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lmunch

11 Republican Senators Plan to Back Futile Bid to Overturn Biden's Election - The New Y... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tors-josh-hawley-election.html

politics US election

shared by lmunch on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Eleven Republican senators and senators-elect said on Saturday that they would vote to reject President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory next week when Congress meets to formally certify it, defying the results of a free and fair election to indulge President Trump’s futile attempts to remain in power with false claims of voting fraud.
  • In a joint statement, the Republicans — including seven senators and four who are to be sworn in on Sunday — called for a 10-day audit of election returns in “disputed states,” and said they would vote to reject the electors from those states until one was completed.
  • In the House, more than half of Republicans joined a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the will of the voters, and more are expected to support the effort to challenge the results in Congress next week.
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  • “We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise,” the senators wrote.
  • Mr. McConnell has discouraged lawmakers in the Senate from joining the House effort, and Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told reporters the challenge to the election results would fail in the Senate “like a shot dog,” prompting a Twitter tirade from Mr. Trump.Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, on Thursday condemned the attempt, rebuking it a “dangerous ploy” intended to “disenfranchise millions of Americans.”
carolinehayter

Democrats Plan To Boycott Senate Committee Vote On Barrett Nomination : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...tee-vote-on-barrett-nomination

politics US trump supreme court barrett Confirmation

shared by carolinehayter on 22 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Senate Democrats say they plan to boycott Thursday's scheduled vote on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
  • "Throughout the hearings last week, committee Democrats demonstrated the damage a Justice Barrett would do – to health care, reproductive freedoms, the ability to vote, and other core rights that Americans cherish," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement announcing their boycott.
  • "We will not grant this process any further legitimacy by participating in a committee markup of this nomination just twelve days before the culmination of an election that is already underway."
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  • Graham called the Democratic decision to boycott the vote "a choice they are making. I believe it does a disservice to Judge Barrett who deserves a vote, up or down."
  • "I will move forward," he said Wednesday evening. "She deserves a vote."
  • Graham rejected the Democratic assertion that at least two minority members were needed to proceed with the nomination.
  • "We're not giving the quorum they need to provide it. The rules require it."
  • "The nomination process took a dark turn in 2013 when the Democrats changed the rules of the Senate for District and Circuit court nominees requiring a simple majority vote. My Democratic colleagues chose to engage in a partisan filibuster of Justice [Neil] Gorsuch for the first time in U.S. history requiring the changing of the rules regarding Supreme Court nominations."
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he is planning a full Senate vote on the nomination on Monday.
  • The maneuver would ensure that Barrett could be sworn in before the Nov. 3 election and that she could participate in election questions that are already pending before the Supreme Court.
  • President Trump has said he wanted Barrett confirmed before the election so she could be there to rule on cases that might arise in the aftermath of the election. Barrett, for her part, refused at her confirmation hearings to say whether she would recuse herself in light of Trump's statements. But it is unlikely that she would do so. Nothing in the judicial ethics rules would appear to require such a recusal unless it presents the appearance of impropriety.
  • Questions of recusal are ultimately decided by each justice for himself or herself, and at the Supreme Court, recusal can sometimes result in a tie vote. Should that happen, the lower court decision in the case stands.
  • the progressive wing of the party is leaning on the Democratic Senate leadership to do more to call attention to what is widely viewed on the Democratic side of the aisle as an "outrageous" power play to get Barrett confirmed in record time for a nominee in modern times.
  • Barrett's confirmation hearings began just 16 days after her nomination. In contrast, the average time between nomination and hearings for each of the current justices on the Supreme Court was 56 days.
  • The result of the rushed confirmation process has been little time to explore Barrett's record, both on and off the bench. Indeed, this week The Associated Press published a long investigative piece disclosing that "Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents." But the article was published too late for senators to ask questions of Barrett at her confirmation hearings.
Javier E

