The title pic can I think double as a Trump Cabinet Meeting but also as how the Senate GOP envisions the confirmation process for Trump’s nominees. The news isn’t ALL bad. There are a couple of picks for top jobs like Rubio at State and Stefanik for the U.N. that are at least qualified. And while the latter sold her soul in a vain attempt to be Trump’s Vice-President neither is batshit insane so there’s that. Other nominees are troubling to be sure. However they will be more along the lines of Cabinet members the first time around. Still, the GOP Senate is trying to sneak a giant CON past us all using talk of past administrations and norms. SNEAK is the appropriate word because the whole original schedule was designed to keep scrutiny of the actual confirmation hearings to a minimum. Too many happening all at once to get the public say “What the hell?”
Like a bad magician attempting to use misdirection to cover up the actual trick/’magic’ a group of the worst candidates one can imagine were supposed to get hearings this week (and votes by the full Senate) – in effect doing the ‘misdirection for each other. Make no mistake, we have a group of grifting jerks who are either unqualified or have designs on dismantling the ability of their agencies to perform. Or both. But we all expected that from Trump. It’s the issue of nominees for top National Security jobs where it gets ugly and worse, dangerous to us all. The GOP tried to “bum-rush” the whole team of the most important picks through this week. ‘Flood the Zone’ so to speak and get them all confirmed before Democrats, or even some Republicans could mount a strong enough movement to block at least some of them.
Now it’s common for a President to want to have as much of their team in place (as in confirmed) by Inauguration Day or within days after. It actually happens, to a significant degree at least most of the time. However except for Trump MOST of the nominees aren’t all that controversial. President-Elects work with the transition team (something Trump tossed out back in 2016) to pick qualified people. People with experience, solid records and who in the cases of national security related positions already had high level security clearance that might need updating but were known to be solid on that front.
Trump’s National Security picks? It’s a collection of ‘WTF is he thinking?’ picks! I’ve conceded that Rubio for State and Stefanik at U.N. aren’t problematic. Among the rest there are some lower profile people for lower profile jobs who are a mix of “Meh” to ‘keep an eye out for mischief’ to some ‘who cares? – just get someone who will be easily confirmed” types. Others, for example Pam Bondi or Doug Collins (I’m a Veteran and depend on the VA) are legitimate concerns. There WILL be some rough hearings, albeit after which with 53 Senators most of these people will be confirmed. Even with some Democratic votes in some cases.
However, the highest profile after SecState are another matter. In 2016 Trump actually had picks for some of the top national security jobs with actual credentials. Even Democrats felt like they would at least be “adults in the room” to rein in Trump’s excesses. Not this time. He’s clearly intending to lay waste to our national security and any existing norms. Just look at the names: HEGSETH, GABBARD, NOEM and PATEL (yes, the FBI is huge in national security) are the most alarming to be sure. John Ratcliffe at CIA and Chris Writght at Energy (our nuclear stockpile) are awfully concerning too. ALL of these were planned to have hearings this week – and then rushed to a vote before Trump is sworn in.
As I said the play was obvious: Throw up so much so fast Democrats and what journalists that have guts couldn’t bring too much attention to bear on any of these people. And make no mistake those names above in bold aren’t just unqualified but DANGEROUS to be in the positions Trump wants them to have. An awful lot of the hearings will, as this article from The Associated Press indicates take place this week. The only good news is that despite the whining of conservatives a couple of them came off the original schedule. Whining by the way is a pretty good word for it.
I say that because even in the case of someone like say Hegseth normal things that are done prior to a hearing haven’t been done. There are FBI background investigations to be completed and written up for review. Financial disclosures to be made. Questionnaires to be completed – much of it standard but Senators can and do add their own specific questions on various matters. Republicans are all of a sudden acting like these are ‘minor details’ but they are anything but. For damned sure if a Democratic nominee was about to have a hearing and all this (and more) wasn’t completely done and in perfect order the GOP would object. And if it were for these top positions they’d be howling to the moon!
It’s been said often since the elections we are headed into dangerous times. What the GOP is trying to do in RAMMING THROUGH these nominations isn’t the half of it. I don’t want to hear about how in the past Presidents, even Trump got a lot of their top cabinet picks confirmed before or right after Inauguration Day. THIS time we have a group that with the exception of Rubio are HUGELY unqualified and/or dangerous to national security for some glaring reasons. If conservatives from Senators to Trump to RWNJ media doesn’t like it that some are saying “slow the hell down” they can kiss my ass. Every single name in bold should be rejected by the Senate. Every. Single. One!
So contact your Senators and raise hell.
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And now, a special message from our fearless leader, who had made this blog possible:
Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self-supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. Thank you. Ursula
On the bright side, most of Trump’s picks don’t last a full year and are too bone-stupid to do much good or bad.
We can only hope!
Madhatter’s tea party