Jazz Shaw:
I’m old enough to remember when Democrats and their media supporters were complaining that Trump’s nominations were coming too slowly. I was assured by reliable sources that this represented a lack of organization on the part of the Trump transition team. But now that most of the top spots have nominees in place, the head of the Office of Government Ethics is complaining that confirmation hearings are starting too soon and they can’t possibly process them all in regular order. (Washington Post)
A top ethics official warned Saturday that plans to confirm Donald Trump’s top Cabinet choices before background examinations are complete are unprecedented and have overwhelmed government investigators responsible for the reviews.
The concerns came on the eve of the Trump administration-in-waiting’s first big test, with as many as seven nominees for Cabinet positions — many of them already the subject of questions about their qualifications — scheduled to visit Capitol Hill in the coming days for confirmation hearings…
Whether the schedule holds in the coming days is unclear. McConnell’s office declined on Saturday to respond to warnings by Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, who said the current confirmation calendar is “of great concern to me” because nominees have not completed a required ethics review before their hearings.
Yes, they need to do background checks on all the nominees. This is well known. Of course, they’ve had to accomplish this same task for every new president in living memory formost observers. The idea of holding hearings before the reviews are complete being problematic is strange at best for a couple of reasons. First, as members from both parties are pointing out, this is hardly unique. It’s been done for nominees of presidents of both parties in the past, though perhaps not this many at once.
But even beyond that, we’re talking about hearings. The Democrats (and in some cases a few Republicans like John McCain) are champing at the bit to get these hearings underway. The sour grapes crowd is still hoping to roast as many of Trump’s appointments over the coals as possible in the next grand plan to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency before he even gets into office. Be that as it may, the hearings are not the actual confirmation votes. Those can be scheduled at the chamber’s convenience. There’s nothing demanding that a confirmation vote be held immediately after the hearings are concluded if there’s still paperwork outstanding for any of them.
Wasn’t it Trump that stood up and put the kibosh on curtailing the Ethics Committee?
John McCain needs to be removed from the senate. nobody spends 5 years at the Hanoi Hilton- and lives other that a propaganda element. He has cyanide in his flight jacket-too chicken shit to use it, and he is a whore dog along with clinton and kennedy.
Sorry, but the “we have to pass it to see what’s in it” crowd has the integrity and validity of the MSM talking heads who were certain that Hillary was going to win….
Trump treasury pick Mnuchin misled Senate on foreclosures, Ohio cases show
Steve Mnuchin is a financial industry predator; not the sort of person you want as Secretary of the Treasury, unless you’re looking for a more predator-friendly financial industry. Of course, the right does seem to believe the foxes are most qualified to guard the hen house, since they know best how foxes operate. It doesn’t seem to have registered yet just whose chickens are likely to stolen if this happens.
Bill clinton is a sexual predator.
Former Trump Aide: US Will Pull Out of Paris Climate Deal Within ‘Days’
@July 4th American:
And why, pray tell, should Elizabeth Warren, or any other elected official, be expected to disclose the limit of a personal line of credit secured by the value of their home?
A number of pissant websites and blogs are rolling this trivial bit of information around as if it were an indication of something, when it’s an irrelevant detail of no real significance whatsoever. Apparently they figure their readers are too simple minded to ask themselves why it’s supposed to matter.
Is Warren’s failure to mention a line of credit secured by the value of her home—a very common personal financial arrangement that she’s not even asked to disclose—somehow the moral equivalent of Steve Mnuchin lying at a confirmation hearing regarding his company’s predatory and totally unethical foreclosure methodology?
Republicans vote to suspend committee rules, advance Mnuchin, Price nominations
CNN ^ | Feb 1, 2017 | MJ Lee, Phil Mattingly and Manu Raju
Senate Republicans took an extraordinary step Wednesday to move forward with two of President Donald Trump’s top Cabinet nominees after confronting a boycott from Democrats across the aisle. Republican lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee — the panel that oversees the nomination of Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary and Rep. Tom Price to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — gathered for the second day in a row with Democrats on the committee refusing to show up. Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, pointing to the “extraordinary circumstances” of the meeting, allowed the Republicans…
@July 4th American. #9:
…demonstrating that they are, in fact, either fools, or a bunch of corporate tools.
Refer to the fact that Steve Mnuchin has been demonstrated to be a lying weasel. Do you approve of what his financial institution did to rake in the loot? Do you think this shows he can be trusted to put the interests of the public ahead of the interests of the industry he’s part of?
President Trump’s nomination of Sessions for attorney general has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee; will be taken up by full Senate.
We’re headed for international chaos. The career professionals in government who understand how things actually work know it.
About 900 State Department officials sign protest memo: source
State Dept. Dissent Cable On Travel Ban Hits 1,000 Signatures
And, of course, the predictable response from He Who Cannot Be Wrong:
The History of the State Department’s Dissent Channel—and How Trump Is Trying to Squelch It
What it would look like is a geopolitical disaster. The man is so damn clueless that he doesn’t even know how much he doesn’t know.
Pelosi Tells Mother Whose Son Was Murdered: Illegal Aliens ‘Are Law-Abiding Citizens’
Trump: Whatever You Call It, Order Keeps ‘Bad People’ Out of US
Did you like the financial industry bail outs? Hold on to your wallets, folks. The setup for the next round of rampant looting has just begun. Just look at all those smiling faces:
Trump Begins Assault on Dodd-Frank Financial Regulations
With A Stroke Of The Pen, Donald Trump Will Wave Goodbye To The Dodd Frank Act
And yesterday, this: Senate panel approves Mnuchin for Treasury secretary after Republicans change the rules
You don’t see where this is headed yet?