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#senate majority leader
ridenwithbiden · 4 months
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"Senate confirms 425 military nominees after Sen. Tommy Tuberville drops his hold. Tuberville "has nothing to show for his 10 months of delay" Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a scathing speech after confirming the nominees. Tuberville has retained his hold on roughly 11 other promotions." Including 4 Star Generals.
During this one man crusade, 1 military leader had a heart attack, from holding multiple jobs. And put National Security at risk.
Thank You, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for exposing Tuberville to Republican pressure, to stop his one man obstruction. Fuck this Anti-Choice Fascist.
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My mom and I have very different political leanings (she's a diehard Clintonite, I feel the Bern), but we both agree that Chuck Schumer is not doing a good job as Senate Majority Leader. He's weak, he refuses to kick up a fuss and fight, he's not ruthless and determined like Mitch McConnell proved the majority leader needs to be. My mom and I highly doubt the Democrats will choose to replace him with someone else, but we got to thinking who it would be if they did.
My first thought was Bernie Sanders, but the establishment hates him, so they would never make him the defacto head of the party (my mom thinks Bernie is pure evil, "Trump on the left," which he's demonstrably not)
Dick Durbin is the Democratic whip, essentially the vice majority leader, a position that usually springboards into being leader, but he's boring and old and even less effective than Schumer
Tammy Duckworth might have the chops, but she's too new, only elected in 2016, 77th in overall senate seniority (39th among the 50 Democrats), so I expect she'll gun for the whip position in the coming years before trying for higher office
My mom really likes Amy Klobuchar, but I know nothing about her except one headline in the 2020 presidential primaries said she "clinched the vital 7th place spot" in one state, which says all you need to know about her in terms of national name recognition
My mom also thought Pete Buttigieg was a senator. He's not. He never was. He was a small town mayor who the Democratic establishment boosted to the national stage because he's gay and more importantly because he's mOdErAtE; Buttigieg is to gay people what Hillary Clinton is to women and feminists, chosen by esoteric standards of "presentability" and "electability" that mean nothing when tested live in the field. They hoped he would energize people like Obama in 2008, but he's a bootlicker who cares more about his image than his ideology (he hired a focus group pick the best way to pronounce his last name, and when asked by a woman whose house was destroyed by a hurricane what he planned to do in terms of natural disaster relief he told her to check out his campaign website to read his platform, because he his people chose it for him and he didn't have it memorized yet). Biden picked him as Secretary of Transportation so the Democrats could hold onto him for later, because once Biden and Kamala have had their chances he's the establishment's third pick.
But as I was going down the list of sitting Democratic senators, I reached a name that sent a shiver down my spine, a shiver like someone in the future walking on my grave, because I know with 100% certainty that this man is going to be Democratic leader by 2030.
Tim Kaine. Hillary Clinton's running mate. He is the most boring, unremarkable, noncombative, noncommittal, milquetoast man you've never heard of. He was the man Hillary Clinton chose to balance her ticket; Obama in 2008 was seen as a far left radical (oh how naive we were), so he picked old conservative Joe Biden as his VP to appease moderates and independents. Hillary, who would have been a Goldwater Republican had she not married Dixiecrat Bill Clinton, picked Tim Kaine entirely so he wouldn't make waves on either side of the aisle; nobody likes him, nobody hates him, nobody knows anything about him, he's the carbon neutral senator, third fiddle, handpicked so as not to Eclipse Her Rising Star As She Humbly Claimed Her Birthright In The Oval Office *gags and dies*
Tim Kaine is going to be chosen as the Democratic Senate Leader because losing candidates tend to rise up through the ranks; John Kerry was secretary of state and is now a climate advisor, Sarah Palin is making a comeback in the worst way, Mitt Romney is a senator, Paul Ryan was speaker of the house for a while, so Tim Kaine is ripe to return to relevancy, not because he is wanted, but because that's just how the parties choose to reward names who at one point had potential. They'll justify his nomination by saying that he could have been VP, which means he could have been president, which means he's more than qualified to be the defacto party leader. Chuck Schumer is 72 now, he's running for a 5th term this November, and I think he'll go for a 6th in 2028 and then choose not to run in 2034. He will step down as Democratic leader in 2025 or 2027, a non-election year so it feels less planned, and then hold on as a background dinosaur until he becomes president pro tempore after Dianne Feinstein dies in office and gets replaced by a gubernatorial appointment so there's no open race for her seat, lest a radical take office against the will of the establishment.
