Sydney Sweeney and fixing the Senate

Politico

a day ago

Last week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune delivered a less than celebratory message on the floor: 'You want to know how many civilian nominees President Trump has had confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote?' he asked. 'None. Zero. Zero percent.'
This was just before the Senate headed home for the summer — with over 100 nominees still unconfirmed.
It was yet another chapter in the ever-expanding saga that is Congressional dysfunction. But according to Jim Secreto, who was a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs and director of confirmations under President Joe Biden, there is a way out of this — only sometimes, it requires you to send someone up in a helicopter to shoot a few feral cows.
No, that's not a garbled euphemism. One Senate nomination hang-up occurred when Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico delayed the confirmation of a Department of Agriculture nominee until they'd agree to a briefing on feral cows roaming the Gila National Forest. Once the Forest Service signed off on mowing them down, the nominee was soon confirmed.
'Sadly, as the events of the Senate last week show, this kind of transactional dealmaking has all but vanished,' Secreto writes in this week's Friday Read, 'and for us to get back to fixing government and the broken state of U.S. politics in general, it needs to be revived.'
Read the story.
'This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.'
Can you guess who said this about South Park after it satirized the Trump administration? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
The Real Sydney Sweeney Problem ... The online uproar over Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad quickly turned into fodder for conservatives to use against Democrats — even though elected Democrats had nothing to do with it. For Rob Flaherty, who served as former Vice President Kamala Harris' deputy campaign manager in 2024, that reveals a troubling truth about the asymmetrical information ecosystems on the left and the right. 'The fact that this moment became a thing at all ... says something real about the media ecosystem we're all trapped in,' he writes. 'And it says even more about why Democrats keep losing the culture war, and with it, the narrative war that inevitably shapes who wins elections.'
Did the group of Democrats leaving Texas to break quorum and prevent a vote on Republicans' redistricting plan leave you behind in the Austin dust? When it comes up this weekend, just tip your Stetson and stick to these talking points. (From Associate Editor Dylon Jones)
— The obvious tension is between Republicans and Democrats, but as a keen observer of Texas politics, you can point out other points of friction: 'The governor and the state attorney general seem to be competing over which one of them should get to kick the Democrats out of office. Abbott asked the Supreme Court to remove them, but AG Ken Paxton filed his own separate action and wrote a letter saying he's the one that has the authority to boot them. Sen. John Cornyn got involved too, taking Abbott's side — after all, the senator is running a primary campaign against Paxton.'
— Point out just how dangerous the political climate has gotten to show you've been following the situation: 'There have already been multiple bomb threats at the hotel where Democrats are staying in Chicago. Thankfully, the St. Charles police sweep didn't turn up any bombs, and no one was hurt.'
— Mention some of the GOP's tactics to pressure the Democrats into returning: 'Did you see the House Speaker, Dustin Burrows, announced that the Democrats would have to pick up their paychecks and per diems in person? He said the Constitution prevents him from withholding their money — but 'it does not dictate how we issue the pay.''
— Point out how this state battle is becoming a proxy for a national showdown between Democrats and Trump: 'It was notable that Texas Democrats appeared in California with Gov. Gavin Newsom. He's pushing for a counter-redistricting to undercut the Republicans' goals in Texas.'
Trump Comes for the Fortune 500 ... Trump has taken on academia, government, the legal system and the media. Next on the list? It might just be the Fortune 500. Intel's shares plummeted after the president called on it's CEO to resign over past business dealings in China. 'The public demand for a Fortune 500 CEO to resign, delivered via social media, tells us something important about what Trump has learned in the seven months since he returned to the White House,' writes Charlie Mahtesian, 'and how that is leading to a creeping encroachment into every institution and corner of American life.'
Metrinko's Bitter 'I Told You So Moment' ... In the leadup to the Iranian Revolution and the 1979-81 hostage crisis that tanked Jimmy Carter's presidency, Washington got rosy reports about what was going on in the country under its ally, the shah. But one diplomat had a different picture. He saw the trouble brewing on the horizon — but the government ignored his warnings, and he ended up being taken hostage himself. With tensions once again rising in the Middle East, 'the lesson for the current administration is the same as it was for its predecessors,' writes veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson. 'Government bureaucracy has a way of ignoring dissenting voices — and it does so at its own peril.'
Conor Lamb Is Unfettered ... Conor Lamb got creamed in the 2022 Democratic Senate primary against now-Sen. John Fetterman, dismissed as a centrist stooge by the left. 'Progressives want you to know they're sorry about that,' writes Ben Jacobs. 'In light of Fetterman's seeming estrangement from the Democratic Party and his evolution into 'Trump's favorite Democrat,' the left has reconciled with Lamb, wondering if maybe they were a little too tough on the once up-and-coming lawmaker who had shot to national attention by winning a deep red district in a 2018 special election.'
The Plan Netanyahu Doesn't Want You to Know About ... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 'wants us to believe, or at least wants the Trump administration to, that Israel has no alternative than to intensify the war,' writes Bernard Avishai. 'But this is not the case and hasn't been for the past 18 months. Hamas was never the necessary negotiating partner, or even the counterparty, to any deal that promised to succeed.' What might be, he says, is the Palestinian Authority — if it involves a range of Palestinian business leaders and their plans for the future. 'Indeed, the business community portends a new Palestinian leadership that can provide the know-how for economic rebuilding.'
From the drafting table of editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker.
**Who Dissed? answer: It was White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers, in a statement to CNN.
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