Biden Cabinet Confirmation Live Thread ***hearings, votes, etc.***

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https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1364007693392961539
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1364007918283194371
Manchin stands firm on his NO vote decision.

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I'd guess Murkowski is more likely to reject Tanden than Sanders or Sinema and (assuming she doesn't have an ace up her sleeve in the form of another Republican Senator), she needs all three.

Tanden is pretty much out of options. Manchin, Collins, Romney & Portman are all NO votes. Murkowski is the only wild card but I doubt that she will vote in favor of Tanden's nomination.

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https://twitter.com/usatodayDC/status/1363911701163352065

Tom, typically the dogwhistles are intended to go over the heads of the liberals.

The implication behind Cotton's question is that supporting "racial equity" as opposed to "racial equality" means discrimination but woke.   Just in case that wasn't clear from the snippet or people aren't familiar with the debate on this.

No, racial equity is "when institutions give equal opportunities to people of all races. In other words, the structures, systems, practices and cultural narratives in society provide true situational fairness and equal opportunity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or race". Currently, that is not the case in American society.

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I hardly think either of these are neutral definitions of the term.

WDYM?

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Nope Harris defined it as equal outcome. Then Biden started using it more. Pretty obvious what it means.

I don't know what you're referring to or talking about. Anyways, racial equity isn't a bad thing - it's what's needed in America.

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Nope Harris defined it as equal outcome. Then Biden started using it more. Pretty obvious what it means.

I don't know what you're referring to or talking about. Anyways, racial equity isn't a bad thing - it's what's needed in America.

Okay, I guess I have to spell this out.

Conservative and libertarian thought tends to make a distinction between "equality of opportunity", which most people support, and "equality of outcome", which is controversial because it involves (or is perceived to involve) a certain amount of "positive discrimination" in favor of people or groups that are perceived to have a more disadvantageous starting position. The way progressives talk about equity sets a lot of center-right-to-right people off because it's perceived to indicate a desire to force better outcomes for some groups (which tend to be core Democratic constituencies) at the--again, perceived--expense of others. Add to this the general conservative distrust for specialized language and jargon--or, at least, for jargon that isn't conservative jargon--and you have a widespread lack of openness to the concept among people who don't already believe in it.

Yeah, I know all of that. My statement was referring to his comment about remarks from Kamala defining racial equity and "Biden started using it more". I don't know what he's talking about.

Anyways, regardless, it's just more consternating from conservatives. Meh.

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https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1322963321994289154?

"Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place"

Its such a pity Cultural Marxism has such anti-semitic tones because there needs to be a similar word for this.

Oh yeah, I remember this. There's nothing wrong with this video or what she said. LOL, you can cry about "cultural marxism" (which is far-right racist lingo) and "anti-semitic tones" (which is just a ridiculous assertion) but it's just a bunch of whining from butthurt conservatives to me.

Racial equity is a good thing.

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And of course you ignore my post above despite it being a direct quote from Kamala Harris.

I posted that before I saw your post, smarty pants

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Bernie just voted NO on Vilsack's nomination. Interesting.

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Vilsack is terrible and shouldn't have been re-nominated to be AgSec but whatever, he's confirmed.


In other news:
https://mobile.twitter.com/burgessev/status/1364299224108695558

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Is Hawley now the only one who opposed all Biden nominees? Even Cruz voted for Austin.

Hawley is the only Republican senator to oppose every Biden nominee so far.

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Kyrsten Sinema is physically attractive (at least in my opinion) but I wish that her politics was more attractive. She shouldn't be a conservadem.

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https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1364297097873395716

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What exactly was the problem with Vilsack? I mean the opposition to him in this forum. Did he do a poor job during the Obama Admin?

https://mobile.twitter.com/politico/status/1336845656288333824

His ties to Monsanto are also a problem. Then, there's the fact that he was already AgSec for 8 years, did he really need to be re-nominated? Biden should have chose someone else.