I'm ranting at this point, but this is honestly how I think things are gonna play out. Tim Kaine is boring and inoffensive, which is what Democratic leaders think people want. Democratic leaders always think of themselves as the opposition, even when they're in power; they think of themselves as unpopular and unwanted, they think that every position they take is a poison pill that needs to be sugarcoated, even if it has majority approval (look at how they're half-assing the abortion ban; 70% of Americans support abortion, including a slim majority of Republicans, but the Democrats don't want to run on that because they've accepted the Republican narrative that abortion is baby murder, "we don't want to run on a platform of baby murder, that doesn't look good, so let's not act too enthusiastic about it and just hope things work themselves out...")
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govtshutdown · 7 months
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This might not work, since the Constitution explicitly states that all funding bills must originate in the House. Schumer may get around that by attaching an amendment in the nature of a substitute to an existing bill passed by the House. Either way, it's an attempt at showmanship, brandishing "competance" as a weapon for 2024.
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mcfuzzyfuzzface · 1 year
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Unpopular Fact
Bernie Sanders would be far more effective as the Senate Majority Leader than he ever would be as President of the United States.
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Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.
“I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.
“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”
Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.
While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments – a signal that she doesn’t plan to upend the Senate composition, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer controls committee rosters for Democrats.
“When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”
But Sinema’s decision to become a political independent makes official what’s long been an independent streak for the Arizona Senator, who began her political career as a member of the Green Party before being elected as a Democrat to the US House in 2012 and US Senate in 2018. Sinema has prided herself on being a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, and her new nonpartisan affiliation will further free her to embrace an against-the-grain status in the Senate, though it raises new questions about how she – and Senate Democrats – will approach her reelection in 2024 with liberals already mulling a challenge.
Sinema wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic released Friday explaining her decision, noting that her approach in the Senate has “upset partisans in both parties.”
“When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote.
“That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.”
Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and liberals in Arizona are already floating potential challengers, including Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who said earlier this year that some Democratic Senators have urged him to run against Sinema.
“Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans,” Gallego said in a statement following Sinema’s announcement.
Sinema declined to address questions about her reelection bid in the interview with Tapper, saying that simply isn’t her focus right now.
She also brushed aside criticism she may face for the decision to leave the Democratic Party.
“I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” Sinema said. “What I am worried about is continuing to do what’s right for my state. And there are folks who certainly don’t like my approach, we hear about it a lot. But the proof is in the pudding.”
MANY DEMOCRATS SHRUG OFF NEWS OF SINEMA’S ANNOUNCEMENT
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Sinema a “key partner” following her decision and said the White House has “every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her.”
Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Sinema gave the White House a heads up that she was leaving the Democratic Party. Schumer said in a statement he also was aware of Sinema’s bombshell announcement ahead of Friday morning.
“She asked me to keep her committee assignments and I agreed,” Schumer said. “Kyrsten is independent; that’s how she’s always been. I believe she’s a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate.”
Schumer also outlined how he did not expect Sinema’s decision to impact Democrats’ plans for next year, saying in his statement, “We will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power, and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes.”
The Biden White House is offering a muted reaction Friday morning and insisting that they expect to continue having a productive working relationship with the senator.
One White House official tells CNN that the move “doesn’t change much” other than Sinema’s own reelection calculations.
“We’ve worked with her effectively on a lot of major legislation from CHIPS to the bipartisan infrastructure law,” the official said. The White House, for now, has “every reason to expect that will continue,” they added.
Sinema has long been the source of a complex convergence of possibility, frustration and confusion inside the White House.
“Rubik’s cube, I guess?” was how one former senior White House official described the Arizona Senator who has played a central role in President Joe Biden’s largest legislative wins and also some of his biggest agenda disappointments.
There was no major push to get Sinema to change her mind, a White House official said, noting that it wouldn’t have made a difference.
“Nothing about the last two years indicates a major effort would’ve made helped – the exact opposite actually,” a White House official said.
The most urgent near-term effort was to quietly find out what it meant for their newly expanded Senate majority, officials said.
While there were still clear details to figure out about process, “I think people exhaled when we had a better understanding of what she meant,” one source familiar with the discussion said.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told “CNN This Morning” that “Senator Sinema has always had an independent streak,” adding that “I don’t believe this is going to shake things up quite like everyone thinks.”
She added, “Senator Sinema has been an independent in all intents and purposes.”
‘IT’S OK IF SOME PEOPLE AREN’T COMFORTABLE WITH THAT APPROACH’
Sinema and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin have infuriated liberals at various points over the past two years, standing in the way of Biden’s agenda at a time when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House.
Sinema and Manchin used their sway in the current 50-50 Senate – where any single Democrat could derail a bill – to influence a host of legislation, especially the massive $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill that Biden proposed last year. Sinema’s objections to increasing the corporate tax rate during the initial round of negotiations over the legislation last year particularly rankled liberals.
