They’ve certainly had enough years of practice blaming him for not recovering from their economic meltdown fast enough, despite their best efforts to stop him.
One, “most” Americans don’t pay attention to the hearings. Never have, never will. But your concern is noted.
Two, what happened to the Trump transition team being in disarray and Trump being unable to fill his cabinet positions? Is that last month’s news already? Damned if Trump does, damned if hTrump doesn’t.
You truly believe that all of these hearings are scheduled at the same time for the sake of efficiency?
Well, it is, isn’t it. That their purpose is malign doesn’t change the neutral consideration of “efficiency”.
They will this year.
Yeah, your boy just can’t catch a break.
In case you haven’t noticed, EVERY President (and DT isn’t even one yet!) is “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.” Goes with the job. There’s no honeymoon anymore. If you can’t stand the heat…well, you know.
I really doubt this. I know the far left is freaking out over his Cabinet picks, but most people don’t care. Most people couldn’t name more than one or two of his nominees, and very few people (in terms of a normal TV audience size) will make any effort at all to watch any nominee’s hearing.
ETA: let me put it this way: I strongly suspect more people will spend more time watching the Celebrity Apprentice than watching all the nominees’ hearings combined.
Well, good news for you, then. Unless you are bemoaning, rather than gloating. Not always easy to tell. Often seems as though you don’t really approve of Trump at all, but the chance to stick your thumb in the eye of the “far left”* is simply too delicious to pass up.
*Obama? Schumer, Pelosi. Biden?
Well, so much for the talking point that it was the the left who was insulting Americans regarding how dumb they were. Of course you are not noticing that what you say here speaks volumes about why Trump managed to win the electoral vote. But going forward the reason why we all should worry is if the people does not care. Then the kleptocrats will have free rein.
I’m not trying to insult anyone, just maintaining a reality-based worldview that was so en vogue around here prior to the election. Let me ask you a question: what % of American adults do you think could name 3+ Trump Cabinet nominees without prompting or assistance?
I suspect your answer will be a disappointingly-low number (although, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here). Is that because you’re insulting them, or because you have a realistic view of the American body politic?
No, it just means that all the talking from the right about about being insulted about the deplorables and such things were poppycock. Indeed, a lot of the people that did vote for Trump remain of the low information variety.
That many on the right puff up now to claim that they are right on many issues when in reality it is based on how much they mislead enough people that were/are not so attentive does not lead one to think that it leads to sustainable positions.
And a lot of people that voted for Clinton are low-information voters. That’s my point. there are a lot of low-information voters on both sides. There are just a lot of low-information voters, which is why I think ThelmaLou’s “They will this year” is wrong. That’s a pretty simple, straightforward observation. I wouldn’t expect it to be contested.
You seem to want to label it an insult and tie it in with Clinton’s “deplorables” insult somehow. I’m not following your logic. Are you saying that Republicans shouldn’t have minded being called awful things by Clinton because many of them won’t listen to Senate committee hearings?
Of course there a lot of that kind that voted for Clinton. What you miss is that surveys reported that there were/are more on the right:
Well, the point that I made is that you are doing that here, you are not minding that indeed you are relying on the low information status of the voters (many of them Republicans BTW) to get your point across.
IMHO one has to then not rely on the people not caring much and concentrate to see if the people being selected will be good for America. Then people like me will have to talk to others about what they are missing and why they should care. We should not just let Trump to set up rubber stamps for kleptocrats.
Fair point. There are low information voters on both sides. But as polls and studies show, the more educated/informed a given voter is, the more likely he or she is to vote for the more liberal/progressive issues. Translated into today’s American political party landscape, that means the more informed voter is more likely to vote for the Democratic candidates. I assume this isn’t something that is a contested observation either.
So for which type of voter does the conservative right (Republican party) tend to have greater appeal, statistically? Do you think they have a keen interest in having low information voters paying attention to the hearings?
They just don’t want to overload the voter with pointless information, like the background, finances, views and opinions of the nominee. That’s why they have scheduled all these confirmation hearings in a couple of days.
“What is your full name? Thank you, you are approved by this committee.”
By comparison, Mitch McConnels requirements for nomination confirmation in 2009.
https://thinkprogress.org/mitch-mcconnell-confirmation-ethics-hypocrisy-2c75b671d694#.j5voi0naf
Mitch McConnell ignoring cabinet confirmation procedure he demanded in 2009
Letter shows he demanded full ‘financial disclosures’ before hearings.
And the opinion of the ineffable Reince Preibus:
QFT, WTF!
In 2009, confirmation hearings for Obama’s cabinet picks appear to have taken place over at least twelve days.
I’m not seeing a list of the hearings in one place–instead, I’m searching at the name of each Cabinet member: Hilda Solis, Labor, January 9; Steven Chu, Energy, and Arne Duncan, Education, January 13; Tom Vilsack, Agriculture, January 14; Ken Salazar, Interior, and Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security, January 15; Eric Holder, Attorney General, January 16; Tim Geithner, Treasury, January 21.
That’s not the entire list, of course. But it’s definitely not ‘six in one day.’
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/05/how-overwhelm-media/214932
Nonsense! They simply want to get these trivial “housekeeping” procedures over with, and out of the way. Got a whole bunch of governin’ to do!
I don’t know. But, then again, I also don’t care when they are done as I haven’t in the past, and I don’t now.
No, they won’t. Only the most politically “attached” dedicate time to following confirmation hearings. The election is over, as a result most people have tuned out, so to speak. I doubt any significant percentage of those people who have continued to follow politics are following the hearings, much less with any sort of interest.
Not what I meant. You guys and gals aren’t going to be happy with Trump no matter what he does.
Thanks for digging up this information. I appreciate it.
You’re welcome. (My face will be red if it turns out there’s already an article with all the information available online; my search didn’t turn one up, anyway.)
More:
Ray LaHood, Transportation: 1-21-2009
Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services, 3-31-2009
Gary Locke, Commerce: 3-18-2009
Robert Gates, Defense –had no hearings as he was already Secretary of Defense during the Bush administration
Eric Shinseki, Veterans Affairs: 1-14-2009
Now that the list is lengthier we can see that the 13th (of January, 2009) may have had as many as four hearings. Note, though, that two of the four had previous federal government jobs (and thus had been through vetting):
–Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State –she had been a US Senator
–Shaun Donovan, Housing and Urban Development: 1-13-2009 – “During the Clinton administration and the transition to the Bush administration, Donovan was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing at HUD, and was acting FHA commissioner” [quoting Wikipedia]
–Steven Chu, Energy – was a professor at UC Berkely when picked
–Arne Duncan, Education – was superintendent of Chicago Public Schools when picked.
In addition to this contrast (in the greater spread of hearing dates) between the Obama and Trump transitions, there are issues with the Trump cabinet picks’ failure to provide routinely-supplied information for ethics review (mainly financial). The Hill has:
Not to mention that this paperwork was required for cabinet picks to have already completed in 2009. A requirement set forth, ironically, by Mitch McConnell.