It’s hard, when presented with a story about Trump campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani being caught on tape fondling himself in the presence of a young woman in a hotel room, to focus on anything else. Sadly, though, there are even more obscene things taking place in America at the moment. This morning, with the election just 12 days away, and another 1,170 Americans dead from COVID-19, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination for the Supreme Court, setting things in motion for a confirmation vote in front of the full Senate early next week. This happened in spite of a Democratic boycott of the Senate Judiciary Committee vote, previous assurances on the part of Republicans that they would not advance a Supreme Court nominee in an election year, and the fact that Barrett, who once served as a “handmaid” in the controversial Christian group People of Praise, and couldn’t even name the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment, was just discovered to have been a trustee at a private school that did not allow gay and lesbian teachers.
There are literally over 1,000 Americans dying each day, and the Republicans, instead of taking action to save lives, and provide economic relief to those who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, are focused on pushing though a candidate that will almost assuredly vote against women’s reproductive rights and the expansion of health care under the Affordable Care Act.
As you look up the contact information for your senators, so that you can send them letters demanding that they not push through the Barrett nomination just days before the presidential election, I wanted to share the following tweets from Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer on what’s unfolding right now in Washington.
Days before the election, Republicans are trying to give an extreme nominee a lifetime appointment, to strike down health care, voting rights, and more.
They refuse to let Americans have a say.
It’s an illegitimate power grab and Democrats are right to boycott.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 22, 2020
Democrats are boycotting the illegitimate markup of Judge Barrett’s nomination in Judiciary.
We are not going to have business as usual while the Republicans try to use an illegitimate process to jam through a nominee to rip away health care from millions. https://t.co/fEgIXtGW7n
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 22, 2020
The Republicans like to talk a lot about “court packing,” and how it’s the Democrats, and not them, who are guilty of it. But what we’re seeing now is the very definition of court packing. Knowing that the American people are days away from sweeping the thoroughly corrupt Trump administration from power, and pounding the final nail into the coffin of their political party, the Republicans are hell bent on scoring one more big win against women, minorities, and the working men and women of America. And we cannot allow it to happen. We have to fight back.
[As for the incident which culminated with Rudy Giuliani being caught on tape touching himself, here’s the context from The Guardian, explaining how it came to be that Trump’s personal attorney came to be lured into a hotel room by the producers of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new “Borat” film. “Following an obsequious interview for a fake conservative news programme, (Giuliani and the young actress) retreat at her suggestion for a drink to the bedroom of a hotel suite, which is rigged with concealed cameras,” The Guardian reports. “After she removes his microphone, Giuliani, 76, can be seen lying back on the bed, fiddling with his untucked shirt and reaching into his trousers. They are then interrupted by Borat who runs in and says: ‘She’s 15. She’s too old for you.’” There are a million different things to be said, but I keep coming back to the thought of just how easy it must be for countries like Russia to blackmail men like these.]
