Tag: Chuck Schumer

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Senate Dems Offer Deal To End Shutdown + More News

Some news items for you as we head into the weekend:

• Axios: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says Dems would vote to end the shutdown in exchange for a one-year extension of expiring ACA tax credits.

• Kenneth-in-the-212: Check out this week’s round-up of LGBTQ publications including the ‘Foodie Edition’ of HotSpots! Magazine.

• OUT: 5 highlights from last night’s NBC special Wicked: One Wonderful Night previewing the upcoming sequel Wicked: For Good.

• Grammy Awards: Barbra Streisand, Cynthia Erivo, Lady Gaga, and more have been nominated for 2026 Grammy Awards. Kendrick Lamar scored 9 nods. Competing for Best Musical Theatre Album are Buena Vista Social Club, Death Becomes Her, Gypsy, Just in Time, and Maybe Happy Ending. Continue reading “Senate Dems Offer Deal To End Shutdown + More News”

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Article Of Impeachment Will Be Delivered To Senate On Monday

The article of impeachment passed in the House will be delivered to the Senate on Monday
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York (D)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Friday that the Senate will receive on Monday the article of impeachment against Donald Trump for inciting the riot on the U.S. Capitol, clearing the way for the start of Trump’s second impeachment trial. From the Washington Post:

“It will be a full trial; it will be a fair trial,” Schumer said during remarks on the Senate floor. Shortly after his comments, Pelosi released a statement confirming the timing.

The House impeached Trump on a single article of “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the Jan. 6 takeover of the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob.

“Make no mistake, there will be a trial, and when that trial ends, senators will have to decide if they believe Donald John Trump incited the insurrection against the United States,” Schumer said.

Read the full article here. In similar remarks, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporter, “Just because he’s now gone — thank God — you don’t get to say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration. You’re going to get a “get out of jail” card free because people think we should make nice-nice and forget that people died here on January 6.'”

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Schumer To Presidential Candidates: Impeachment Trial Comes First

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York (D)
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a message to the five senators currently running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination – Sens. Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren – the impending impeachment trial of Donald Trump comes first. From CBS News:

President Trump’s trial could tie up senators on the Senate floor for the entire month of January, right before the first contest of the Democratic primary calendar scheduled in Iowa for Feb. 3. With the possibility of close votes on procedural questions such as what witnesses should be called to the Senate floor, Schumer says colleagues should make the trial their first priority, even if it might tread on their campaign plans. “This has to come first. This is one of the most solemn decisions that anyone has to make and I’ve told all members of my caucus that scheduling concerns are secondary to doing this the right way,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday.

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Networks Will Give Democrats Airtime For Response To Trump’s Address Tonight

The four television networks – NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS – have confirmed that they will air a Democratic response to Trump’s primetime address tonight.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requested equal time following Donald Trump’s address tonight to offer their rebuttal and vision for moving forward from the current government shutdown.

From The New York Times:

Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer will speak from the Capitol after Mr. Trump completes his remarks from the Oval Office, which are scheduled to be broadcast live by the major television networks. The dueling addresses from opposite sides of Pennsylvania Avenue will unfold at the close of Day 18 of a government shutdown over Mr. Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall that Democrats have steadfastly opposed.

Mr. Trump, who spent much of the first two weeks of the shutdown cloistered inside the White House saying little about it, is now using the powers of the presidency to focus public attention on his immigration message in an effort to build support for the idea of erecting a large wall on the border with Mexico. Democrats, newly in control of the House, are steering clear of talk of the wall itself, and instead are working to focus attention on the damaging impacts of the shutdown.

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Congress Responds To Trump’s Woeful Putin Press Conference

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

After Donald Trump’s embarrassing performance at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin today in Helsinki, some Congressional leaders are speaking out.

Some are more forceful than others.

We have this feckless drivel from Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan via press release:

“There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world. That is not just the finding of the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on Intelligence. The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy.”

There’s this from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R) who basically sidesteps the issue of Trump:

“The Senate Intelligence Committee has reviewed the 2017 IC (intelligence community) assessment and found no reason to doubt its conclusion that President Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the 2016 U.S. elections with the goal of undermining faith in our democratic process. Russia has conducted a coordinated cyberattack on state election systems, and hacked critical infrastructure. They have used social media to sow chaos and discord in our society.