Can There Ever Be a Working-Class Republican Party? | The New Republic - 0 views

newrepublic.com/...king-class-agenda-hawley-rubio

gop immigration labor working class policy Politics history crisis

shared by Javier E on 15 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • a party of upper–middle-class traditions and inclinations finds itself left alone with the working-class parts of Trump’s base, in a society where the deck is more stacked against the working class than it has been since the nineteenth century.
  • The party’s survival depends on protecting the interests of these voters, and yet few Republicans have given much systematic thought to how they might do it. The task has fallen largely to three senators: Hawley, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
  • In the twenty-first century thus far, something strange has been happening. Reaganite Republicans have continued cutting taxes to “unleash” “entrepreneurship,” but the rich people thus favored keep turning into Democrats.
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  • in general Democrats now enter the political arena as the party of wealth.
  • Traditionally, “the right,” for better and for worse, is the party of large property holdings, of bosses and managers and cultural guardians, of dominant belief systems (religious and secular), and of elite education institutions that set the boundaries of what knowledge and lore are proper to pass on to tomorrow’s generations. If America has such a party today, it is not the Republicans.
  • Biden’s most loyal followers by occupation included professors (94 percent), librarians (93 percent), therapists (92 percent), and lawyers (88 percent)
  • Trump got homemakers (96 percent), welders (84 percent), HVAC professionals (82 percent), farmers (75 percent), and custodians (59 percent)
  • They are also the party of education and prestige. On the eve of November’s election, Bloomberg News analyzed which employees gave the most to Donald Trump and which the most to Joe Biden. Biden swept the commanding heights of the economy. He got 97 percent of the contributions at Google and Facebook, 96 percent at Harvard, 91 percent at the consultants Deloitte, and (back here on planet Earth) 90 percent at the New York City Department of Education
  • the economic hand that Trump had to play in last fall’s elections was stronger than almost anyone outside of the working class understood, and the results—at least in terms of the swing-state popular vote—correspondingly closer.
  • “It feels to me like the party’s getting pushed into it,” said Julius Krein, an investor who publishes the quarterly review American Affairs, in an interview this winter. “Donors, especially, don’t want it to be a working-class party. And certainly the old guard not only doesn’t think of itself as such, but is quite hostile to that, and to any policy that could possibly lead in that direction. But it’s getting pushed there because all the elite are going to the Democrats.”
  • Trump’s administration worked out well for American workers, at least up until Covid hit in the spring of 2020. Unemployment was under 4 percent for most of 2018 and 2019. The good times reached even those to whom prosperity had historically been slowest to arrive. Unemployment among Black men, a whisker under 20 percent in March 2010, had fallen to around 5 percent in November 2019. According to The Economist, gains were concentrated in professions where workers had heretofore faced competition from immigrant labor, such as housekeepers and maintenance workers
  • Krein doubts whether anything that could be described as Trumpism happened at all. The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993 was renegotiated to American workers’ advantage, but that did not lead to the renaissance of manufacturing that candidate Trump had tirelessly promised in 2016. The wages of the lowest-paid workers went up, but that may be due to minimum-wage hikes enacted in dozens of states and cities.
  • There is a philosophical disagreement about how one gives the working class more power. To boil it down to the basics, Democrats believe in more unions and Republicans believe in less immigration.
  • Krein is generally skeptical of the Republican Party’s traditional economic policies. “Contrary to the pervasive mythology of entrepreneurialism and creativity,” he writes, “it is glaringly obvious to today’s professional elite that the neoliberal economy is allocating capital, and especially talent, very poorly.
  • the extraordinary 2017 tax cuts, the only significant piece of domestic legislation passed in Trump’s four years. A supply-side piñata without precedent, it encouraged the corporate “buybacks” that can spur stock prices (padding executive bonuses) but can destabilize corporate finances (increasing the likelihood of layoffs in a downturn)—quite the opposite of what Trump had seemed to promise on the campaign trail.
  • Now Rubio has a simpler message: These are my people. I will fight for them. It beats the perennial Republican approach of theorizing about incentives and the capital gains tax.
  • Among Senate Republicans, it is Rubio who has laid the biggest bet on working people. He has a lot of ideas. He has urged fighting stock buybacks, reauthorizing Small Business Administration loan programs, and limiting Covid aid to universities with endowments of more than $10 billion
  • The core of his agenda, said Rubio, “is the availability of good-paying jobs that allow people to raise families, to retire with dignity, to live in safe and stable communities—that’s where life is lived.”
  • Hawley does often sound like a throwback. He criticizes the sexual revolution, the “woke mob,” and those who propose to rechristen military bases named after Confederate generals. In this sense, his appeal to the working class is less direct than Rubio’s. He is using, in classic Reagan fashion, the correlation between working-class status and conservative cultural attitudes to win over voters without making class appeals at all.
  • In early December, Hawley and Bernie Sanders staggered their speeches, swapping floor time back and forth, in hopes of rallying the chamber to deliver Covid aid in $1,200 direct payments to parents. It was eyebrow-raising, Senate staffers said, because such moments require close staff coordination, and each senator pledged solidarity to the other. “I’m proud to yield the floor to him,” said Sanders of Hawley. “I’m delighted to join with Senator Sanders,” Hawley responded, adding: “Working families should be first on our to-do list, not last.”
  • Until recently, few congressional Democrats have been inclined to do battle with the tech companies, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren being among the conspicuous exceptions.
  • Tom Cotton, a Harvard-educated Republican lawyer from tiny Yell County, Arkansas, is trying to use China the way Hawley uses Big Tech
  • When the public compares the two parties on the question of protecting the working class, it is still Democrats who come out on top—but not by a lot.
  • In 2008, two young thinkers, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, wrote a book called Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream. The authors warn that “Sam’s Club Republicans”—cheekily named after a Walmart-owned chain of cut-price warehouse stores where few urban Democrats had ever set foot—were losing ground. And these voters were beginning to notice that their party wasn’t doing anything for them. The old Republican entrepreneurial rhetoric of unleashing this and untrammeling that was ceasing to resonate. Worse, it now served the other party’s base.If Grand New Party was the first call to arms in the remaking of the party, it went largely unheeded
  • The most closely attended-to conservative voice on this issue is Oren Cass, a former Mitt Romney adviser who heads American Compass, a conservative think tank that calls for “widely shared economic development.
  • Nearly all the Republicans loosely aligning themselves with working-class interests listen to Cass, and it’s partly because he has a theory about the economic history of this century and how it led to our present predicament.
  • As Cass sees it, the weakness of structures has been explained by the work of M.I.T. economist David Autor, who has given us a new understanding of how labor markets work under globalization.
  • A “China shock” wiped out a good deal of manufacturing employment after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, Autor has shown. “Skill-biased technical change” drove college-educated workers’ compensation up and that of the noncollege-educated down
  • The economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton gathered similar evidence of the collapse of labor markets and the rise of regional inequality in their 2020 book on opioids, suicide, and life expectancy, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.
  • J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, a book that is often read as an X-ray of how eastern Ohio and other parts of Appalachia were struggling as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were vying for the presidency in 2016
  • the embrace of this coming-of-age saga as an all-purpose explanation of Trump’s new pitch to the working class was misguided, for Vance was already in his thirties when it was published. “The story that he is telling,” Cass insisted, “is of what was going on in the late ’90s, during what we think of as the go-go years, the boom years, the very best years.”
  • Indeed, an interesting general question arises to challenge Republicans about the 1980s and 1990s—were the policies arrived at outright wrong?
  • “If you talked to Republicans and gave them truth serum,” one congressional political adviser admitted, “a majority would say we had it wrong for decades on immigration and trade. We were too quick to look just at the lower price of goods and how that ultimately helped people, and didn’t spend enough time looking at people who were directly hurt by factories being closed and lower wages.”
  • Cass’s central insight is: Tight labor markets are good. That is how unions work to drive up wages, and if conservatives want higher wages, they will need to overcome their “foolish orthodoxy” on the matter.
  • At the same time, you can’t believe unions are good and say any amount of immigration is fine. Limiting immigration raises wages—which is a key reason that the postwar labor movement supported immigration restrictions
  • From a supply-and-demand perspective, mass immigration does the same thing as offshoring and de-unionizing: It exposes workers with American labor protections and lifestyle expectations to competition from workers without them
  • Republicans’ rapport with the working class may turn out to be more natural than it now appears. They won’t have to “come up with” policies for helping the workers, still less to “reinvent” themselves as a working-class party
  • they will follow the logic of the situation to embrace the sort of policies Democrats followed when they were the party of the workers and the Republicans the party of the bosses.
katherineharron

