Tuesday, June 04, 2019

Senate Republicans Ready to Quash Cuccinelli Nomination

As noted in a previous post, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, is said to be set to appoint former Virginia AG Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli for director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  Sane Virginians - i.e., those not in the thrall of The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group which has its antecedents in white supremacists who backed "Massive Resistance" - know Cuccinelli as a religious extremist and ideologue who I personally would not nominate even for a position of dogcatcher.  In my opinion, Cuccinelli has some screws loose not to mention that he's a raving self-loathing closet case who projects his self-hatred on the entire LGBT community - all of which makes him a darling of the Christofascist and professional Christian set.  Thankfully, as Politico is reporting Republican U.S. Senate members may be poised to torpedo Cuccinelli's nomination. Here are article highlights:
President Donald Trump wants Cuccinelli, who most recently led the anti-establishment Senate Conservatives Fund, to be director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But there may be nobody in Washington whom McConnell and his allies would take more pleasure in defeating, and the bottom line is Cuccinelli has little chance of getting approved for the job, Republican senators said.
“He’s spent a fair amount of his career attacking Republicans in the Senate, so it strikes me as an odd position for him to put himself in to seek Senate confirmation,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who ran the GOP’s campaign arm for two election cycles. “It’s unlikely he’s going to be confirmed if he is nominated.”
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate GOP’s chief vote-counter, called the bid “a long shot,” adding, “They’ll go forward with it or they won’t, but I will suspect he’ll have plenty of obstacles once he gets here.”
The nascent nomination fight is again pitting the president against his own party in Congress. Just this spring, because of strong and very public opposition from Senate Republicans, Trump yanked his two preferred picks for the Federal Reserve’s board of governors before they even had been formally nominated.
 And immigration has been a particular sore spot: Every leadership position at the Department of Homeland Security related to immigration is filled only by people serving in an acting capacity — and White House officials are mulling the prospect of having Cuccinelli do the same.
Some senators are still hoping to persuade Trump not to formally nominate or appoint Cuccinelli, but if the president goes through with it, the former Virginia attorney general likely will be either rejected or blocked from a floor vote entirely.
White House officials said Cuccinelli, always spoiling for a fight, is enthusiastic about another clash with McConnell. In a statement for this story, Cuccinelli showed no signs of backing down.
The pushback against Trump’s attempt to install an immigration hard-liner to run the country’s legal immigration system is the climax of Senate Republicans’ yearslong battle with Cuccinelli and his organization, which has tried to oust GOP incumbents in favor of more conservative challengers.
Cuccinelli also has taken aim at some of the senators needed to confirm him — calling on McConnell to resign as majority leader, backing Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate race to the chagrin of the GOP rank and file, and criticizing the record of Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) as a “major disappointment.”
On Tuesday, McConnell reiterated in a brief interview his strong “lack of enthusiasm” for Cuccinelli.
“It seems to me to be very difficult [to confirm him], based upon what I have read that McConnell says. I get the opinion that McConnell is not going to bring it up,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “So if McConnell’s not going to bring it up, it ain’t going to come up.”
Grassley predicted Cuccinelli will be temporarily installed in an acting role. . . . . Cuccinelli’s elevation itself is a blow to Grassley, whose former staffer Francis Cissna was ousted from USCIS despite Grassley’s pleas to keep him amid Trump’s broader purge of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Cuccinelli nomination reflects the persistent bind Trump has faced when it comes to immigration. Senate Republicans are reluctant to confirm the sorts of people who share his views, such as Cuccinelli and Kris Kobach, a former Kansas secretary of state who was considered as a replacement for former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Trump’s preferred Federal Reserve picks, Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, were scuttled by GOP resistance. And Cuccinelli could be headed for the same buzz saw, though one Senate Republican worried “then we get Kris Kobach, who’s probably worse.
“I don’t know why the president keeps putting these people out without just making a few phone calls and saying: ‘Can you confirm this person?’” the senator said.
In my opinion, Cuccinelli is a raving crazy person which why Virginians rejected his gubernatorial bid and elected Democrat Terry McAullife.  Virginia did not want Cuccinelli and the country as a whole should not want him either. He needs to disappear into total obscurity.

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