Wednesday, December 4, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.
Democratic leadership.
🚨NEW: Senator Amy Klobuchar has been elected as the Policy Chair for the Senate Democrats, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the United States Senate.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
RETWEET to congratulate @AmyKlobuchar on making history! pic.twitter.com/nDEHrQ9nye
🚨NEW: Maine Governor Janet Mills is reportedly considering a run for the U.S. Senate against GOP incumbent Susan Collins. A popular 2-term Governor, Mills would be a strong candidate to flip the seat for Democrats.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
RETWEET if you would support Mills for the Senate! pic.twitter.com/IBussWfU1k
NEWS! The Senate has just confirmed:
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) December 3, 2024
—Sparkle L. Sooknanan to be District Judge for the District of Columbia
—Catherine Henry to be District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
We will keep going.
🚨NEW: The U.S. Senate has confirmed Brian Murphy to serve as the Federal U.S. District Court Judge for Massachusetts, marking President Biden’s 223rd judicial appointment.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
RETWEET to congratulate Judge Murphy! pic.twitter.com/juzst3ihic
🚨NEW: The U.S. Senate has confirmed Sparkle Sooknanan to serve as the Federal U.S. District Court Judge in Washington DC, marking President Biden’s 224th judicial appointment.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
RETWEET to congratulate Sooknanan! pic.twitter.com/JsPgvpTxOV
🚨NEW: The U.S. Senate has confirmed Catherine Henry to serve as the Federal U.S. District Court Judge for eastern Pennsylvania, marking President Biden’s 225th judicial appointment.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
RETWEET to congratulate Judge Henry! pic.twitter.com/iYgWXUE3NR
🚨NEW: The U.S. Senate has confirmed Anne Hwang to serve on the Central California U.S. District Court, marking President Biden’s 222nd judicial appointment.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 3, 2024
REPOST to congratulate Judge Hwang! pic.twitter.com/d8cNvgbeom
🚨NEW: The U.S. Senate has confirmed Gail Weilheimer to serve as a Federal U.S. District Court Judge for Eastern Pennsylvania, marking President Biden’s 226th judicial appointment.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 4, 2024
RETWEET to congratulate Judge Weilheimer! pic.twitter.com/XStBhb36fP
Senate Democrats just confirmed their FOURTH judge of the week, marking 225 confirmations under President Biden and Vice President Harris.
California is the fifth largest economy in the world.
— Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor) December 3, 2024
The most populous state.
The beating heart of the American economy.
And California is not backing down. pic.twitter.com/2E8UPxiqYo
🚨NEW: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have sent a letter the Defense Department demanding a policy that would prohibit the military from being deployed against American citizens.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 2, 2024
RETWEET to thank these Senators for standing up to our democracy! pic.twitter.com/dMNTkVocQI
🚨NEW: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is considering a run to be the Ranking Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee. This position would give her more power to hold the Trump Administration accountable.
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 4, 2024
RETWEET if you support @AOC! pic.twitter.com/uFBAsho7S1
Jerry Nadler is the best Judiciary Chair of my lifetime. I am forever grateful for his service. Now, we must pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. @RepRaskin is the best person to next lead the Judiciary committee. I am fully behind him. https://t.co/041QGWrKLd
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) December 2, 2024
Proposed and present MAGA Leadership
NEW: CBS News reports that Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, was forced to step down from two nonprofit veterans groups after staffers accused him of financial and sexual misconduct, and repeated intoxication.
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 3, 2024
pic.twitter.com/YslEO2rJJQ
Ann Coulter trashes Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth: “In all of this talk about whether Pete Hegseth is an abuser of women, no one even mentioned that he is a serial adulterer! Are we a society that doesn’t care about adultery anymore?” pic.twitter.com/k9rffFiisO
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 3, 2024
Susan Collins on Hegseth: "I believe that we need an FBI background check to evaluate the allegations, we need to have the normal committee process of questionnaires and..questionnaires about his background, and we also need to have a public hearing." pic.twitter.com/uZo2tZC8gO
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 3, 2024
Trump’s pick to lead the D.E.A. withdraws, citing the ‘gravity’ of the job.
Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, Fla., which serves the Tampa area, said on social media that he had changed his mind about a job in the Trump administration
Sheriff Chronister has worked in his office, which serves the Tampa area, for more than three decades. But he has little experience in the kind of complex globe-spanning work carried out at the D.E.A., which is part of the Justice Department. The agency has more than 10,000 employees in offices around the world and a budget of more than $3 billion. Some D.E.A. agents had privately wondered in recent days whether he was suited to the job of curbing China’s production of fentanyl.
Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff whom President-elect Donald J. Trump had chosen only a few days ago to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a social media post on Tuesday that he was taking himself out of consideration for the role. “Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw,” he wrote. He added that there was “more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling.” (New York Times).
