Republicans needed to be held responsible for the most treasonous behavior since the Civil War, they actually appointed a Republican to handle it. He then dithered and slow-walked, and gave them a two year head start to run out the clock.
Just one more example of Democratic weakness.
This is why I’ve been an Unaffiliated Independent since I first registered to vote in 1977.
They failed to prosecute him once he was out of office, having already acknowledged he had committed crimes during the impeachment.
Republicans have been destroying our government for decades and decades and we now see the Democrats had the tools to undo the damage but never actually followed through with any of it.
The only tool they use is Schmuck Schumer’s stern statement in front of the cameras. Sometimes he’ll write a strongly-worded letter.
Remember what Aldo Rain said in Inglorious Basterds, when told he’d be shot for killing Hands Landa’s assistant?
“Shot? I don’t think so. More like chewed out. I been chewed out before.”
That’s how MAGAs view Schmuck’s stern statements: They don’t give a rat’s ass. Yet, it’s about the only resistance the Dems ever offer.
Perhaps the original sin of the Obama Administration was that they never dismantled the post 9/11 surveillance state. It was almost a perfect Tolkien allegory. They had this great, terrible, and Constitutionally dubious power they inherited from the prior administration. They could choose to use it or destroy it. Unfortunately our leaders are not as noble as hobbits, so Obama chose to keep the power for himself.
Plus letting Bush and Cheney off on their war crimes so that we could “heal as a nation” certainly didnt help either. Biden, while not stating as much, did the same thing with Trump after all his illegal actions including J6, and only decided to pretend to do something a few months before the '24 election after he’d already secured the RNC nomination.
Plus doing they own was crimes
It’s only the left fault because the left doesn’t want them to do it and the Nazis want to do what they want to do. With Republicans the ends always justify the means in this case the ends mean Confederates won‽
I do not believe you are Stephen Miller’s Barbie doll. Where’s the porcelain‽
How’s this?
Ohhhh that’s better…but what the fuck are those dolls called? Stephens creepy grandma’s doll?
Removed by mod