Rhode Island Gov. Raimondo is confirmed as commerce secretary

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post




Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) won Senate confirmation Tuesday as the next U.S. commerce secretary, a post that will thrust her into some of the most contentious economic and security questions confronting the Biden administration.The Senate easily approved her nomination by a vote of 84 to 15. She is expected to be sworn in Wednesday.

Raimondo, 49, a former venture capitalist who was reelected to her second term as Rhode Island’s chief executive in 2018, will assume command of a federal agency with sweeping responsibilities and an increasingly important portfolio. Long seen as simply a business-friendly outpost in Washington, the department in recent years emerged as an active player in President Donald Trump’s trade wars, while carrying out the decennial census and managing the nation’s weather-monitoring systems.

Commerce repeatedly tightened Chinese access to top U.S. technologies and employed a novel interpretation of American trade law to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, citing national security risks. “Commerce’s role at the intersection of economics and national security increased significantly during the Trump administration. … The secretary is facing a full plate,” said Michael Wessel, a member of the congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

She has often spoken of her father being forced into early retirement in his 50s after losing his job in a Bulova watch factory. Over the past few years, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross added dozens of Chinese companies to an export blacklist, which effectively barred them from doing business with U.S. firms. The department also nearly tripled its imposition of tariffs designed to prevent foreign companies from selling in the United States products that were heavily subsidized or priced below cost.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/02/raimondo-commerce-biden/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. 15 Republicans voted against a venture capitalist?

Should someone tell Mitt Romney? He'd be in stitches over it. Oh, right, He already is.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Here's the roll call

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=117&session=1&vote=00070

It's interesting who, aside from the usual suspects, who else voted "nay".

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Looks mostly rural reds to me

prob with Evangelical undertones. But Paul voted yea, and Scott-SC voted nay. (Is he self-aware?)

Was it an Italian tilt? In their minds, those people are not good at business? Even now, after 500 years of bankers from Florence, Milan, Venice? Or does this demonstrate reach of Lindsey? Not really asking of course, there's no divining their intent. Just floating rhetorical nabobs.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. What caught my attention

were the 2 WYs and 2 NDs...

NAYs ---15

Barrasso (R-WY)
Cotton (R-AR)
Cramer (R-ND)
Cruz (R-TX)
Hagerty (R-TN)
Hawley (R-MO)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Kennedy (R-LA)
Lummis (R-WY)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Shelby (R-AL)
Tuberville (R-AL)

Unless they think it has something to do with the Keystone pipeline (although that wouldn't impact WY).

[Delphinus]

5. I can't

comprehend what these effs are thinking.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Well we know some of the overt anti-American insurrections were in that list

Cotton (R-AR)
Cruz (R-TX)
Hawley (R-MO)
Tuberville (R-AL)

Which makes it shocking that Ron Paul's SPAWN and Graham actually voted "yay".