The US Senate moves ahead with confirming the Biden admin cabinet heads….
There will need to be ok’s for over a thousand of Biden’s picks in the future….
The Trump admin ran on empty and temporary staff….
Almost a week after being sworn in, President Biden is seeing his Cabinet start to come together.
The Senate confirmed Antony Blinken, one of Biden’s longtime advisers, as secretary of State in a 78-22 vote Tuesday, making him the president’s fourth nominee to be approved by the upper chamber.
The Senate has also confirmed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Director of National Intelligence Avril over the last six days in broad bipartisan votes.
But Biden is still missing permanent officials to helm the key departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as the CIA – let alone deputy positions across government that also need Senate-confirmed officials….
…
The vacancies in Biden’s administration come at a time when the federal government is contending with multiple crises. Biden has installed acting officials across government in order to keep agencies running as the president waits for his personnel to be confirmed to permanent positions.
Tenpas said that there are some 4,000 political appointments across government, between 1,200 and 1,300 of which require Senate confirmation, meaning that Biden has been able to put many officials in place despite a lack of confirmed agency heads at this stage.
“There are Biden people in each of these departments now,” Tenpas said, but she noted that agencies are limited in what they can execute without a confirmed leader. “If there’s not a leader at the top, it’s harder to plan for the future.”
Additional votes are expected in the coming days….
image of Defense, Treasury, National Intel and State heads …The Hill/Getty
UPDATE….
Wiki extensive article on the Biden Cabinet ….
Two more Biden cabinet guys confirmed…..
Buttigieg for Transportation Sec….(86-13)
Mayorkas for Homeland Sec….(56-43)
Buttigieg makes the history books as the first openly gay US Senate confirmed Cabinet Sec….The nay votes where ALL Republicans
Graham seems to be dragging the Garland DOJ confirmation out for as long as he can…
Yes Graham….
GOPer’s still head the Senate committee’s….
Biden BA Sec confirmed
He was one of Obama’s chief of staff
CNN Breaking News
The Senate confirmed Denis McDonough as secretary of Veterans Affairs, the day before it turns much of its focus to the impeachment trial
87-7 was the vote in the Senate…
Granholm confirmed for Energy…
Cardona confirmed for Education Sec
Several Biden cabinet picks having hearings today
Garland AG vote shortly…
R.I. Gov. Gina Raimondo due for confirmation at 2:15 for Commerce Secretary.
Shortly thereafter, Lt. Gov. Dan McKee (D, former Mayor of Cumberland, RI) is expected to become Governor.
The Senate confirmed Cecilia Rouse on Tuesday to become chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, making her the first Black person to serve in that role in the body’s 74-year history….
More…
The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Gina Raimondo as secretary of Commerce, tasking the former Rhode Island governor with a key role in reviewing the Trump administration’s trade policies….
More…
Possible Tanden replacement to lead OMB…..
Republican senators turned Shalanda Young’s confirmation process on Tuesday into a dress rehearsal for replacing Neera Tanden as President Joe Biden’s pick to run the White House budget office.
During Young’s first confirmation hearing to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, GOP lawmakers boosted her as an alternative to Tanden, just hours before the White House withdrew Tanden’s nomination for OMB director….
More…
(Young could benefit from the racial whispers about Tanden)
Collins Will Back Haaland for Interior Secretary
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) will vote to confirm interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland, making her the first GOP senator to publicly support President Joe Biden’s historic pick for the job, the HuffPost reports.
3/6/2021 Biden cabinet confirmation Update....
Nine are Pending….
Seven of those have been voted out of Senate Committee with Favorable results…
Two have had no committee hearings…
One person has withdrawn….
With the Stimulus Bill gone from the Senate Majority leader Schumer would like the confirmations votes to begin immediately ….
We’ll see what the Republicans do….
Link…
Hmmmm?…Campaigning for a Presidential cabinet job often does NOT work
Biden Hesitates on Shalanda Young as Budget Chief
Washington Post: “People close to the White House say some aides have been turned off by the overt campaigning on Young’s behalf, which began before the White House formally withdrew the nomination of Neera Tanden earlier this week.”
