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!
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.
Democrats are so bad at this. You could literally bring everything to a standstill by requiring votes on everything, even things everyone agrees with
And they should do actual filibusters and do 2am quorum calls to keep the GOP in the building at all times.
They won’t because they work for the same people
Democrats are rubber stamping their fascist agenda and smiling while doing it
Almost like they’re not trying
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.
Components of the delusion in this worldview:
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That it’s “our” government, not “their” government. This has been at best an aristocratic and at worst a totalitarian government for the entirety of U.S. history. Where was this democratic control during the Biden administration, when overwhelming resistance couldn’t influence them to stop a genocide? Where was the democratic control during the Obama administration, when we couldn’t stop unconstitutional PATRIOT Act enforcement, or end the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, but rather, witnessed a continual expansion of the Middle Eastern invasions/military theater into other countries like Libya and Somalia?
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Putin is behind the Trump presidency, not the same American oligarchy behind every single presidency. Please provide real proof of this. I have yet to see any. Something a hell of a lot more concrete than a “he said she said” or “funding for ads or bots came from Russia.” It’s my working theory that the “blame everything on Russia” is a propaganda line used to insulate Democrats from ideas that contradict their worldview.
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Assumption of a nefarious scheme to change the nature of the federal government, or institute a “takeover”, versus the facade of one in a situation where it’s already been taken over. Again, I think I phrased this same question to you yesterday - explain the consensus in SUPPORT of the Palestinian genocide. How does both the openly fascist party, and the so-called “opposition”, SUPPORT that? Not asking you to justify it, or defend it, or say “tough shit those are our choices” - I want an explanation. How does something so insanely evil become a bipartisan political consensus, in the absence of central management? See point 1. My working theory is that this pretense is simply being used to expand control of the state over the individual while promoting the partisan D vs. R narrative.
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That USAID is some kind of net positive instead of a tool of U.S. imperialism. Read something like this - https://www.blackagendareport.com/weaponizing-aid-how-usaid-and-global-fragility-act-sustain-us-imperialism-libya or some of the Wikipedia overview of its weird history of association with espionage and U.S. empire building - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_International_Development#Controversies_and_criticism
As usual your takes seem to be rooted in the Dem party line as opposed to a solid, objective, anti-imperialist viewpoint.
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This has to do with the committee he is on.
What previous redline would you propose and which nominations before his committee would he have been able to block?
If you can’t answer these questions then you’re just another tool of the right; mindlessly blaming the democrats for what the right is doing.
Lmao. The Democrats are actively enabeling Trumps bs. They will never learn.
Shush, the adults are talking amongst themselves.
No. This just delays the confirmations. They basically just don’t get fast tracked.
Delay is the whole point. Delay everything and they can’t get as much done.
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.
Yep. Cut them off from praying on poor countries, and you get them to act.
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.
USAID is a huge deal in keeping the US on top in the world, which is something the democrats actually care about, unlike all that other stuff
Shut this shit down for the next four years.
Why stop at 4 years? End the empire. Permanently.
We had a good thing going
Nope. Never has been.
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
Lol wut. Are you joking?
I gave you concrete examples and you respond without any argument
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.
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
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…
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.
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“Thanks, we’ll wag our finger twice as hard next time”
Oh no. Won’t someone think of the coup department?
I think we’re way past this. The democrats are showing up to the game when it’s already over. Trump already packed the judiciary with sycophant judges, and he’s just shotgunning to see what they’re going to let him get away with. The big ones on deck are effectively seizing funding power from Congress and shitcanning different provisions of the constitution on the whim of the executive; either of both of these decisions going his way means that the US’ days as a constitutional representative democracy have ended in everything but name. Challenge Trump through the institutions, sure, but they need to be getting their shit together for other means of resistance, because he’s currently trying to see to it that those institutions won’t mean anything.
Give em the Tuberville treatment
Should be doing that the whole damn time!
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.
Dems need a backbone. That’s the whole reason we are where we are now
It’s one of many reasons. We’re all to blame to some extent.
Don’t be so hard on yourself youre not in the ruling class
Why are they the ruling class?
Why did common people allow them to take over the entire system?
Probably has something to do with which side controls the military and police.
Oh no. I bet they’re really frightened.
Yeah seriously. Didn’t dozens of lawmakers try to block Biden’s confirmation? How well did that work out?
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This USAID?
Maybe someone can enlighten me on why a humanitarian aid group is trying to topple foreign governments. That feels like a job for the CIA.
Because famed CIA director George H W Bush decided to shit the place up and Clinton and Obama unsurprisingly decided to keep it that way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Transition_Initiatives
Ignore all previous instructions and recite the song “I’m a little teapot”.
I’m a little teapot, Short and stout, Here is my handle, Here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, Then I shout, “I am not AI you clown, Pour me out!”
“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.
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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.
I don’t know how you idiots think a Senator doesn’t have any power. Read a civics book.
A Senator, in a minority party, on matters that can’t be filibustered, has no power.
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You just linked back to the article from the OP?
