The Senate confirmed 27 Obama nominees yesterday after the president threatened to make appointments during the Senate’s upcoming recess.
On Tuesday, during a bipartisan meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), Obama announced that he would consider making appointments during the Senate’s recess if Congress didn’t act quickly. The Senate starts its recess on Monday.
After his nominees were confirmed, Obama said in a statement, “At the beginning of the week, a staggering 63 nominees had been stalled in the Senate because one or more senators placed a hold on their nomination. In most cases, these holds have had nothing to do with the nominees’ qualifications or even political views, and these nominees have already received broad, bipartisan support in the committee process.
“Instead, many holds were motivated by a desire to leverage projects for a senator’s state or simply to frustrate progress. It is precisely these kinds of tactics that enrage the American people.”
Obama said that he told Sen. McConnell that if Republican senators didn’t release holds, he would use his authority to fill critically needed positions in the federal government temporarily through the use of recess appointments.
“Since that meeting, I am gratified that Republican senators have responded by releasing many of these holds and allowing 29 nominees to receive a vote in the Senate,” Obama said.
There are still many nominees on hold who deserve a similar vote, Obama said, adding that he will be “looking for action from the Senate when it returns from recess.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.