https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8oq7W8g64o&ab_channel=act.tv
Friday, October 16, 2020
'This Is Unprecedented': Lindsey Graham Openly Violates Committee Rules to Schedule Vote on Barrett Nomination
"Senator Graham just further proved the illegitimacy of this sham process by again breaking the rules to ram through a justice to rip away healthcare from millions in the middle of a pandemic."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/15/unprecedented-lindsey-graham-openly-violates-committee-rules-schedule-vote-barrett
Republican Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham on Thursday brazenly flouted the rules of his own panel by scheduling a vote on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett for next week without the required number of Democratic members present, a move Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned as further evidence of "the illegitimacy of this sham process."
Under committee rules, at least two members of the minority party must be present for a vote to take place. But on Thursday morning, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) the only Democrat in attendance, Graham moved forward with a motion setting Barrett's Judiciary Committee vote for 1:00 pm ET on October 22.
Shortly after the motion was approved thanks to full support from the Republican caucus, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced plans to bring Barrett's nomination to the floor the very next day—just over a week before the November election."If we create this problem for you in the future, you're going to do what I'm going to do, which is move forward on the business of the committee," said Graham, a South Carolina Republican locked in a close reelection race.
"Senate Democrats just denied Republicans the quorum they needed in Judiciary," Schumer tweeted. "But Senator Graham just further proved the illegitimacy of this sham process by again breaking the rules to ram through a justice to rip away healthcare from millions in the middle of a pandemic."
As Graham moved ahead with his motion despite the lack of a quorum, Durbin noted that the Judiciary Committee hadn't yet heard from witnesses who were set to testify Thursday, including a mother of twins with multiple pre-existing conditions who could lose protections if Barrett is confirmed and the Affordable Care Act is overturned.
"This is unprecedented," said Durbin. "We have never done this before as a committee."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who entered the hearing room as the vote on Graham's motion was taking place, put forth his own motion to indefinitely suspend Barrett's nomination after CNN uncovered seven additional talks the judge failed to disclose in her Senate questionnaire, including one to an anti-abortion group.
"I believe that this rush sham process is a disservice to our committee," said Blumenthal. "She has been rushed in a way that is historically unprecedented. The consequence of this rushed process is that we have given inadequate scrutiny to this nominee. I move to delay these proceedings so that we can do our job and ask, again, for all the documents."
The Connecticut senator's motion was voted down by the committee's Republican majority.
Senate Republicans' rule-violating moves to keep Barrett on track for confirmation just before Election Day came after several days of hearings in which the judge repeatedly evaded straightforward questions about her views on a range of key issues, from the climate crisis to voting rights to the constitutionality of Social Security and Medicare.
"During these hearings, Judge Barrett has gone to great lengths to distance herself from the reality of voter suppression and voting discrimination that we face today," Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in her testimony before the Judiciary Committee Thursday. "This should sound the alarm for anyone in our country who cares about protecting voting rights for all Americans."
In a letter (pdf) sent Thursday, the final day of Barrett's Judiciary Committee hearings, 405 elected officials from 48 states and Washington, D.C. said it is "shameful" that instead of working to approve coronavirus relief for the millions of people devastated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic collapse, the Senate "is rushing through a nominee who is likely to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act and deprive millions of people of access to healthcare, destroy reproductive freedom by gutting Roe v. Wade, and suppress our right to vote."
"On behalf of the millions of Americans we represent," reads the letter, "we, the undersigned state and local officials, ask you to refuse to consider a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court before Inauguration Day 2021."
Maryland State Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins, one of the letter's signatories, said in a statement that the "focus of Congress should be on providing relief to millions of struggling families."
"In the midst of a pandemic that is devastating the constituents and communities we serve, and an election where millions of Americans have already cast their vote for the next president of the United States," Wilkins said, "the U.S. Senate is rushing the confirmation of a nominee who jeopardizes our healthcare, reproductive access, and racial justice gains."
Nancy Pelosi Is TRIGGERED! Fights With And Is Gutted By Wolf Blitzer Regarding Trump's 1.8 T Plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK4gm7lBR14&ab_channel=JamarlThomas
Greta Thunberg Rebukes Amy Coney Barrett Over Her Anti-Science 'Views on Climate Change'
"To be fair, I don't have any 'views on climate change' either. Just like I don't have any 'views' on gravity."
by
Kenny Stancil, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/15/greta-thunberg-rebukes-amy-coney-barrett-over-her-anti-science-views-climate-change
Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday ridiculed Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett's claim during the third day of her confirmation hearings that she does not "think that my views on global warming or climate change are relevant to the job I will do."
