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.
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.
You’re in for a rude awakening if you think a system set up by white slave owners in a time when horseback was the fastest method of communication is standing the test of time that well. It’s amazing that it hasn’t fallen apart sooner, but that’s only because your politicians had a basic respect for the system.
The basic concepts of all people being created equal, the God-given RIGHT of all people to enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, elections, the Bill of Rights, etc. are all guaranteed in the Constitution and other founding documents, and the fact that we codified those concepts into our founding documents 250 years ago is irrelevant. They are timeless concepts that are as applicable and important today, as they were when they were first written.
Sure, there are some portions that have gotten creaky, and numerous amendments have tried to clarify or add new rights, but the basic concepts outlined in those documents are still among the best concepts on which to base a government.
We can still make improvements, but tossing out the Constitution, and hoping the MAGA Nazi Traitors will replace it with something better, is ludicrous beyond measure.
Our current Constitution is far better than anything else I’ve seen as a suggested replacement, which has mostly been nothing. The MAGA idea seems to be to just toss out the Constitution, et al, and replace it with Trump’s whims.
Thanks for the long response. I’ve written “part of the problem” intentionally, because we’re seeing the checks and balances be lacking in the face of people who are more focused on their own goals than the broader message outlined in the document.
Overall it’s still a great piece of work, as long as you can keep things together long enough to address the shortcomings. I’m not one to suggest throwing it away, but I know amendments are hard, and making any isn’t even under discussion with the current government.
And how does one “implement a law”?
Schoolhouse Rock can explain it to you better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8psP4S6BQ
SNL updated it for the Executive Order era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDSeb2zHQ0
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.
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.