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McCaskill did good today – let her know you appreciate her.

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

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I just called the office of my Missouri Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, to thank her – and you should too. Her Washington number has been busy (a good sign?), but I got through to her St. Louis office with no trouble (numbers for her Washington and regional offices can be found here).

Why did I want to thank Senator McCaskill so urgently? Today she stood up for Americans who are revolted by the cabinet nominations of the rabid circus MC that the Russians put into the American presidency. She along with all the Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee boycotted the Committee meeting where votes on the nominations of Goldman Sachs financier Steve Mnuchin to be Secretary of the Treasury, and of Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) to head Health and Human Services, were slated. This maneuver deprived the Republican majority of the quorum necessary to ram the two manifestly unfit nominees through the committee.

McCaskill is a cautious woman who represents a state that went for Trump by 19 points – a fact that seems to weigh heavily on her mind – and for good reason since she’s up for reelection in 2018. Standing up to the bullies who’ve tried to pressure her to go along to get along – making big local ad buys targeting her, for instance –  can’t be easy. She deserves a little love for putting principle before comfort.

But resisting the Trump-GOP combine as McCaskill  did today – and, we hope, continues to do – is essential. In this particular case the two men slated for leadership positions in government are not only ideological disasters, they, in the words of the ranking Committee member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), “misled the public and held back important information about their backgrounds.” He added that:

Until questions are answered, Democrats believe the committee should not move forward with either nomination. […] This is about getting answers to questions, plain and simple. Ethics laws are not optional, and nominees do not have a right to treat disclosure like a shell game.

We may not be able to stop the nominations when all is said and done, but Democrats have got to be clear that they won’t support corrupt and unfit nominees for any office.  Republicans may be scared spineless by Trump’s Twitter, but Democrats had better not be if they want to survive as a party.

Price is not only guilty of capitalizing on his privileged position as a congressman to violate insider trading laws, but is accused of explicitly lying about the nature of his questionable financial ventures during the Committee’s initial hearings. Mnuchin was part of the financial cartel that employed illegal robo-signing practices to made big bucks off the 2008 foreclosure crisis, but when called on the practice during the hearings, he gave false testimony about his bank’s use of the abusive practice. In essence, we have a president who comes from the dregs of the business world and who has dredged up some more bottom-feeders to run government agencies for him.

But worse is coming – tonight President Carnival Barker will announce his nominee for the Supreme Court. All three putative favorites are horrible. Not only are the stakes high, but the nomination of anyone other than Merrick Garland cannot be accepted by Democrats given the fact that inexcusable GOP stonewalling stole the office from this well-qualified candidate.  We can only pray that Democrats will be willing to take up the burden of possibly  prolonged opposition. We need to show them that we’re on their side when they do – and we can do that starting now by  letting our Missouri Democrat, Claire McCaskill, know that we appreciate what she did today. Make that call.

Will Claire McCaskill help the GOP ram radical cabinet nominees through Congress?

22 Thursday Dec 2016

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Politico writes that conservative organizations, delighted with the more radical of The Big Orange Buffoon’s cabinet picks, are gearing up to target vulnerable Democrats with the goal of avoiding prolonged confirmation hearings for their favorites which, “would eat up valuable time and effort that could otherwise be spent on creating momentum during Trump’s first 100 days.” One of those vulnerable Democrats to be targeted is none other than our own Senator Claire McCaskill:

To that end, after Christmas, five red state Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 will find themselves in the cross hairs of an ad campaign pushing them to support [Scott]Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Behind the effort is the conservative group America Rising Squared, an arm of the Republican opposition research group America Rising that is also launching a website, ConfirmPruitt.com, on Wednesday.

The Democrats — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Montana’s Jon Tester, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp — will face ads casting their votes on Pruitt’s nomination as a choice between farmers and regulators, working families and extremist environmentalists.

A similar campaign is already underway on behalf of Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general. The website ConfirmSessions.com will soon be accompanied by a six-figure digital ad buy in the Washington, D.C., area. Campaigns on behalf of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Education, and Andy Puzder, who is slated to run the Labor Department, are expected to follow.

How McCaskill responds could be one of the factors that determine whether or not the GOP wrecking crew will be successful in achieving goals like repealing Obamacare, privatizing Medicare, or cutting Social Security benefits. It’s unlikely that Democrats will prevent any of these nominees from being confirmed, but slowing the confirmation down may be key to the ultimate success or failure of GOP plans for undoing progressive governance.

