Tag: GOP hypocrisy

GOP Senate confirms Trump Supreme Court pick to succeed Ginsburg

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The Senate confirmed Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Monday, providing President Trump with a last-minute political victory just days before Nov. 3. 

The 52-48 Senate vote on Barrett’s nomination capped off a rare presidential election year Supreme Court fight sparked by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18. GOP Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was the only Republican to oppose Barrett, saying she doesn’t believe a nomination should come up before the election. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who previously voted against advancing Barrett because of the election, supported her nomination on Monday. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) returned from the campaign trail to oppose Barrett’s nomination.  Continue reading.

GOP clears key hurdle on Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, setting up Monday confirmation

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Republicans cleared a key hurdle Sunday for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, paving the way for her confirmation on Monday.

Senators voted 51-48 to begin winding down debate on Barrett’s nomination. GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) voted with Democrats against moving forward.

A final vote to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court is expected to take place by Monday evening, roughly a month after President Trumpannounced his intention to nominate her to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Continue reading.

Mitt Romney says he’ll support moving forward with Supreme Court pick

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced Tuesday that he would support moving forward with a Senate vote on President Trump’s selection to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Why it matters: Barring any big surprises, Democrats have virtually no shot at stopping the confirmation process for the president’s nominee before November’s election.

The big picture: Romney was one of the few Republican senators who were question marks amid Trump’s push to quickly nominate a replacement for Ginsburg. Earlier this year, Romney was the sole Republican who voted to convict Trump for abuse of power after the impeachment trial. Continue reading.

Conservatives’ tributes to John Lewis open them up to scrutiny of their actions on civil and voting rights

Washington Post logoPraise for the legacy of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) dominated social media Saturday following news of his death from pancreatic cancer. He was 80.

But some of those reactions have been called empty and mostly for show. For people who shared the lawmaker’s politics, the only true way to honor him is to help advance his policy initiatives.

Fellow Democratic lawmakers testified about his contribution to U.S. history. But so did those who disagreed with Lewis on fundamental issues, thus attracting accusations of hypocrisy. Continue reading.

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel repeatedly voted by mail — before suing California for expanding the practice

AlterNet logoRepublican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel frequently voted by mail before leading a lawsuit against California over the state’s mail voting expansion, according to voting records.

McDaniel announced on Sunday that the RNC, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the California Republican Party had sued Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom after he announced that all registered voters in the state would receive mail-in ballots for the upcoming elections.

“Newsom’s illegal power grab is a recipe for disaster that would destroy the confidence Californians deserve to have in the security of their vote,” she said in a statement. Continue reading.

G.O.P. Split Over State Aid That Could Mostly Go to Democratic Strongholds

New York Times logoWith governors and mayors pressing for more federal help to deal with the effects of the pandemic, a divide among Republicans is being driven by the political bent of the states that stand to benefit.

WASHINGTON — When Senator Mitt Romney of Utah strode into a luncheon with fellow Republicans last week, he was carrying an oversize poster in his black-gloved hand that bore a blunt message: “Blue states aren’t the only ones who are screwed.”

Two days later, Senator Rick Scott of Florida made the opposite point, arriving at another party gathering with his own placard that showed how rosy his state’s financial picture was compared with those of three Democratic states: New York, Illinois and California. Why should Congress help struggling states and cities, he argued, when the bulk of the aid would go to Democratic strongholds that he said had a history of fiscal mismanagement?

The two Republican senators — both former governors — illustrate the contentious debate within their party that is shaping the next sweeping package of federal coronavirus relief. With many states and cities experiencing devastating fiscal crises amid the pandemic, Democrats in Congress have joined governors and mayors in pressing for a huge infusion of money for troubled states, cities and towns.

GOP sounds alarm bell over coronavirus-fueled debt

The Hill logoRepublicans are growing increasingly anxious about the meteoric rise in the country’s debt amid unprecedented levels of federal spending aimed at softening the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Congress has passed several relief bills in the last seven weeks that total nearly $2.8 trillion — roughly the combined total of the fiscal 2019 and 2020 discretionary spending for the entire government.

The mammoth spending comes as the coronavirus’s effect on the country has been severe: 22 million unemployment claims in the past month, a rocky market that has plummeted from record highs and nearly a million confirmed cases and more than 46,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Continue reading.

Republican Senators Tout Enhanced Unemployment Benefits They Opposed

Last week, 47 Republican senators and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted to make unemployment benefits less generous in the coronavirus relief legislation.

Although their amendment to cap unemployment insurance was unsuccessful, several Republican senators spent the next few days bragging about the more generous benefits in the final bill.

Arizona Sen. Martha McSally

On March 26, McSally’s office sent an email touting the robust benefits she opposed just three earlier. The stimulus bill “makes benefits more generous by adding $600 per week on top of what the state normally pays in unemployment and provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits,” the email said. “And provisions will ensure state and local governments and non-profits can pay unemployment to their employees.” Continue reading.

Key in Trump’s deal with the Taliban: Ex-prisoners whose release in 2014 unleashed Republican furor

Washington Post logoAs American negotiators raced to clinch last month’s landmark deal with the Taliban, several shadowy figures played a surprising but significant role: former Guantanamo Bay detainees whose release in a 2014 prisoner exchange sparked a partisan firestorm.

The so-called Taliban Five, a group of high-level militant inmates traded for an American during the Obama administration, worked behind the scenes to build support for the agreement, current and former U.S. and Taliban officials say.

Several of the men wielded their clout, as prominent figures from the Taliban’s pre-9/11 government and longtime prisoners of the United States, to push months of fractious negotiations toward a deal. One of them, a fearsome former commander accused in the deaths of religious minorities in Afghanistan, traveled at least twice to Pakistan to generate buy-in among skeptical militant commanders, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the negotiations. Continue reading.

Republican response to potential pandemic aims at protecting Trump with cowardice, hypocrisy and outright lies

AlterNet logoThe last time a deadly virus spread quickly across continents, Republicans in Congress ramped up xenophobic rhetoric to fear-monger ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. Echoing Donald Trump, who at the time hosted a weekly “Fox & Friends,” Republicans called for a travel ban and spread misinformation. “[President] Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!” Trump tweeted in October of 2014. Public polls right before the midterm elections showed that nearly 80% of Republicans thought the U.S. government should quarantine people who had recently been in a West African country with a major Ebola outbreak and nearly 50% worried they would be exposed to the Ebola virus. It was a catastrophic election for Democrats, with Republicans winning nine Senate seats and 13 House seats.

Six years later, President Trump continues to overhype the threat of the Ebola virus — this time in an effort to obscure his bungled response to a global health pandemic under his watch. Republicans in Congress are again spreading misinformation — this time in an overt attempt to defend Trump from criticism over his incompetent response.

As both Trump and his White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow appeared before cameras on Tuesday to claim that the coronavirus — and COVID-19, the disease it causes — are “well under control” and “contained,” the Dow Jones Industrial tumbled 1,000 points. On Wednesday, it fell almost another 900 points. Trump insisted on Twitter, “Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” Continue reading.