Who Did We Love This Week (And Who Do We Have To Yell At?)
This seems like a thing we should keep track of!
Starting last week, we all started getting just a little bit nervous about some of our Democratic elected representatives getting just a little “lie back and think of England” with the Trump administration. This is a time when we really need them to stand up. Some do it already, but others may need a little push and some assurances that this is what their constituents want. We’re also going to want to remember who stood by us, and who flopped around on the ground like dying fish.
First Of All, Who Did They Vote To Confirm?
Since this is our first roundup of this sort, we’re going to include the votes from last week as well. For posterity. I’m also going to include Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the two independent senators who caucus with the Democrats.
There were two confirmations that were unanimous. Every Democratic senator voted for Marco Rubio as secretary of State, and every one of them voted against Pete Hegseth.
Other than that, here’s who voted YEA on whom:
John Ratcliffe, of Texas, to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Bennet (CO), Booker (NJ), Coons (DE), Durbin (IL), Gillibrand (NY) Hassan (NH), Hickenlooper (CO), Kelly (AZ), Kim (NJ), King (ME), Klobuchar (MN), Peters (MI), Rosen (NZ), Slotkin (MI), Warner (VA), Welch (VT), Whitehouse (RI)
Kristi Noem, of South Dakota, to be Secretary of Homeland Security
Hassan (NH), Kaine (VA), Kim (NJ), Peters (MI), Slotkin (MI)
Scott Bessent, of South Carolina, to be Secretary of the Treasury
Blunt Rochester (DE), Booker (NJ), Cantwell (WA), Coons (DE), Fetterman (PA), Gallego (AZ), Gillibrand (NY), Hassan (NH), Hickenlooper (CO), Kaine (VA), Kelly (AZ), King (ME), Peters (MI), Shaheen (NH), Slotkin (MI), Warner (VA)
Lee Zeldin, of New York, to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Fetterman (PA), Gallego (AZ), Kelly (AZ)
Sean Duffy, of Wisconsin, to be Secretary of Transportation
Alsobrooks (MD), Baldwin (WI), Bennet (CO), Fetterman (PA), Gallego (AZ), Gillibrand (NY), Hassan (NH), Kaine (VA), Kelly (AZ), King (ME), Klobuchar (MI), Padilla (CA), Peters (MI), Rosen (NV), Schatz (HI), Schiff (CA), Schumer (NY), Shaheen (NH), Warner (VA), Warnock (GA), Welch (VT), Whitehouse (RI)
Douglas Burgum, of North Dakota, to be Secretary of the Interior
Alsobrooks (MD), Baldwin (WI), Bennet (CO), Blumenthal (CT), Cantwell (WA), Durbin (IL), Gillibrand (NY), Hassan (NH), Heinrich (NM), Hickenlooper (CO), Kaine (VA), Kelly (AZ), King (ME), Klobuchar (MI), Lujan (NM), Rosen (NV), Schatz (HI), Shaheen (NH), Slotkin (MI), Smith (MN), Warner (VA), Warnock (GA), Welch (VT), Whitehouse (RI)
The senators with the most yea votes were Mark Kelly of Arizona and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, with five votes (not including Rubio) each. Coming in with four votes each, we have Gillibrand (NY), King (ME), Warner (VA), and Peters (MI).
At three votes each, we have Fetterman (D), Gallego (D-AZ), Hickenlooper (CO), Klobuchar (MN), Slotkin (MI), Rosen (NV), Shaheen (NH), Welch (VT), Whitehouse (RI).
Are these your senators? Maybe you should call or email them! Especially the ones who live in safely Democratic states. Hell, maybe call or email them even if you don’t live in those places!
Thankfully, some senators held their ground and voted for none of these people (except Rubio). Those were Cortez Masto (NV), Tammy Duckworth (IL), Hirono (HI), Markey (MA), Merkley (OR), Murphy (CT), Murray (WA), Ossoff (GA), Reed (RI), Sanders (VT), Van Hollen (MD), Warren (MA), Wyden (OR). To be fair, a few of them skipped some of the votes (Ossoff skipped three), but that’s still better than voting for any of these people.
Keep in mind — the Republicans can do bad all by themselves. They didn’t have a single Democratic vote on Hegseth and they still were able to pass him through. There is no need for any Democrat to be voting for any of them.
Outside of that, we’ve had some pretty big standouts so far when it’s come to not backing down quite so easily.
Who do we love?
