Senate Rebukes Trump, Setting Up Veto
Senate votes to reject Trump’s emergency declaration, setting up president’s first veto. WaPo: "The Senate passed a resolution Thursday to overturn President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, with 12 Republicans joining all the Democrats to deliver a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president. The disapproval resolution passed the House last month, so the 59-to-41 Senate vote will send the measure to the president’s desk. Trump intends to use the first veto of his presidency to strike it down, and Congress does not have the votes to override the veto. 'VETO!' Trump tweeted moments after the vote. A short while later he added, 'I look forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution which would OPEN BORDERS while increasing Crime, Drugs, and Trafficking in our Country. I thank all of the Strong Republicans who voted to support Border Security and our desperately needed WALL!'"
Sen. Graham Blocks Call To Make Mueller Report Public
Lindsey Graham blocks House vote to make Mueller report public. NYMag: "On Thursday, Lindsey Graham made clear another roadblock to the public’s access to the report: the Republican-controlled Senate. In the morning, Democrats passed a House resolution 420 to zero in support of releasing the probe to the public, serving as a gesture to pressure William Barr into showing as much of the report as possible. In the afternoon, Graham promptly shut down the symbolic gesture, blocking Chuck Schumer’s request to pass the House resolution. Graham, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went a step further, requesting that AG William Barr should appoint a second special counsel to investigate “misconduct” in the Department of Justice over the handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the government surveillance of Trump campaign staffer Carter Page. As the Mueller investigation draws toward its end, deflections like Graham’s will be inevitable. Despite calls for transparency — including an impressive uncontested vote in the House — some Republican leaders will make distracting noises or otherwise try to suppress the report in order to limit Trump’s chance at a one-term presidency. "
AOC, House Dems Roast Wilbur Ross Over Citizenship Test
Ocasio-Cortez and House Democrats roast Wilbur Ross over census citizenship question. Yahoo News: "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was roasted before a House of Representatives committee Wednesday in a hearing that lasted more than six hours. It was not a roast of the comedic variety, however, with Ross repeatedly scorched by Democrats as he struggled to explain why he sought the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Ross was on the ropes for much of his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, but the knockout blow did not come until the seventh hour of the hearing, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., finally had the chance to interrogate Ross, who is 52 years her senior. Ocasio-Cortez, who has been in Congress a little more than two months, effectively summarized the Democrats’ central argument against Ross: that in putting the question on the census, Ross did not consult with U.S. Census Bureau experts but instead took advice from voter-suppression specialists aligned with President Trump. 'It’s all there in black and white,' Ocasio-Cortez said of a July 2017 email to Ross from Kris Kobach, the then Kansas secretary of state who has made a career of voter suppression. The email said that adding a citizenship question was 'essential,' presumably so that congressional apportionment would prove more favorable to Republicans."
More from OurFuture.org:
The Big Cheat. Leo Gerard: "The children of working stiffs learned a brutal lesson this week as federal prosecutors criminally charged rich people with buying admission to elite universities for their less-than-stellar children. And the rich kid and his parents have the means to ensure that members of the next generation of the family have the same opportunity to cheat their way to the top and remain there. They have the money to buy just the right politicians, something that the perverse Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court facilitated. The right-wing court ruled that rich people and corporations could give unlimited money to elect politicians of their choice. Politicians chosen by the wealthy won’t support labor unions, minimum wage increases or higher overtime thresholds. They won’t cultivate opportunity for the 99 percent. They won’t require corporations to treat workers as humans with dignity. It’s no shock college admissions are rigged for the rich. The whole economic system is rigged by the rich. Until working people change that, their opportunities and those of their children will continue to diminish."
