Tag: Sen. Kamala Harris

Barrett is on Her Way to Senate Confirmation before the Election

By Todd Lassa 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has scheduled the panel’s vote on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court for 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22. The committee, comprising 13 Republicans and 10 Democrats, is considered a sure bet for approving Barrett, whose hearings with the panel concluded Wednesday.

The full Senate will vote to approve Barrett before the presidential election Nov. 3, Graham said. With just two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, having earlier opposed seating a replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election, the GOP still maintains a majority to approve President Trump’s nominee before the month is over. 

In her appearances before the Judiciary Committee Tuesday and Wednesday, Barrett carefully demurred on questions from Democratic members over concerns the nominee would rule with the court’s fortified conservative majority on potential disputes over the Nov. 3 election, as well as a case the Trump administration brought to the courts over the Affordable Care Act. For the longer term, Democrats interrogated the conservative Catholic mother of seven on her views regarding the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court case that made abortion legal nationally. 

But on these and other matters, Barrett repeatedly declined to answer on potential future cases. 

In her opening remarks, Barrett described herself as an “originalist” in the mold of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, whose replacement after his death early in 2016 resulted in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocking President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

“That means that I interpret the constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it,” she said.

Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker , told NPR Thursday morning that while several Supreme Court nominees have called themselves “originalists” since Scalia in 1982, “she may be the first one to actually mean it… .” 

Barrett told the committee, however, that she is not a carbon-copy of her mentor.

“If I were confirmed, you’d be getting Justice Barrett, not Justice Scalia …,” she said. “I share Justice Scalia’s philosophy, but I never said I agree with him on every issue.”

She did give Democrats some hope in not ruling out the question of recusal from votes on next month’s election and on the ACA ruling, but again declined to answer Sen. Kamala Harris’, D-Calif., question on whether she believes in climate change, because of the potential for a case coming up before the court. [Republicans had singled out Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate,  for what they considered aggressive questioning in Justice Brett Kavenaugh’s Judiciary committee hearing in 2018.]

Committee Republicans praised Barrett as a justice who will inspire young conservative women and girls the way Justice Ginsberg inspired young liberal women and girls.

“This is the first time we’ve nominated a woman who is unabashedly pro-life,” Graham said.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–

Pence Attempts to Overtake Debate Rules, but Harris Drives Home the Democratic Message

By Michelle Naranjo

The debate between Vice President Pence and Senator Harris in Salt Lake City was distinctive for many reasons. Both are the running mates to the oldest presidential candidates in history. Separated by protective plastic panels designed to provide a COVID-safe distance, Harris, and Pence remained seated, instead of standing per the usual.

But these contrasts were the least notable aspects of Utah. 

What became clear is that the traditional debate format voters have long expected has dissolved into a spectacle and proved itself outdated. Sure, this disruptive format has been coming for several election cycles now, but the structure in which candidates respect the debate rules while making their political distinctions clear has dissolved into a chaotic rumble.

A friend wondered pre-debate if we would see the politician-side of Harris or the fighter version. 

What we got was a well-prepared, self-assured candidate who wasn’t about to allow her opponent to walk over her words, dismiss her professional record, or steal her appointed speaking times. And, while she brought her politician side to the dais, she also began with a statement that was an apparent slight to Pence, the czar of COVID-19, without being a direct, personal attack.

Harris set the fighting words tone in her response to moderator Susan Page’s opening question about the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She declared it ”the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.” 

What followed was Pence never directly answering any of Page’s remaining questions. Instead, he repeatedly spoke over both Harris and the moderator. Would this have been Candidate Pence speaking for any other election and not one led by Trump, he might have been perceived as extremely inconsiderate and even dishonest. But Pence’s slights failed to faze the former prosecutor, who drove home the Biden/Harris platform of raising up all Americans. She confidently topped off her arguments with the expert voice of a woman acclimated to facing male authority that talks over and steals her air time. 

It is 2020. Racism, women’s rights, the economy, and the ever-present pandemic are at the forefront of this presidential election. Harris showed what led Biden to choose her as a running mate who can speak with confidence to all of these issues -- and even have a plan to address them.

Pence brought a fly. 

Naranjo is a freelance writer based in rural Pennsylvania.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–

Veep Debate Marks Brief Return to 2020-Style Normalcy

By Charles Dervarics

After a chaotic face-off last week between President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, Wednesday night’s debate between the vice presidential nominees offered a brief return to normalcy – at least as normal as it gets in 2020.

Despite major disagreements, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., debated civilly (for the most part) and delivered effective talking points on everything from COVID-19 to China and the Supreme Court. Not that it was exactly like debates of old: Plexiglas separated the candidates due to health concerns after positive COVID tests for the president and others at the White House. The night also was historic with the participation of Harris, the first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket.

