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The post Dick Durbin, Dem senator: Hillary Clinton ‘flat-out wrong’ for saying Joe Biden shouldn’t concede appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Sen. Dick Durbin said Sunday that twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is “flat-out wrong” for encouraging Joseph R. Biden not to concede the 2020 race against President Trump.
“I disagree with Hillary Clinton,” the Illinois Democrat told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I respect her, I like her, but I think she’s just flat-out wrong.”
Mrs. Clinton raised eyebrows last month after she said Mr. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, should not concede the November election “under any circumstances” because of the Republican Party’s attempts to “mess up” mail-in voting.
“We’ve got to have a massive legal operation — I know the Biden campaign is working on that,” the former secretary of state said during an Aug. 24 interview on Showtime’s “The Circus.”
“We have to have poll workers, and I urge people who are able to be a poll worker,” she said. “We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places. This is a big organizational challenge, but at least we know more about what they’re going to do. And Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out and eventually I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.”
During his interview Sunday, Mr. Durbin was asked to weigh in on Republicans drawing “a moral equivalence” between Mrs. Clinton’s comments and Mr. Trump refusing to commit to a peaceful transferral of power if Mr. Biden wins the election.
“The election itself is going to be announced,” Mr. Durbin responded. “The winner will be announced. It will take longer with all the paper ballots that are being cast, but at some point I hope my choice Joe Biden is elected president.
“But if we are going to maintain a democracy, peaceful transition through an election is the only way to do it,” he added. “Just look at the streets of Belarus today if you want to see the alternative. We don’t need that in America. Whoever the winner is, if it’s clear and legal, the other party should concede.”
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 27, 2020
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]]>The post Dick Durbin dings Amy Coney Barrett on ending Obamacare appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Democrats have no way to stop Senate Republicans confirming Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, but on Sunday, they labored to make her a punching bag in the health care debate, which they hope will propel them to victory in the November elections.
Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber and a member of the Judiciary Committee that will grill Judge Barrett, said there was no hope of derailing the nominee.
“We can slow it down, perhaps a matter of hours, maybe days at the most, but we can’t stop the outcome. What we should do is to address this now respectfully,” the Illinois Democrat said on ABC’s “This Week.”
He quickly pivoted to health care, saying he’d ask Judge Barrett “point-blank” about her stance on ending Obamacare.
President Obama’s signature health care law has become the left’s rallying cry for 2020, with the fate of the Affordable Care Act going before the high court Nov. 10. In the case, states challenged the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts that eliminated individual mandate’s tax penalties, saying it effectively killed the health care law.
Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden said the rush to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is “all about health care.”
“It’s no mystery about what’s happening here. President Trump was trying to throw out the Affordable Care Act. He’s been trying to do it for the last four years,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. “Now, all of a sudden this administration believes they found a loophole: the tragedy of Justice Ginsburg’s death.”
Health care was the tip of the spear but Democrats and liberal groups also accused Judge Barrett, who currently sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, of being a threat to abortion. Along with complaints about the nomination coming too close to the election, these have been the chief lines of attack.
“If confirmed, right-wing judicial activist Barrett would reshape the law and society for generations to come. She is a detriment to our democracy,” said Aimee Allison, the founder of the feminist group She the People.
Still, Democrats and their left-wing allies have little hope of blocking Judge Barrett.
Her confirmation would grow the 5-4 conservative majority on the high court to 6-3.
“The American people should make no mistake — a vote by any senator for Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for millions of Americans with preexisting conditions,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. “As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage unabated by this administration, health care was already the number one issue on the ballot in November.”
His office pointed to a tweet from the president on Sunday to bolster Democrats’ position.
“Obamacare will be replaced with a MUCH better, and FAR cheaper, alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court. Would be a big WIN for the USA!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Mr. Trump ran on a repeal-and-replace promise in 2016 but has not put forward an alternative to Obamacare that can get through Congress.
At the White House, Mr. Trump told reporters that he needs to eliminate the remainder of Obamacare before moving forward with a replacement.
“It’s no good. It’s too expensive. It’s bad coverage. You don’t get your doctor. You don’t get your plan. Those are the things President Obama said and you don’t get [them]. Biden, too,” he said. “If we can eliminate it, we will have a much better plan and you will have your doctor … you will have a lot of things you don’t get with Obamacare.”
Mr. Biden also urged Senate Republicans to hold up the nomination until after the election, giving him a crack at being the president who picks Justice Ginsburg’s replacement.
That’s highly unlikely.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, has the votes to move forward with Judge Barrett’s nomination swiftly. Mr. McConnell is set to meet with her this week on Capitol Hill.
Former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who helped Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh through his confirmation hearing, said gaming how a judge would rule on a case is “unfair one way or another.”