Trump: New details on Capitol insurrection are devastating indictment - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 11 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Impeachment prosecutors took senators on a wrenching journey inside the horror of the US Capitol insurrection, making a devastating case that Donald Trump had plotted, incited and celebrated a vile crime against the United States.
  • Surveillance footage depicted then-Vice President Mike Pence being hustled away with rioters calling for him to be hanged only yards away. A police officer screamed in pain, trapped between a door and an invading crowd. In a horrific scene, Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt tried to climb through a window smashed by rioters before falling back, shot dead by a Capitol Police officer.
  • The stunningly powerful presentation painted the most complete narrative yet of the assault on the Congress as it met to certify Joe Biden's election win on January 6.Read MoreTheir explicit and unsettling case made clear that the terror inside the corridors of power was even more frightening than it had first appeared. It's now apparent that only good luck, and the bravery of police, prevented senior members of Congress injured or killed.
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  • The managers built a methodical case, juxtaposing Trump's inflammatory behavior over months with the frightful looting and violence inside the Capitol to make a cause-and-effect argument of the ex-President's culpability.They showed how Trump had set out to undermine the election in the minds of his supporters weeks before votes were cast and demonstrated how his lies about fraud had acted like a fuse on the primed fury of his supporters after he lost.
  • Of course, impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one, so even the most compelling evidence will have little impact if jurors -- the 100 senators -- have already made up their minds. And most GOP members of the chamber want to avoid falling afoul of Trump's personality cult, after spending four years abetting his abuses of power in the most unchained presidency in history.
  • "Donald Trump sent them here on this mission," said Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett, one of the impeachment managers
  • "President Trump put a target on their backs and his mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down," Plaskett said.One of her colleagues, Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, handled the evidence on how Trump had rebuffed calls, even from Republicans, to intervene in his role as President to protect another branch of government under assault.
  • And the House prosecutors laid out timelines that showed how the President had done nothing to stop the insurrection of a mob he referred to as "special people."
  • As the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, Romney would have been in mortal danger had he encountered the Trump mob. Another video showed now-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, hurriedly reversing course with his security detail and running from the crowd.
  • One video showed Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, being saved from running into the mob by Capitol Police Office Eugene Goodman, who has previously been hailed as a hero for directing rioters away from the Senate chamber.
  • Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the Republicans seen as a possible vote to convict Trump, remarked on how the evidence brought home the "total awareness of that, the enormity of this, this threat, not just to us as people, as lawmakers, but the threat to the institution and what Congress represents. It's disturbing. Greatly disturbing."
  • Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was rebuked by his own state party for voting on Tuesday to allow the trial to proceed on constitutional grounds.
  • And Sen. Roy Blunt, who unlike Cassidy faces reelection in 2024, appeared to be among those searching for a way to justify a vote to spare Trump -- the first-ever twice-impeached President
  • "Well, you know, you have a summer where people all over the country are doing similar kinds of things. I don't know what the other side will show from Seattle and Portland and other places, but you're going to see similar kinds of tragedies there as well," Blunt said, drawing a comparison that stands up to serious scrutiny only in the fevered swamps of conservative media.
  • "Because hypocrisy is pretty large for these people, standing up to, you know, rioters when they came to my house, Susan Collins' house, I think this is a very hypocritical presentation by the House," Graham said.
  • Many Republican senators are adopting the questionable argument that it is not constitutional to try a president who was impeached while he was in office, once he has reverted to being a private citizen after his term ends.
  • "The question before all of you in this trial: Is this America?" the Maryland Democrat asked the senators seated in a chamber that was a crime scene on January 6."Can our country and our democracy ever be the same if we don't hold accountable the person responsible for inciting the violent attack against our country?"
  • But so far, senators have heard only one side of the story and fair legal process requires the ex-President to have a robust defense.
  • But their widely criticized and confusing opening statements on Tuesday, which infuriated the former President, did not suggest they have the evidentiary case or presentational skills of the House managers.
katherineharron

Imperiled Tanden nomination expected to face key Senate committee votes - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Tanden

shared by katherineharron on 24 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Neera Tanden's imperiled nomination to be President Joe Biden's budget director faces a major test Wednesday to see if she has enough support to win Senate confirmation amid bipartisan opposition.
  • Two Senate committees are expected to vote on whether to advance her nomination to the floor as Tanden faces resistance from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia, and a wide array of Republicans, who have said they will not back her because of her past partisan criticisms
  • If Tanden's nomination stalls out, it would be the first defeat of a high-profile Biden pick subject to Senate approval
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  • The embattled nominee stands a chance of winning confirmation if she wins the support of moderate Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, but it is far from clear that will happen.
  • Asked if he believes all Democrats on his panel will support the nominee, Sen. Gary Peters, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Homeland Security committee, told CNN on Tuesday, "I haven't talked to all of them but I believe we will."
  • The Senate Budget Committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is also expected to vote on the nomination on Wednesday. The Vermont senator -- who has clashed with Tanden in the past -- would not say Tuesday if he planned to support her for the position
  • Tanden apologized and expressed regret over her past tweets during Senate confirmation hearings earlier this month.
  • Manchin said that Tanden's comments on Twitter about Sanders and Republican colleagues, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, had led him to doubt she was the right fit.
  • "I have carefully reviewed Neera Tanden's public statements and tweets that were personally directed towards my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from Senator Sanders to Senator McConnell and others. I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget," Manchin said in a statement.
  • "Congress has to be able to trust the OMB director to make countless decisions in an impartial manner, carrying out the letter of the law and congressional intent," Collins said. "Neera Tanden has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency. Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend."
  • "My friendly advice to President Biden is to withdraw Neera Tanden's nomination and select someone who at the very least has not ... openly bashed people on both sides of the aisle that she happens to disagree with," he said.
katyshannon

