Senate confirms former ExxonMobil CEO as secretary of state
IT'S HARDLY NEWS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT
BOTH PARTIES ARE SERVANTS OF THE SUPER RICH,
ILLEGALS, PLUNDERING BANKSTERS AND CRIMINAL
WALL STREET!
"The unstated conclusion is that the Democrats are concerned about a political movement from below, sparked by both the attacks of the Trump administration and the spineless capitulation of the Democratic Party, that threatens all the institutions of American capitalism."
Senate confirms former
ExxonMobil CEO as secretary of state
By Patrick Martin
2 February 2017
The US Senate voted Wednesday afternoon to
confirm Rex Tillerson, longtime CEO of ExxonMobil, as secretary of state, the
top US diplomatic representative. The vote was 56-43, largely along party
lines, with three Democrats and one Democratic-aligned independent joining all
52 Republicans.
Tillerson will take office with the weakest
support in the Senate of any secretary of state in US history. The previous low
in modern history was Condoleezza Rice, confirmed by a vote of 86-13 in 2005.
Obama’s two secretaries of state were confirmed by near-unanimous votes, 94-2
for Hillary Clinton and 94-3 for John Kerry.
The significant vote against Tillerson is not a
signal of any opposition by the Democratic Party to the right-wing rampage
unleashed by President Trump since his inauguration January 20. The main
Democratic criticism of Tillerson was from the right, denouncing him as soft on
Russia because of his longstanding business ties to the world’s largest oil
producer.
In two hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and in floor debate on the nomination, Democrats also attacked
Trump’s conciliatory statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin and
again cited claims of “Russian hacking” of the Democrats during the 2016 US
presidential election, although there is no evidence that the embarrassing
material released by WikiLeaks was actually supplied by the Russian government.
Tillerson will take charge of a State Department
that has been thrown into turmoil by the executive order signed by Trump January
27 banning all refugees for 90 days, as well as visitors from seven
majority-Muslim countries that have been bombed by the United States or
subjected to economic sanctions.
More than 1,000 State Department career
employees have signed a “dissent cable” opposing the executive order as cruel
and inhumane, and damaging to US foreign policy interests. White House
spokesman Sean Spicer has suggested that those diplomats “should either get
with the program or they can go.”
Ryan C. Crocker, a
former US ambassador to five Muslim countries, including Iraq during the height
of the Bush administration’s war and occupation, told the New York
Times, “Tillerson faces the most difficult task of any secretary of state
in the postwar era in trying to reconcile President Trump’s intention to make a
stark break from decades of bipartisan consensus US foreign policy leadership
with the reality that, if he succeeds, such a break could lead to global
chaos.”
Other Trump cabinet nominations continue to
advance in the Senate, with the Republican majority brushing aside impotent and
largely theatrical protests by the Democrats, who would happily confirm the
vast majority of the nominees but fear the popular reaction. These fears have
multiplied after mass nationwide demonstrations January 21 against Trump’s
inauguration were followed by a weekend of protests January 28-29 at US
airports against the initial detentions of visitors and refugees under the
terms of Trump’s Muslim ban.
On Tuesday, Senate Democrats blocked committee
votes on three nominees: Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, Steven
Mnuchin as secretary of treasury, and Congressman Tom Price to head the
Department of Health and Human Services. But Senate Republicans regrouped and
pushed through all three nominations Wednesday.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sessions
by a party-line 11-9 vote and sent his nomination to the floor of the Senate.
The Senate Finance Committee, acting in the absence of the Democrats who
boycotted the meeting to block the vote, suspended rules that require at least
one member of the minority to be present to constitute a quorum. The committee
then rubber-stamped the Mnuchin and Price nominations by identical 14-0 votes.
Democrats boycotted another confirmation hearing
Wednesday, this one for Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, nominated to
head the Environmental Protection Agency—against which he has filed numerous
lawsuits on behalf of oil and gas polluters. Pruitt’s nomination was held over
for another day.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee delayed a vote on Congressman Mick Mulvaney, nominated to
Office of Management and Budget, to allow more time to review background
material, but a vote to confirm will place on Thursday without further
procedural obstacles.
Three other nominations—Congressman Ryan Zinke
of Montana to head the Department of Interior, former Texas Governor Rick Perry
to head the Department of Energy and billionaire Betsy DeVos to head the
Department of Education—were approved by committees Tuesday and now await final
confirmation votes by the full Senate. Zinke and Perry had substantial
Democratic support in the committee votes and will be confirmed easily by the
full Senate.
Only the confirmation of DeVos is in question.
Her committee testimony was such a devastating display of ignorance and
opposition to public education that two Republican senators, Susan Collins of
Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced their opposition in speeches on
the Senate floor Wednesday. At least one other Republican, Dan Sullivan of
Alaska, suggested his support was in doubt.
Given the 52-48 Republican majority, two
Republicans joining all the Democrats would produce a 50-50 tie, requiring Vice
President Mike Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote. Senate Republican leaders
were compelled to delay the floor vote to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions as
attorney general because his vote as a senator might be needed to save the
DeVos nomination.
While Democratic opposition has been hyped
endlessly, both by the Democrats themselves and by the Trump White House, each
for their own political reasons, the real attitude of the Democratic Party to
the Trump administration was expressed in comments by Representative Adam
Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and one of the
most adamant voices in the campaign over alleged Russian hacking.
Speaking with the Los
Angeles Times, Schiff worried that the ultra-right actions and statements
of the Trump administration were “radicalizing Democrats,” and that the party’s
main task was to keep the protests against the new government under control.
“The radical nature of this government is
radicalizing Democrats,” he said, “and that’s going to pose a real challenge to
the Democratic Party, which is to draw on the energy and the activism and the
passion that is out there, but not let it turn us into what we despised about
the tea party.”
He voiced concern over an escalating political
polarization. “The more radical the administration is, the more radicalized our
base becomes, which just feeds the Breitbart crowd, and who knows where that
ends,” he said. “I’ve never been more worried about the country’s future than I
am right now.”
The unstated conclusion is that the Democrats
are concerned about a political movement from below, sparked by both the
attacks of the Trump administration and the spineless capitulation of the
Democratic Party, that threatens all the institutions of American capitalism.