“You cannot guarantee results with judges. What you can guarantee is that they are going to approach the task of judging as a judge,” Mr. McGahn told the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “They’re going to try to play it straight and read the law as passed by Congress and as found in the Constitution, not based upon what they think it ought to be but what it is.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, scheduled confirmation hearings for Oct. 12, which would place the timeline for a final Senate vote by the end of October, days before the Nov. 3 election.
Judge Barrett would be Mr. Trump’s third Supreme Court appointee — the most of any president since Ronald Reagan — and potentially tilts the high court’s balance dramatically in favor of conservatives for years to come.
She would be the fifth woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the second to be nominated by a Republican president. Sandra Day O’Connor, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was the first.
Judge Barrett, 48, would be the youngest justice on the high court. She also would be the first female justice with school-aged children.
The judge has seven children, two of them adopted from Haiti. Her youngest, Benjamin, 8, has Down syndrome.
Announcing the nomination Saturday from the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump lauded Judge Barrett as a legend and a towering legal mind, who he said possessed strong “loyalty” to the Constitution.
“I looked and I studied and you are very eminently qualified for this job. You are going to be fantastic,” Mr. Trump said to Judge Barrett.
He urged Democrats on Capitol Hill to be respectful of his pick, referencing the controversial hearing of his second nominee, Justice Kavanaugh.
She has a judicial reputation for being an “originalist” and a “textualist,” similar to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked after she graduated from law school.
“I love the United States and I love the United States Constitution. I am truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court,” Judge Barrett said. “I will be mindful of who came before me.”
The judge praised the late Justice Ginsburg’s impact on women in the legal profession and touted her friendship with the late Justice Scalia — despite them being from different sides of the political spectrum.
“If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of those in my own circle and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this role to serve you,” she said to the American people.
Before her nomination to the 7th Circuit, Judge Barrett taught at Notre Dame Law School, where she also attended and graduated at the top of her class.
Her Catholic faith became a sticking point for Democrats during her confirmation hearing for the appeals court seat when they raised questions about if she could separate the church’s teachings on abortion and other matters from her judicial responsibilities.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, told her the “dogma lives loudly within you” — a statement that has become a rallying cry for conservatives who charge Judge Barrett will be a strong jurist that would uphold the Constitution as written.
Of the eight justices currently on the high court, there are five Catholics: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Kavanaugh, Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Neil Gorsuch was raised Catholic but is now Episcopalian. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan are Jewish.
The Senate confirmed her to the 7th Circuit by a 55-43 vote on Oct. 31 of 2017. Three Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Tim Kaine of Virginia — voted with the GOP in support of the judge.
This time, though, Mr. Kaine and Mr. Manchin have said they don’t support the president filling the seat this close to an election — saying the winner of the election should fill the vacancy. Mr. Donnelly is no longer in the Senate, after being voted out in 2018 in favor of a Republican.
In the roughly three years that Judge Barrett has been sitting on the 7th Circuit, she has weighed in on legal disputes involving the Second Amendment, immigration and due process.
She disagreed with a panel decision to uphold a law that prohibited a convicted felon from possessing a firearm. The felon in question was nonviolent, having been convicted of mail fraud, but still had his Second Amendment rights stripped under the law Judge Barrett voted to strike down.
The judge also dissented from a majority ruling on the 7th Circuit which issued an injunction halting the president’s “public charge rule” that increased the requirements for a noncitizen to obtain a green card.
In 2019 Judge Barrett reinstated a lawsuit brought by a male college student who had been suspended after facing accusations of sexual assault by Purdue University. The student had sued the school, arguing he was discriminated against based on his sex and was unable to cross-examine the alleged victim and present evidence in his defense, upending his rights to due process.
Judge Barrett and the 7th Circuit panel sided with the student and allowed his case against Purdue to move forward.
The “Me Too” issue is likely to come up during her confirmation hearing, as it’s been an issue raised by Senate Democrats in the past who have peppered Mr. Trump’s judicial picks with questions involving women’s rights and decades-old sexual misconduct accusations that were never proven.
During her appeals court confirmation hearing in 2017, Judge Barrett vowed to follow precedent as a circuit judge.
Conservative groups have cheered Mr. Trump’s pick, praising Judge Barrett’s judicial philosophy.
“She is a rock-solid conservative, who demonstrated in her hearing for the 7th Circuit that she has a backbone of steel. Judge Barrett is young, brilliant, and exceptionally well-qualified. And she is an everyday American from the Heartland, who is a working mother of seven children — including a child with disabilities and two children adopted from Haiti,” said Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project which backs Mr. Trump’s judicial nominees.
⦁ Gabriella Muñoz contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Dick Durbin apologizes to Tim Scott after ‘token’ remark appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Scott later delivered an emotional rejection to any suggestion that his police reform bill is “token” legislation in a swipe at Durbin.