Replying to questions posed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday, Barrett refused to agree that anthropogenic global warming exists, adding that she hasn't "studied scientific data" enough to have an "informed opinion."
In response to Barrett's denial of the link between surging greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures, Thunberg tweeted: "To be fair, I don't have any 'views on climate change' either. Just like I don't have any 'views' on gravity, the fact that the earth is round, photosynthesis, nor evolution... But understanding and knowing their existence really makes life in the 21st century so much easier."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday after Barrett said during the hearings that she does not "have firm views" on climate change, progressives sounded the alarm about the existential threat of appointing to the Supreme Court a "climate denier" who will spend decades undermining environmental laws in favor of industry interests.
"Republicans have trotted out the 'I'm not a scientist' trick for years now to deflect questions about climate change," wrote Zoya Teirstein on Wednesday in Grist. "The thing is, you don't have to be a scientist, like at all, to understand that the planet is in grave danger. Just like you don't have to be a doctor to grasp the severity of a cancer diagnosis, or a mechanic to understand that your car is totaled."
"On climate change, the science is clear... the evidence is irrefutable," said advocacy group Demand Justice on social media. "Why isn't Amy Coney Barrett willing to acknowledge it?"
One key reason for Barrett's anti-scientific views, according to critics, is her commitment to furthering the interests of the fossil fuel industry, which is facing a series of climate liability lawsuits and stands to lose billions if aggressive action is taken to curb carbon emissions.
As The Daily Poster's David Sirota, Andrew Perez, and Walker Bragman reported Wednesday morning, Barrett has ties to Royal Dutch Shell, where her father spent years as a lawyer, and Big Oil is hopeful that Barrett's appointment to the high court will bolster a regressive, corporate-friendly approach to climate policy.
Sirota and Perez wrote Thursday in Jacobin that "neither Blumenthal nor any other Democratic senator bothered to ask about Barrett's ties to Shell—even though the Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case involving the company."
Simpsons Kick Bernie Supporters in the Teeth Calling Them Goons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tatTdILy_b8&ab_channel=HardLensMedia
As McConnell Vows No Vote on Major Covid Skinny Relief Bill, GOP Seen as Strategizing for Austerity Under Biden
Instead of helping Trump's chances of electoral victory, Republicans appear to be jockeying to "restrain a Biden administration on federal spending."
by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/15/mcconnell-vows-no-vote-major-covid-skinny-relief-bill-gop-seen-strategizing
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday firmly rejected putting a $1.8 trillion or higher pandemic relief package on the floor for a vote—a statement that came a day after reporting suggested the Kentucky Republican's refusal is part of a broader GOP effort to set the stage for an austerity-focused sabotage of the economy if Joe Biden wins the election.
"That's not what I'm going to put on the floor," McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters in Kentucky of any compromise between the White House's $1.8 trillion and House Democrats' $2.2 trillion proposals.
McConnell said that the $1.8 trillion figure is "where the administration's willing to go."
"My members think what we laid out, a half a trillion dollars, highly targeted, is the best way to go," he said.
President Donald Trump even told Fox News Thursday—while taking swipes at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—that he would "absolutely" consider a higher amount than the $1.8 trillion proposal.
While Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued negotiations over a potential deal, they remained at a standstill as of Thursday. Struggling Americans, meanwhile, still see no further aid to help weather the economic impact of the pandemic. A new study puts that hardship in focus, revealing that there are now eight million more poor Americans than there were in May, as help from temporarily expanded unemployment benefits and one-time cash injections dried up.
So "given that spending more now would likely boost Trump's reelection chances, why aren't Senate Republicans on board?" the Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote in a column Wednesday.
To suss out Senate Republicans' thinking, Sargent pointed to a key portion of Bloomberg reporting on Wednesday:
A GOP strategist who has been consulting with Senate campaigns said Republicans have been carefully laying the groundwork to restrain a Biden administration on federal spending and the budget deficit by talking up concerns about the price tag for another round of virus relief. The thinking, the strategist said, is that it would be very hard politically to agree on spending trillions more now and then in January suddenly embrace fiscal restraint.
As Sargent sees it, "Republicans almost certainly suspect Trump will lose even with a big stimulus and already hope to put an incoming President Joe Biden in a fiscal straitjacket, saddling him with the terrible politics of a grueling recovery."
"A big package now under a GOP president would make that harder to get away with," he added.
"The calculation," Sargent suggests, "is probably not just about avoiding the hypocrisy of spending big now and embracing austerity under a Democratic president" but also avoiding a legislative aid package that could deliver a boosted economy to a Biden White House.
The Hi-Tech Surveillance Our Oligarchs LOVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEIrkEF4DNM&ab_channel=RedactedTonight
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