Republican governor of Nevada Brian Sandoval being considered for Supreme Court - The W... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...tted-for-supreme-court-vacancy

republican governor nevada sandoval considered supreme court washington post US politics history obama

shared by katyshannon on 25 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The White House is considering picking the Republican governor from Nevada to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, scrambling political calculations in what is expected to be a contentious confirmation battle in which Senate Republicans have pledged to play the role of roadblock.
  • President Obama is weighing the selection of Brian Sandoval, a centrist former federal judge who has served as governor since 2011, according to two people familiar with the process
  • Though the review process is in its initial phases and it is unclear whether the governor could ultimately emerge as the president’s pick, even the prospect of his nomination poses a difficult dilemma for Senate Republicans who have promised not to consider any nomination before November’s elections.
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  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who on Tuesday pledged “no action” on any Supreme Court nomination before the election, said in a statement that the nominee “will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the fall.”
  • “The president’s focused on criteria that, frankly, is more important, and that is that individual’s qualifications, and their experience and their view of the law,” Earnest said. “That will take precedence over any sort of political consideration.”
  • Sandoval would represent an unconventional pick for the president, a former constitutional law professor who has prized prestigious law pedigrees and extensive legal backgrounds in the jurists he has previously selected for the Court.
  • While the selection of a Republican could heighten the political pressure on Senate GOP leaders, it could also alienate the Democratic base and runs counter to Obama’s emphasis on taking a long view of who deserves to sit on the nation’s highest court.
  • Speaking to reporters last week, the president said he planned to select someone with extraordinary legal credentials. “We’re going to find somebody who is has an outstanding legal mind, somebody who cares deeply about our democracy and cares about rule of law,” he said.
  • Asked about a potential nomination on Saturday, Sandoval told the Morning Consult, “It would be a privilege.” He called the Supreme Court “the essence of justice in this country.”
  • In a Wednesday interview with CNN, Reid said he would endorse Sandoval for the nomination. “I don’t pick the justices, but I know if he were picked, I would support the man,” he said. “He’s a good person, has a great record, and has been a tremendously good governor in spite of having to deal with some very big problems there.”
  • It is unclear how many potential nominees are under White House consideration for the high court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama was seen last week carrying a thick binder of materials on potential picks to review.
  • As the standoff continued with Senate Republicans, Obama reiterated Wednesday morning that he intended to “do his job” by nominating a candidate during the remaining months of his presidency.
  • Some Democrats see a Sandoval nomination as the best opportunity to fracture the front of Republican opposition and force McConnell to take up the nomination in this contentious election year. It would also put on the spot a handful of Senate Republicans who are up for reelection in blue states in November.
  • Several Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, which is charged with considering a Supreme Court nominee, said Wednesday that it would not matter if Obama picked a Republican. “The short answer is no, it doesn’t change anything,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
  • But some Republican senators acknowledged a Sandoval pick would put GOP senators in a tough spot politically. “This is one reason why I have not wanted to shut the door on considering a nominee,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of two Senate Republicans who is at least open to a confirmation hearing. “We may well be sent a nominee who is deserving of thorough vetting and consideration.”
  • Nominating Sandoval would carry clear political risks for Obama. Sandoval is aligned with Democrats on some key issues, including abortion rights and the environment. As governor, he has moved to implement the Affordable Care Act, and has said he considers same-sex marriage to be a settled issue.
  • But Sandoval is not seen as labor-friendly — potentially alienating a swath of the Democratic base. His legal credentials are also lacking compared to some of the other names under consideration who are mainly sitting federal judges. And he initially called the landmark health-care law “unconstitutional,” signing onto a brief in 2012 challenging the constitutionality of the measure’s individual mandate. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected that argument, and upheld the law.
redavistinnell

Senate scraps No Child Left Behind; education battle moves to states - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...o-child-left-behind-law-216595

senate child behind education battle moves states

shared by redavistinnell on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Senate scraps No Child Left Behind; education battle moves to states
  • The Senate sent a bill to the president’s desk Wednesday that replaces much of the widely disliked No Child Left Behind Act and shifts more power over education to states and school district
  • The bill — which the president is scheduled to sign Thursday — would dump the current law’s intense focus on test scores and the well-intentioned but impossible goal of having all students reading and calculating at grade level.
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  • The Every Student Succeeds Act (S.1177) allows states to set their own guidelines for rating schools and improving them, with federal oversight and restrictions.
  • The bill would “put education back in the hands of those who understand their needs best: parents, teachers, states and school boards,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday. “It’s conservative reform designed to help students succeed instead of helping Washington grow.”
  • Senate Republicans supported the bill, with the exception of a handful of conservatives including 2016 presidential candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who don’t think it walks back the federal role in education far enough.
  • August 2016. States would have more than a year to shift to the new system, which would take hold starting in the 2017-18 school year.
  • For example, the department could place broad parameters on when a group of students would be considered “consistently” low-performing, signaling a need for intervention.
  • Since the bill returns power to states, advocates plan on waging state-by-state battles over education policy that were previously fought in Washington.
  • “With all of this wonderful flexibility comes great responsibility” for states, said Cheryl Oldham, vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is highlighting the need to continue to focus on minorities this week with a conference it is co-hosting with the NAACP on African-American student achievement.
  • Unions pushed all year to ditch No Child Left Behind’s embrace of testing, which they’ve dubbed a “test-and-punish” approach.
  • “This is a vast improvement over what we have right now.”
  • The Obama administration, too, has begun positioning itself for an intense new phase — designing regulations to implement the law.
  • Senators celebrated the bill’s passage, but the next steps already loom on the horizon. Senate HELP Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pledged Tuesday to keep close watch on implementation now that the work in Congress is done.
Javier E

Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive in the U.S. Senate - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9-8813-cb9dec761e73_story.html

liberal prejudice religion bigotry history

shared by Javier E on 18 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Hirono regards the traditional moral views of the Knights as “extreme positions.” The difficulty with this line of reasoning is that they are exactly the same positions of the Catholic Church itself
  • So why wouldn’t a judge’s membership in the Catholic Church — with its all-male clergy, opposition to abortion and belief in traditional marriage — be problematic as well?
  • The difficulty with a reductio ad absurdum comes when people no longer find it absurdum. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has made the argument bluntly. In raising concerns in 2017 about appeals court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith, Feinstein said, “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
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  • So is it fair to say that Harris, Hirono and Feinstein would want judicial nominees to quit religious organizations that hold “extreme positions” or recuse themselves from all matters of morality that the senators regard as tainted by religious dogma?
  • That sounds like an exaggeration. But here is a question that Hirono asked both Buescher and Paul Matey, another appeals court nominee: “If confirmed, will you recuse yourself from all cases in which the Knights of Columbus has taken a position?”
  • This is not just a liberal excess; it is a liberal argument. Religious liberty, in this view, reaches to the limits of your cranium. You can believe any retrograde thing you want. But you can’t act on that belief in the public square. And you can’t be a member of organizations that hold backward views and still be trusted with government jobs upholding the secular, liberal political order.
  • The comparison of this view to the United States’ long history of anti-Catholic bigotry has been disputed. Actually, it is exactly the same as this history in every important respect. A 19th-century bigot would have regarded Catholicism as fundamentally illiberal — a backward faith characterized by clerical despotism — and thus inconsistent with America’s democratic rules.
  • there is a strange twist to this argument in American evangelicalism. Evangelical Christians have largely gotten over their anti-Catholic bias. But many believe that Islam is fundamentally illiberal — a backward faith characterized by clerical despotism — and thus inconsistent with the United States’ democratic rules. Little do they realize that an evangelical institution in Massachusetts is increasingly viewed like an Islamic institution in Mississippi.
  • The answer to all of this is a great American value called pluralism. The views and values of Americans are shaped in a variety of institutions, religious and nonreligious. No one is disqualified from self-government by a religious test
millerco

A Fifth Woman Accuses Senate Candidate Roy Moore of Sexual Misconduct - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...roy-moore-alabama-senate.html

Ray Moore US history politics republicans senate

shared by millerco on 13 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • A fifth woman accused Roy S. Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, on Monday of making sexual or romantic advances toward her when she was a teenager, as senior Republicans in Washington called for him to drop out of the race and threatened to expel him from the Senate if he wins.
  • The new accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, told a news conference in New York that Mr. Moore attacked her when she was 16 and he was a prosecutor in Etowah County, Ala. Ms. Nelson was represented at the news conference by Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has championed victims of sexual harassment.
  • “I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping, he began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head onto his crotch,”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • She said Mr. Moore warned her that “no one will believe you” if she told anyone about the encounter in his car.
  • Hours earlier, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Mr. Moore “should step aside” and that he believes the women who have accused Mr. Moore of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers.
  • Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, speaking in his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that if Mr. Moore wins the special election on Dec. 12, he should be expelled from the Senate, “because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”
  • Mr. Moore, a judge who was twice removed from the state’s high court, first for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from the Supreme Court grounds, then for refusing to accept gay marriage, responded defiantly. He showed no sign of leaving the race ahead of Alabama’s Dec. 12 special election date.
katherineharron

Senate Republicans already have a Donald Trump problem - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

GOP

shared by katherineharron on 01 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Over the past 10 days, two things happened that make clear that a) Trumpism isn't going anywhere and b) it's going to complicate Republican attempts to retake control of the Senate next November.
  • Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who resigned from office in 2018 amid a series of allegations of sexual and campaign misconduct, is running for the open Senate seat of Roy Blunt (R).
  • The second is that Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks (R), one of Trump's most ardent defenders and a believer in the idea that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from the 45th president, is running for the open seat being left behind by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R).
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "They need somebody who's going to go as I will, as I'm committed to do, to defending President Trump's America First policies and also to protecting the people of Missouri from Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's radical leftist agenda," said Greitens of Missouri voters.
  • Both Brooks and Greitens, by dint of their unstinting loyalty to Trump -- not to mention their high profiles in their states -- will likely start as the frontrunners for the respective Republican nominations in both states.
  • Greitens, after all, resigned under pressure as governor following revelations of a 2015 affair with a woman who testified under oath to state lawmakers that she felt forced into sexual acts by him -- and that he had threatened to make public explicit photos of her unless she stayed silent about the affair. Greitens admitted the affair but denied the other allegations.
  • On Brooks' part, he has been perhaps the single most outspoken advocate of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
  • He spoke at the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that led to the insurrection at the US Capitol. And even in the aftermath of that riot, Brooks insisted, without evidence that left wings groups like Antifa had been behind the riot.
  • in order for Republicans to retake the Senate, they need to pick up at least one Democratic seat while not losing any one their own
ethanshilling

Stimulus and Biden Administration News: Live Updates - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...joe-biden-news

US politics biden trump

shared by ethanshilling on 05 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The Senate is set to debate President Biden’s nearly $2 trillion stimulus plan on Friday as Democrats prepare to barrel past widespread opposition from Republican lawmakers and approve billions of dollars in funding for unemployed Americans, vaccine distribution, small businesses, schools and hospitals.
  • Senators will reconvene with three hours of debate before engaging in a rapid-fire series of votes on proposed amendments.
  • The threat of yet another late night in the Senate comes after Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, demanded that a group of Senate clerks read all 628 pages of the legislation on the floor before debate could continue.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • But the efforts to slow action on the Senate floor to a crawl are expected to have little effect on the final legislation.
  • “The horrific events of January 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” asserts the civil suit, filed for Mr. Swalwell in Federal District Court in Washington. “As such, the defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”
  • A House Democrat who unsuccessfully prosecuted Donald J. Trump at his impeachment trial last month sued him in federal court on Friday for acts of terrorism and incitement to riot
  • If the sweeping pandemic relief package makes it to Mr. Biden’s desk, it will mark the first major legislative accomplishment of his administration.
  • The suit brought by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Trump and key allies of inciting the deadly attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s election victory.
  • Though not a criminal case, the suit charges Mr. Trump and his allies with several counts including conspiracy to violate civil rights, negligence, incitement to riot, disorderly conduct, terrorism and inflicting serious emotional distress
  • A majority of the Senate, including seven Republicans, voted to find Mr. Trump “guilty” based on the same factual record last month, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict him.
  • In a statement, Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, blasted Mr. Swalwell as a “a lowlife with no credibility” but did not comment on the merits of the case.
  • During the Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers flatly denied that he was responsible for the assault and made broad assertions that he was protected by the First Amendment when he urged supporters gathered on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” to “stop the steal” he said was underway at the Capitol.
mimiterranova

GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ams-ahead-of-expected-2022-run

Politics Georgia targets

shared by mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run By Julia Manchester - 02/01/21 09:19 AM EST 863 17,083 AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitter Share   Just In... Fauci: CDC will release new guidance for vaccinated Americans 'very soon' Healthcare — 2m 39s ago Veteran PAC slams Tucker Carlson for comments on female service members BriefingRoom BlogRoll — 24m 3s ago US officials debating sending millions of AstraZeneca doses awaiting clearance overseas: report Administration — 48m 11s ago Biden denounces hate, violence against Asian Americans: 'It must stop' News — 1h 29m ago Biden administration to implement testing programs in schools as part of reopening effort field
  • publican strategists aligned with Georgia Gov. Brian KempBrian KempGeorgia Senate votes to repeal no-excuse absentee voting Two Republicans can stop voter suppression Trump fires back at WSJ editorial urging GOP to move on MORE (R) on Monday launched an outside group aimed at stopping a potential 2022 gubernatorial run by Democrat Stacey Abrams.
  • "We will do whatever it takes to expose Stacey Abrams’ radical network, highlight her dangerous agenda, and ultimately defeat her — and her left-wing candidates — at the ballot box," the group's senior strategist, Jeremy Brand, said in a statement. "There is no time to waste: We must stand up, fight back, and Stop Stacey.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In the two years since Abram's first run, her group Fair Fight has registered tens of thousands of voters in the Peach State and raised $100 million.
hannahcarter11

Senate confirms Fudge as Housing secretary | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...rms-fudge-as-housing-secretary

senate housing secretary gop

shared by hannahcarter11 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rep. Marcia FudgeMarcia FudgeOn The Money: House passes COVID-19 relief bill in partisan vote | Biden to sign Friday | Senate confirms Fudge to lead HUD Fudge resigns to go to HUD after voting for COVID-19 relief House committee to consider Democrat challenge to results in Iowa congressional race MORE (D-Ohio) to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by a solid bipartisan margin.
  • Senators approved Fudge’s nomination to be HUD secretary on a 66-34 vote. She will be the first woman to hold the position since 1979 and the second Black woman and the third woman ever to lead the department.
  • When she came before the [committee], Congresswoman Fudge’s knowledge and passion for service, her commitment to the people who make this country work were obvious to all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike,” Brown added.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Fudge, who has represented parts of Cleveland and Akron in the House since 2008, was praised by Democrats for her years of work in Congress toward bolstering federal safety net programs and fighting racial inequities in the economy.
  • She is the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, from 2000 until she was elected to Congress.
  • Fudge announced her resignation from the House on Wednesday afternoon after voting for Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan.
  • several Republicans fiercely opposed Fudge’s nomination over past heated criticisms of GOP lawmakers and her lack of expertise on housing policy issues.
  • Fudge will take over HUD at a challenging time for both the U.S. housing system and the federal department that oversees it.
  • More than 11 million U.S. households are facing homelessness after nearly a year of economic peril caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
  • The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the housing affordability crisis that began long before COVID-19 hit the U.S.
  • President BidenJoe BidenManchin cements key-vote status in 50-50 Senate The Memo: How the COVID year upended politics Post-pandemic plans for lawmakers: Chuck E. Cheese, visiting friends, hugging grandkids MORE is also seeking to dramatically expand public housing and make sorely needed maintenance upgrades to the country’s existing supply of federally supported homes, a longtime goal of Democrats and housing advocates.
  • Fudge will face those issues with a HUD staff depleted by years of attrition and insufficient hiring.
  • Fudge vowed during her confirmation process to turn HUD around at a critical moment for the U.S. with a special focus on narrowing the racial inequities in the housing market that have been deepened by COVID-19.
  • While 7 percent of white households reported being behind on rent or mortgage payments in December, 22 percent of Black households, 18 percent of Hispanic households and 13 percent of Asian households had missed payments,
  • And while roughly 75 percent of white Americans owned their homes in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the Census Bureau, only 44 percent of Black Americans did.
aidenborst

Some reluctant Democrats consider ditching filibuster for voting bill despite grim pros... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US history crisis Culture policy GOP Angus-King Voting Tammy-Duckworth Illinois

shared by aidenborst on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.
  • Democrats say they expect growing demands to change the filibuster rules later this month when the battle over voting rights heads to the Senate floor, hoping that the pressure will be enough to convince their party's most stalwart filibuster defender, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to buckle and agree to gut the filibuster -- though he's showing no signs of caving.
  • One of them: Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who has been among the handful of members in the Senate Democratic Caucus to embrace overhauling Senate filibuster rules to let legislation advance by a simple majority of 51 senators.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • King is making clear that his view could indeed change if Republicans block the elections bill later this month, something he alluded to earlier this spring and made clear in an interview this week with CNN.
  • "We have to defend democracy," King said. "And I'm afraid that our colleagues have put us in that position. I'm very reluctant to modify the filibuster. But I don't feel I can stand by and see our system subverted."
  • Asked if he'd be open to backing the nuclear option -- a tactic to change Senate rules along straight party lines -- King said bluntly: "Yes."
  • "We're still talking," Manchin told CNN last week, referring to his efforts to craft a bipartisan agreement on a narrower piece of legislation aimed at restoring a key aspect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court eight years ago.
  • "I am adamantly opposed to dividing our country any further on anything that basically, such as a major policy change as that, goes down partisan lines and could be very detrimental, I think, very harmful to our country," Manchin said when asked about changing the filibuster rules.
  • Yet the pressure is only bound to be ratcheted up in the days ahead.
  • "I spent 23 years defending people's rights to vote around the world so I'm gonna choose defending Americans rights to vote over 100 senators to mount a filibuster any day," Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told CNN.
  • Asked about Manchin's concerns that gutting the filibuster would effectively blow up the Senate, Duckworth said, "They're blowing up the right of Americans to vote all across the country."
  • Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.
rerobinson03