In a Senate floor speech, the South Carolina Republican commemorated the five-year anniversary of the tragic mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and criticized Democrats for playing politics on police reform.
“To have the senator from Illinois refer to the process, this bill, this opportunity to restore hope and confidence from the American people, from African Americans, from communities of color, to call this a token process hurts my soul for my country, for our people,” Scott said in his speech.
“To think that the concept of anti-lynching as a part of this legislation to be considered a token piece of legislation because perhaps I’m African American, the only one on this side of the aisle, I don’t know what he meant, but … those comments again hurts the soul,” he added.
Durbin, in his floor speech, also described Scott as a “friend” and said he was a “good choice” to lead the Republicans on a compromise bill. And in a follow-up statement, Hampsten, Durbin’s communications director added that “addressing systemic racism and changing policing in America requires and deserves more than one Judiciary hearing, one floor vote, one conversation.” Instead, she said, it deserves the “bipartisan attention of the Senate.”
Scott’s proposal, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he’ll take up next week, would require additional disclosures about the use of force, codifies reporting requirements on the use of “no-knock warrants” and provides incentives for chokehold bans. It would also provide grants to increase the use of body cameras and it makes lynching a federal crime.
“On the other side, they are wanting to race-bait on tokenism, while this legislation would provide resources for body cameras, for anti-lynching, for de-escalation training,” Scott said. “But no, we can’t concern ourselves with the families I have sat with at the White House yesterday.”
Democrats, however, criticized the GOP bill for not going far enough. Senate and House Democrats have their own proposal, which would offer sweeping changes, including banning chokeholds, limiting qualified immunity for police officers and banning no knock warrants for federal drug cases.
The competing bills come as the country faces a reckoning over police brutality and racial injustice amid the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
In his floor speech, Scott highlighted that the GOP and Democratic proposals have similarities, including calling for more information, more training and finding a way to ban chokeholds.
“That’s where we should be focusing our attention on, not the color of my skin, not tokens,” Scott said. “I get it all the time on Twitter. I’m used to it. But on this day, my heart aches for my state.”
The South Carolina Republican last week shot back at criticism on Twitter that he is a “token” black politician that the GOP is using, asking why they wouldn’t want someone leading the Republican police reform effort who has personally been racially profiled by police.
While Scott said most Democrats are eager for a solution, some he said are more focused on 2020.
“We would rather have a conversation about tearing this country apart, making it a binary choice between law enforcement and communities of color instead of working for the American people,” Scott said.
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]]>The post Dick Durbin apologizes to Tim Scott for ‘token’ comment on police reform bill appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., apologized to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., after calling the police reform bill he spearheaded as the lone black GOP senator a “token” approach, Durbin’s office said.
“The minute Sen. Durbin heard that he had offended Sen. Scott, he sought him out on the floor and apologized. What Sen. Durbin took issue with in his floor speech was not Sen. Scott’s bill, but that the Senate Majority Leader would short circuit this critical debate and fail to make the changes needed to prevent the killing of Black Americans by police officers,” Durbin’s communications director, Emily Hampsten, said in a statement to Fox News.
“Addressing systemic racism and changing policing in America requires and deserves more than one Judiciary hearing, one floor vote, one conversation,” she added.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Durbin referenced Scott’s bill and said he respects the senator but made clear he supports the Democrats’ legislation, saluting California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker for their work on it.
SEN. TIM SCOTT HITS BACK AT DURBIN FOR COMPLAINING OF ‘TOKEN’ APPROACH TO POLICE REFORM
“We cannot waste this historic moment,” Durbin said of a police reform bill. “Let’s not do something that is a token, half-hearted approach.”
In remarks on the Senate floor, Scott said the Illinois Democrat’s words “hurts us all.” He said it especially “hurts” to hear language like that on the fifth anniversary of the Charleston church shooting.
Sen. Tim Scott, right, and Sen. Dick Durbin, left
Earlier, Scott responded on Twitter to Durbin’s comments by referring to how congressional Democrats last week wore African kente cloths while they unveiled their own version of police reform. Critics accused them of cultural appropriation.
“Y’all still wearing those kente cloths over there @SenatorDurbin?” Scott wrote on Twitter.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled their Justice Act police reform legislation, after Democrats in the House unveiled their own version of police reform last week.
SENATE REPUBLICANS UNVEIL POLICE REFORM LEGISLATION: ‘WE HEAR YOU’
The Republicans’ bill seeks to hold officers accountable with an enhanced use-of-force database, restrict chokeholds, and assist local police departments with minority hiring to make them look more like the communities they serve.
Scott said the bill aimed to restore confidence in institutions of authority from communities of color and the overwhelming number of officers in America are good people. But he acknowledged the real fears people of color have about encountering the police.
