By JENNIFER BENDERY / HUFFINGTON POST
Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland is on track to be confirmed on Monday. Every Democratic senator is expected to vote for her confirmation. Two Republicans have said they’ll back her historic nomination, too. The only question now is how many other GOP senators will vote to confirm the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) may be in the most uncomfortable position of them all.
There’s only two other people in Alaska’s entire congressional delegation besides Sullivan. They’re both Republicans. And they’re both publicly supporting Haaland.
“You’ll find she will listen to you,” Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) said as he introduced Haaland in her Senate confirmation hearing last month. He doesn’t get to vote on her confirmation, but it spoke volumes that the conservative GOP lawmaker appeared alongside Haaland and praised her in her hearing.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who does get to vote on Haaland’s nomination, announced last week that she will be a yes. She, too, referred to overwhelming support among Alaska’s tribes.
But Haaland’s support for Biden’s decisions to pause new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and halt construction on the Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from fossil fuel interests in the oil-rich state.
Murkowski and Young both weighed those perspectives, and both concluded that they support Haaland leading the federal agency with oversight of public lands and tribal obligations. Sullivan, meanwhile, has been silent.
“Senator Sullivan is continuing to evaluate Deb Haaland’s qualifications and review her nomination,” Sullivan spokesperson Nate Adams said in a statement.
“While the Senator understands this is a historic nomination for our nation, he has concerns that Congresswoman Haaland will reverse the progress that the Alaska delegation has made on critical energy projects, further jeopardizing jobs and working families at a time when the state’s economy is struggling to recover from the pandemic,” said Adams.
The hell with historic nominations! Haaland, like her boss, is bad for Alaska! Murkowski is a disaster for our state and country! Our Senators must oppose this nomination.
Agreed and it is disturbing that Young supports her as well. It may be time for the Alaskan Republican Party to censure Young, Sullivan and Murkowski as they back stab Alaska’s future.
These dilemmas wouldn’t happen if our reps served only one master at a time.
If Sullivan votes for Haaland he should No Longer call Alaska his home.
Sorry to say just because your red, yellow, black or white does not mean you get the job.
It’s who has the best qualification.
I expect Dan to cave. That’s what Alaskan Republicans do.
The GOP is committing suicide right in front of us. Sadly they are taking society with them.
Sadly, I think you are right. I woke up in 2021 to realize I live in a RINO state.
Sullivan is a traitor who voted to confirm a stolen election and install a Chinese Communist puppet.
It’s time for Don Young to join Joe Biden up in the attic where the walls are padded and breakfast is served at around 4pm. These two idiots, who have spent 49 years and 46 years respectively, in elective office, are so vague and detached from reality that they would make a great psychological study on how dementia patients communicate to each other.
…….usually lots of drooling. Sometimes, though, they get belligerent and physically attack each other. The attic is the place where crazy uncles are usually placed for the convenience of the relatives.
Sullivan will give her respect as an equal. He wont diss her by treating her like a child like others only supporting her so she can recieve the First Native American cabinet secretary like the basic necessities are given to a child for being a dependent child.
Dan Sullivan voted in favor of allowing a fraudulent and stolen Presidential election. He is being extremely dishonest with Alaskan’s regarding what happened at the Capitol on the 6th too. He is refusing to tell the truth that protestors were allowed into the Capitol by the Capitol Police.
Who ordered that Dan?
Why are you hiding the truth about that Dan?
We know the Capitol Police do not answer to the Executive Branch, nor Trump. They answer to you, and the rest of the corrupt politicians in congress.
Dan can deal with all the political discomfort that follows now.
So it’s all about race or gender again, and not about…..
Biden has come out to say he will place a moratorium on all fossil fuel sales on federal lands. He will give us his decision this summer (after he meets with the Chinese). There is nothing said when or if the moratorium would be lifted. Again, Murkowski and Sullivan are silent on this. We have no representation in DC. Think life was rough at $20 per bbl., try no oil sales at all.
Just say no, Dan! Its the best for Alaska and America.
It is pretty clever for the democrats/Biden administration to nominate people of distinction like “first Native American, first trans, first this and first that. They know it will put certain others in a bind to vote against these people. It will be said they voted against the person because of that distinction and not because they don’t like their politics or qualifications for the job at hand.
When will people take a stand. If it were a white male who was against developing natural resources in Alaska as this woman has demonstrated, it would be a no brainer to vote against him. She’s going to get in no matter what Dan Sullivan votes anyway, so he might as well take a stand on this crap. “See me only as a color or whatever and not what I actually stand for.”
Haaland is half Norwegian, that’s what troubles me. These Norske Viking Raiders with their bad manners and even worse culinary cuisine traded in their long boats for long line schooners a millennia ago and moved to Mitkof Island, where to this day they wreck genocidal havoc upon the fish populations of Alaska. Since Race seems to be the driver here, I say Sullivan had best get an assurance from the nominee that She will cancel her violent, rapacious Viking Culture and remain a peaceful Pueblo Person.
Signed, A Concerned Chinook Salmon…
Your observations of inherent irony are appreciable. However, we must take exception to your errant phrase, “…wreck genocidal havoc upon the fish populations….” Firstly, you meant to say “wreak,” not wreck. Secondly, by humanizing fish with the term “genocide” you are participating in the reprehensible ideology you are criticizing. That is, victim-identity politics.
On that other hand, IF your misusage was another ploy of ironic humor, then well-played, sir.
Arbiter, the author is a left leaning, self loathing “White” King Salmon from the Taku River system with either a speech impediment or a decided Canadian accent, ( is there a difference?) .
Given the above, your “good Catch” may have been a problem in either underwater transcription or the authors brain being the size of a pencil eraser. Oh, did I mention this fish is a democrat and well versed in Jean Jacques Rousseau?
Dan is just a hair right of Murkowski and a big disappointment. I hope conservatives have another option the next go round.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I couldn’t have said it better. Thank you Doctor.
I hope not, because if so? Then this is how we fall. When We have stopped considering who is best for a position, based on merit, qualifications, and ideology/vision, and literally go against ALL of that, to install people who openly seek to harm us, all in the name of wokeness? Then we have lost. They know this. That is why they have unleashed it. Between the corruption of the political left, and the cowardice of the political right, and the apathy of the political middle, the PC/wokeness bullet is, was, and has been, our national kryptonite. This is what will take us down, and they know this.
Stand on Principle Dan, or lose Alaskans support moving forward. This lady is bad for Alaska and it is not about the color of her skin but her character. Show some guts and do the right thing, whether it stops the confirmation or not, that’s not the point.
Don’t go along to get along because it will be a permanent stain on your integrity. 6 years is not that long from now.
This is a hard NO in view of Alaska’s postition in the firing line for all our energy development. I can’t believe people working FOR Alaska would vote this woman into that place of power.
“The plane is crashing! The plane is crashing!”
“Don’t be such a bigot. The pilot is a woman.”
“Oh, okay then.”
No surprise Murkowski’s voting for her and, after Don’s House floor plea with Nancy to hold hands and get things done… that’s not a surprise either. (Hey, Don, where were you on the Equality Act vote? Again?) If Sullivan votes for Haaland, he’ll be under the same delusion that one can compromise with liberals. Those days are long gone. Don’t do it, Dan.
I think Senator Sullivan may be seeing the light.
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