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What exactly was the problem with Vilsack? I mean the opposition to him in this forum. Did he do a poor job during the Obama Admin?

https://mobile.twitter.com/politico/status/1336845656288333824

His ties to Monsanto are also a problem. Then, there's the fact that he was already AgSec for 8 years, did he really need to be re-nominated? Biden should have chose someone else.

I understand policy-based concerns & the like being the potential impetus for opposing a nominee, & those are totally fair, but is the bolded really a fair concern? If the President believes that they did a good job & they obviously only previously left the job because the White House had changed hands, then why shouldn't it be fair for the President to put them back in the role?

Yes. Especially when Biden said that he would have a "Cabinet that looks like America". Did he have to re-nominate his "friend" when he could have nominate someone new? It makes it even worse because according to Biden, Vilsack didn't want to be AgSec again but Biden begged him to accept - and Vilsack relented.

Furthermore, Biden didn't nominate an AAPI person to be a Cabinet Secretary. An Asian AgSec would have been a historic first.

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Wanting an (even more) diverse cabinet is yet another fair concern, yes, but that doesn't exactly answer my question, as it's not the same thing as one of the cons of a nominee merely being that they already held the job.

Well, in my opinion it is a con. But we'll agree to disgrace.

My biggest problems with Vilsack was his treatment of Black famers and Black officials in the USDA (in particular, Shirley Sherrod) and his ties to Monsanto.

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I was under the impression Vilsack hated being Agriculture Secretary and Biden had to beg him to take the position a second time.

That is correct:

“He wasn’t anxious to come back, he wasn’t looking for this job, but I was persistent and I asked him to serve again in this role because he knows the USDA inside and out, he knows the government inside and out,” Biden said of Vilsack, who turns 70 this weekend, as he introduced him and other members of his future Cabinet on Friday. “We need that experience now.”

SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-iowa-coronavirus-pandemic-financial-markets-fb52ce4a722219fe6b3a513d619ab6f4

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It may be a stop gap right now. My guess in Biden and his team's thinking is how to make sure the factories and farming are covid safe and how we will deal with the next pandemic. Set the wheels in motion, I'd pay more attention to who will be the deputy. With that said, he should've nominated Fudge.

Biden nominated Dr. Jewel H. Bronaugh to be Deputy AgSec. She is the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. She's also a Black woman.

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Doesn't really make up for Tanden but at least Manchin is behaving himself today.

Haaland >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tanden

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The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 15-7 to send the nomination of Merrick Garland to be the next attorney general to the full Senate. Republican Senators Cotton, Kennedy, Lee, Blackburn, Hawley, Sasse and Cruz voted “No.”

Simply inexplicable on republicans' part how they can vote no on Garland, who is possibly the least controversial and most qualified of all of Biden's nominees, and arguably the most qualified AG nominee ever. These clowns voted yes on Barr. Just remember this the next time anyone suggests we should deal with the likes of Cotton, Hawley, Cruz, Blackburn, etc in good faith.

Hawley has voted against every single Biden nominee, while Lee and Cruz have only voted for one each, to my knowledge. So it's not surprising to see them continuing this pattern of behavior. Nominations in all fields have become much more partisan than they used to be. Not one of Biden's nominees has received a unanimous confirmation thus far.

Technically, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks did. It was a voice vote - so there was no recorded roll call vote. But no Senator objected, so it's essentially unanimous.

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Raimondo sucks but she's going to be easily confirmed.

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Hawley voted AYE on Rouse!

Hawley just voted in favor of limiting debate on Cecilia Rouse nomination

Rouse is probably going to be the first Biden nominee that Hawley votes to confirm.

Still, Josh Hawley is Josh Hawley. Anything's possible lol.

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Um, I'm on C-SPAN2 and they still haven't gaveled out Rouse's nomination. What's going on? Did they forget lol?

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https://mobile.twitter.com/jbendery/status/1367089981517365248

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So I guess, the final vote for Haaland will be 52-53/47-48.