Well, AOC has obviously been fantastic the whole time, and does not miss a chance to drag Trump, Musk and the rest of them. She’s getting out there, she’s on social media, doing videos that people actually want to watch and connecting with people. She’s also mastered the correct tone for the situation, which is actual anger and not “Golly gee willikers guys, we sure do want to be your friends, but you keep doing bad stuff! And if you keep doing it, you’d better expect some very gentle pushback!”
It’s hard to pick one standout moment from her so far, so I’ll just go with the most recent.
“I represent LaGuardia Airport as well as workers for JFK. Trump gutted the Aviation Safety committee last week,” she wrote on social media in response to the GOP’s ridiculous assertions that “DEI” made the airplanes go crash. “Air traffic controllers — already understaffed — got Trump’s ‘buyout’ this week with a 1 week ultimatum to decide. It’s not DEI — it’s him. And Elon too.”
Another congresswoman kicking ass this week is Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who has also mastered the art of actually being angry and getting the hell out there to let the people know it.
This week, she used the press conference for her swearing-in ceremony to attack Trump’s chaotic funding freeze, and she killed it.
“The president did say as he campaigned that he would be a dictator on day one. It sounds like he's going to continue to try his best to be a dictator,” she said, adding “The reality is that we go through appropriations every single year. […] We have monies that have been appropriated by law and no swipe of a pen can just delete that.”
That is how you do it.
In the Senate, there have been a lot of good interrogations of Trump’s nominees, but my favorite so far (no surprise) was Elizabeth Warren’s takedown of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Warren tried to get Kennedy to commit to not personally profiting off of lawsuits against drug companies, as he has in the past — explaining that he could use his position to enrich himself in a variety of ways.
“No, you can sue drug companies as much as you want,” she said. “If you get confirmed, you can influence every one of those lawsuits. Well, let me start the list. You can publish your anti-vaccine conspiracies, but this time, on US government letterhead, something a jury might be impressed by. You could appoint people ... who share your anti-vax views and let them do your dirty work.”
“You could tell the CDC vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccine schedule,” she added. “You could remove vaccines from special compensation programs, which would open up manufacturers to mass torts. You could make more injuries eligible for compensation, even if there is no causal evidence.
“You could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits. You could turn over FDA data to your friends at the law firm, and they could use it however it benefited them. You could change vaccine labeling. You could change vaccine information rules. You can change which claims are compensated in the vaccine injury compensation program,” she said.
Did he get any of this? It did not appear so. But it was still great to watch.
Senate-wise, I’d also just like to take a moment to give points to Bernie Sanders for the phrase “Are you supportive of these onesies?” which will live rent-free in my head for the rest of time.
Now, this one is very hard for me, but I gotta say … JB Pritzker is making me love him. I didn’t want to do it! I voted for Daniel Biss! I hate billionaires, on principle! But not only has he been the best governor we’ve had since I’ve lived in Chicago, the man has been killing it this week. (And I’m not the only billionaire-hater feeling this way.)
Pritzker led a group of other Democratic governors including, Tim Walz, Laura Kelly, Andy Beshear, and Maura Healey, who had a little come to Jesus talk with Chuck Schumer this week about the fact that they’re not appreciating this conciliatory tone that many Democrats have been striking and that they want to see them fight back — on social media, on television and on the Hill.
Schumer’s response was predictably Schumer-y, saying that he couldn’t force Democrats to vote against Trump’s nominees and telling them what a fabulous job Cory Booker has been doing to coordinate Senate Dems’ social media, though that really does not appear to be the case. He’s not even telling them to post on Bluesky, which they should be doing, given that Xitter is all right-wing trolls now.
Pritzker has been a vocal Trump/Musk critic on both social media and the regular media and he’s been working hard to ensure that Illinoisans are as protected as we can be from Trump’s disastrous policies — particularly when it comes to reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights . He also just issued a directive barring those who participated in the January 6 insurrection from having state jobs, which is pretty freaking cool.
Granted, I still don’t think he (or anyone) should have as much money as he does, but I also could not be more grateful right now that he’s our governor.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
What’s up with Alsobrooks? Glad it’s not Larry Hogan in that seat, but still, I don’t get it.
Here's the thing, for me. If Democrats were in a position to actually affect the outcome of these confirmations, I could see an argument for letting an ostensibly reasonable pick like Rubio through, and fighting the worst ones (like RFK jr).
But they aren't in that position. Their votes do not affect how things play out in any way. So all they're doing is signing their names to parts of Trump's agenda, and I have yet to see any benefit to doing so.