Discussion: How Killing The Filibuster Changed The Way Trump Is Filling His Cabinet

[cabchi]

They also apparently don’t want to share the burden of keeping TPM financially viable, because it looks like they aren’t Prime members. Just saying.

[ric_gerace]

Exciting, isn’t it, being in on the start of the most corrupt and incompetent administration in the history of the United States? The Office of Congressional Ethics is dead. The filibuster has been gelded. The President-elect is quite possibly psychotic. His cabinet nominations, now guaranteed approval, are blind ideologues whose only real competence is advancing their own careers and filling their own pockets while ignoring the cost to the people around them, and now the people around them comprise not only the population of the United States, but the people of the world. For at least the next four years money will flow into their pockets at the cost of suffering, misery, and blood to the people of Earth. The Republicans have guaranteed that in time they will be put down like rabid dogs, which they indeed are. The cost of getting to that point will be heavy and bloody.

All of which is simply to say that anyone who voted for Trump, who is little more than a vile pot of slobbering drool sitting on a golden toilet, is a fucking idiot.

[ignoreland]

@jep07 Don’t know if “exconomy” was a typo, but if so it was a fortuitous one. Perfectly describes/predicts Drumpf’s effect on our country.

Does anyone here know the difference between a filibuster and a hold? Used to be that was one way of blocking nominees. One the goopers used with great effectiveness.

[inversion]

@fiftygigs

And the transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the 1% continues.

Trump voter: “But Trump is the change agent.”

[inversion]

@mrcomments

He is one of many people who would have probably voted for Sanders over Trump had Sanders been the nominee

Please explain

[inversion]

@dave_mb

But Washington is broken and something needs to change.

Problem is that one doesn’t use dynamite to solve these issues.

[inversion]

@trumpdog

Republicans would have changed the rules once they had power anyway.

n that would have been on them.

Was changing the rules necessary? In some cases, yes.

However doing so meant that the minority party at the time couldn’t get back on top.

[inversion]

@castor_troy

The filibuster ceased to be an effective tool the day that the republican party decided to conduct scorched-earth tactics.

The problem is that when that rule changed, it was on the Democratic electorate and the DNC to make sure that the Republicans couldn’t take advantage of that…

oh well…

[nickdanger]

Regardless of the President, he should have a lot of discretion in choosing his cabinet, and staffing the Executive Branch. The filibuster is an extra-constitutional mechnism, unmentioned in the Constitution, which impedes the functioning of the Senate as a democratic body which proceeds using majority rule. I am more and more leaning to complete elimination. Elimination of the filibuster for appointments including Cabinet officers, ambassadors, judges, and other such offices seems reasonable to me. Judges of course are the judicial branch. I would like to see the old system in which judges were nominated in accordance with the suggestions of Senators from the state or region in question.

Elimination of the filibuster for SC nominees may be an exception. However, if this is invoked, swift and decisive rule changes may be expected.

[cub_calloway]

[dave_mb]

@bonvivant

All of Trump’s lies, projections, and self dealing were evident to any “sane” person well before the election.

Oh, I agree.

1. He has been a Hillary hater for decades. He’s 80 years old and I think he’s disliked her sine she was first lady back in 1992. He says ‘I’ll grant you that she’s a hard worker, but tell me one accomplishment that Hillary had as Secretary of State.’ Before I tell him, I ask him if he can name one accomplishment any Secretary of State has had. Ever.

2. He fully expects Trump to cock things up, but the next guy will fix them. He thinks shaking up Washington is more important than any temporary issues Trump will mess up.

3. He thinks that one of the main problems in our country is income inequality, that Wall Street has turned into gambling controlled by the very wealthy as opposed to an investment tool and that there’s no way for the average person to make any money on invested wealth (super low interest rates).

4. He thinks Hillary is establishment and as establishment is part of the problem. Apparently she was supposed to overhaul the government as First Lady or as a single Senator.

5. While he does think that Trump is a complete and total mess, ehe thinks that Trump is a ‘negotiator’ and ‘good at deals’. He thinks that Trump has some core competencies.

[old_curmudgeon]

There is one thing Democrats can do: Find three responsible Republican senators. (I see Demosthenes with his lantern, searching for an honest man.)

[castor_troy]

@inversion

The problem is that when that rule changed, it was on the Democratic electorate and the DNC to make sure that the Republicans couldn’t take advantage of that…

Not really. It’s actually quite hopeless trying to negotiate and use anything along the lines of “facts”, “logic”, etc. around these people. Unfortunately, I’m related to a couple of them. And literally every discussion (can even start with something about the weather) will end in someone hanging up/yelling/etc. Usually me. Because they literally live in a different reality from us. In Fox News Land, the reality you and I know doesn’t exist. Hillary is a scheming liar who lies about everything, Trump won the popular vote and so on.

So, no, it wouldn’t help just broadcasting facts to a population that has decided they don’t believe in them.

[clare]

Not all Trump voters are idiots. Some of them are just enormously greedy and selfish. Either way, I cannot stomach them. Between my husband’s midwestern roots, and my Texan background, we have several family members who voted for Trump. We have a running argument about which are more ignorant. It’s a big problem for us. Heartbreak, actually.

[valgalky23]

I’m know several people of that age and older who think along those lines or are just rabid republicans. What pisses me off is that most of them will not live long enough to suffer the repercussions or eat crow. That’s nice of them to vote to fuck the country to hell and not back and conveniently die while leaving a total mess to their children and grand children.

[clare]

"The only question now is whether Republican senators will be willing to speak out against the President-elect’s nominees if something controversial or truly disqualifying arises in the hearings."

Oh, sure.

[mickeyg]

Yeah, well I was told last night on FB that Trump isn’t going to let the “democratics” destroy the poor with all their giveaways to the rich…Wrap your head around that one. It actually kept me from falling asleep for a while.

[daled]

Good article except rather than saying only that the Dem minority was “stripped of its power” it would have been more complete to remind readers that the Dems themselves nuked the filibuster and why.

There may be new readers to TPM that could use the background and also makes the story fully rounded rather than some more “liberal lies.”

Just sayin…

[thunderclapnewman]

@mrcomments

There were definitely enough of them to swing the election the other way.

Patently false and completely risible.

[inversion]

@nickdanger

Elimination of the filibuster for SC nominees may be an exception.

that will be next…