118 Comments

Do any of these people really have a job to lose? What they really have are positions of influence, which is more lucrative than a job.

In normal politics these people should be voted out regularly because they need to make tough decisions for the country that will always be unpopular with many voters.

That is not what we have here any longer.

Both parties are beholding to wealthy donors. That is what makes the ‘job’ so attractive and desirable. Term limits would help eliminate our billion dollar elections. The biggest argument against term limits is that we would lose some institutional knowledge about how our government operates, but we seem to be at the point where we want to tear it all down anyway, and are more interested in keeping our parties in power.

Bi-partisanship does not exist in MAGA.

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"said another Trump adviser who complimented Cotton for adding extra help by pointing out how rare it is for a president’s party to reject his nominees."

How rare is it for a president to nominate so many utterly unfit people?

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None of them learned the lesson or even care that they have to sell their souls completely to djt to survive. In their mind’s eye, do they never see mike pence and his family being hustled out of our nation’s Capitol while djt sat and watched television and drank Coke and ate Big Macs. As always, a shout out to mitch who was a leading facilitator.

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Perhaps the US Senator from Iowa might has released a statement regarding "Rage against Chinese garlic" versus actually producing a thoughtful analysis and opinion about one of the President-elect's agency appointments?

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Sickening.

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They're all despicable.

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“I expect our Republican Senate is going to confirm all of President Trump's nominees,”

They work really hard to become Senators, they start campaigning on their first day in office and do so for the next 6 years, for what? So they can cede all the power given them by the Constitution over to Donald J. Trump! It's a perfect system!

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What a bunch of selfish cowards these Republican Senators are. Willing to put aside morals and vote for these horrible people who will have 4 years to spin lies and disinformation to try and keep all of us off balance and exhausted. It’s really despicable.

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What does Senator Cotton expect to get from his behavior on behalf of the incoming president?

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Since the Constitution and rule of law no longer matters to the Republicrat craven and the Demopublicans have nothing to offer them either, the outcome is likely assured. Senator Warren probably expressed it best in an interview over the weekend - hang the inevitable results of Project 2025 on the necks of the Republicrats and make sure that T. Rump voters realize that what they thought they were voting for is not what they will be getting. Sigh.

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Trump voters knew exactly what they were voting for--for trump to remake America into a right-wing authoritarian state.

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Correct, however, when they realize that the people T. Rump is privileging are elite billionaires and their lives are not thereby improved it may be possible to peel a tiny minority away. Probably too little and too late to save the Constitution and rule of law, though. Hence, sigh.

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We are so fucked….

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I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

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Turns out the biggest mistake the founders made was thinking that a legislative branch would fiercely defend its constitutional authority. The whole checks & balances and separation of powers thing works only when each branch vigorously exercises its power.

No checks means no balance & that’s where we find ourselves. Sobering indeed.

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Cotton cites that only 2 of Clinton’s nominees were rejected. The low quality of character and experience matters. Senator Cotton knows this and, my guess is, hates some of these choices. He is right on one point: the American voters who brought Trump to victory deserve to get the chaos they voted for.

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Cotton's comment is deeply bad faith pushing the misleading conclusion that the present senate should follow the norms of the past even though the circumstances are totally different. No president-elect has nominated so many criminals, criminally-minded, compromised or completely unqualified people based only their expressed willingness to swear loyalty to Trump over the Constitution. Cotton leaves that important point out. And speaking of norms-- Republican have forfeited the right to cite norms.

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Good stuff Marc! Good luck at Axios! You'll be missed here.

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No, no, no....please don't tell me that Caputo is leaving The Bulwark?

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Looks like he's moving to Axios in January

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Awesome.

I've felt this since the election: Trump's worst is coming and there's not a damn thing we can do about, except to get ready, hunker down and hope to ride out the initial storm to fight another day.

It'll be at least a year (or two) before any serious kind of push back will be possible. It's going to take that long for the general public ("You know...morons") to really start to feel the effects of Trumpism.

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