This afternoon, Senators Murkowski and Collins, along with every Democrat voted against cloture to confirm Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.
He is highly likely to be confirmed for if Murkowski and Collins had two more Republicans willing to vote no, they would have had a discussion with Thune to tell him to tell Trump to pull the nomination before anyone got embarrassed.
The Senate will not be the leverage point on anything that does not require 60 votes for cloture or 67 for treaty ratification.
However, Politico reinforces that the House is the leverage point:
GOP lawmakers in the room included Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Young Kim (Calif.), David Valadao (Calif.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Tom Barrett (Mich.) and Don Bacon (Neb.).
And the group asserted that Republicans need to protect more than just Obamacare. A large swath of the GOP is discussing significant spending cuts, including to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Centrists warned their colleagues not to pursue deep cuts to those programs, which benefit low-income Americans, according to the four Republicans…
Emmer’s team ticked through slides of possible cuts to “feel out problems,” according to another person familiar with the meeting. As they went down the list, it became clear there were still many points of disagreement.
“Almost everything is: ‘That’s a problem. That’s a problem,’” said one of the people who was in the room.
Right now, the House Republican caucus can afford to lose zero NO votes or 2 “present”/”flight cancelled” Republicans on any vote where every Democrat shows up and votes NO in the House. Once special elections are held, the House HOP can afford 2 NO votes.
The House is the pressure point. We know that Fitzpatrick voted against ACHA in 2017. We know that local political and economic actors will be having very extensive discussions with vulnerable Republicans about the effects of multi-trillion dollar Medicaid and/or ACA cuts will have to their district’s healthcare system.
The House is the pressure point that will bend first.
Shalimar
So basically if we just beat up 3 Republican House members a day so they have to stay home to recover, we win.
David Anderson
@Shalimar: you said that not me
KatKapCC
@Shalimar: Honestly, we should just do that no matter what the possible outcome.
David Anderson
@KatKapCC: let’s not say things that prompt visits from people with department store suits and no sense of humor
Jackie
@KatKapCC:
Really? I hope Dems are better than that. Even if joking, I’m not amused.
TBone
Ugh Fitzpatrick & Bucks County slash MontCo BLECH
Fitzpatrick represents the wealthiest congressional district in the Commonwealth of PA.
Baud
@Jackie:
Don’t worry. Dems only beat up on other Dems.
TBone
Can we toss milkshakes???
Baud
@TBone:
Mine bring all the boys to the yard.
TBone
@Baud: hee hee hee!
Tis dark in my neighborhood
Shalimar
@Baud: 188 Republican House members are male, so it’s good the plan is forming.
KatKapCC
@David Anderson: I hardly think the SS is monitoring an almost-top-10,000 blog.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
There’s apparently more shoes to drop tomorrow
Chief Oshkosh
Welp, here’s hoping Hegseth thumbs his nose at all of us scolds and continues doing it his way…
…publicly.
KatKapCC
@Jackie: Good Lord, we weren’t saying they should be offed or something. You’re telling me you’ve never once made nor laughed at an obvious joke about a Republican getting slapped around for the horrible shit they say and do?
Rusty
WP headline right now: Trump moves to close Pentagon office focused on curbing civilian deaths.
These people are evil.
Harrison Wesley
@TBone: Relative of Emmett Fitzpatrick?
scav
I suppose mass tourism is not a route open to us either. State-of-the-art buses labelled Tours of Your Representative Stars Homes are not a business opportunity that will be freed from governmental overregulation.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Rusty:
https://archive.ph/9zaYG
Still would need Congressional approval…which in this case would probably get.
Rusty
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Even if they don’t get it, they will render it completely ineffective
WaterGirl
We knew it would be bad, but really, it’s hard to comprehend that a person whose primary goal is to hurt other people could get anywhere near the presidency, let alone being elected as President in the US for the second time.
It really is breathtaking how far the US has fallen.
We need not just resistance, but opposition.
Sister Golden Bear
Concrete things you can do to support trans girls — buy Girl Scout cookies from them. Here’s a list.
BellaPea
My husband, who is a Vietnam vet, says if Hedsgeth gets approved the long-term military brass at DoD will chew him up. Here’s hoping. What a scum bag sexist pig.
Danielx
@KatKapCC:
Considering how many Repubz possess a backpfeifengesicht, it’s hard not to make comments.
free translation: a face that cries out for a fist. See Cruz, Ted.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: We knew it would be bad, but until now all we could do is speculate what “bad” meant. Now it’s here and it really is breathtaking, isn’t it?
I don’t mean to sound naive or unprepared, but no matter how much you prep yourself, it’s still shocking when we finally do see the unraveling
And it hurts.
different-church-lady
Wait, why are we stopping at three?