Trump team signs agreement to allow F.B.I. background checks for its future nominees.
My guess is they signed because many Republican Senators were suggesting they would deny appointments to any unvetted Trump nominees. Still, if you drill down in the post below, 👇 you will see it is still not clear who Trump will submit to FBI vetting.
You can help on this issue. Call your Republican Senators and demand they automatically reject any Trump nominee who is unvetted.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition operation announced on Tuesday that it had belatedly signed an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow the F.B.I. to conduct background checks on people Mr. Trump intends to appoint as senior officials in his new administration.
F.B.I. background checks have long been a routine part of transitions. Law-enforcement vetting of a president-elect’s senior team is normally part of decisions about whether they can be entrusted with access to national security secrets, and senators traditionally want to see such dossiers during the confirmation process.
But Mr. Trump, who is hostile to the F.B.I. because of its role in various criminal and counterintelligence investigations into him, had let weeks pass without signing the agreement.
His team considered bypassing the F.B.I. and instead using private investigators. Under that plan, Mr. Trump would grant security clearances to his picks after his inauguration, and the Senate would not have access to the usual vetting materials.
Despite the signing of the agreement, it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump’s team plans to send the names of all officials requiring a security clearance or Senate confirmation to the F.B.I. for vetting. The announcement did not say whether Mr. Trump would require his appointees to undergo the process or was simply allowing the F.B.I. to begin looking at those who are willing to submit to its scrutiny.
Mr. Trump’s delay in starting the process of F.B.I. background checks had attracted growing attention on Capitol Hill, where Republicans will hold a majority of the Senate starting in January. Assuming all 47 Democratic senators would vote against any nominee who lacked a background check as a matter of principle, it would take four Republican senators to break partisan ranks and deny confirmation.
Against that backdrop, some Republican senators have suggested that they would like nominees to receive traditional background checks, while others have made clear they would go along whatever Mr. Trump wanted to do. (New York Times).
This is not a joke!!
— Ms. Thang 😷 (@Skibbles70) December 2, 2024
The owner of the raw dairy farm that was just shut down for selling infected #H5N1 milk was asked by RFK's team to APPLY FOR A JOB as FDA advisor on Raw Milk Policy and Standards Development with RFK's team!!
WHAT. IN. THE. ACTUAL. FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK?! https://t.co/9ghyCO6WEM pic.twitter.com/czQHbDQ69H
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg railed against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday, using his opening remarks at a public health conference to warn that Kennedy would be “beyond dangerous” as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and putting him in charge would be “medical malpractice on a mass scale.” Speaking during the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington, Bloomberg said he wanted Senate Republicans to convince President-elect Trump to “rethink” Kennedy’s nomination.
“If the president-elect doesn’t reconsider the nomination, the Senate has a duty to our whole country, but especially to our children, to vote no,” Bloomberg said.
Watch former Mayor of NYC, Mike Bloomberg, at the Bloomberg Health Summit, starting at 1:50. 👇
Bloomberg even praises Trump in an attempt to get him to rescind the RFK, Jr. nomination. Resistance strategy.
It would be a real shame if this tweet by Elon Musk (in 2022) saying that Trump is too old to be president went viral.
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 22, 2024
You know what to do. pic.twitter.com/HyVIayp3aA
JUST FRIGGING
— Jonathan🌊🌊🌊🌊#WearAMask #RESIST🇺🇸 #BLUE🌊 (@jbm32753) December 2, 2024
THIS………!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/W7pVc2hLpN
Is Trump dreaming of conquests?
Trump suggests Canada become 51st state after Trudeau said tariff would kill economy: sources https://t.co/3eEdT5UnEw
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 3, 2024
U-S President-Elect Donald Trump has posted this on Truth Social.
— Simon Dingley Media (@SimonDingleyTV) December 3, 2024
Last week he reportedly joked 🇺🇸 the U-S could annex 🇨🇦Canada to Prime Minister Trudeau.
The mountain in the image is The Matterhorn in Switzerland 🇨🇭 pic.twitter.com/pWEravWnfd
News around the world.
notre dame cathedral filled with everyone who helped restore the building over the last five years: pic.twitter.com/ek9Janz7ke
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) December 3, 2024
For your information and reading pleasure.
🚨 BREAKING: Poll Shows Democrats Firmly Back President's Pardon
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) December 3, 2024
A new YouGov poll reveals 64% of Democrats firmly back President Biden’s effort to protect his son, with strong support for pardoning Hunter Biden.
Once again, average Democrats show unity behind President Biden… pic.twitter.com/26j0chqpQR
Hakeem Jeffries presses Joe Biden to issue more pardons before leaving office https://t.co/Df5R14BO9M
— The Hill (@thehill) December 4, 2024