My issue is that most of these people are well known, long-serving public servants. Yellen, Garland, Xavier Becerra (Current CA AG), and other such known people can and should be easily be confirmed. There is absolutely no reason why Biden should be denied his nominees when they are such known quantities. We are in a state of emergency with our government under attack. We can not responsibly leave the highest offices in the nation empty. Dems. need to get the nominees on record with statements as to their loyalty to the Constitution and lack of criminal pasts and then get on with voting them into office. Then, if we find out something later, they can be removed and prosecuted. But to leave the most important offices in the nation empty during this crisis is shortsighted, poor judgment, and will have consequences.
Dems Weigh How To Get Around An Impeachment Hold-Up To Confirming Biden’s Noms | Talking Points Memo
Biden will get his nominees. The GOP has lost the power to stop that so the fears of just a few weeks ago are moot. Mitch can’t stop Biden. Biden’s nominee’s have been scrutinized from many angles but not the one they all have in common: competence and a history of doing good work. They may or may not suit peoples preferences but there’s no reason to believe ANY of them won’t do a good job and absolutely no reason to believe they won’t exceed their predecessors by orders of magnitude.
Not sure how much leeway they have. At least per the rules interpretations last time, all other business had to halt until the conclusion of the trial.
Tending to the affairs of state and dealing with Trump’s malfeasance are not mutually exclusive. Biden will have a huge staff and a scad of agencies working under his command. Both can be done without one dinging the other.
@thunderclapnewman already found the answer.
That is true, unless the Senate passes a resolution to amend the rules.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-99sdoc33/html/CDOC-99sdoc33.htm [
You need unanimous consent to change the rules. You won’t get unanimous consent with reprobates like Cruz, Hawley and Paul there.
Yeah, that sentence jumped out at me as a completely unnecessary waste of precious pixels. The Republicans have demonstrated that they fear mockery from their demented leader. The Democrats do not have to follow suit, nor should they.
I 100% agree.
I think certain positions are more dire, and some things can operate fine enough with acting or career staff.
Like, Azar at HHS is a POS, but if he gets in line and works with Joe, this can last a couple weeks and not be detrimental. One could make the arguement it could help a few idiots de-politicize the vaccine and masks seeing an open actual helpful transition. Of course Azar would have to be on board.
Whereas we need an AG to sign off on Certain things, and at Justice we need more house keeping
It’s what, a 12 year recess under Moscow Mitch “Obama Cannot Be Allowed to President” McConnell? Republican Senators have been accustomed to checking in a few times a week, while collecting their big bucks. Now they’ll actually have to work.
Joe, you fill your cabinet with Actings if you have to. Your malevolent predecessor must be impeached, and if he isn’t convicted by the Senate, then those Senators up for reelection in 2022 who supported their Leper Messiah with a non-conviction should be ejected by any correctly-thinking state majority.
I’m looking at you, Ron “Sucking on Trump’s Asshole” Johnson.
That can’t be true. Otherwise, the bar for judges and Supreme Court nominees couldn’t have been reduced from 2/3 to a simple majority.
I was referring to the current rules that hold the Senate is not presently in session until the 19th or so. I’m not referring to the filibuster.
Only if they’ve been previously approved for another post by the Senate.
Them’s the rules.
The only problem here is learned helplessness. How much time and attention a Senate trial might take is completely in control of a simple majority of the Senate.
Of course, it should go without saying that the Senate should conduct such a trial, or simply drop the matter of impeachment if it so chooses, with complete fairness. If the trial were about some complicated matter, then justice would obviously require a more careful, and thus lengthier procedure. If not all of the relevant facts of the matter were yet known, which could often be the case in the impeachment of a president, because president’s are (rather foolishly) allowed all sorts of executive privilege, by all means the trial should involve the discovery and presentation of this relevant evidence.