Sister Golden Bear
More concrete things you can do, support business that hire trans people (especially for “front of the house” jobs) and let them know why you’re supporting them.
More broadly, reward companies that do that right thing, like Costco — 98% of their shareholders just rejected an anti-DEI measure, which management had denounced.
different-church-lady
@David Anderson: If people find out we’re joking like this we’re going to lose electio– oh, wait…
Harrison Wesley
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Ohio Mom
@Rusty: Only read the first paragraph, it would be something that would have to go through Congress first (for whatever that is worth), but once again, I am stunned at this administration’s attention to detail.
Just like I had no idea about NIH study groups that consider grant proposals, I had no idea the Pentagon had a department charged with figurng out how to limit civilian deaths in battle. That seems wonderfully American to me, planning to fight fairly.
It also seems to me to be absolutely gratuitous to pick on this department. I certainly don’t agree with terrorizing immigrants or banning abortion but I can parrot the talking points for those stands. But I never heard complaints that we weren’t killing enough civilians.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom:
Cruelty is the point. Boot stomping on human face, forever.
Ohio Mom
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, except Costco workers are about to go on strike, or maybe they already started? Not a Costco member so not following this story.
Here’s hoping the strike is a short one and you members can go back to buying a 100 rolls of toilet paper at a time.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom: I have a wall holder that holds 50, and a stand that holds the backup 50.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Oh, good.
KatKapCC
@different-church-lady: Made me snicker. Thank you.
eclare
@TBone:
Great news about Noah!
Ohio Mom
@different-church-lady: Our house is on the smaller side, we don’t have space for such things. Sounds like you are set for the next pandemic’s supply chain stoppage though.
eclare
@different-church-lady:
Seriously?
Ohio Mom
@eclare: I’m guessing not. It’s different-church-lady after all.
eclare
@Ohio Mom:
I have space, but Costco is twenty miles away, and I’m single so it’s not worth the drive.
eclare
@Ohio Mom:
As soon as I typed that I realized it was snark. But you never know, a friend used to buy a year’s worth at a time. The covid supply shortages freaked him out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
I don’t have any special insight. It’s based on Baud’s and Quinerly’s comments on the previous thread:
YY_Sima Qian
Good thing Fetterman closed ranks w/ the Senate Dems in the end. I have seen disturbing signs of him being enticed by aspects of MAGA, especially in foreign policy, but he has not defected, yet.
Ohio Mom
@eclare: They single thing is definitely a deterrent to joining Costco. An old friend was married into a family of six or seven siblings and they were always have potlucks and she joined Costco just for that. So when it was her turn to bring drinks or chips or desserts, she was set.
I hear they have a good hearing aid department though I’m not yet in that market.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
It’s only the Teamsters repped stores, so about 10% of storefronts and the deadline for a deal is Jan. 31st.
different-church-lady
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Why do we talk about these things like they’re still disqualifying?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ohio Mom: Mr DAW got a hearing test and his hearing aids at Costco. That’s why we joined. They were cheaper than elsewhere by quite a lot.
eclare
@Ohio Mom:
I used to work across the street from one, and the quality and prices and selection are amazing. I could never get out for less than $100.
MagdaInBlack
@Ohio Mom: I once had a man take me on date to Costco, so we could eat all the different samples. Weird as that sounds, it was great fun and I was up for doing it again. =-)
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: I have no idea! And I couldn’t trace Emmett family online (shocker).
I was trying to settle in with a movie but it’s not happening yet … moar weed might help (any, actually I was on a break today).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrily_We_Go_to_Hell
I want young Cary Grant! I’m given to understand that some pre-Code polyamory is in this film.
TCM had some cool, WWII Antifascist propaganda film on just before the movie.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: that’s very inventive!
Eolirin
They’re going to break the government, and they’re broadly going to succeed when it comes to that.
There’s not a whole lot that can be done to stop that. If the executive branch wants to break itself and it’s willing to commit (Trump 1.0 wasn’t really, Trump 2.0 seems to be all in), our system isn’t really set up to stop that.
Nothing good will come of that, even in terms of what they get from that happening. Necessary and important government functions simply won’t happen the way they’re supposed to, and that’ll cause downstream problems for everyone. It’s possibly diffuse enough and separated enough from people’s lives that the effects won’t be immediately obvious or that people won’t understand how they fit together. Things will just be a bit shittier than they were or would have been.
This was baked in with the loss.
What’s still very much an open question is whether they’ll be able to consolidate power on the back of that or not. Whether they can dismantle democracy and our civil society along with the functions of the executive. Trump can’t run again, and even if he somehow comes up with a workaround, he’s old and suffering from increasing cognitive issues. I very much doubt he’ll be a going concern in 2028. If the recent GOP successes are more about cult of Trump than cult of Republicanism, they’re going to have trouble if they fail at the rest of the take over. There’s no clear successor.
