Cabinet Confirmations - Week 2

First off, sorry for being non-existent this week. I got the lovely Flu A and after coughing myself into a pulled ab muscle and subsisting on Abuelita hot chocolate & cherry Ludens, I seem to be out on the other side. Also, the fact that Luden’s has different flavors of cough drop aside from cherry feels like forbidden eldritch knowledge.

All that aside, week two is over and we are clearly headed into confirmation overtime, thanks in part to the Democratic Party apparently getting the order on the 5th to vote en masse against Trump’s nominees. The only mavericks to this appears to be John Fetterman (PA) and weirdly enough, Peter Welch (VT). I don’t know if Welch was just that enamored with brand new HUD Secretary Eric Scott Turner, but it’s enough to have Welch join some real shit-tastic company.

Even though the Dems do seem to be a united bloc at the moment, there are still outliers that, prior to the bulk of nay voting, seem supportive of all kinds of bad cabinet nominees:

• John Fetterman (PA), voted yay for 8 out of 10 nominees (80%)

  • Rubio, Noem, Bessent, Duffy, Zeldin, Collins, Bondi, Turner

• Ruben Gallego (AZ), voted yay for 8 out of 13 nominees (61.5%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Bessent, Duffy, Zeldin, Burgum, Wright, Collins

• Maggie Hassan (NH), 8 out of 13 (61.5%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Noem, Bessent, Duffy, Burgum, Wright, Collins

• Jeanne Shaheen (NH), 8 out of 13 (61.5%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Noem, Bessent, Duffy, Burgum, Wright, Collins

• John Hickenlooper (CO), 7 out of 13 (53.8%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Bessent, Duffy, Burgum, Wright, Collins

• Tim Kaine (VA), 7 out of 13 (53.8%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Noem, Bessent, Duffy, Burgum, Collins

• Mark Kelly (AZ), 7 out of 13 (53.8%)

  • Rubio, Ratcliffe, Bessent, Duffy, Zeldin, Burgum, Collins

Another bit of less than silver lining news is the number of Senators who only voted for one nominee dropped by one after Jon Ossoff (GA) gave his vote to fellow Georgian Doug Collins for VA Secretary. The ten remaining holdouts are:

• Tammy Duckworth (IL)

• Mazie Hirono (HI)

• Ed Markey (MA)

• Jeff Merkley (OR)

• Chris Murphy (CT)

• Patty Murray (WA)

• Jack Reed (RI)

• Chris Van Hollen (MD)

• Elizabeth Warren (MA)

• Ron Wyden (OR)

Depending on how this form of obstruction goes, we may have another two weeks of Cabinet confirmations to go. Which, honestly, is a much needed sign of fight as Musk and DOGE seem less and less interested in slowing down.

Finally, a quick note on the House. Much of the bills introduced recently have fit into two neat categories: super obvious and inoffensive laws designed to actually fix things (80%-ish) and bills with fascist names but contents that repeat laws that already exist. Such bills include the charmingly titled Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. These bills exist in a sort of weird area where the name is clearly meant to be evocative, but the contents are boiler plate and, frankly, redundant. I’d rather not ignore them though, so instead I’m working on an essay to talk about them. Hopefully this is also more of a sign that the House is pausing on obviously fascistic laws for at least another week.