Sessions Approved While GOP Changes Committee Rules to Approve Price, Mnuchin
All three move to the Senate floor for confirmation votes
Senate Republicans found a way to end the Democrat boycott of approval votes for President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. The Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee changed the rule stating at least one member from each party must attend a meeting for the committee to do its work.
The Democrats boycotted the hearing yesterday to approve Human and Health Services Secretary nominee Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin. They boycotted Wednesday’s meeting, which forced Republicans to take action:
“It’s just another way of roughing up the president’s nominees,” said committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “They have been treated fairly. We have not been treated fairly.”
The 14 Republicans on the committee voted to approve Price and Mnuchin. A confirmation vote can now take place on the Senate floor.
Hatch said this incident will not stop the Republicans from trying to work with Democrats on other issues, but said that “there is no excuse for what they did yesterday” and there is “no excuse for them not coming today.”
Top Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon said the Democrats found out about the meeting 30 minutes before it started. He claims he found out while attending a meeting about rural health care. Thing is, yesterday when the Democrats boycotted, the GOP did not keep it a secret that the next meeting would occur on Wednesday.
The Democrats decided to boycott the hearings because of a Wall Street Journal article “that said Mr. Price had participated in a private stock offering open to just six individuals, directly contradicting testimony he gave the committee in a hearing last week.”
But Hatch insisted the Democrats have had more than enough time to retrieve any information they want from the nominees and ask him for more time.
The Senate Judiciary Committee finally voted on Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for attorney general. The Democrats bickered so much on Tuesday that the approval vote happened today. The committee approved Sessions by a vote of 11-9 and now moves to the Senate floor.
On Tuesday, the Democrats attempted to connect Sessions to the executive order that halted some forms of immigration from seven countries. I kid you not. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) found evidence in a Washington Post article that reported Trump’s senior policy advisor Stephen Miller penned the majority of the executive orders. Sessions had mentored Miller, who became one of the senator’s confidants. Democrats construed this to mean Sessions had a hand in the immigration order. The article also led people to believe Sessions contributed to the order because chief strategist Stephen Bannon praised Sessions in the past.
Feinstein is not the only one:
“To suggest he didn’t have an impact on these executive orders is misleading,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “He had indirect influence at the highest level.”
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What goes around, comes around.
The Democrats have let the most irresponsible people in the party run amuck, and they are even now running tests on how to influence public opinion.
Fake comments all over the place
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5rf04k/found_a_ctr_comment_bot_that_comments_the_same/
Same fake comments as above, different format
http://imgur.com/A1IImTb
Reasonable persons might lose patience with this nonsense.
My sister contacted me yesterday to ask about an ad that she saw on TLC asking Trump supporters to call an 800 number to “register their support.
I smell dirty tricks.
The rest of the unwashed masses operate under Robert’s Rules of Procedure wherein any purely dilatory tactic is deemed improper. But the Senate is above all that nonsense.
The majority party can change the rules. And, will if the minority party does not bother to show up.
Remember – The UN intervened in Korea simply because the Russian delegation stayed out to lunch too long.
Even supposing that Trump’s pick for AG had input into his EO’s – so what? The EO’s are legal, even though the LibDems profess to be aghast at them. Part of the AG’s job is to advise the President on legal matters. Just more political posturing.
Wow!Senator Hatch has suddenly grown a pair. It is amazing how much influence having a pair in the White House has on other Repubs in the legislative branch. Who would have thunk it!
What happened was that people who Hatch thought he had a standing relationship with insulted him personally, by dissing his committee and ignoring his requests.
That may sound petty, but on the other hand it points out what a stupid move this was by the Dems. Hatch was one of the Senators who as much as any stood for compromise and accommodation with his political opponents – and here they went and pushed him, of all people, into a “screw you a$$holes, I’m changing the rules!!!” mode.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. They are really going to regret this.
But it wasn’t a mad moment for Hatch. He’d already gotten the Senate Parliamentarian’s blessing for the rule change, so he was ready for the rule change when the moment presented itself. Well played, Senator Hatch.
Hatch obviously had a Trump Testicular Transplant.
Could we get a link to the CNN story about the obstructionist Democrats? Thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Here now, you doubters and naysayers. The US Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world! Maybe the universe!
Well, that’s what Gorsuch said.
I actually agree. Though it says a lot less that meets the eye…
It’s about time the “gentlemen” put away the heady glory of being U.S. senators, roll up their sleeves and start throwing some jaw-breaking punches.
They’ve been shat on for years without a whimper. Perhaps they, too, like the ‘rats, are learning that the sleeping giant has awakened in a VERY foul mood.
It appears that Trump has given the Congressional Roll-Over Party leaders some backbone.
Great Post and great comments.
“To suggest he didn’t have an impact on these executive orders is misleading,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “He had indirect influence at the highest level.”
To that I say, so what?