An Open Letter To The Democratic Senators On Cabinet Nominations
Dear Democratic Senators,
Respectfully I need to ask, what the fuck are you doing? What happened to the resistance, and being strong and fighting back for your constituents? What happened to the fight for Human Rights, and Dignity and Equality? Remember that? Resist Trump. Or did I miss something over the last few days in between trying to earn a living, making daily phone calls to my GOP Congressman, and wading through your daily dozen emails asking for money that you need me to give you so that you can vote yes on the nomination of the creatures from the black lagoon? Really? Well let me tell you something and make it perfectly clear when you vote yea to the abominations that he picked to help him run destroy our government, you are not fighting for me you are enabling the Orange Menace and his Grim Reapers in Congress.
Sometimes I admit I miss things as I sift through the detritus of my daily toil. Sometimes facts get obscured in my day to day struggle to survive, pay my bills, and wrestle with my demon du jour. But I didn’t miss your confirmation votes. I didn’t miss that 14 of you voted for Mike Pompeo. You know, the Pompeo who is a far right conservative Republican from Kansas that has said we should bring back torture because it is patriotic. The Islamophobic Mike Pompeo who appeared repeatedly on the radio show of Frank Gaffney, the anti-Muslim activist. The Frank Pompeo whose confirmation was opposed by the Human Rights Watch managed to get 14 Democrats to give him a thumbs up including Schumer, Feinstein, Kaine, and my own Amy Klobuchar.
On the Senate Floor on Monday, Senator Ron Wyden, D-OR said about Pompeo, “ on issue after issue the Congressman has taken two, three, or four positions, depending on when he says it and who he is talking to. He has done this with surveillance, with torture, with Russia, and a number of other subjects.” Yet 14 Democrats fell in line behind Republicans and voted for Pompeo. Bet they can’t wait for the chance to approve Tillerson, Sessions, and DeVos too! Yippee!
Anyway here are the 14 Senators just for shits and giggles and if this is how Liberals are expressing their support of human rights in the Senate this week, we are up the creek not only without a paddle but with a leaky boat as well. We are fucked. Here you go a great job, NOT, Donnelly, Ind.; Feinstein, Calif.; Hassan, N.H.; Heitkamp, N.D.; Kaine, Va.; Klobuchar, Minn.; Manchin, W.V.; McCaskill, Mo.; Reed, R.I.; Schatz, Hawaii; Schumer, N.Y.; Shaheen, N.H.; Warner, Va.; Whitehouse, R.I.
Now that brings us to Dr. Ben Carson. You remember Ol’ Ben who supposedly was a neurosurgeon in another life but now is going to head HUD. As if the confirmation of Pompeo with the help of the Democrats were not enough, Elizabeth Warren, the darling of the far left progressive movement, voted yes to Ben, because he promised to be a good boy.
(Update 1/26. In fairness to Senator Warren, yesterday she published a response on her facebook page explaining her vote which you may or may not agree with, but I will say that she did put thought and effort into her decision.)
Democratic Senators, whatever it is you are attempting to achieve with these votes, it escapes me. As the Democratic leadership, you should be standing together in a solid wall of resistance to Trump’s assault on our civil liberties. Your "yes" votes are not acceptable. While we march in the cold wearing silly pink hats, while we call sometimes hostile Congressman and Senators from the other side of the aisle, and while we take precious hours out of our busy days to organize a resistance you sit in the Senate and vote with Republicans. What kind of a message do you think that sends to us?
This is not about bipartisanship any longer. That game was taken off the table by Republicans when President Obama took office. If you want to learn how it’s done, look to the GOP. They stood together no matter what and even went so far as to close down the government. And here they are controlling Congress and the White House while we are left out in the cold. There is a lesson there and you better start paying attention. This is not about going along to get along. Fuck that because Republicans don’t care if you go along or not, they only care about getting their way and winning. The “we go high when they go low” is not working so you better stop coming to the sword fight with a butter knife. We the middle class and the poor in America are fighting for our lives, literally, and you better start taking this fight seriously.
Many of you failed your first test as a united front to defend human rights and liberty. We the people are not happy and we aren’t just watching them, we are watching you too. If you don’t start getting it right, the next time one of those emails looking for a few bucks comes into my email box I am going down to the bottom and hitting the unsubscribe option. Consider yourselves on notice.