Harris Asked to Lead on Voting Rights, and It's a Challenge - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...harris-voting-rights.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Vice President Kamala Harris did not come to her role with a list of demands. She wanted to be a generalist, in large part to learn the political rhythms of a president she was still getting to know. In the first few months of her tenure, some of her portfolio assignments were just that: assignments.
  • Back in Washington, the president’s announcement has not clearly illuminated a path forward for Ms. Harris, whose involvement in the issue stands to become her most politically delicate engagement yet. Her new role comes as the Senate enters a crucial month in the Democratic drive to enact the farthest-reaching elections overhaul in a generation, including a landmark expansion of voting rights that is faltering in the Senate.
  • “The work of voting rights has implications for not just one year down the road or four years down the road but 50 years from now,” Symone Sanders, the vice president’s senior adviser and press secretary, said in an interview on Wednesday.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The voting rights bill faces a more urgent timeline. The vast majority of the party has agreed to make the bill the party’s top legislative priority, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, vowed to put it up for a vote later this month so any changes could be put into effect before the 2022 elections.
  • Mr. Biden has already pledged to sign the bill, which the House passed with only Democratic votes this spring. Known as the For the People Act, the bill would overhaul the nation’s elections system by creating new national requirements for early and mail-in voting, rein in campaign donations and limit partisan gerrymandering. But with the bill all but stalled in the Senate, Mr. Biden has repeatedly expressed concern over its future in his discussions with Democrats.
  • Ms. Harris’s impact on the hand-to-hand politics of the Senate is expected to be limited, but she often drew attention to voting rights during her four years as a senator.
  • In 2020, Ms. Harris was also a co-sponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would restore a piece of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that relied on a formula to identify states with a history of discrimination and require that those jurisdictions clear any changes to their voting processes with the federal government. The protections were eliminated by the Supreme Court in 2013.
  • At an event in his home state on Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, argued that Democrats were inflating the impact of new state voting laws in an attempt to justify an unwarranted and chaotic slew of top-down changes to the way states run elections.
  • “What is going on is the Democrats are trying to convince the Senate that states are involved in trying to prevent people from voting in order to pass a total federal takeover in how we conduct elections,” he told reporters. He said “not a single member” of his party supported the bill.
saberal

How Mitch McConnell killed the US Capitol attack commission | US Capitol breach | The G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-commission-senate-republicans

US politics crisis

shared by saberal on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Days before the Senate voted down the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, was adamant: he would oppose the bill, regardless of any amendments – and he expected his colleagues to follow suit.
  • But it also underscored the alarm that gripped McConnell and Senate Republican leadership in the fraught political moments leading up to the vote, and how they exploited fears within the GOP of crossing a mercurial former president to galvanize opposition to the commission.
  • Surrounded by shards of broken glass in the Capitol on the night of 6 January, and as House Democrats drew up draft articles of impeachment against Trump, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, made her first outreach to canvas the prospect of a commission to investigate the attack.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The main objection from House and Senate Republicans, at first, centered on the lopsided structure of Pelosi’s initial proposal, that would have seen a majority of members appointed by Democrats, who would have also held unilateral subpoena power.
  • By the penultimate week of April, Pelosi had deputized Thompson to lead talks as she felt the homeland security committee was an appropriate venue, and because the top Republican on the committee, John Katko, was one of only 10 House GOP members to vote to impeach Trump.
  • Minutes after House Republicans elevated Elise Stefanik to become the new GOP conference chair on 14 May, Thompson and Katko unveiled their proposal for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission.
  • As Hoyer had anticipated when he suggested that Pelosi also offer equal subpoena power to Republicans, McCarthy struggled to demonize the commission, and several House Republicans told the Guardian that they found his complaints about the scope unconvincing.
  • Underpinning McConnell’s alarm was the fact that Democrats needed 10 Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the commission, and seven had already voted to impeach Trump during his second Senate trial – a far more controversial vote than supporting an inquiry into 6 January.
  • As the final vote hurtled towards its expected finale, the Senate minority whip, John Thune, who also switched his position to side with McConnell, acknowledged McConnell’s arguments about a commission jeopardising Republican chances to retake majorities in the House and Senate.
anonymous

How a lone Capitol Police officer lured rioters away from the Senate chambers - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • A US Capitol Police officer bounded up the stairs of the Capitol building, a growing mob of insurrectionists behind him. Using himself as "bait," he lured the rioters away from the entrance to the Senate chambers, where lawmakers were still debating an objection to Arizona's Electoral College vote count.
  • That man is Officer Eugene Goodman. Footage from Wednesday's attack on the Capitol shows him leading the mob of Trump supporters in the opposite direction of the Senate chambers after he noticed it was unguarded.
  • Footage from Wednesday captured by Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobic shows Goodman, the sole officer among the mob, trying to beat the rioters back several times as he radios other officers, but they continue to trail Goodman up the stairs.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • At one point, Goodman arrives at a landing and looks to a hallway to his left. A door in that hallway led to the Senate chambers, Wilson wrote in a tweet. Goodman then leads the rioters to the right, away from the Senate chambers -- and their "targets," Wilson said.
  • Bobic said Goodman herded the rioters away from the Senate Chambers at 2:14 p.m. Senators were alerted that protesters had breached the Capitol building just one minute earlier, according to CNN's timeline of events from Wednesday's riot. Vice President Mike Pence wouldn't be evacuated from the Senate until 2:30 p.m
  • The man in a hoodie seen chasing Goodman up the stairs, Doug Jensen, was arrested over the weekend for breaking into the Capitol and faces five federal charges -- of unlawfully entering the Capitol, disrupting government business, violent entry, parading in a Capitol building and blocking law enforcement during the riot.
katherineharron