Marcia Fudge confirmed for HUD Sec
First Black Women to get the job in a while..
Fudge vote 66-34….
Not true.
The first HUD Secretary, Patricia Harris, was African-American.
I think, CG, that you’re confusing HUD, HEW and the Dept of Education — of which Patricia Roberts Harris, an Afro-American woman, was indeed the first Secretary. However, although she was the first (and before Marcia Fudge the only) woman to be Secretary of HUD, she was neither the first black Secretary of HUD, nor the Department’s first head.
That was an African-American man, Robert Weaver, in 1966. I think that Mr Weaver was also the first black person to serve in any presidential cabinet. And I think that Pat Harris was the first black woman to serve in one. And probably, no doubt, also the first female Delegate in Congress for the District of Columbia.
(I consulted the World Almanac but haven’t double-checked on Wikipedia.)
No, she led both departments.
Yes CG is right about that.
HUD Secretary ’77-79 but was not the first, I see now..
HEW 79-80
HHS 80-81
My (different) mistake confusing Education with HHS.
It appears (from pp. 555-562 of the 2021World Almanac) that women were the first Secretaries of HEW (Oveta Culp Hobby, 1953), Education (Shirley Hufstedler, 1979) and HHS (Patricia Roberts Harris, 1979). As I recall the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet was Frances Perkins (nominated by FDR in 1933).
Defense (and its parents, War & Navy) seems to be the only Cabinet department yet to have a female head.
We almost had a woman DOD sec..
First Black DOD Sec instead….
Biden IS doing the diversity thing…
In regards to full Cabinet Secretaries and persons of color, I think GWB’s Cabinet was right up there in terms of “diversity.”
Yes, in regards to full Cabinet Secretaries, GWB’s first contained 6 out 14 persons of color and Biden’s is 6 out of 15.
(Obama also had 6 out of 15 in his first. It looks like Bill Clinton had 7 out 14 in his first.. .I am counting both Spence Abraham for GWB and Donna Shalala, for Clinton, Arab-Americans, as POC, though some may take issue with that)
Yes….
For a Republican Bush II has been different…
Remember….
He is NOT a Trump fan….
But remains a Republican…
Thanks DSD….
I don’t feel so bad now…
You are correct CG….
My comment changed…
Merrick Garland is finally confirmed for the Attorney General job….
Vote was 70-30…..
Michael Regan confirmed as the First Black man to lead the EPA….
Same vote numbers as Fudge for confirmation
66-34….
Breaking…
Deb Haaland confirmed for Interior Sec
First Native American Woman cabinet Sec…
Vote was 51-40…..
Isabel Guzman confirmed for SBA job….
Vote 81-17….
The US Senate has confirmed 18 of Biden’s picks only one has withdrawn…
Katherine Tai, a longtime congressional staff lawyer, won Senate confirmation on Wednesday as the first woman of color to serve as the top U.S. trade negotiator….
More…
Xavier Becerra was narrowly confirmed as the Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday on a party-line vote.
The Senate voted 50-49 in favor of Becerra, who will become the first Latino to lead the agency once he’s sworn in. The vote also made him Biden’s 20th Cabinet appointee confirmed by the equally divided Senate. He will have to resign his seat as attorney general of California…
More…
California Gov Newsom is under pressure to pick another minority to fill in the state AG spot after Harris and Beccero
Biden gets another confirmation…
This an important one….
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Willian Burns to lead the CIA, making him the first former diplomat to lead the agency.
Senators approved his nomination by voice vote.
Burns, an ambassador twice over who finished his diplomatic career as deputy secretary of State, has played a key role in major security matters for multiple administrations.
His nomination by President Biden earned bipartisan support, and he was introduced at his confirmation hearing by James Baker, who led the State Department under former President George H. W. Bush, and Leon Panetta, CIA director during the Obama administration.
Thursday’s confirmation came after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a potential 2024 White House contender, dropped his blockade of Burns’s nomination.
