dagblog - Comments for "Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees"

find myself wishing right now

artappraiser — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 03:06:37 +0000

In reply to Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees

find myself wishing right now that liberal local governments will feel free to lock up self-styled anarchists out on the street promoting rioting, even rioting without damage.

This kind of thing

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/02/02/protests-at-uc-berkeley-over-speech-alt-right-lah.cnn

gives me very bad juju as a boomer who was once a fan of the SDS and Chicago 7 and lived through "the generation gap" and "the silent majority" and the terrible results of it all.

Please liberals, disavow these anarchists, they are going to ruin the whole anti-Trump populist reaction.

always glad to have

artappraiser — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 03:00:51 +0000

In reply to At least they tried. As a

always glad to have deconstructing buddies!

At least they tried. As a

barefooted — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 02:16:16 +0000

In reply to Yeah, I saw, you said it.

At least they tried. As a minority they aren't going to be able to effectively do much, but for the sake of the Democratic base morale they have to make the effort (not to mention that folks are seriously on their backs). As for paying attention ... Trump and his agencies have been very quietly backing down/off of things, like green card holders being included in the ban, the push for pharmaceutical companies to negotiate with Medicare and his "demand" for an investigation into voter fraud just to name a few off the top of my head. Like Peracles pointed out, the idea may be to give us plenty to yell about so we won't notice that he's not quite the tough guy he'd like us to believe his is. Deconstructing the spin might be our best advantage.

Two G.O.P. Senators to Oppose

artappraiser — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 02:01:10 +0000

In reply to Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees

Two G.O.P. Senators to Oppose DeVos as Education Secretary, Imperiling Her Confirmation

In New York Times First 100 days Briefing updated Feb. 1. 6:54pm

Two Republican senators on Wednesday said they would vote against Ms. DeVos, the nominee to head the Education Department, raising the real prospect that Ms. DeVos could fail to garner the votes necessary to be confirmed.

Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said on the floor of the Senate that they would vote against Ms. DeVos.

“I will not, I cannot vote to confirm her as our nation’s next secretary of education,” Ms. Collins said.

Both senators, who voted to advance her selection out of committee, said they had serious reservations about her lack of familiarity with public schools. “I think that Mrs. DeVos has much to learn about our nation’s public schools,” Ms. Murkowski said.

Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, has said he believes every Democrat will vote against Ms. DeVos. If that is the case, the defections by Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski would bring the number of votes against her to 50, setting up a tie in the Senate that Vice President Mike Pence, in his capacity as president of the Senate, might need to come in to settle.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said he had no worries.

“I am 100 percent confident she will be the next secretary of education,” he said.

Yeah, I saw, you said it.

artappraiser — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 01:43:16 +0000

In reply to Well, so much for that idea.

Yeah, I saw, you said it. Reminded me of what Mark Shields said in the vid moat posted, that the Dem party has basically disappeared nationwide. While they deal with that (not well, or maybe not at all?) news junkies like me might just better off paying more attention to what civil servants and various wings of the GOP are doing if we want to understand wassup in the here and now? I'm just not the activist type who wants to work at doing spin for the Dems--though I agree that in these days of viral, that can work--life is short, I am getting on in years, only so many hours in the day and I hate doing spin, rather, I've always enjoyed deconstructing it.

Well, so much for that idea.

barefooted — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:09:24 +0000

In reply to The Hill, 10:29am: Dems

Well, so much for that idea.

Growing wave of federal

artappraiser — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 07:47:57 +0000

In reply to Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees

Growing wave of federal workers is pushing back against Trump, Washington Post, Feb. 1, with 3 reporters on it:

From consulting with recently departed Obama-era political appointees to setting up social media accounts to leak word of pending changes, many federal employees are exploring options for expressing their opposition to President Trump's policies. The resistance, while less visible than protests on the streets, is potentially more troublesome to the new administration.

Senate Dems results so far,

artappraiser — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 07:01:25 +0000

In reply to Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees

Senate Dems results so far, leave it to others to judge good or bad:

'Idiots' — Senate tensions boil over

story title updated to say

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 23:26:41 +0000

In reply to from those that we don't even

story title updated to say they've got 1,000 signatures.

from those that we don't even

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 21:23:09 +0000

In reply to Pushback Reports : 1) Democrats Skip Votes, Delaying Confirmation of Trump Nominees

from those that we don't even know if they are Dems or Repubs:

Letter of Dissent on Ban Goes Viral at U.S. Embassies

New York Times, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN 46 minutes ago

The State Department cable, asserting that the president’s order on immigration will not make the nation safer, has wended through dozens of embassies and is still spreading.

It's till being circulated for editing and signatures, and as mentioned in the article, these dissent memoes are part of their system but rare

“Policy dissent is in our culture,” said one diplomat in Africa, who did not want to speak publicly before the letter was released. “We even have awards for it.”

and

Most people in the State Department have never seen anything like this, the diplomat said. He said dissent memos were reserved for major policy issues, not for little grumbles like bad food in the embassy cafeteria.

Sounds just the opposite of Trump's tweets (or even his hastily-written-by-others executive orders). He won't read it, natch?