After last Novembers election, the incoming Trump administration reached out to me in order to assist in staffing several agencies. Their request was for me to submit names, of both Republicans and Democrats from my district that would be willing to serve our country.
This was a time-consuming effort, as I made lots of calls to individuals to assess what if any interest they may have in working in different agencies. Whether it was the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Agriculture, etc., I was determined to send names of our areas best and brightest to the President. Job titles from Undersecretary and on down the line were included.
So on July 26th, when I saw on my calendar that I had a morning meeting with HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson and a noon meeting with HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price, I was anxious to see how the staffing process was going and if any 7th District folks were under serious consideration for positions. Dr. Carson shook his head and said: “Billy, I’m the only Senate confirmed member of my team to this point,” then he added (half kidding), “one thing about it, I’ve had to learn everything about every department myself.” At lunch when I posed the same question to Dr. Price, the answer was similar: “So far we have three Senate confirmed positions filled, and that’s including myself.”
President Trump has been in office for over six months, yet many in Washington seem to have a hard time accepting the results of the election. No recent president has had to deal with the type of gridlock President Trump has faced. At this point during President Obama’s presidency, he had 228 nominees confirmed. President Bush had 208. How many does President Trump have? Just 60. That’s unacceptable. There are more than 1,200 presidential appointments with Senate confirmation positions to fill, and roughly half are key positions that play an important role for an effective executive branch.
I understand the Senate, just like the House, has procedures that need to be followed to confirm these appointments. However, many Senate Democrats have gone out of their way to make this process longer than it should be and has been for past administrations.
It’s time to stop wasting valuable time and get these agencies functioning for the American people. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to work towards quickly confirming President Trump’s nominees. The American people deserve better.
20 comments:
Hey Blob Long, Obama lived through 8 years of republican obstruction so take your lies somewhere else. You fools control the house, the senate and the Russia House (formerly the White House) and you still can't get anything done. The gridlock comes from you "party before country" a-holes. Your immoral, unethical and egomaniacal leader has made this country the laughing stock of the world. It is time for you fools to listen to the people that mistakenly re-elected you and do what we tell you to do, not what your rich owners are bribing you to do. Keep attending your ALEC lobbyist meetings so you can keep padding your pockets while they tell you how to vote. You are the largest, or make that "yuuuuuugest" form of swamp scum.
Billy Long either has a short memory, or Billy thinks it's ok to have the clown shoes on their feet!
No recent president has had to deal with the type of gridlock President Trump has faced.
Really?
Remember all the cooperation President Barack Obama got just after he was elected?
It was even organized by Mitch "the turtle" McConnell and Eric Cantor. But yeah, NEVER BEFORE!
The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama By Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwaldAug. 23, 2012
It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”
So the republican'ts got busy with Kenya and other forms of fake news to wind up the Fox News fools.
A few other examples:
• Vice President Biden told me that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any bipartisan cooperation on major votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators who said, ‘Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ ” he recalled. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was, ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden said. The Vice President said he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along those lines.
“So I promise you — and the President agreed with me — I never thought we were going to get Republican support,” Biden said.
Yeah Billy Long, only some tRUMP voters are buying what you are selling.
MOAR LIES.
Better remember to give the staffer intern that dropped this steaming pile a good recommendation!
OMG..... What about what you and the Republicans did while Obama was President? The sad part is the gridlock is from within your own party. Maybe if you would hold some town hall meetings, you would find out why you and your Republican buddies are out of touch.
Congressman Long you are 1,000% correct!
The Democrats are on record to obstruct the second Messiah if Trump appoints him.
They have 0 I terst in the country; only their own selfish political motives, and unfortunately there are a number of sour grapes Republicans led by McCain and Graham who are equally culpable,
And it's just because he kicked their asses in the Presidential primaries,
One thing we can do in our state next year is get rid of Crooked lying McCasskil.
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
I'm with Billy Long and Harvey on this one!
The current failure to git-r-dun in DC is UNBELIEVABLE!
What is WRONG?!
Previously we could blame commie pinkos and the gays, but now we can just blame the gays and divorced I guess.
The Dems must be doing some major obstruction because they have lost both the House and Senate and the Presidency. What other possible explanation can there be for the Trump diministration and the Congress getting nothing done? It has to be the dems and the House Filibuster! Unless perhaps it's Obama's fault?!
President Trump claims only the smartest and bestest people work for him, and then most of his family too, so what exactly is going on? Maybe it's time for some more people to be voted off the island!
Nice spin, Billy. However, there actually is no effort to fill many of those positions because a sure-fire way to cripple or destroy a department of the federal government is to refuse to staff it. Shades of Bannon's "deconstruction of the administrative state." Also, it would be nice if many of the people considered for some of these jobs could actually pass a security clearance once their names were submitted. Many top-level positions aren't filled because there are a lot of professionals who don't want to be associated with the Trump administration, just as there are many lawyers who have refused to represent him recently. In that case, probably because he has the reputation of not paying his bills for contracted services.