“They [Republicans] want to avoid this becoming a quagmire that disrupts their ability to pass a policy agenda,” said Steve Schmidt, who helped George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees through the confirmation process.

A senior Republican Senate aide said the party is well aware that Democrats could use time as a “leverage point” as they seek to stymie Trump’s momentum on big policy priorities.

So McCaskill is important. Her reelection in 2018 is very precarious. Will she capitulate to this type of rightwing pressure? Does she really think it will help her if she does – doesn’t she realize that Wagner can beat her at that game?

More importantly, can progressives organize to mount just as much pressure in a timely enough  fashion – can we harness the Tea Party model to let her know how important we – her constituents and actual supporters – think unified opposition to these candidates is? How can we support her and help her remain faithful to Democratic principles?

Is McCaskill up to the challenge? Are we?

Jim Talent is in Trump’s talent pool

12 Saturday Nov 2016

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TPM has compiled a list of the fringe-dwelling GOPers who are reputed to be under consideration for posts in a Trump administration, and it’s both as comical and as horrifying as you might expect. Dark days ahead indeed.

Some of the rumored appointees are real head-spinners. Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, for example, is on the list of possible Attorneys General – which suggests that she may have gotten lots more than a great big campaign donation from Trump in return for backing away from investigating allegations of fraud leveled against him and his Trump University debacle.

Of special interest to Missourians, though, is the presence of Jim Talent, listed as a possible candidate for either Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of Commerce. Talent is the former Missouri U.S. GOP Senator from Missouri who lost his seat to Democrat Claire McCaskill in 2006. He is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and acts as the director of something called the National Security 2020 Project, which “is working on the formulation and promulgation of a new paradigm for defense policy, planning, and budgeting.”

Talent as Secretary of Defense:

Right Web, a site that tracks “militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy,” notes in its profile of Talent that he has been critical of Trump’s Middle East policies, especially in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. Certainly, if Trump insists on lying about his opposition to the Iraq war, he might have some differences with Talent who not only approved of the invasion of Iraq, but declared that “he would still have voted for the Iraq war had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction, because he thought removing Saddam Hussein from power was crucial to the war on terrorism.” Dick Cheney on steroids, in other words. And like neocon Cheney, neocon Talent is unlikely to share Trump’s uncritical Russia love.

However, as those of us who were listening during the campaign quickly noticed, Trump’s most firmly held positions are subject to abrupt change depending on his mood, the nature of his audience, and the latest input he has received – he’s only consistent about denying his past positions. Consequently, the nitty-gritty of Talent’s past policy positions are not likely as important as they would be for a more informed and engaged president.

Like many insecure males, Trump fetishizes masculine strength and Talent’s talk about how Democratic foreign policy has been weakened by Obama, the decline of American influence, and his emphasis on building up the military, both in terms of manpower and toys that go boom, should appeal to Trump. Also in his favor, Talent’s got Trump’s Iran shtick exactly right, and thinks that China is even more of an existential threat than does Trump, for whom China is primarily an economic threat. All in all, If Talent were to become his Secretary of Defense, it’s more than likely he’d fit right in with the cadre of right-wing child-minders who will be required to translate the naive Trump’s “vision” into policy and then tell Trump what his policies really are.

Talent as Secretary of Commerce

TPM and various other sources also suggest that Talent is under consideration for the Secretary of Commerce position, although his name is not included on all lists of possible candidates. It would be interesting to see how Talent, a dedicated free trader, would get along with the currently protectionist Trump if he were, as Commerce Secretary, tasked with representing business interests. But again, the fungibility of Trump’s thinking on policy issues might render the question moot.

Trump’s emphasis on the evils of free trade went over big with lots of his supporters, but based on what we know about him, he would feel little obligation to make good on  his promises if there were a conflict with one of  his stray whims. Anyway, he’s got nobody but free-trading Republicans to work with, and, in other respects, Talent’s extreme anti-regulation positions fit well with Trump’s economic rhetoric. Additionally, Trump has promised to bring the coal industry back and Talent’s long-term efforts on behalf of Big Coal ought to be simpatico.

Will he or won’t he work for The Donald

Politico has observed that Trump’s administration may have difficulty attracting top-drawer candidates, and based on the list that I have seen, Talent, as abhorrently right-wing as he is, may be among the more qualified for a cabinet position. But that is not saying much when you consider the fact that Sarah Palin’s name is actually being floated as a potential Secretary of the Interior – although TPM also notes that Donnie Jr. may have claimed this spot in daddy’s ensemble team for himself. Phil Plait writes in Slate that:

The list [of potential cabinet picks] is as unsurprising as it is appalling. It’s as if Trump’s transition team made a list of all 300 million Americans, ordered them by competency and ability to not destroy everything they touch, and then skipped right down to the bottom.

