There is one lonely committee in a Congress with its vast echoing halls. Senator Moscow Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sent everyone home even as desperate Americans have no food, are homeless, and have seen their jobs disappear. That must be one important committee to the Republicans given that these senators are risking their lives, literally, while the other Republicans are on vacation, again. The Judiciary Committee is ramming through an ultra-ultra conservative woman. So what is up with that?
Judge Amy Barrett belongs to an unusual sect of the Catholic Church that does not believe in birth control, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), or abortion. Her name did not even appear on the conservative Heritage Foundation potential justice list until she wrote a paper that caught their attention, much like Attorney General William Barr’s lengthy job interview paper for Donald Trump.
Now that Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) is gone, Justice Sotomayor will be listed as the lone dissenter standing against Donald Trump’s successful attempt to stop the Census gathering prematurely, according to Law & Crime.
The Supreme Court of the United States granted an emergency stay siding with Trump and allowing the White House to halt collection of census data now instead of at the end of October.
Barrett will make any vote six to three in a Court heavily weighted for the Republicans. McConnell stole President Barack Obama’s last SCOTUS appointment. The committee’s chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that no justice should be appointed during an election year. This year, he said nevermind. They are ramming Barrett through during an ongoing election. As of Tuesday, 14 million Americans have already voted. The Republicans have killed two of the Democrats’ legitimate appointments.
A federal court found that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross should not have shut down Census collection at the end of September rather than October 31. The Census Bureau established that one-time deadline to take into consideration the COVID-19 pandemic.
Law requires that the Census Bureau send its results to the president by December 31, 2020. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the House of Representatives passed a law extending the deadline in July:
‘President Trump did not initially object, publicly stating that ‘I don’t know that you even have to ask [Congress]. This is called an act of God. This is called a situation that has to be.’
Trump unilaterally said he was excluding undocumented immigrants from the count for purposes of congressional representation and data collection a month early.
This would mean the states cities, counties, Native American tribes, and several advocacy groups sued to get the deadline reinstated. Fewer people in the Census would mean less federal funding Justice Sotomayor dissented. The US government claimed two months was not enough time to collate the data. She said:
‘Only recently have officials begun to claim that the Bureau might yet be able to meet the statutory deadline, and even then, their story keeps changing.’
The justice continued:
‘The Trump administration is trying to] downplay [the] risk by asserting that over 99 percent of households in 49 States are already accounted for even a fraction of a percent of the Nation’s 140 million households amounts to hundreds of thousands of people left uncounted.’
Sotomayor continued:
‘And significantly, the percentage of nonresponses is likely much higher among marginalized populations and in hard-to-count areas, such as rural and tribal lands. [They] will disproportionately bear the burden of any inaccuracies.’
Twitter world was upset over the theft of the Census accuracy and responded below. Civil right attorney and with the incisive perspective of a former government attorney Sasha Samberg-Champion wrote:
Author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, Ari Berman tweeted about the SCOTUS census halt:
WATCH: Senator @amyklobuchar just asked Judge Barrett whether it’s illegal under federal law to intimidate voters at the polls.
Barrett refused to answer. Then Klobuchar read her the law. Astonishing. pic.twitter.com/cxoIaXTP9e
— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) October 13, 2020
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
