Cassidy is likely toast under the new primary system; his only hope would've been under a jungle primary. Hopefully he realizes that and it frees him to just give a middle finger to Trump's excesses (he definitely loathes him personally)
He was still in the small minority of Republican Senators to convict . .it took stones at the time to do it, especially those not looking at retirement.
Remind me...when Rubio and Vance leave the Senate for admin posts, are their seats immediately filled by gubernatorial appointees? Or vacant for some period until a special election that covers the balance of their terms? And is the process in Ohio and Florida for filling vacant Senate seats the same for Kentucky?
McConnell got the KY state legislature to pass a law that any Senate vacancy has to be filled by an appointee from the same party as the departing Senator. I don't know if Beshear has to appoint someone recommended by the KYGOP or if he can choose any Republican he wants.
He vetoed it and it was overriden by the legislature. It's the law, unfortunately. He can certainly challenge it, but good luck winning in the 6th Circuit or SCOTUS.
TX Legislature: For those with more of an inside scoop on that state's politics, what are the odds Phelan is re-elected Speaker? Are there enough Republican allies willing to stick their neck out for him and ally with Dems to get him through?
Elections have consequences – in this case, dire consequences...
Many [sane] Americans were relieved when Matt Gaetz withdrew as Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. Gaetz resignation from the House makes this a double win! He spent eight days as the AG nominee.
After less than a day, Chad Chronister, Trump’s nominee for chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdrew. Many of us here would have forgiven his sin; however, MAGA voters were furious that then-sheriff Chronister once arrested a local preacher for defying COVID lockdown orders.
Meanwhile, we are reading that Pete Hegseth’s own mother wrote "You are an abuser of women"; hard to see how this strengthens Pete’s prospects of becoming Defense Secretary, a post for which he is as unqualified as Trump is for the Oval Office.
WHO is next? How MANY and which of Trump’s key nominees will be forced to withdraw or fail to be confirmed by the Senate?
(My own wish list / prediction is that Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and RFK Jr will never assume the positions for which they are nominated. Including Gaetz, that makes five.)
EXTRA POINTS: Faced with the prospect that Trump rather than President Biden will choose their successor, how many federal judges will cancel their retirement announcement?
The four Circuit Court of Appeals judges that were a part of Schumer's "deal" are who matter. I think two of them, 6th US Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch and 4th US Circuit Judge James Andrew Wynnwill, will rescind their retirements.
Is that a gut feeling or have you seen reports that hint at this?
Frankly, I was stunned when Schumer [proudly!] announced his deal! He is now rushing to confirm more Biden judges. Imho, Schumer and Durbin should have acted with urgency far earlier, making sure they didn’t unnecessarily leave a single vacant judgeship for Trump to fill.
The deal was a good one. Those four seats didnt have 50 votes for the current nominees, while the 13 or whatever lower court seats did. So they basically got to rush through a bunch of sure thing votes at the expense of seats that would have been open either way, and which now two are not open.
Yes, given the realities of the Senate in late November, it was a good deal.
However, that deal should never have been necessary! President Biden and the Senate leadership had ages to find circuit judge nominees that would enjoy sufficient support – and to whip the necessary confirmation votes.
There is simply no excuse for Schumer and Durbin et al having painted themselves into this corner where time is running out and there were no better options.
For the last 3.5 years – and especially the last six to ten months – our Senate leadership should have been acting with a continuing sense of urgency to transform the federal judiciary, meaning those district judges should already have been confirmed.
As it is, come January 2025, too many judgeships that could have been filled by Biden, Schumer and Durbin will be vacant – and not just because of Blue Slips.
– Biden has appointed 45 circuit court judges. Trump: 54.
– Biden has appointed 181 district court judges. Trump: 174.
NB. Eight of these district judges were confirmed this week, with five district judges and one circuit court judge confirmed last week.
"As of December 5th, there are 50 Article III vacancies, 35 of which are current. There are now 15 pending nominees: 8 waiting for floor votes [NB cloture votes already held on 4], 3 waiting to be reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 4 waiting for hearings."
