Donald Trump tried to warn Chuck Schumer that he wouldn't ever tire of the winning. Has anyone checked on the co-author of the 2013 nuclear option to see how much joy he's experiencing?

Once again, the Senate has confirmed a controversial Cabinet appointee on a 52-48 vote. Once again, Mitch McConnell opposed the confirmation. And once again, thanks to Schumer, Dick Durbin, and the late Harry Reid, Democrats still couldn't do anything about it:

BREAKING: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary. pic.twitter.com/cy1xWNQirx

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 13, 2025

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services was officially confirmed by the Senate on Thursday.

The final vote was 52 to 48.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, who overcame polio at a young age, was the sole Republican to oppose Kennedy and vote no. Democrats were unanimous in their opposition to Kennedy.

Before 2013, that level of opposition would have warranted a withdrawal and more consultation with the opposition in the Senate. While there are advantages to the current system, the point of that bipartisan cooperation was to properly manage executive-branch agencies that are assigned significant legislative authority via the power to regulate. Agency law has been a disaster for the US and for the power of self-governance through elected representatives, but the power exists nonetheless. Since it is a shared power, the more buy-in on its use, the better it was both functionally and politically.

Unfortunately, Harry Reid began doing his worst to disrupt that balance, starting in 2003 and accelerating through the Gang of Eight crisis on judicial nominations in 2005. Reid teed up the nuclear option at that time as a way to force George Bush to withdraw some judicial appointments, and then Reid detonated it in 2013 when Mitch McConnell used Reid's tactics on Barack Obama. Republicans warned Reid that his caucus would regret it, and it only took four years before the regret became painfully acute -- and has been adding up ever since.

And it's especially ironic to see Schumer, Durbin, and Reid "win" against another former Democrat (Tulsi Gabbard being the other). ABC skips over that irony only to exhibit signs of amnesia:

An environmental lawyer with no experience working in health administration or medicine, Kennedy will now oversee a sprawling network of agencies that provide health coverage to millions of Americans, regulate the food industry and respond to global health threats.

And who did Kennedy replace, ABC? Who did he replace? Xavier Becerra, another "lawyer with no experience working in health administration or medicine." That didn't bother the Protection Racket Media at the time, and Becerra didn't even have RFK's long track record of activism in environmental and health issues (such as it is). Becerra was nothing more than a flack for the bureaucratic state and Planned Parenthood.

Nor is that the only winning that the Reid-Schumer-Durbin nuclear-option cabal will experience today and this week. The Senate also confirmed Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture today, but Rollins had solid bipartisan support on her way to a 72/28 confirmation vote. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee just forwarded a new confirmation endorsement to the full Senate, which will also likely produce another big win for Schumer and Durbin:

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the pick of President Donald Trump ally Kash Patel to lead the FBI on a party-line vote Thursday, setting up a final confirmation vote on the Senate floor as early as next week.

Patel, who served in the first Trump administration and had branded himself a crusader against the “Deep State” and Trump’s enemies in the media, would lead the federal law enforcement agency.

The committee voted 12-10 to advance Patel’s nomination to the Senate floor. Democrats remain powerless to block his confirmation without help from Republicans, who have a 53-seat majority.

Senate Democrats have rolled out their usual "smears and tears" attack strategy against Republican nominees for Patel, but Senate Republicans clearly aren't playing along any longer. Democrat duplicity on nominees, especially their reflexive reliance on character assassination, has stopped working in the rules environment created by Reid, Schumer, and Durbin. Republicans are now determined to end the incentives for such strategies and to make Democrats pay as high of a price as possible for both their norms-warping rule change and their shrieking radicalism in defense of an indefensible bureaucratic state.

Let's hope that the rest of the Democrat Party enjoy the wins Schumer and Durbin are racking up as much as we are. Perhaps they'll kick both of them out of leadership when they finally tire of all the "winning" their idiocy keeps producing. Until they do, I plan to celebrate and publicize every single one of their 'victories,' because I am not yet tired of the winning either. 

Update: I wonder if Mike Huckabee is watching this and thinking about this scene from Billy Jack? He and I had fun discussing this film in an interview during the 2008 cycle:

".... and there's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it," Chuck.