This is a common, boring, toothless tactic routinely used by whichever party is currently in the minority in the Senate. Tommy Tuberville did it in 2023. JD Vance did it in 2023. Tom Cotton did it in 2022. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did it in 2021. Tammy Duckworth and Chuck Grassley did it in 2020. Chuck Schumer did it in 2019. Tim Scott did it in 2018. And on and on and on...

Blumenthal was Attorney General of Connecticut from 1991 to 2011, when he was elected to the Senate. His net worth is about $100 million. He can afford to take real, actual action against Trump, but he's not. Instead, we get a press release that he's taking his turn to drag his feet a little while Trump drives us off a cliff.

He's part of the Problem Class.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Whoa, how do you keep tabs on all of this?

[–] Rivalarrival 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Most search engines (duckduckgo) allow you to set a custom date range for your search. Repeat the same search ("Senator blocks nominees") year by year, and you keep getting different names for the same pointless stunt.

We are in desperate need of a Guillotine Party to (politically) sever the oligarch heads from the Democratic body.

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 2 points 6 days ago

I'd be happy with "literally" to be frank. And thanks for your informative reply.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 6 days ago

As another Australian, I think there are still some key bits that are missing from this explanation. Some of which I know, some I don't.

I know the Senate is responsible for approving appointments to various roles, including cabinet positions and senior civil servant positions. I know there's something about needing a majority in some cases but a supermajority in others, and I believe that's related to times you can and can't use a filibuster.

From what I gather it seems like they do some of these appointments in batches, unless an individual senator disapproves of that. (In the Australian context, this is probably similar to what our Senators and Representatives call "seeking leave".) In which case apparently they have to do them one-by-one, which is slower.

Seeking leave to do something outside the standing orders is a really basic procedural motion, and denying leave is the most minute act of resistance. By all means, use it if you've got it, but it's hardly praiseworthy, to my view. Real action would have been abolishing the filibuster back when you had control over it, rather than using the fact that you only have a bare majority in the Senate as an excuse for not getting anything done. The filibuster is such a grotesque anti-democratic figment of history. It's astonishing that it's lasted as long as it has. I guess because both sides praise it when they're the ones doing it?