This deal was an incredibly bad one. Schumer got almost nothing for killing the nominations of 4 appellate nominees for lifetime seats on the bench. Even if Park and Mangi didn't have the votes and Schumer couldn't figure out how to ensure enough absences to get them through, it's more than likely that he could have gotten Campbell and Lipez. He should have forced Collins to vote yes or use it as an issue in 2026 ("Sen. Collins killed the nomination of a moderate nominee to give the seat to Donald Trump").
Schumer could have--should have--gotten so much more from this deal. He should have demanded unanimous consent on all the remaining district nominees--no more wasting time on unnecessary cloture votes. He should have demanded an SJC hearing on the remaining district nominees, and to go to an immediate SJC vote the following day, as was done in the past. No messing around with "a week for written questions" and "a week to holdover." Then move them to the floor as soon as possible. That means Farhadi Weinstein, Kanter, Shaw-Wilder, and Jackson--no exceptions.
Schumer is so bad at this he's going to leave 2 SDNY seats open for Trump to fill. That's in his backyard. He had leverage--he has the majority, and only Mangi and Park were questionable as to whether they'd get all 51 Democratic votes. Did he think Thune is going to play nice since they got what they wanted from Schumer? It is to laugh. The sooner we get a new Dem Leader in the Senate, the better.
The risk we run is that even though we may win on blocking a few of the worst of the worst, the remainder will be Trump sycophants that look more like 1930s European administrators than anything we've seen before in this country.
Our side is going to have to work hard every day and stay focused to limit damage to our country.
Trump keeps throwing ketchup bottles at the wall to see how much will stick
My prediction is that RFK Jr. gets confirmed but that he'll be the first one fired, long before he's allowed to "go nuts on health". As soon as agribusiness and Big Pharma pushes back against his agenda, Trump will decide he got what he needed from RFK and throw him in the trash without batting an eyelash.
Sound prediction, but I think him getting through depends on him following his coaching to not say crazy shit during his hearing. Which may be hard for him.
I dunno..hard to see how long Musk puts up with sublimating his own massive ego in favor of Trump's. My bet is on him being the first one out the door. Time for a mini-babka contest?
I could see Rubio being the first major gone. Trump holds a grudge, brings Rubio in to get him out of the Senate, then gets rid of him, embarrassing him on the way out. Similar to what he did to Christy first term by dangling AG.
Hegseth's vision of the military is absolutely terrifying. He really wants to take a page from Stalin and purge any officers who he perceives as politically suspect. (Presumably without the murder part) His views on who should be a soldier are equally antediluvian. He doesn't want women in the military, except as "caregivers", and wants to ban LGBT soldiers entirely. His appointment would really be tremendous blow to quality of our armed forces and set the country back decades in terms of equality.
The scary part of this, to me anyway, is that essentially no one is talkin about his policies. Just that he's a drunk, a womanizer, and probably a rapist, which in fairness should *also* be disqualifying. But is the GOP really ok with his program? No one seems to be objecting to that, at least not too loudly.
From what I hear, Hegseth’s meeting with Senator Joni Ernst, a former military officer, did not go well. I suspect his proposed policies had a helluva lot to do with that.
I wouldn’t be surprised. Ernst may be ideologically on the wrong side of the issues for the Democratic Party’s cause but she’s also been blunt about sexual harassment (was a victim of domestic violence and sexual harassment) and cases are certainly not going to be handled well in the Army if Hegseth is Secretary of Defense.
It appears that with the 2024 election that both San Francisco and now Berkeley have elected Mayors who were not prior officeholders or did not run for political office before.
First it was SF Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.
Now it's Berkeley Mayor-Elect Adena Ishii, who won due to the ranked choice voting system being implemented for the first time. At 34 years old, Ishii is the first Asian, woman of color and 2nd millennial in-a-row to be elected in the office.
Oakland's next after Mayor Sheng Thao just got recalled. However, it's early to know who will really emerge as the leading candidate in the special election to replace Thao.
Goldman's grandmother Rhoda Goldman died of a heart attack in 1996 during the signing over of her interest in the company via leveraged buyout by a family faction which included her brother, Peter Haas, Sr. and his son and her nephew Peter Haas Jr., and Peter/Rhoda's mutual nephew Bob Haas. Peter Haas, Sr. was Lurie's stepfather, Junior is his stepbrother. Rhoda and Peter were among the great-grandchildren of Levi Strauss' sister and his business partner, who inherited 100% of the firm on Levi's death without wife or children.