HH, please stop with the obstruction lines. The Republican party itself has thrown road blocks in front of Trump. For example, they have put in place obstacles to keep Trump from firing Mueller and Sessions as well as stopping the dismantling of Obamacare. MANY Republican Governors have warned publicly about undoing Obamacare in such a hasty way. Look, we get it, your a Republican. That is fine, but your shallow barbs are really getting annoying.
And to imply that the Trump was treated differently than Obama is so insane it is not even debatable.
I'd like to know if anyone has Billy Long on video saying the words "pseudo intellectual?" I've got a 20 riding on the pronunciation!
Hey Billy Bob, how many appointments have been made? Let's look at ratio of appt to approval maybe. Gotta give em a name first don't you?
Try explaining that to Merrick Garland...
Anonymous 11:35
I'm glad they are NOT appointed more dead wood I. That D.C. Cess Pool
HJ, the fake media definitely treats Trump differently, and Obama will be returning to his Muslim roots in Indonesia
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
Anonymous 11:04,
Any good reason for Obama flying a 150 billion€ under the cover of darkness to Iran? And then giving them Uranium which they have passed on to North Korea?
And now they threaten us and the rest of the world with it.
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
Keep drinking the kkkoolaide all you little trumpers!
If the Trumpenfuhrer announced today that the world is flat then his Trumpenfuhrer followers would wait eagerly for the Trumpenfuhrer to tell them where the edge was.
If the best and smartest people surrounding the Trumpenfuhrer announced that the edge of the world was in the Pacific Ocean then all his followers would quickly demand that all trans Pacific airline flights and ship traffic stop immediately! Or, if the Trumpenfuhrer were to tell them the edge of the world is located between the US and Europe, then all Trans Atlantic flights and ship traffic would get shut down quicker than another Todd Aiken for Congress campaign!
In the most likely scenario the Trumpenfuhrer would probably decree the edge lies somewhere in the Atlantic, thus giving his Rooski friends a man in the middle position for all trade with Europe! This would make NATO more expensive and then Vlad could do the Malignant Marmalade Man and the US another favor and suggest some more layoffs and money saving ideas.
None of these fallacious posts answer my question: why did Obama give Iran nukes, AND150 billion€ in cash? My best guess: they are his brother Muslims,
And now they pass it on to North Korea to threaten that region as well as the US
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
Where do you think the edge of the world is Harvey?
Hervey's posts are fecesious!
I sign my name to them instead of using the cowardly Anonymous
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
What about all those confederate monuments?
https://twitter.com/hhharveytiger/status/872212460228321280
"Confederate Monuments Under Attack Across the Nation http://www.libertyheadlines.com/preservation-confederate-monuments-attack-across-nation/ … via @LibertyHeadline"
All those traitors honored by statues in pubic parks?
Why aren't they gone yet?
Cowardly?
Cowardly anonymous?
Cowardly is a mob grabbing innocent people off the streets and from their houses and lynching them with no semblance of trial or judicial process. Like they used to do in places like Tangipahoa Parish Louisiana. This kind of thing is what the the bars and stars flags and confederate statues in public places and today's neo-nazis and white supremacists and trumpsters honor and defend in places like Charlottesville.
http://www.hammondstar.com/lynch-mob-hangs-history-book-says/article_7667b422-a66b-58c2-9384-729a2b94a518.html
Posted: Monday, March 27, 2000 12:00 am
By Line:CRAIG MALISOW, Daily Star Staff Writer | 0 comments
PONCHATOULA - On Sept. 21, 1900, four black men were hanged from a small oak tree on Beech Street in Ponchatoula.
Picked at random from 14 suspects rounded up after the theft of $250 from a white couple earlier that day, the four men were apparently lynched to set an example for the city's blacks that crimes against whites would not be tolerated, according to the next day's newspaper reports in the Advocate and the Daily Picayune.
Isaiah Rollins, 18, Charles Elliott, 20, George Bickham, 20, and Nathaniel Bowman, 47 reportedly pleaded their innocence and begged for mercy before they were simultaneously hanged.
The combined weight of the men proved too much for the tiny oak, and Bickham had to be strangled by lynch mob members after the noose failed to lift him from the ground, the newspaper accounts reported.
In many places the general public made a sport of killing innocent people and did it for the purposes of maintaining control of the population. These same people erected the confederacy and traitor worshiping statues that now need to be removed today.
I suggest that all these confederate statues should be moved to the top of the local landfill. Or overlooking the local sewage treatment lagoons. If some of the employees of the sewage treatment plants and landfills find the idea of looking at these confederate statues offensive, then perhaps the statues should be dropped into the landfills and sewage treatment lagoons.
The only statement that Billy Blob got right in that whole steaming pile is that "The American people deserve better." When are you going to resign and take the orange anus with you? Then we will have better.
Post a Comment