I would love to see the Democrats stand up to some of these appointments: Flynn, Sessions, Pruitt, DeVos, and Carson at the very least, and definitely Tillerson if he is picked.malchior wrote:FWIW - I've seen Dem senators saying they are going to tear into Tillerson. They are going to dig into climate change denial at Exxon. They are going to dig into the Russia angle mercilessly I imagine. And they might not be able to stop any of these horrible appointments but in the grand scheme of things Trump is expending a lot of political capital via extremely dumb decisions. The Tillerson, Pruitt, DeVos, Carson, and Sessions confirmation hearings are going to be bombastic to say the least.
Another quick point - I also suspect Tillerson coming into play was what pushed Obama to order the Russia probe. This is beyond shady at this point. The guy has *no* background at all for the position. He is a total unknown in regards to diplomacy. That he has such close ties to Putin and business interests in Russia is a clear conflict and Trump is basically snubbing his nose at it. This is an extremely dangerous time for our country (and the world) and I think finally a lot of folks are waking up to it.
These aren't the usual party-line differences. There are serious nonpartisan questions about extremism, qualifications, competency, and conflicts of interest all over the list Trump is putting together, and there's no reason the senate should roll over for a president who significantly lost the vote and is coming in under serious ethical clouds of his own.
Trump is probably still thinking like a CEO and a Master of the Universe. That's the only explanation for the reckless picks he's making: he thinks the winner makes all the rules, and he has never once experienced pushback from checks and balances. Hopefully there are still some Republicans with enough spine to remind him that the constitution doesn't establish a corporation.