Elections have many consequences. Here is another albeit lesser-known one:
. "Citizens Race To Save Government Websites From Vanishing"
"In a small, windowless room in San Francisco, rows of computers whir with an intensity that borders on a scream. This may be an ordinary scene for a data center located less than an hour’s drive from Silicon Valley, but these machines are engaged in an extraordinary task.
"…they’re harvesting vast amounts of government data before the White House welcomes new residents or former ones in January. The information will live on in the *End of Term Web Archive*, a giant repository of federal government websites preserved for the historical record as one administrative term ends and a new one begins. Librarians, archivists and technologists across the country join forces every four years to donate time, effort and resources to what they dub the end-of-term crawl, with the resulting datasets available to the public for free."
Yup. This time around it is particularly important, as we are facing an incoming president keen on rewriting history, and who has a penchant for twisting people’s perception of reality itself.
Cassidy is likely toast under the new primary system; his only hope would've been under a jungle primary. Hopefully he realizes that and it frees him to just give a middle finger to Trump's excesses (he definitely loathes him personally)
I bet Cassidy never imagined in 2021 when he voted to convict what would be going on at the end of his Senate term.
He was still in the small minority of Republican Senators to convict . .it took stones at the time to do it, especially those not looking at retirement.
Remind me...when Rubio and Vance leave the Senate for admin posts, are their seats immediately filled by gubernatorial appointees? Or vacant for some period until a special election that covers the balance of their terms? And is the process in Ohio and Florida for filling vacant Senate seats the same for Kentucky?
Filled by appointment until the next congressional election in 2026.
McConnell got the KY state legislature to pass a law that any Senate vacancy has to be filled by an appointee from the same party as the departing Senator. I don't know if Beshear has to appoint someone recommended by the KYGOP or if he can choose any Republican he wants.
BeShear says it is not constitutional
He vetoed it and it was overriden by the legislature. It's the law, unfortunately. He can certainly challenge it, but good luck winning in the 6th Circuit or SCOTUS.
TX Legislature: For those with more of an inside scoop on that state's politics, what are the odds Phelan is re-elected Speaker? Are there enough Republican allies willing to stick their neck out for him and ally with Dems to get him through?
depends on the Democrats
PREDICTION TIME
Elections have consequences – in this case, dire consequences...
Many [sane] Americans were relieved when Matt Gaetz withdrew as Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. Gaetz resignation from the House makes this a double win! He spent eight days as the AG nominee.
After less than a day, Chad Chronister, Trump’s nominee for chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdrew. Many of us here would have forgiven his sin; however, MAGA voters were furious that then-sheriff Chronister once arrested a local preacher for defying COVID lockdown orders.
Meanwhile, we are reading that Pete Hegseth’s own mother wrote "You are an abuser of women"; hard to see how this strengthens Pete’s prospects of becoming Defense Secretary, a post for which he is as unqualified as Trump is for the Oval Office.
WHO is next? How MANY and which of Trump’s key nominees will be forced to withdraw or fail to be confirmed by the Senate?
(My own wish list / prediction is that Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and RFK Jr will never assume the positions for which they are nominated. Including Gaetz, that makes five.)
EXTRA POINTS: Faced with the prospect that Trump rather than President Biden will choose their successor, how many federal judges will cancel their retirement announcement?
I believe we’re at two – and counting.
The four Circuit Court of Appeals judges that were a part of Schumer's "deal" are who matter. I think two of them, 6th US Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch and 4th US Circuit Judge James Andrew Wynnwill, will rescind their retirements.
Is that a gut feeling or have you seen reports that hint at this?
Frankly, I was stunned when Schumer [proudly!] announced his deal! He is now rushing to confirm more Biden judges. Imho, Schumer and Durbin should have acted with urgency far earlier, making sure they didn’t unnecessarily leave a single vacant judgeship for Trump to fill.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/politics/liberal-judges-reversing-their-retirement-plans/index.html
Thanks! I was aware of district judges Max Cogburn and Algenon Marbley, but not the machinations and hopes around the circuit judges.