“They have beaten and harassed U.S. diplomats and violated anti-proliferation treaties. Any statement by Vladimir Putin contrary to these facts is a lie and should be recognized as one by the President.

“Vladimir Putin is not our friend and never has been. Nor does he want to be our friend. His regime’s actions prove it. We must make clear that the United States will not tolerate hostile Russian activities against us or our allies.”

On the other side of the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York (D) offered this:

“What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States? Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump. For the president of the United States to side with President Putin against American law enforcement, American defense officials, and American intelligence agencies is thoughtless, dangerous, and weak. The president is putting himself over our country.”

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Schumer Urged Trump To Nominate Obama’s Shunned Nominee For SCOTUS

According to The Washington Post, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer has privately urged Donald Trump to nominate shunned federal Judge Merrick B. Garland to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York

THIS will never happen.

According to The Washington Post, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer has privately urged Donald Trump to nominate shunned federal Judge Merrick B. Garland to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

You’ll recall Garland was President Obama’s nominee in 2016 who was blocked from consideration by Senate Republicans.

Trump had called Schumer on Tuesday afternoon for a Supreme Court-centered conversation that lasted less than five minutes, according to a person familiar with the call. Schumer, the person said, pressed the president to name Garland to succeed Kennedy, arguing doing so would help unite the country.

Schumer also warned the president that nominating a jurist who would be hostile to Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion, and to Obama’s signature health-care law, would be “cataclysmic” and damage Trump’s legacy, the person added, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“Perhaps the most consequential issues at stake in this Supreme Court vacancy are affordable health care and a woman’s freedom to make the most sensitive medical decisions about her body,” Schumer wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this week. “The views of President Trump’s next court nominee on these issues could well determine whether the Senate approves or rejects them.”

Garland still serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

Coincidentally, that’s the same court as the current leading candidate on Trump’s list for the replacement spot on the high court, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Judge Merrick Garland

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Democratic Leaders Announce Deal With Trump To Protect DACA “Dreamers”

Via Reuters:

President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress have agreed to work together on legislation to protect “Dreamers,” the illegal immigrants who were children when they entered the United States, the lawmakers said on Wednesday, although a dispute erupted over exactly what had been agreed.

Following a dinner with Trump at the White House, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the “productive meeting” focused on “DACA,” a program established by former President Barack Obama.

“We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a statement.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed back on the idea that “The Wall” was part of the agreement:

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Senate Democrats Plan To Filibuster Judge Gorsuch Nomination For SCOTUS

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

The Washington Post is reporting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced Senate Democrats will filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.

With a slim 52 member majority in the Senate, this move will make crossing the 60 vote procedural hurdle difficult for the Republicans.

Gorsuch “was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check” on Trump, Schumer said in a Senate floor speech.

Gorsuch is “not a neutral legal mind but someone with a deep-seated conservative ideology,” Schumer added. “He was groomed by the Federalist Society and has shown not one inch of difference between his views and theirs.”

The Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, was one of two organizations that provided a list of names to President Trump to consider for his Supreme Court nomination. One of the group’s top leaders, Leonard Leo, is on leave from the organization as he advises Trump on the Supreme Court confirmation process and other picks to fill vacancies on the federal appeals courts.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee became increasingly frustrated by Gorsuch’s bland answers. “You have been very much able to avoid any specificity like no one I have ever seen before,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Sen. Chuck Schumer: I Will Defend The Progress Made On LGBT Rights

Soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer penned an open letter to The Advocates’ readers offering motivation to keep moving forward on LGBT issues even as the community finds itself reeling in the aftermath of the presidential election.

An excerpt:

Keep fighting; keep working; keep pushing for all LGBT Americans, all Muslim Americans, all Americans with disabilities, all Latino Americans, all African-Americans, all white-black-brown working-class Americans struggling to have a fair shot at the American dream. And keep in the back of your head the words preached by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

In the past decade, our country’s progress toward full equality for LGBT citizens leaped forward in ways that many of us never would have predicted just a short time ago. In the last 10 years alone, I went from being one of the first politicians to even walk in the New York City Pride Parade to watching marriage equality become the law of the land. Our country does change for the better, but not on its own. We worked hard for that progress, and we will expend every ounce of our ingenuity and effort to defend it.

I encourage you to read the full essay here.