Last week I said I was rooting for President-elect Donald J. Trump. I still am; but he’s already making it difficult.
As the president-elect makes his cabinet selections, one could get the feeling that he is less concerned with the qualifications of his nominees, and more interested in bringing absolute loyalty into his Cabinet, while testing the resolve and the fidelity of his Republican Congress.
Attorney General – Matt Gaetz unexpectedly resigned from the House the day Trump announced his nomination. Speaker Mike Johnson noted that Gaetz’ resignation was in order to quickly move for his replacement and had nothing to do with the two-year ethics committee sex and drug crime investigation of Gaetz that was poised to release their report on Friday.
Johnson then stated that we would “strongly oppose” releasing that report now, since Gaetz is not a member of Congress. That was fortunate timing.
National Intelligence Director – Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a 2017 secret trip to Syria. Later, she expressed skepticism of US intelligence findings that chemical weapons attacks had killed dozens of Syrians, carried out under Assad’s direction.
Gabbard bolstered Russian propaganda in 2022, tweeting a Russian video of Kremlin claims that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons. Russia used the discredited video as a part of their justification for invading Ukraine.
Defense Secretary – FOX News weekend host, Pete Hegseth, faced accusations of sexual misconduct seven years ago, but those allegations were not discovered until the day AFTER his selection was announced. Is there anyone available without sexual accusations in their past?
Hegseth has criticized having women in combat, and has promised to fire “woke” generals, apparently with him determining “woke-ness.” While Hegseth did serve in the military, he would have the least amount of military experience of any defense secretary in recent history.
Health & Human Services Secretary – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been opposed by almost the entire Kennedy family, hid a road-kill dead bear in Central Park, chain-sawed the head off a dead whale and drove it home strapped to his car, and claims that anti-depressants cause mass shootings. Kennedy has declared that no vaccine is safe.
He wants to end fluoride in municipal water after 50+ years and wants us to drink raw cows’ milk. That’s the guy who is going to help us all stay well for the next four years.
A Cabinet nominee appointed by a president typically is vetted through an approval process, and is confirmed, usually by the Senate. This timely process, according to the Center for Presidential Transition, took an average of 115 days for Trump’s original appointments in his first term.
So, how far will Republican lawmakers go to support their president? Since these cabinet appointments seem so outside the norm, to put it tactfully, and potentially difficult to get through Senate confirmations, Trump has asked for Recess appointments.
The recess appointments clause states that if the Senate is in recess, the president can make appointments temporarily, bypassing the Senate confirmation process. The clause itself originated in a time when Congress did not meet as often as it does now.
That’s what Trump wants. Send Congress home for at least ten days, so he can appoint anyone and get automatic confirmations with no oversight. I think we should give it to him.
What’s another ten days off for a Senate that was projected to hit 132 session days in 2024? We shouldn’t overwork these patriots.
So, let’s recess and see what kind of cabinet our president-elect creates on his own. We could listen to the news cycle for a few days and hear Senate Republicans say the right things like, “We’re going to do our job and evaluate these picks thoroughly,” or “the President’s picks deserve a thorough review, and we will execute on that responsibility.”
And then they will recess. We know they’ll cave because where Trump is involved, they always do.
So, let’s give Trump what he wants. If we acquiesce now, we won’t have to pretend that someone will show some spine and stop one or two of these ridiculous appointments (and we haven’t even mentioned the nomination of Kristi Noem yet, the SD governor who shot her dog because “it wasn’t trainable.”).
Let’s see how this group of appointees does with powers they will be granted, not for the skills they have developed, but in return for their blind devotion to their leader.
George Washington once wrote, “It’s only natural for unbridled partisanship, unrestrained by allegiance to a greater cause, to lead to chaos.” He saw this coming in 1796.
It’s time for recess.
Curt MacRae is a resident of Coldwater, MI, and publishes opinion columns regularly.
Tweets @curtmacrae — comments to rantsbymac@gmail.com
Comments