Cruz had threatened to hold up the nomination over questions about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. But announced on Thursday afternoon that Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s warning that entities involved in the controversial Russia-to-Germany project could be sanctioned convinced him to back down.
More….
This is sort of appropriate (although I can find no genealogical link with a brief cursory browse) because another William J. Burns was J. Edgar Hoover’s predecessor as director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (now FBI), as well as head of the William J. Burns Detective Agency.
Ur showing ur age DSD….
Youngings would know nothing of this…..
Good get!
Pinkerton?
Allen J. Pinkerton, who did some intelligence work for the Union during the U.S. Civil War, established another detective/security/srtike-breaking/ industrial-espionage corporation which still exists today, but Pinkertons are (insofar as I know) competitors with the Wm J Burns agency, and for that matter with Wackenhut.
The Pinkertons broke up the violent Molly Maguires alliance of desperate Appalachian coal-miners in the late 19th century, an incident not only recounted in the film (“The Molly Maguires”) with the late Sean Connery, but very lightly disguised by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (an acquaintance of Pinkerton’s) in “The Valley of Fear”, one of the four longer stories of Sherlock Holmes [“I am Birdy Edwards!”]
Alright!….
We do history here also….
President Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida to lead NASA, settling on a longtime booster of the space program to lead the agency’s return to the moon, according to three people familiar with the decision….
More…
Also….
After the Cruz confirmatiomns holds where lifted….
Brian McKeon, Biden’s choice for deputy secretary of State for management and resources was confirmed…
But Cruz, as a lone Senator, is blocking another confirmation vote….Cruz IS pushing the Biden admin to double down against the Russian/German pipeline
Cruz said he would maintain his hold on Biden’s nominee to be deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, “until the full sanctions mandated by Congress are in fact broadly imposed against the ships and companies critical to completing the pipeline.” Sherman has drawn scorn from Republicans over her role in crafting the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal….
More…
Bostom Mayor Marty Walsh confirmed for Sec of Labor….
Vivek H. Murthy has been confirmed to return the job of Surgeon General….
He had the spot during the Obama and part of the Trump admin….
The vote for the Asian-American was 57-43….
Shalanda Young confirmed for the #2 spot at OMB…
There is no name fir the top spot after Needa Tandem dropped out…
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rachel Levine to be assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, making her the first openly transgender official ever approved by the upper chamber.
Levine, previously physician general and secretary of health in Pennsylvania, was confirmed 52-48 in a mostly party-line vote, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) supporting the nomination…
The Hill…
Biden Weighs Ken Salazar for Ambassador to Mexico
The Biden administration is vetting Ken Salazar, a former senator and Interior secretary, to serve as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Axios reports.
Biden to Nominate First Woman as Army Secretary
President Joe Biden is expected to nominate Pentagon veteran Christine Wormuth to be the first female Army secretary, Politico reports.
Biden Keeping Trump’s Ambassador to Russia
“The Biden administration recently decided to keep the Trump-appointed US ambassador on the job in Moscow for the foreseeable future, demonstrating a willingness to nurture areas of stability in the US-Russia relationship after it got off to a tumultuous start,” CNN reports.
“John Sullivan has been on the job for almost a year and a half. He is viewed by administration officials as a steady hand as the administration ramps up the pressure on Russia for taking actions to undermine the US and democratic values broadly.”
The Senate confirmed former Sen. Bill Nelson (D) to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Thursday.
Nelson’s confirmation to be Biden’s NASA administrator was done by unanimous consent as the chamber prepared to leave town for a one-week recess…
More…
Demetri Sevastopulo
@Dimi
·
11h
SCOOP
@JoeBiden
chooses
@RahmEmanuel
for US ambassador to Japan. Former congressman, White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor will be announced later this month as part of package of nominations for ambassador roles. #USJapan
Demetri Sevastopulo
@Dimi
Replying to
@Dimi
Emanuel has little Japan experience but in some ways a return to the days when US presidents sent former well-known politicians (Mansfield, Mondale, Foley, Baker) to Tokyo. Last high-profile ambassador in Tokyo was Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late JFK.