“We hear you. We’re listening to your concerns,” said Scott, who recalled his own “driving while black” experiences of being stopped seven times in one year. “The George Floyd incident certainly accelerated this conversation.”
McConnell said he’ll bring the legislation to a vote on the Senate floor by next week. “We’re serious about making a law here,” he said at the Capitol press conference.
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ Justice in Policing Act would lower the bar for police officers to face criminal prosecution by allowing charges not just in cases where alleged misconduct was intentional, but also in cases of reckless misconduct. It would also ban chokeholds, create a national database of cops who committed misconduct, boost police training and reform qualified immunity that can protect cops from lawsuits from victims of police brutality.
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Democrats decried the Senate bill as not going far enough. “The Senate proposal of studies and reporting without transparency and accountability is inadequate,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the GOP legislation. “The Senate’s so-called Justice Act is not action.”
Fox News’ Sally Persons contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Sen. Tim Scott hits back at Durbin for complaining of ‘token’ approach to police reform appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on Wednesday fired back at Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., after the Democrat appeared to dismiss the GOP Senate police reform bill that Scott spearheaded by complaining about its “token” approach.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Scott said the Illinois Democrat’s words “hurts us all.” He said it especially “hurts” to hear language like that on the fifth anniversary of the Charleston church shooting.
Earlier, Scott responded on Twitter to Durbin’s comments by referring to how congressional Democrats last week wore African kente cloths while they unveiled their own version of police reform. Critics accused them of cultural appropriation.
“Y’all still wearing those kente cloths over there @SenatorDurbin?” Scott wrote on Twitter.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Durbin referenced Scott’s bill and said he respects the senator but made clear he supports the Democrats’ legislation, saluting California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker for their work on it.
“We cannot waste this historic moment,” Durbin said of a police reform bill. “Let’s not do something that is a token, half-hearted approach.”
Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled their Justice Act police reform legislation, after Democrats in the House unveiled their own version of police reform last week.
SENATE REPUBLICANS UNVEIL POLICE REFORM LEGISLATION: ‘WE HEAR YOU’
Scott, the lone African-American GOP senator, spearheaded the Senate’s legislation, which seeks to hold officers accountable with an enhanced use-of-force database, restrict chokeholds, and assist local police departments with minority hiring to make them look more like the communities they serve.
“The answer to the question of which side do you support is ‘I support America,'” Scott said in unveiling the legislation. “And if you support America you support restoring the confidence that communities of color have in institutions of authority. If you support America, that means you know that the overwhelming number of officers in this nation want to do their job, go home to their family. It is not a binary choice. This legislation encompasses that spirit.”
Scott said the overwhelming number of officers in America are good people. But he acknowledged the real fears people of color have about encountering the police.
“We hear you. We’re listening to your concerns,” said Scott, who recalled his own “driving while black” experiences of being stopped seven times in one year. “The George Floyd incident certainly accelerated this conversation.”
BLACK TWITTER MOCKS DEMS FOR DONNING KENTE CLOTHE: ‘DON’T TREAT AFRICANS LIKE WE’RE CHILDREN’
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ Justice in Policing Act would lower the bar for police officers to face criminal prosecution by allowing charges not just in cases where alleged misconduct was intentional, but also in cases of reckless misconduct. It would also ban chokeholds, create a national database of cops who committed misconduct, boost police training and reform qualified immunity that can protect cops from lawsuits from victims of police brutality.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on Wednesday fired back at Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., after the Democrat appeared to dismiss the GOP Senate police reform bill that he spearheaded for its “token” approach.
(Associated Press, Reuters)
Scott’s bill doesn’t ban chokeholds outright, rather encouraging departments to do away with the practice or risk losing funds, and doesn’t end qualified immunity. Democrats have already panned the legislation as not going far enough.
The GOP legislation would beef up requirements for law enforcement to compile use of force reports under a new George Floyd and Walter Scott Notification Act, named for the Minnesota father whose May 25 death sparked worldwide protests over police violence, and Scott, the South Carolina man shot by police after a traffic stop in 2015 (no relation to the senator).
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But the GOP effort seeks to reach across the aisle to Democrats in several ways. It includes one long-sought measure to make lynching a federal hate crime and another to launch a study of the social status of black men and boys that has been touted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Meanwhile, Scott’s Twitter rebuttal Wednesday hit a sensitive point for Democrats, as their decision to wear the garments touched off controversy. A USA Today fact check even noted that kente cloth, centuries ago, was “worn by the Asante people of Ghana, who were involved in the West African slave trade.” However, the same fact check noted that despite those ties to slavery, “it is more widely recognized as a modern symbol of pride in African American culture and pride in cultural ties to West Africa.”
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Marisa Schultz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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