KUDOS KIRSTEN! YOU MAKE DEMOCRATS PROUD!

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     I want to applaud Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.  She is the ONLY United States Senator who has had enough guts...and enough sense...to vote against EVERY person that Donald Trump selected for his Cabinet.  To date...Senator Gillibrand has voted to confirm... none...of Trump's appointees to his official Cabinet.  Not one.  Zero. 

     Oh I can hear some of you saying..."Duglin, you're WRONG.  Senator Gillibrand voted to confirm Nikki Haley as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations."  But then...I would have to tell you...that I'm RIGHT.

     The White House says that the Presidential Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 departments of the Executive Branch of the federal government...all of whom are in the line of succession to the Presidency.  And although the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate are next in line to the President after the Vice President...they are not members of the Presidential Cabinet.

     Senator Gillibrand did indeed vote in favor of Nikki Haley to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.  And despite the fact that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations requires Senate confirmation, it is not part of the Presidential Cabinet...but instead, it is considered a "Cabinet-level" position.  As such...the person at that post is permitted to attend Cabinet meetings.  But...and this is an important "but"...the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is NOT an official Cabinet member.

     So...of the 9 Cabinet position nominees that have come before the U.S. Senate as this column is published...Senator Gillibrand is the lone legislator to oppose all of Donald Trump's choices.

     A one-time "Blue Dog Democrat" - then-Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand's voting record and political philosophy was, in the past, more moderate and even more conservative than the liberal progressive Democrats she served with in the U.S. House of Representatives.  But, in 2009, while she represented an upstate New York district... Congresswoman Gillibrand was appointed by then-Governor David Paterson...to fill the Senate seat of Hillary Clinton...when the former First Lady was tapped by then-President Barack Obama to become Secretary of State.

     Early in her legal career...attorney Gillibrand defended the tobacco industry.  And...while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives...she held an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association...even making known of the guns she hid underneath her own bed.  Senator Gillibrand has since reversed her position on firearms.

     With eight years as a U.S. Senator under her belt...Kirsten Gillibrand's record has proven that she is more liberal...more progressive...than some politicians who have fit that bill throughout their entire careers.  Therefore...I want to give thanks to this intelligent and insightful individual...who perhaps might follow in the footsteps of her Senate predecessor...and throw her hat in to the Presidential ring.  Now I'm not the first person to think that Senator Gillibrand may make a run for the Democratic nomination in 2020...but her admirable actions in the confirmation process of Trump's Cabinet nominees - in my eyes - certainly catapults her as one of the top contenders...should she decide that is what she wants to do...less than three years from now.

     It could be that the "glass ceiling"...is finally broken...by THIS New York Democrat.  But then...Kirsten Gillibrand may be in competition with one of her mentors...and by another of my New York Democrat favorites...who I wrote about on November 12th, 2016...in a Facebook posting.

     "I always wanted the late great New York Governor Mario Cuomo to be President of the United States.  I spent an entire afternoon with Governor Cuomo many years ago and he would have made a spectacular President.  Who knows?  Maybe the next best thing will be his son as our President...current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo."

     If Governor Cuomo and Senator Gillibrand each believe that...he...or she...is the Democrat who can beat the Republican in 2020...we just may have a battle of "The Empire State" politicians...in a race for The White House.

     As for Senator Gillibrand's decision to vote against Donald Trump's Cabinet appointees...I am confident that her motives for her negative support...were purely based on the nominees' lack of qualifications...their inexperience...and records that do not justify them being acknowledged as worthy to hold some of the highest government jobs in our nation.

     All that being said...kudos Kirsten!  You make Democrats proud!

     And that's The Controversy for today.

     I'm Gary B. Duglin.

     "We'll talk again."

The Controversy is a publication of GBD Productions.  Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Controversy is Gary B. Duglin.

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Photo credits: CNP/Polaris and Daily Mail (U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York #1), Matthew Cavanaugh Photography and photoshelter.com (Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Former President Barack Obama), Associated Press (Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo), Twitter (New York Governor Andrew Cuomo) and Wikipedia (U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York #2)

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