The damage these four years will do might take more than some of our lifetimes to recover from even with that. But if they succeed with the power consolidation and the breaking of society, it’ll be all of our lifetimes, even if their dominance is somehow short lived.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: He’s the one who was also dating another woman, we found out, chatted a bit, dumped him and became very good friends.
(you begin to see why I have retired from that whole relationship habit)
NotMax
@MagdaInBlack
Never know what’s going to be offered up for Costco dim sum!
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: It was a very long time ago, and a complete revelation to me about Costco. And a very cheap date for him, now I think of it ;-)
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: ah yes, the old one-two! I was able to help track down a murderer that way once. She gave me all of his cell phone records from her phone she’d bought for him, which I took straight to a detective I knew at the County Criminal Investigation Division! AND I sat in the court room to watch him get sentenced. I wanted to throw a tube of KY Jelly at him but I didn’t. He thought he was slick, he was a very smooth operator. They caught him in Colorado and brought him back to PA to stand trial.
He’d been cornered in a local dive bar parking lot by someone else he’d fucked over, and ran over the person with his big truck.
Karma, baby!
Ohio Mom
Here’s another niche Trump attack: He’s basically eliminating the DHS’s Aviation Security Advisory Committee — he just fired all its members and won’t be replacing them.
According to the AP, “ the aviation security committee, which was mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, will technically continue to exist but it won’t have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports. Before Tuesday, the group included representatives of all the key groups in the industry — including the airlines and major unions — as well as members of a group associated with the victims of the PanAm 103 bombing. The vast majority of the group’s recommendations were adopted over the years.”
I guess the funders of the Heritage Foundation (the author of Project 2025) don’t fly commercial but really, were Trump voters joneseing for making flying more dangerous?
Quinerly
LMAO. I shouldn’t but I’m punchy.
Blake’s Lotaburger (NM chain) announced today it has started adding a $1 surcharge on all menu items that include eggs.
That never happened under Biden.
Quinerly
@MagdaInBlack:
That’s kinda a cool date.
Quinerly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Excellent prices on tires and batteries.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom: Make planewrecks great again!
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: Yep.
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
That was the plan for a date on The Bachelor many years ago. It looked fun!
MagdaInBlack
I was just listening to ffotus take questions from the folks at Davos. I suspect someone will put up a post about it, but holy cow what a load of drivel, along with some slurring and spitting. Its just a flat out embarrassment.
Ohio Mom
@Eolirin: Even if some of these things sound trivial, like closing down the Pentagon office in charge of finding ways to limit civilian deaths and the air safety committee, if God/Goddess willing, this is a relatively short interregnum, how much time, effort and resources will it take to put all the pieces back together? And on a much reduced budget since you know Trump and his cronies are going to rob the Treasury blind.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ohio Mom: Wasn’t aware about the potential strike since I don’t shop there either. Living alone in a very small house doesn’t mesh well with purchasing in bulk.
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: I wish that this news had a bigger audience than just this comment thread.
I’d like to see a photo of the $1 surcharge announcement and the caption “This never happened under Biden,” or maybe, “Thanks, Trump,” plastered all over social media. It could be the start of a “Thanks, Trump” meme.
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom:
It’s kinda big locally. Local TV news tonight. The memes have started in local community FB groups. And, of course, the comment section in the community forums/groups are interesting. Lots of Trumpers now going to boycott Blake’s….accusing Blake’s of trying to make Trump look bad.
Blake’s has been around since 1952. Great GCCB (Green Chile Cheeseburger
Edited to add this: https://www.kob.com/news/top-news/blakes-lotaburger-to-add-surcharge-for-menu-items-with-eggs/
FelonyGovt
@Sister Golden Bear: Very serious question, since I’m all in to do this- how would you know that a business hires trans people?
And I love Costco. Only two and a half of us in this household (my daughter lives here part time, the rest of the time with her girlfriend) but we’ve found that by buying strategically, and freezing some items, we can do really well there. Pleased to hear they voted down the anti-DEI nonsense.
JoyceH
What I can’t get over is how short-sighted the Senate Republicans are. You know they know that Hegseth is unqualified (in SO many ways!), but they’re going to confirm him anyway, just to “get it over with”. If Heg is confirmed, it ain’t over till the meltdown.
Does anyone think he’s going to be able to control his behavior for four years or even two? And these days you have to figure than whenever you’re out in public you might be videotaped. Confirm him and he’s a full time famous guy.
Think of any of those stories from Heg’s past. Too drunk to walk. Drunkenly shouting “all Muslims must die” or “no means yes”. Out of control at the strip club. Imagine any one of these incidents publicly released on video, only now it’s the Secretary of Defense.