Fact check: No, impeachment itself would not ban Trump from a 2024 run - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • A viral tweet claims that impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time would mean he would lose the ability to run for president in 2024. That's not true. Nor are other claims in the tweet.
  • The tweet was posted on Friday, two days after a Capitol insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters sparked a new impeachment push from House Democrats.
  • It says the following: "For those wondering if it's worth impeaching him this time, it means he: 1) loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life2) loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowanceRead More3) loses lifetime full secret service detail
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • 4) loses his ability to run in 2024"
  • he tweet is inaccurate in multiple ways. 1) Trump would lose his post-presidency pension only if both the House voted to impeach him and then the Senate voted to remove him from office; impeachment itself, without removal, would not result in Trump being denied any benefits.2) The law makes clear that presidents who have lifetime Secret Service protection never get a $1 million travel allowance. 3) It is unclear that Trump would lose lifetime Secret Service protection even if the Senate voted to remove him and prohibit him from running.4) Even a Senate vote to remove Trump would not prohibit him from running in 2024; for the Senate to ban him from the presidency, it would have to hold an additional vote on this question.
  • Trump would not lose his pension if the House impeached him for his role in inciting the insurrection -- just as he didn't lose his pension when the House impeached him in 2019 over his effort to use the US' relationship with Ukraine for his own political ends
  • Lots of average citizens use the word "impeachment" to refer to impeachment and removal, so we're not bashing Costiloe for this common error, but the statement is incorrect.
  • Neither a second House impeachment nor even a Senate vote to convict Trump and remove him from office would prevent him from running again, in 2024 or beyond.
  • Presidents who have not been impeached and removed are entitled to a lifetime pension equivalent to the annual salary of a head of an executive department. For Trump, like predecessor President Barack Obama, that would indeed amount to more than $200,000 per year.
  • Rather, after two-thirds of senators present voted to remove Trump, a simple majority of senators present would have to approve an additional vote to bar him from the presidency in the future.
  • There is at least some uncertainty about the disqualification issue, since no president has ever been removed from office by the Senate and only judges have been disqualified from future office.
  • One law, the Former Presidents Act we mentioned earlier, specifically says that a president who gets booted by the Senate does not count as a "former president" for the purpose of certain post-presidency perks. However, another law signed by Obama in 2013, the Former Presidents Protection Act, simply authorizes lifetime Secret Service protection for former presidents -- without defining "former president" in any particular way.
  • It is not clear which definition the federal government or the courts would use when it came to deciding whether an impeached and removed Trump should get lifetime Secret Service protection
  • Trump was not certain to get a $1 million travel allowance in the first place. In fact, the travel allowance -- technically, a security and travel allowance -- is only for former presidents who are not getting lifetime Secret Service protection.
  • In other words: under normal circumstances -- if Trump finished out his term as scheduled and then accepted the lifetime Secret Service protection he would indisputably be entitled to in that case -- there would be no $1 million security and travel allowance for him.
mariedhorne

Senate GOP Set to Argue Out-of-Office Trump Can't be Convicted in Impeachment - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ted-in-impeachment-11610881200

capitol riot trump senate

shared by mariedhorne on 18 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The political fate of President Trump, and any ambitions he might have for reclaiming the White House in 2024, could be settled by who wins a debate over whether a president can be convicted through the impeachment process after leaving office—a matter on which the U.S. Constitution is silent.
  • The House impeached Mr. Trump last Wednesday for “high crimes and misdemeanors” for conduct culminating with a speech exhorting thousands of his followers to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol and “fight like hell” against congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
  • “Impeaching a president after leaving office, I think, is unconstitutional. It’s never been done before for a reason: it sets up a never-ending retribution,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told reporters Friday, though he added that it was “a big mistake” for Mr. Trump to whip up his followers.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The Senate could take the next steps—trying Mr. Trump and voting on his guilt—as soon as this week. Conviction requires a two-thirds vote by senators present; assuming perfect attendance, 17 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democrats to find Mr. Trump guilty.
  • They cite several historical examples where impeached officials, including judges, faced Senate trials after leaving office.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) declined to call the Senate back from its recess after the House impeached Mr. Trump on Wednesday, putting the proceeding off until after Mr. Biden becomes president Jan. 20.
  • On Friday, House managers announced they had brought back lawyers who assisted in prosecuting Mr. Trump’s first impeachment: Barry Berke, an expert in white-collar crime and public corruption, and Joshua Matz, who with Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe wrote a 2018 book on impeachment, “To End a Presidency.”
cartergramiak

Senate Backs Biden's Stimulus, But Rejects Quick Minimum Wage Hike - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...iden-stimulus-senate-vote.html

history Politics pandemic biden culture policy crisis US economics gop

shared by cartergramiak on 05 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — The Senate endorsed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package just before sunrise on Friday, voting along party lines over unified Republican opposition to approve a budget blueprint that would allow Democrats to enact it with no G.O.P. support.
  • After a 15-hour voting session that stretched overnight, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived early in the morning to the Senate dais, where she cast her first tiebreaking vote. The Senate adopted the budget measure by a vote of 51 to 50 at about 5:30 a.m.
  • The resolution will go next to the House, where Democrats do not require Republican support to approve it, for a final vote expected later Friday. While the measure does not have the force of law, the action paves the way for the next step in the budget reconciliation process, which ultimately would allow Democrats to advance Mr. Biden’s plan without Republican votes.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The measure passed by a voice vote, signaling that Democrats were not attempting to defeat it. Mr. Biden’s stimulus package would increase the wage to $15 per hour by 2025, and Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who has been leading the push for the wage increase in the Senate, said he would not contest Ms. Ernst’s effort because he had never sought to raise it during the pandemic.
  • “A $15 federal minimum wage would be devastating for our hardest-hit small businesses at a time they can least afford it,” Ms. Ernst said on the Senate floor. “We should not have a one-size-fits-all policy set by Washington politicians.”
  • Among the amendments that passed with bipartisan support — by a vote of 99 to 1 — on Thursday was a measure from Mr. Manchin and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, to restrict $1,400 direct checks included in Mr. Biden’s plan from going to high earners, though it did not specify what income level was too high. Democrats have largely agreed to limit payouts for Americans with higher incomes.
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