Actually, It might be better for Talent if he is skipped over in favor of a bad joke like, say, Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn. Nobody’s going to walk away from this mess smelling any too sweet.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) on the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General

25 Saturday Apr 2015

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“….We have a new test. You must disagree with the president who nominates you. Let me say that again because we love common sense in Missouri and this defies common sense. You must vote against a nominee for the cabinet of the duly elected President of the United States because she agrees with the duly President of the United States…..”

Senator Claire McCaskill (D), yesterday, on the floor of the United States Senate:

The transcript:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Mister President, uh, briefly, this should be, um, a happy day for America. This should be a day that is circled in the calendar as another day as the, as the President of the Senate knows that this is about the American dream. This woman is the embodiment of the American dream in action. We should be celebrating her confirmation to the most important law enforcement position in the United states of America.

So why am I not happy? I am sad. I am depressed. Because what we are gonna witness in a few minutes is base politics at its ugliest. Doesn’t get any uglier than this. Because what we are saying today, what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying today, it doesn’t matter if you’re qualified. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the most qualified nominees for Attorney General in the history of our country. That makes no difference. We have a new test. You must disagree with the president who nominates you. Let me say that again because we love common sense in Missouri and this defies common sense. You must vote against a nominee for the cabinet of the duly elected President of the United States because she agrees with the duly President of the United States.

think of the consequences of that vote. Think what that means to the future of advise and consent in this Senate if we all adopt this base politics play to the cheap seat I can’t get elected President unless I’m against Loretta Lynch. If we all adopt that in the future how is any president elected in this country going to assemble a cabinet? Because it will be incumbent on all of us to be against cabinet members who have the nerve to agree with the president who has selected them for his team.

It is beyond depressing. It’s disgusting. She is so qualified, she has worked so hard all her life. She is a prosecutor’s prosecutor. She’s prosecuted more terrorists than almost anybody on the face of the planet. And the notion that this has occurred because she agrees with the man who selected her – I think everyone needs to understand what that means for the future if all of us embrace that kind of base politics in these decisions.

It is not a happy day. It is a very sad day. I am proud of who Loretta Lynch is. I am proud that she will be Attorney General of this country. I am sad that it will be such a close vote.

Thank you, Mr. President.

That’s our Claire.

The release from Senator McCaskill’s office:

McCaskill Highlights ‘depressing…base politics’ of Colleagues Opposing President’s Attorney General Nominee Because the Nominee Agrees With the President

During Senate floor speech, Senator blasts unprecedented opposition to first Attorney General nominee who’s ever prosecuted terrorists

Thursday, April 23, 2015

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill took to the Senate floor today and called out her Republican colleagues for their unprecedented opposition to Loretta Lynch’s 166 day-long nomination for the post of U.S. Attorney General.

Lynch-who has had to wait more than twice as long as the previous seven Attorneys General combined for a confirmation vote-will be the first Attorney General to have previously prosecuted terrorists.

[….]

“We should be celebrating her confirmation to the most important law enforcement position in the United States of America,” McCaskill said. “So why am I not happy? I am sad. I am depressed. Because what we are going to witness in a few minutes is base politics at its ugliest. Doesn’t get any uglier than this. Because what we are seeing today, what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying today, is it doesn’t matter if you’re qualified. It doesn’t matter if you are one of the most qualified nominees for Attorney General in the history of our country. That makes no difference. We have a new test. You must disagree with the President who nominates you…we love common sense in Missouri and this defies common sense.”

When Lynch was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 2000, her nomination was approved by the Republican-led Judiciary Committee and confirmed unanimously by the Republican-led Senate. In 2010, when she was re-nominated to this post, Lynch was again approved by the Judiciary Committee and confirmed unanimously by the full Senate.

Lynch’s nomination today was narrowly approved by the Senate by a vote of 56-43, and she will replace Eric Holder as Attorney General.

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“….Think what that means to the future of advise and consent in this Senate if we all adopt this base politics play to the cheap seat I can’t get elected President unless I’m against Loretta Lynch. If we all adopt that in the future how is any president elected in this country going to assemble a cabinet….?”

Uh, should we ask Senator Roy Blunt (r)?