Matt McIrvin
Ok, I’ll say it.
I am really deeply worried that they’re going to re-do January 6th with better organization, and this time, they’ll kill every fucking Democrat in Congress. Just gun them down, with promises of automatic federal pardons from Trump in hand, and tacit cooperation from the Republicans.
If I were in Congress right now I’d refuse to assemble on any occasion where a large number of them are in the chamber at once. I’d try to convince them to operate remotely so that I could physically be in Maryland or Virginia where Trump doesn’t have pardon power for murder.
I hope people are looking out for signs of this.
Ohio Mom
@Sister Golden Bear: IIRC, I read about the strike on Cole’s BlueSky page.
Like some others here, I’ve only been to Cosco a few times, as a guest of various friends.
Quinerly
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Breaking news about Hegseth on Maddow tonight. She says reporting being finished up. Story will be during her show.
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: I imagine lots of other restaurants around the country will follow. Especially diner-type restaurants that serve lots of breakfast dishes.
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: Decades, at least. And that’s assuming the end result of this is uninterrupted good faith leadership without the constraints of the legislative or judicial branches actively preventing the fixes.
These systems took a long time to build. They only take a second to destroy. The loss of institutional knowledge alone will be staggering if it takes too long to start getting things fixed.
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think another Jan 6th cares about whether the Congress people are Democrats. This is the most pathetic part of the Republicans’ acquiesence. They’re just as expendable and just as unlikely to be protected from violence.
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom:
And all those Ohio diners will be out to make Trump look bad.😉
Let the boycotts begin.
Now I’m wondering if Skyline Chili has egg dishes.
different-church-lady
@Quinerly:
DINER: “Two dollars off all egg dishes if you say TRUMP when you order!”
DINER GOES BANKRUPT
DINER OWNER: “Well, it was totally worth it!”
Quinerly
@different-church-lady:
Good one.
I’m going to get out my 12 yo Bulleit Frontier Rye, Absinthe, and Peychaud’s and make myself a Sazerac. Cheers!
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: See, like shit like this literally doesn’t make sense even if you’re evil. All the net long term effect of doing stuff like this does is make people refuse to take airplanes to travel because the risks are too high. It doesn’t help the airlines, it doesn’t even help a company like Boeing.
It just makes life that much shittier for literally everyone who needs to or would benefit from using an airplane
And whether they fly commercial or not, they’re still going to be using airports and plane safety still matters. It’s everyone. It’s insane.
We’re being governed by people who are acting like tantruming toddlers smearing themselves with poop, just because they were told not to.
Doc Sardonic
@Quinerly: I enjoy a good Sazerac, was a favorite drink of two of my favorite people that are no longer here. Which Absinthe do you use?
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: Skyline does not have any egg dishes — yet. In recent years, they’ve broaden their menu considerably to include salads, wraps, vegetarian bowls and baked potatoes, so maybe eggs could be next.
Quinerly
@Doc Sardonic:
I have been using a locally distilled one….”As Above So Below.”
When I’m being a tightwad I use Pernod.
Have used Jelinek (sp????)
My favorite winter cocktail.
Ohio Mom
@Eolirin: It will take a while before the full effects will be felt. As long as the established aviation safety procedures and policies stay in effect, things will coast along, until they don’t.
When things start falling apart, maybe no one will be left who could connect the dots and point out that there used to be a committee charged with preventing this sort of tragedy.
RileysEnabler
@Sister Golden Bear: thanks for posting this, I’m so happy to be able to buy from a scout off that list!
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom:
That’s some weird chili. Went to a Skyline in Cincinnati a few years back.
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: Sure, but what do you get from killing it? That committee wasn’t a threat or a real cost to anyone. There were effectively industry lobbyists at the table. The sorts of things that were getting adopted there was in benefit of the companies who profit as well.
Like what is animating the desire to axe something like that? It’s like it’s pure spite directed at the mere existence of the regulatory state, without which we don’t have a functional airline industry at all.
The end result of behaving that way long enough in enough places is that we stop having a functional airline industry. And many others besides.
Everything in our economy is reliant on trust that the products and services we use aren’t likely to kill us. You take that away, the whole thing collapses.
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: It grows on you. It is a great wintertime comfort food.
Ohio Mom
@Eolirin: You said it perfectly, spite at the idea of the administrative state.
A spite so intense they researched and are going after obscure things like the aviation safety committee and the Pentagon’s office on not killing civilians.
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom: 🤎
Mo MacArbie
Go yolk, go broke.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: you kidding? They won’t even let pregnant members vote by proxy.
Jesus, enough with the doomsday scenarios. What we are facing *right now* is rough enough for me.