The deal was a good one. Those four seats didnt have 50 votes for the current nominees, while the 13 or whatever lower court seats did. So they basically got to rush through a bunch of sure thing votes at the expense of seats that would have been open either way, and which now two are not open.
Yes, given the realities of the Senate in late November, it was a good deal.
However, that deal should never have been necessary! President Biden and the Senate leadership had ages to find circuit judge nominees that would enjoy sufficient support – and to whip the necessary confirmation votes.
There is simply no excuse for Schumer and Durbin et al having painted themselves into this corner where time is running out and there were no better options.
For the last 3.5 years – and especially the last six to ten months – our Senate leadership should have been acting with a continuing sense of urgency to transform the federal judiciary, meaning those district judges should already have been confirmed.
As it is, come January 2025, too many judgeships that could have been filled by Biden, Schumer and Durbin will be vacant – and not just because of Blue Slips.
1 Circuit Court seat is worth at least 5 district court seats.
Worth noting:
– Biden has appointed 45 circuit court judges. Trump: 54.
– Biden has appointed 181 district court judges. Trump: 174.
NB. Eight of these district judges were confirmed this week, with five district judges and one circuit court judge confirmed last week.
"As of December 5th, there are 50 Article III vacancies, 35 of which are current. There are now 15 pending nominees: 8 waiting for floor votes [NB cloture votes already held on 4], 3 waiting to be reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 4 waiting for hearings."
https://www.acslaw.org/on-the-bench-week-of-december-5/
This deal was an incredibly bad one. Schumer got almost nothing for killing the nominations of 4 appellate nominees for lifetime seats on the bench. Even if Park and Mangi didn't have the votes and Schumer couldn't figure out how to ensure enough absences to get them through, it's more than likely that he could have gotten Campbell and Lipez. He should have forced Collins to vote yes or use it as an issue in 2026 ("Sen. Collins killed the nomination of a moderate nominee to give the seat to Donald Trump").
Schumer could have--should have--gotten so much more from this deal. He should have demanded unanimous consent on all the remaining district nominees--no more wasting time on unnecessary cloture votes. He should have demanded an SJC hearing on the remaining district nominees, and to go to an immediate SJC vote the following day, as was done in the past. No messing around with "a week for written questions" and "a week to holdover." Then move them to the floor as soon as possible. That means Farhadi Weinstein, Kanter, Shaw-Wilder, and Jackson--no exceptions.
Schumer is so bad at this he's going to leave 2 SDNY seats open for Trump to fill. That's in his backyard. He had leverage--he has the majority, and only Mangi and Park were questionable as to whether they'd get all 51 Democratic votes. Did he think Thune is going to play nice since they got what they wanted from Schumer? It is to laugh. The sooner we get a new Dem Leader in the Senate, the better.
"Schumer ... should have demanded unanimous consent on all the remaining district nominees – no more wasting time on unnecessary cloture votes."
How true! En bloc confirmation by unanimous consent.
wrong again; it's what was available
Collins survived voting for ACB, I dont think forcing her to vote on a lower court nominee would matter at all.
The risk we run is that even though we may win on blocking a few of the worst of the worst, the remainder will be Trump sycophants that look more like 1930s European administrators than anything we've seen before in this country.
Our side is going to have to work hard every day and stay focused to limit damage to our country.
Trump keeps throwing ketchup bottles at the wall to see how much will stick
True but you must admit that a few of the most odious ones have been jettisoned
Oh absolutely, but we can't get complacent on what's left.
I mean, only one of the worst has withdrawn so far and he was basically a troll pick doomed from the start.
My prediction is that RFK Jr. gets confirmed but that he'll be the first one fired, long before he's allowed to "go nuts on health". As soon as agribusiness and Big Pharma pushes back against his agenda, Trump will decide he got what he needed from RFK and throw him in the trash without batting an eyelash.
Sound prediction, but I think him getting through depends on him following his coaching to not say crazy shit during his hearing. Which may be hard for him.
