Summary
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) announced he will block all of Trump’s State Department nominees until USAID is reinstated.
His move comes after Elon Musk took control of USAID, placed senior staff on leave, and seized classified information.
Schatz condemned the administration’s “authoritarian behavior” and vowed to delay confirmations until USAID operates normally.
His blockade could significantly slow Trump’s ability to fill key diplomatic positions, forcing Senate Republicans to spend more time pushing nominations through.
Good as a start, but come on guys, you’ve had decades to learn from Mitch McConnell how to do this! Stymie them at every turn. Filibuster everything. Make them drag the anchor for every move. Propose bills that would block them, even if they’re doomed to fail, to slow down the process.
Trust me, this is one time your constituents DON’T want you to be the party of smooth-running government! We don’t want to slide off the cliff into fascism!
Democrats are so bad at this. You could literally bring everything to a standstill by requiring votes on everything, even things everyone agrees with
Trump 45 was happy to let his appointees work as interim this-or-that or acting whatchamacallit, and those people seemed to have exactly as much authority as confirmed appointees. Maybe they didn’t get the full paycheck? but senate confirmation seems to be completely unnecessary to the exercise of power when everyone just goes along anyway.
I’d be pretty happy to see Dems grind congress to an halt with investigations of absolutely everything, filibusters of everything else, and red card holds, or whatever other magical Senate traditions allow single Senators to completely stifle government activity.
So what your telling me is that Democrats could have been blocking nominees this whole time…
Headline is poor, he’s using procedural tools to slow things way down. From the article
“I will oppose unanimous consent. I will vote no. I will do maximal delays until this is resolved
Doesnt change the fact that apparently USAID is the red line for this guy.
That’s not necessarily true. Often in situations like this you’ll start with one simple demand and then if they cave, move on to the next
Think it’s more so a matter of finally realizing the threat of the moment here
USAID is probably a trial run for the monsters trying to tear our government apart to do Putin’s bidding.
No. This just delays the confirmations. They basically just don’t get fast tracked.
Yep. Cut them off from praying on poor countries, and you get them to act.
It makes them take 60 votes. What I want to know is who are the 7 Democrats that are approving nominations?Nvm, I’m wrong.
USAID?
My guy, he already tried to kill you guys once four years ago. He’s having military and federal LEOs snatching people off the street, getting all their practice in for when it starts against non-migrants.
You’re not wrong but your urgency and priorities need some fucking help and reassessment here.
To be fair, the USAID probably keeps more people alive than most other US government entities. Definitely per dollar funding.
Shut this shit down for the next four years.
Why stop at 4 years? End the empire. Permanently.
We had a good thing going
Imperialism?
No, we actually ended imperialism.
See: the two world wars ending several empires, the US backing Egypt vs. France and UK over the Suez canal, US support of Indonesian independence, US pressure on Portugal to decolonize Africa, opposition to Belgian control of the Congo, pressure on the French to leave Indochina
The US has done bad things, like controlling the Philippines, but granted the Philippines independence in 1946. It decolonized a lot of its holdings way before the European powers who were still holding on in the '60s and '70s
Ha ha very funny
Call your reps!
My senators are solid progressive democrats so I dont need to message them, and my House representative already bent over with his asshole pre-lubed for Trump on January 6th and ignores all mails I send to him. Damn I wish I had a voice. Oregon moment.
It is still worth to call.
Thanking your senators for holding these positions and expressing dissatisfaction with your representative. Honestly what musk is doing should make even MAGA upset.
Going back to your original statement. You said you don’t need to call because senators hold such position, and don’t need to call because representative doesn’t. So what configuration would make you call? Because it sounds like you weren’t planning to do it no matter what.
I have mailed my state rep Bentz in the past. He is such a deep state lost cause it is quite literally not worth my breath speaking to, unless he decides to ever have an in person town hall out here again, in which case I’ll call him a Nazi traitor to his face.
The senators I may still contact honestly, since you’ve mentioned it…
and my House representative already bent over with his asshole pre-lubed for Trump on January 6th and ignores all mails I send to him.
Same, but for both senators and both reps :(
Assuming the dubvee is for WV…it’s real shitty here.
It is and…it is. It’s very much “I have no voice, and I must scream”. But I’m stuck here trying to survive and make the best of it.
It’s my little therapeutic pillow to yell into as well. Lol
I guess you could still voice your support and encouragement to your Senators, in a time that calls for their courage.
Run against him.
I dont have that kind of money and support network for a US house run, I’m too young for boomers, and I can’t willingly destroy my personal values down to the level required to get elected to any position in Eastern Oregon. I’d have to bait-and-switch them and then probably get shot 3 weeks into my term haha.
You gonna finance the campaign?
Kotek is being infuriatingly silent or both-sides-need-to-work-together about everything as well. I get she wants to keep the flow of sweet federal money coming in so she doesn’t want to piss off Trump but lets be real, that spigot is being shut off sooner or later anyway.
My (R) Senator’s voicemail greeting is a loop of him laughing maniacally, is that normal?
“Thanks, we’ll wag our finger twice as hard next time”
Dems upset they can’t loan shark poor countries
Give em the Tuberville treatment
Such a hold would halt the chamber’s ability to move bills quickly, and require Senate Majority Leader John Thune to use precious floor time to ram the president’s nominees through the confirmation process.
“Person with no power to do anything claims to be doing something.”
The filibuster isn’t just an excuse to not give dem voters what they voted for…
Sometimes it can be used for good.
Filibuster doesn’t apply to nominees.
Who is talking about the SC?
It’s just weird this isn’t the first time this has happened today
It’s not the SC, he’s talking about nominees in general which can’t be filibustered.
Edit You have to read down to the 2nd bolded paragraph:
“In 2013, Reid and Democrats lowered vote threshold on most nominees, but not for Supreme Court picks”
Other nominees and lower court judges had the filibuster eliminated in 2013, Supreme Court judges later.
Then you may have copy pasted the wrong link
Read down to the 2nd bolded paragraph:
“In 2013, Reid and Democrats lowered vote threshold on most nominees, but not for Supreme Court picks”
Nominees can’t be filibustered. That was done before elimimating it for Supreme Court pics.
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