But as the nation prepares to choose between the oldest presidential nominees in history, both Pence and Harris offered some depth on issues in what could be a preview of the 2024 campaign.

The debate began with a focus on COVID-19, as Pence claimed the administration had undertaken the “greatest national mobilization since World War II” while Harris charged that the White House was not truthful with the American people. On a vaccine, she added, “If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.”

But the issue didn’t crowd out other topics, and both clearly had messages for swing state voters. Pence criticized the Green New Deal and accused Democrats of wanting to halt fracking. Harris talked up Biden’s plans for jobs and economic revival, including more support for education and manufacturing.

Pence sidestepped some questions – including the future of the Affordable Care Act – and Harris would not answer if Democrats plan to expand the Supreme Court if the Senate approves the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Look for more intensive media queries on those topics this month.

Both also routinely pushed the boundaries of time limits set by moderator Susan Page of USA Today – Pence seemed to be the worst offender there – although Page kept the debate from going off the rails. 

As someone who covered the first debate with a woman running for vice president – George H.W. Bush vs. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 – the differences between that night and last night were stark. In 1984, the first question to Ferraro was how she could compare herself to Bush, a congressman, ambassador, and CIA Director before becoming Ronald Reagan’s VP. Ferraro later chided Bush for taking a condescending tone and near the end, the male moderator joked with Bush about the World Series. All of that was very 1984, and a far cry from what transpired last night. 

Trump and Biden are up next on the debate calendar, scheduled for a Town Hall-style meeting Oct. 15, but it’s not clear at press time if the event will take place. The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced plans to make it a virtual event, and President Trump said Oct. 8 he does not plan to participate under that format.

Charles Dervarics is a writer and policy analyst in Alexandria, Va.

—–

Coastal Elitist Harris Brings Democratic Party’s Radical Shift to the Veep Debate

By Henry Payne

In these strange times, the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate was fittingly strange theater.

There were ridiculous, plexiglass stage props. No questions from the moderator about riots that have toppled statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There was a fly. 

But study the script of Sen. Kamala Harris, and history will record a Democratic ticket representing the most radical Party shift in 50 years. Life-long government apparatchiks, Biden/Harris represent the Elite vs. Main Street divide at the heart of today’s politics.

Harris checks the demographic boxes for the Democratic coalition but, most importantly, she hails from California. The Democratic Party’s biggest electoral treasure, California is the epicenter of Democratic ideology and Hollywood fundraising. It betrays – with Biden’s Northeastern roots – a coastal Party with a continent of red states in between.

It was not always so. At the end of the 20th century, Democratic leadership was geographically diverse – Gephardt of Missouri, Michigan’s Dingell, Clinton from Arkansas, Bradley of New Jersey, Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey – and rooted in the working class. 

The coastal Party of Sanders-Pelosi-Schumer-Harris-Biden is very different. It takes its policy prescriptions from Democratic-Socialist Europe – Paris Climate Accords, Medicare for All, Green New Deal.

Trump/Pence was a direct reaction to this elitist takeover. 

For all of carnival barker Trump’s lack of decorum, he is a businessman who fundamentally gets Main Street – thus his populist base in working-class neighborhoods of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. He chose Pence, a heartland governor, as his running mate. 

Harris’ (which GovTrack.us rates “the most liberal member of the Senate”) debate talking points, by contrast, put her a long drive from Main Street.

She echoed Black Lives Matter, a radical group that wants societal change as unpopular as the forced busing policies that tore America apart 50 years ago – policies Harris still cheers.

I covered the Black Lives Matter riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, which did enormous harm to black lives. Protestors burned businesses and jobs to the ground. Six years later, Ferguson still hasn’t recovered. 

Now Chicago, New York, Kenosha, Wisconsin and other cities have seen crime and violence skyrocket. Victims of homicide in Chicago, for example – mostly Black – are up 50 percent due to diminished policing and COVID shutdowns that Biden/Harris threaten to reinstate.

Solutions for vulnerable communities (including in my Detroit backyard) – charter schools, police protection – are under assault by Harris’s Party.

As are manufacturing jobs. Harris claimed global warming an “existential threat” despite all evidence to the contrary – most obviously healthy Great Lakes levels that Democrats just a decade ago were scared would dry up due to melting snow pack. 

Shouldn’t she have been preparing for the existential threat of global viruses?

Harris supports a California-inspired national mandate forcing U.S. automakers to make only climate-fighting electric cars. Similar European mandates pushed Volkswagen to cut 7,000 jobs last year as it faced high EV costs.

That is tragic theater.

Henry Payne is The Detroit News auto columnist, radio host, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist with Andrews McMeel, and National Review contributor. He was inside The Beltway for 13 years before escaping to Motown.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–