While Sinema was blindsided by the surprise deal that Manchin cut with Schumer in July on major health care and energy legislation, she ultimately backed the smaller spending package that Biden signed into law before the election.
Both Manchin and Sinema also opposed changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules despite pressure from their Senate colleagues and Biden to change them. After a vote against filibuster changes in January, the Arizona Democratic Party’s executive board censured Sinema.
Sinema has been in the middle of several significant bipartisan bills that were passed since Biden took office. She pointed to that record as evidence that her approach has been an effective one.
“I’ve been honored to lead historic efforts, from infrastructure, to gun violence prevention, to protecting religious liberty and helping LGBT families feel secure, to the CHIPs and science bill to the work we’ve done on veterans’ issues,” she told CNN. “The list is really long. And so I think that the results speak for themselves. It’s OK if some people aren’t comfortable with that approach.”
Sinema’s announcement comes just days after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection in Georgia, securing Democrats a 51st Senate seat that frees them from reliance on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.
Sinema declined to address questions about whether she would support Biden for president in 2024, and she also said she’s not thinking about whether a strong third party should emerge in the US.
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aci25 · 2 years
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Who wants to bets that mitch mcconnell retires at the end of the year? (no way at 80 is he gonna finish his term to 2027)
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xtruss · 11 days
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Outrage at Chuck Schumer’s Speech: The Pro-Israel Right Wants to Eat Its Cake Too
Neoconservatives Only Hate “Interference” in Israel When It Means Anything Other Than Blank-Check Support For Apartheid and Slaughtering Palestinians.
— Murtaza Hussain | March 15, 2024
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, departs the Senate Chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Schumer called for Israel to hold new elections, a sharp break with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the highest-ranking Jewish US elected official. Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gave a speech that provoked anger from right-wing supporters of Israel, many who described it as a regime-change effort targeting Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. The roughly 40-minute speech, delivered by Schumer on the floor of the Senate, attacked Hamas as well as critics of Israel, while vowing that the U.S. would defend and support Israel through any crises it faced. But Schumer also took direct aim at Netanyahu, describing his government as “an obstacle to peace” and saying that his coalition government “no longer fits the needs of Israel.”
Schumer went further in his remarks, calling for elections in Israel to bring a new government to power and saying that Netanyahu had “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.”
Despite its otherwise pro-Israel tone, Schumer’s speech predictably triggered outrage among staunch pro-Israel Republicans, including many neoconservatives. Writing for the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams, of Iran–Contra fame, hysterically accused Schumer of attempting to turn Israel into an “American colony” by intervening in its politics. “It’s a shameful and unprecedented way to treat an ally,” he wrote, “and an “unconscionable interference in the internal politics of another democracy.” His views were echoed by Israeli officials like former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who took to social media to denounce his comments as “external political intervention” in Israeli affairs.
These arguments could perhaps be respected were it not for the massive, regular, and institutionalized intervention in U.S. political life carried about by the Israeli government and its supporters, which has successfully turned the affairs of a small country on the eastern Mediterranean into one of the most important domestic political issues in America. Netanyahu himself has shown no embarrassment about his own intervention in American politics, delivering rapturous speeches lobbying the U.S. Congress to legislate in favor of Israel and essentially endorsing his favored political candidates for office during U.S. elections.
American foreign policy is today effectively handcuffed by the lobbying efforts of powerful special interest groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. These organizations are hellbent on ensuring that the U.S. provide Israel unstinting military, economic, and diplomatic support, even as its government rebuffs repeated U.S. requests to allow the creation of a Palestinian state in accordance with international law.
The complaints of people like Abrams and Bennett that the U.S. is intervening in Israeli affairs seem utterly myopic at best, given that extensive U.S. intervention is not just welcomed but also demanded by Israel and its supporters so long as it is in accordance with the security and political needs of the Israeli government.
Now More Than Ever
Schumer’s speech comes at a moment in which Israel has perhaps never been more isolated, or more dependent on U.S. support. The U.S. today has pivoted back to the Middle East against its own wishes, fighting the Houthis on behalf of Israel, providing arms for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, and deterring Hezbollah in Lebanon by parking its aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. When three American military service members were killed in Jordan earlier this year, the assailants were clear that their motive was retaliating against U.S. support of Israel.
The U.S. has used its veto powers at the United Nations to shield Israel from an onslaught of global outrage over the scenes of mass killing and starvation in Gaza. As Israel has faced diplomatic assaults from Brazil, South Africa, China, and across the Muslim world, the U.S. has remained steadfast as its most important and often only defender in international fora.
