Tag: U.S. Senate

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News Round-Up: October 12, 2020

Rob Gronkowski of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joins fellow NFL players in letting closeted players "When you're ready, so are we."

Rob Gronkowski of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joins fellow NFL players in letting closeted players "When you're ready, so are we." Some news items you might have missed: • Pink News: The pharmacy chain Superdrug has launched the UK’s first-ever PrEP service and it will be fully remote (utilizing online doctors) in an effort to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Superdrug will, however, require that people accessing PrEP through its new service adhere to blood monitoring tests to ensure that they can safely take the HIV-preventing drug. • Back2Stonewall: It has been confirmed that the new HBO Max reboot series of the Green Lantern will feature the first Green Lantern character, Alan Scott – and, like in the Earth-2 comics, the character will be openly gay. • Instinct Magazine: Current and former pro football players (Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Rob Gronkowski above) took part in this terrific PSA for National Coming Out Day. “Today, on National Coming Out Day, we come together with one clear message,” say the athletes direct to camera. “To all current players who are thinking of coming out, when you are ready, so are we. It takes all of us and you deserve to be all of you.”

• Politico: South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison raised a staggering $57 million in the third quarter of this year, shattering the previous record for a Senate candidate as he seeks to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham, who has not released his third-quarter fundraising totals, raised $8.4 million in the second quarter and had $15 million in the bank as of June 30. • AP News: Here’s a bit of a warning sign for Donald Trump who won the 65+ vote by 9 points in 2016. The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community located in battleground state Florida, recently held a 300+ golf cart parade in support of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. • The Hill: Donald Trump’s son Eric told ABC News’s Jon Karl on Sunday his father’s treatment for COVID-19 a “vaccine” that he further claimed the president helped create from “day one.” • Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Eager Georgia voters swarmed to polling places Monday morning for the start of three weeks of early voting before Election Day. Voters filled parking lots and waited in lines to lock in their choices in advance of November 3. As the tweet below notes, 410,000 absentee ballots have already been returned versus a total of just over 200K in 2016.

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Georgia Senate Races Could Result In Run-Off Elections

A prosecutor in Georgia is reportedly in the early stages of investigating Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the election results in the state

A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows the two Senate races in Georgia may well end in run-off elections in January. Georgia is one of seven that require a run-off election if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in a primary election. Not saying a Democrat will necessarily win, but I found this interesting as a possibility.

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Senate Unanimously Calls For Release Of Whistleblower Complaint

The US Senate has unanimously approved a non-binding resolution calling for the release of whistleblower complaint

The US Senate has unanimously approved a non-binding resolution calling for the release of whistleblower complaint Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed (both pictured above), a voice vote in the U.S. Senate calling for the release of the whistleblower complaint received on August 12 that began the current Ukraine/Trump scandal. The non-binding resolution was approved unanimously.

Meanwhile, Trump tweeted that he’s already ordered the release of the “complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript” of his phone call with the Ukrainian president.

‘Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives…’

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Alabama Senate Candidate: “We’re Too Interested In Homosexual Activities”

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill

A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama told supporters over the weekend the problem with the United States today is Americans are too “preoccupied with homosexual activities” and “the wife swap shows.”

It would seem the Senate race is also a race to prove who is the most homophobic politician in Alabama…

John Merrill, currently serving as Alabama’s Secretary of State, is one of many Republicans looking to unseat Sen. Doug Jones (D) in the 2020 election cycle.

The senate seat was held for 20 years by former Donald Trump toadie, Jeff Sessions, who vacated the position to become U.S. Attorney General, which didn’t work out too well for him, but that’s another story.

At a town hall event in DeKalb County this past weekend, Merrill was asked his thoughts on “culture shift” in the country (that’s code for the gays emergence in the mainstream) and the erosion of moral principles.

“[T]hat’s what we’ve allowed to happen,” said Merrill first reported by YellowHammerNews. “How have we allowed it to happen? There are no more good TV shows on like ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘Bonanza,’ ‘The Virginian,’ ‘Andy Griffith,’ ‘I Love Lucy.’”

“We don’t have those shows anymore,” continued Merrill. “We’re too interested in homosexual activities. We’re too interested in seeing how this family’s finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TV, or having wife-swapping on TV. That’s what we watch.”

Bolding is mine.

So, basically, Merrill longs for the good old days of TV shows that glorified guns and had wives stay at home in the kitchen.

The comments were confirmed by Alabama news site AL.com on Monday evening during a phone interview.

“The foundational principles which we have grown up as a nation are no more,” lamented Merrill. “There’s no more TV shows like ‘Gunsmoke’ or ‘Bonanza’ or ‘The Virginian’ or ‘I Love Lucy’ or ‘Andy Griffith.’ I said people are too interested in homosexual activities. They’re too interested in the wife swap TV shows and the shows that are not morally uplifting. That’s the problem.”

Asked by reporter Howard Koplowski what exactly that means, Merrill repeated himself.

“I meant what I said. People are too interested in anything that is not uplifting, edifying. They’re too busy being preoccupied with homosexual activities and the wife swap shows.”

According to Koplowski, Merrill demurred from offering any specific examples of how Americans are too preoccupied with “homosexual activities.”

The secretary of state did bemoan about the lack of TV shows “that are based on biblical foundations,” however.

I guess we should have seen that coming.

“Shows that promote family and culture with a father, a mother and children based on biblical teachings and biblical principles on which our nation was founded,” explained Merrill.

Merrill also told USA Today, “There are too many TV shows preoccupied with people’s sexual orientation instead of messages that edify our basic moral foundation.”