In this case, complete fairness could see all arguments and presentation of evidence in the trial over within an hour or two at the most. No doubt many hours, many days and weeks, could be filled with evidence of some relevance to the case that Trump incited insurrection on January 6. 2021. He has been giving such background evidence for over five years, and there is so much of it that the Senate could do nothing else for the next four years but review it, and still not get through all of it. But why the hell would the Senate want to do that, review all the evidence? What he did in that one speech on January 6, 2021, added to his inaction over the next few hours, is more than enough to require, not just allow, but require, all the senator-jurors to vote to convict. Adding more evidence would just dilute his guilt, quite aside from unnecessarily wasting the Senate’s time.
If the trial hasn’t been held by January 20, 2021, there is no reason to proceed with such a trial. And if there is no reason to hold a trial because Trump is already out of office, nothing in the Constitution or the laws requires the Senate to hold one. If Senate rules require a trial within a certain time interval, such rules can be changed at any time by a simple majority.
Sure, conviction even after he leaves office could impose the only other punishment that the impeachment process can impose, a bar from future office-holding. Well, who cares about that. That would be in the Rs’ interest not ours, so let them win the next election if they can and bar Trump from future office-holding in order to end the civil war within their party. We should wish them good luck in that endeavor, but lift not one finger to help them. Trump is their problem after he’s no longer Commander in Chief. Yes, a Trump win in 2024 would endanger us all, but, please, if he could get the votes to get their nomination that year, he and his supporters will not be at all deterred by his obviously fraudulent bar to future office-holding that those Communist Ds and Never-Trumper Rs corruptly voted back in 2021.
It would be politically unwise, on top of public policy unwise, to pursue impeachment at this time for any reason other than the immediate danger he poses to all of us by virtue of his ability to use the bully pulpit of the office to stir up insurrection that he can direct, protect, and otherwise exploit because he will remain Commander in Chief.until January 20 unless removed or suspended. This is not the occasion to game out potential political gain, or the optics of the process. Send the Senate articles with the sole intent of removal from office, now. If the Senate refuses to act while under R control, whatever disaster occurs that will be enabled by their refusal to do their duty is on them. After the Senate passes to our control, if that’s before noon on January 20, hold the vote on conviction within the hour that control passes. If control only passes after noon on Inauguration Day, our side should just table the articles.
As an aside, we should really dread the damage that Trump and his group of “temporary” amateurs and ideologues have done within government agencies. Incoming appointees may well discover that the mechanisms of government are largely disabled or outright broken. My expectation (and, I hope that I’m wrong) is that incoming Biden appointees may need to reconstitute the agencies they take over before they can be functional again.
We have the simple majority, this shouldn’t be hard.
There have been some rumblings with Yellen for the Fed.
Then let the non-Acting Actings write instructions that get Joe’s signature to direct the policy downward. It’s good for a start. A PITA, too, but it’ll get stuff started.
McConnell’s corrupt skill at working the rules and the press is on display again. Senate rules preclude the Senate returning unless 100 Senators agree? Everyone says, “Oh,dear. Nothing we can do.”
But as someone points out in this thread, if McConnell and Schumer agreed to recall Senate on emergency basis it would be done. Only one person stands in the way of recalling the Senate and it’s Mitch McConnell. The press indeed should be asking: “Wait a minute. The Capitol was stormed. The Vice President and the Speaker were endangered. You sent the Senate home amidst a national emergency?”
The atmosphere up there is already poisonous. I doubt they can walk and chew gum at the same time. The impeachment discussion will inevitably bleed into confirmation hearings.
Think Biden’s best option is to stick “ acting” secretaries in place while realizing he’ll have to concede 5 days for confirmation hearings to start while Senate holds Trump trial.
Galling to think Republicans are calling for “coming together” after 12 years of hostility and opposition and McConnell’s demonstrated continued bad faith.
I would favor the impeach and wait for trial. In the impeachment action, however, authorize the judiciary committee to take all action it needs, including full subpoena power, to obtain the evidence in support of the impeachment article until it is referred to the Senate.