I’m inclined to agree with this
I dunno..hard to see how long Musk puts up with sublimating his own massive ego in favor of Trump's. My bet is on him being the first one out the door. Time for a mini-babka contest?
Musk doesn't have any actual position; he's a glorified consultant a part of an "agency" that's as real as Casper the Friendly Ghost.
I could see Rubio being the first major gone. Trump holds a grudge, brings Rubio in to get him out of the Senate, then gets rid of him, embarrassing him on the way out. Similar to what he did to Christy first term by dangling AG.
Hegseth's vision of the military is absolutely terrifying. He really wants to take a page from Stalin and purge any officers who he perceives as politically suspect. (Presumably without the murder part) His views on who should be a soldier are equally antediluvian. He doesn't want women in the military, except as "caregivers", and wants to ban LGBT soldiers entirely. His appointment would really be tremendous blow to quality of our armed forces and set the country back decades in terms of equality.
The scary part of this, to me anyway, is that essentially no one is talkin about his policies. Just that he's a drunk, a womanizer, and probably a rapist, which in fairness should *also* be disqualifying. But is the GOP really ok with his program? No one seems to be objecting to that, at least not too loudly.
From what I hear, Hegseth’s meeting with Senator Joni Ernst, a former military officer, did not go well. I suspect his proposed policies had a helluva lot to do with that.
I wouldn’t be surprised. Ernst may be ideologically on the wrong side of the issues for the Democratic Party’s cause but she’s also been blunt about sexual harassment (was a victim of domestic violence and sexual harassment) and cases are certainly not going to be handled well in the Army if Hegseth is Secretary of Defense.
And in the "Every vote matters series":
. "Twenty Minnesota ballots went missing in key race that hinges on 14 votes"
Race for state house seat, which will determine whether Republicans win control of chamber, separated by 14 votes.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/05/minnesota-missing-ballots-house-race
Berkeley Mayoral Race:
It appears that with the 2024 election that both San Francisco and now Berkeley have elected Mayors who were not prior officeholders or did not run for political office before.
First it was SF Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.
Now it's Berkeley Mayor-Elect Adena Ishii, who won due to the ranked choice voting system being implemented for the first time. At 34 years old, Ishii is the first Asian, woman of color and 2nd millennial in-a-row to be elected in the office.
Oakland's next after Mayor Sheng Thao just got recalled. However, it's early to know who will really emerge as the leading candidate in the special election to replace Thao.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/adena-ishii-victory-berkeley-mayor-election
I guess lurie is related to Dan Goldman, who is also an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune? Why can't I be an heir to this fortune?
Goldman's grandmother Rhoda Goldman died of a heart attack in 1996 during the signing over of her interest in the company via leveraged buyout by a family faction which included her brother, Peter Haas, Sr. and his son and her nephew Peter Haas Jr., and Peter/Rhoda's mutual nephew Bob Haas. Peter Haas, Sr. was Lurie's stepfather, Junior is his stepbrother. Rhoda and Peter were among the great-grandchildren of Levi Strauss' sister and his business partner, who inherited 100% of the firm on Levi's death without wife or children.
The END OF TERM WEB ARCHIVE
Elections have many consequences. Here is another albeit lesser-known one:
. "Citizens Race To Save Government Websites From Vanishing"
"In a small, windowless room in San Francisco, rows of computers whir with an intensity that borders on a scream. This may be an ordinary scene for a data center located less than an hour’s drive from Silicon Valley, but these machines are engaged in an extraordinary task.
"…they’re harvesting vast amounts of government data before the White House welcomes new residents or former ones in January. The information will live on in the *End of Term Web Archive*, a giant repository of federal government websites preserved for the historical record as one administrative term ends and a new one begins. Librarians, archivists and technologists across the country join forces every four years to donate time, effort and resources to what they dub the end-of-term crawl, with the resulting datasets available to the public for free."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lesliekatz/2024/10/23/inside-the-race-to-capture-government-websites-before-they-vanish-forever/
Very important. Sad that it has to be a private effort, it should be unquestionable that such government records be officially preserved.
Yup. This time around it is particularly important, as we are facing an incoming president keen on rewriting history, and who has a penchant for twisting people’s perception of reality itself.