The Human Rights Campaign’s Project One America Director Meghan Kissell issued this statement regarding Merrill’s comments:

“This attack on LGBTQ people and our values only further underscores the fact that the Alabama Senate Republican primary is becoming a race to the bottom and a competition for who is the most virulently anti-LGBTQ. Alabamians deserve a leader who fights for the equality of everyone and every community, not someone who would feel more comfortable in America’s oppressive past.”

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Arizona Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema Could Be First Bi U.S. Senator

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona

 Last night in Arizona’s primary election for the upcoming fall mid-terms, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, Kyrsten Sinema is the first openly bisexual member of the House.

She is the first openly bisexual candidate to run for the Senate from Arizona, and should she win in November, would be Arizona’s first female Senator.

But another woman stands in her way.

Rep. Martha McSally clinched the Republican nod in the race for GOP Sen.Jeff Flake’s seat, who announced early that he would not be running for re-election.

McSally was forced to tact far to the right to defeat her primary opponents, former state Sen. Kelli Ward and virulently anti-immigration former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who appeared to split the more extreme fringes of the GOP.

McSally was the first woman to pilot a fighter jet.

HRC released the following statement on Sinema’s victory in the Arizona primary:

“HRC proudly supports pro-equality champion Rep. Kyrsten Sinema — a strong, effective leader who puts solutions first and fights to ensure every Arizonan has a shot at the American Dream,” said HRC Arizona State Director Justin Unga. “The stakes in November could not be clearer. In the coming weeks, HRC will continue mobilizing more than 800,000 Equality Voters and tens of thousands of members and supporters in the state to turn out for Sinema.”

The Republicans currently have a slim one vote edge in the Senate. They can only afford to lose one seat in the Senate without losing control of the chamber.

As I’ve written before, this year marks a big uptick in the number of LGBTQ people running for public office at various federal, state and local levels.

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Alabama’s Largest Newspaper: Reject Roy Moore, Vote For Doug Jones

Alabama’s largest newspaper endorses Democrat Doug Jones over embattled Roy Moore.

An excerpt from the editorial board at AL.com:

How can we look our neighbors, our parishioners, our colleagues, our partners, or our children in the eyes and tell them they are worth less than ensuring one political party keeps a Senate seat? How can we expect young Alabamians to have faith in their government or their church, when its leaders equivocate on matters as clear cut as sexual abuse?

A vote for Roy Moore sends the worst kind of message to Alabamians struggling with abuse: “if you ever do tell your story, Alabama won’t believe you.”

Or, worse, we’ll believe you but we just won’t care.

To be clear: it’s not only his record on women and children that disqualifies Moore. If we vote for Roy Moore, Alabama will also show that we don’t care about you if you’re gay or Muslim or Catholic. If you’re an atheist or an immigrant. We’ll show each other that we only care about Roy Moore’s definition of Alabama. And that there’s not room for the rest of us.

[snip]

What is disqualifying is the conduct of Roy Moore against women and children. It was disqualifying for his party leaders. It was disqualifying for Alabama’s senior senator. And it should be disqualifying for his state party.

By the various misdeeds, miscalculations and mistakes of its voters and leaders, Alabama has left itself with few options. Alabamians must show themselves to be people of principle, reject Roy Moore and all that he stands for.

There is only one candidate left in this race who has proven worthy of the task of representing Alabama. He is Doug Jones.

For a deep red state like Alabama, this is pretty stunning stuff. I highly recommend you read the entire editorial.

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Senate Poised To Vote On Obamacare Repeal

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

As the U.S. Senate votes to proceed to some kind of movement regarding health care reform, it looks like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan is to get past the motion to proceed, then offer up the “repeal and replace” bill known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act.

No one really expects that to pass.

From reading sources I follow online, McConnell would then look to put together a handful of amendments that would repeal just certain parts of the Affordable Care Act, something being referred to as a “skinny repeal.”

Not a huge bill, but something that can perhaps pass in the Senate which would then head over to the House for a compromise bill.

If House and Senate Republicans can come to an agreement, it could be at least something Trump and Republicans could call a win.

I don’t think Trump cares what the eventual legislation looks like. He just wants a victory lap of any sort.

Stay tuned.

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Poll: Mitch McConnell Least Popular U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders Ranks Most Popular With Constituents

Morning Consult surveyed over 85,000 registered voters to evaluate the job performance of their senators.

Bernie Sanders keeps the title as the most popular senator in America. But it’s not all good news: Since our last rankings (just before the election), Sanders approval has dropped 12 points and his disapproval has increased by 9 points.

Mitch McConnell is still the most unpopular senator in America, and the only senator to have an approval rating that is underwater (44% approve, 47% disapprove).

More at the link.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Goes “Nuclear” On Judge Gorsuch Vote

Sen. Mitch McConnell

From Huffington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his fellow Republicans pulled the nuclear rules trigger Thursday, ending filibusters for Supreme Court nominees after Democrats blocked President Donald Trump’s conservative pick, Neil Gorsuch.

Democrats had argued that Gorsuch, a Colorado federal appeals judge, was simply too conservative, and were nearly united in opposing a cloture vote to end debate on the nominee. Opposing cloture amounts to a formal filibuster, which takes 60 votes to break. With just a few Democrats joining the chamber’s 52 Republicans, McConnell’s only way to confirm Gorsuch was to change the rules.

He began by launching a string of procedural moves to allow a Senate majority to change longstanding rules with a simple majority, or 51 votes.

What this means is, now and moving forward, all Supreme Court nominees will only need 51 votes to be confirmed.

While this serves the Republicans now, at some point in the future the Dems will have the majority. And the shoe will be on the other foot.