All this support has come with very little reciprocation from Israel. In the wake of President Joe Biden’s comments expressing rhetorical support for an eventual two-state solution, Netanyahu publicly humiliated his most important patron by publicly vowing that no Palestinian state would ever be created. The right-wing prime minister even bragged about his own historic role in preventing one from coming into existence.
Netanyahu’s steadfast commitment to defying international law and overwhelming global opinion to pursue a project of continued colonization of the West Bank is only made possible thanks to his and his supporters’ tremendously successful campaign at bending U.S. politics in Israel’s favor. No country has been a greater beneficiary of U.S. support, nor has any country given less back for the tremendous blank checks that the U.S. has written it for decades, up until the present day.
Schumer’s comments on the Senate floor, despite their opposition to Netanyahu and his extremist coalition government, were resoundingly supportive of Israel and hostile to its enemies. But in calling for a two-state solution to the conflict, he contradicted not just Netanyahu but also a majority of the Israeli public who today oppose such an outcome and prefer the status quo, which requires systematic disenfranchisement of Palestinians that human rights groups have classified as apartheid.
In this light, the Senate majority leader’s comments should not be taken as an effort to engineer a color revolution on the streets of Tel Aviv, but rather a last attempt to prevent Israel from descending to a level of ostracism from which even the U.S. would strain to rescue it. “Israel cannot hope to succeed as a pariah opposed by the rest of the world,” Schumer said.
Israel’s supporters who were incensed by his words would be better off taking them as wise counsel.
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tearsofrefugees · 3 months
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They know what's coming and they are afraid of the blood ! !
Elephant dies from excessive bleeding ! !
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The Holy Roller Thing will take the redumblicans DOWN ! !
NOBODY wants your SHIT, Mike (who doesn't even use his REAL name) ! !
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saywhat-politics · 8 months
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WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s 100th federal judge on Tuesday, marking a milestone for the president and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
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filosofablogger · 4 months
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The U.S. Congressional Daycare Center
Awwww … poor babies!  Republican senators are angry with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer because they say he put too much on their work schedule for the two weeks before their holiday break.  Awwww … don’t you feel sorry for them?  They might have to actually show up at the Capitol and … {GASP} … do some of what we pay them to do … l-e-g-i-s-l-a-t-e!  Y’know … propose bills, vote on them,…
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thejewishlink · 6 months
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Us Senate Majority Leader Schumer Says Grateful for Stronger China Statement on Hamas Attack
BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Schumer said Monday he was grateful for a strengthened statement from China condemning the killing and kidnapping of Israeli and foreign civilians by Hamas, issued during a bipartisan Congressional visit to Beijing that included a lengthy meeting with President Xi Jinping. Schumer had said earlier in the day that he was very disappointed by China’s…
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govtshutdown · 1 year
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14 amendment votes today before a vote on final passage. The deadline is 36 hours away. tick tock tick tock tick tock
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) condemned what he described as “revenge politics” as many Republicans have resisted his efforts to speed up the approval process for energy projects.
“It’s like the revenge politics, basically revenge towards one person: me. And I’m thinking, ‘this is not about me,’ ” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“I’m hearing that the Republican leadership is upset and they’re saying ‘we’re not going to give a victory to Joe Manchin’ — Joe Manchin’s not looking for a victory,” he added. “We’ve got a good piece of legislation that’s extremely balanced and I think it’ll prove itself in time. The bottom line is, how much suffering and how much pain do you want to inflict on the American people for the time.”
Republicans, along with Manchin, have long complained that the approval process for energy and infrastructure projects — known as permitting — has been too lengthy and stalled important projects.
When he agreed to pass the Democrats’ climate and tax bill, Manchin struck a deal with Democratic leadership to also pass permitting reforms.
But, as he has tried to push a package of changes through, Manchin has met Republican obstacles, as some members feel slighted over the West Virginia Democrat’s passage of the climate bill.
Republicans have felt spurned after Manchin announced his support for the Democratic bill hours after a bipartisan chips and science bill passed the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had previously threatened that bill’s passage if Democrats pursued their bill.
The GOP has also complained that Manchin’s changes may not go far enough.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, a coalition of liberal Democrats has also come together to resist the effort, arguing that it will undercut the environmental inspections that often draw out the permitting process.
But Manchin said on Tuesday that “we do not bypass any of the environmental reviews,” which he said was the main difference between his package and a separate proposal from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).
The Senator also told reporters that the text of his proposal would be released on Wednesday, and that it would explicitly speed up the approval process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a controversial proposed project that would carry natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia.
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