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Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden's nominee for associate attorney general, is among the Obama-era officials he has picked for his administration — and she has come under attack from the far-right Judicial Crisis Network. Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart defends Gupta in a column published this week, arguing that she should be confirmed regardless of what the JCN thinks.
"For a couple of weeks now, my morning newspaper-reading over coffee and yogurt has been interrupted by the aural pollution that is the attack ad against Gupta from the Judicial Crisis Network," Capehart explains. "As the Post's editorial board pointed out over the weekend, the Network's television ad 'is a doozy, mainly notable for the magnitude of the lies and distortions it crams into 30 seconds.'"
<p>Under President Barack Obama, Gupta headed the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Gupta, according to Capehart, is "more than qualified to return as the agency's third-highest-ranking official." But that hasn't stopped JCN from smearing her.</p><p>"The lies and distortions are your garden-variety right-wing hysteria seeking to paint an unabashed liberal woman of color as a danger to the rule of law and to police," Capehart writes. "The lies don't stand up to the facts. More than 50 current and retired chiefs of police and sheriffs who worked with Gupta during her last tour at the Justice Department sent a letter of support to the Senate Judiciary Committee. So did the National Fraternal Order of Police, whose president noted the organization's working relationship with Gupta goes back to 2014."</p><p>Capehart continues, "And before that, as a lawyer with the ACLU, Gupta worked on cash bail reform, fair sentencing and other criminal justice reform issues with Koch Industries. Mark Holden, the firm's former general counsel and senior vice president, sent in a letter of support for her nomination."</p><p>Koch Industries is headed by 85-year-old billionaire CEO Charles Koch, who has been a major supporter of right-wing causes and has been a registered Libertarian. The fact that Gupta was willing to work with Koch Industries, Capehart writes, underscores her ability to "reach across the ideological divide."</p><p>If confirmed, Gupta will be working closely with Judge Merrick Garland, Biden's pick for U.S. attorney general — and Capehart is hoping that despite the JCN smear, she will be confirmed.</p><p>"Gupta and Lisa Monaco, nominated to be deputy attorney general, will both appear for their confirmation hearings on March 9," Capehart explains. "Both deserve to be confirmed. But Gupta ought to sail through the Judiciary Committee with the same ease that Garland did."</p><p>When Garland was challenged during his confirmation hearing by GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah for his support of Gupta and another nominee Republicans have criticized, the attorney general nominee was unequivocal: "I have complete faith in them."</p>
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'Defiance of reality': CNN's Chris Cuomo tears into Greg Abbott for blowing up COVID-19 safety measures
March 02, 2021
On CNN Tuesday, anchor Chris Cuomo laid into Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for his decision to lift all business restrictions, including a statewide mask order, put in place to protect the public from COVID-19, even as his state is trailing the nation in vaccines administered.
"The head of the CDC just said, we must be careful, especially if relaxing any protective measures," said Cuomo, who himself contracted COVID-19 last year. "So, what did Texas announce right after that? The governor announces they are throwing caution to the wind and reopening 100 percent. The same governor who did not prepare the state for bad weather, is now leaving it exposed to a deadly virus. Just as hope is on the horizon."
<p>
"This is about denial," said Cuomo. "It's about defiance of reality. It's hurting us as much as COVID."
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Watch below:
</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5EHqsHzl8CE" width="640"></iframe>
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The Supreme Court expressed skepticism on Tuesday about a voting rights case pushing for the prohibition of two restrictions on voting in Arizona, an important test case for the fate of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
One restriction requires that ballot officials throw out votes cast in the wrong precinct. The other prohibits the practice of "ballot harvesting," which allows third parties, such as organizers, community activists, or even family members, to deliver ballots on voters' behalf.
<p>After a two-hour-long teleconference between justices delivering oral arguments for and against the restrictions, the conservative-majority court appeared poised to let the restrictions be, struggling to develop a legal standard that validates some restrictions over others.</p><p>The meeting was held amid a tidal wave of over <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/02/27/republicans-roll-out-tidal-wave-of-voter-suppression-253-restrictive-bills-in-43-states/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>250 Republican-backed bills</u></a> in over half of the states across the country aimed at tightening voting restrictions––a sure response to former President Trump's baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. Democrats have claimed that the Republican state-level effort is an attempt to suppress minority votes and prevent the public from being widely represented in the polls. </p><p>Tuesday's case specifically centered on how Arizona's voting restrictions may contradict Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits any voting procedure that "results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race." Section 2 effectively allows post facto challenges to laws that impose disproportionate voting limitations. The provision was put in place because racial minorities "have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." </p><p>However, Section 2 has mostly been discussed with respect to gerrymandering and redistricting––not with respect to the practice of voting in itself. </p><p>Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett repeatedly questioned lawyers on both sides of the argument. Roberts pressed the Democrats' lawyers on what degree of influence would be intolerable. "What if the provision results in a 1 percent decline in participation by minority voters," Roberts <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-questions-need-restrictive-voting-laws-voting-rights-act-n1259301" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>asked</u></a>, "is that substantial enough?" Justice Barrett pointed out the difficulty in distinguishing an "inconvenience" from a "burden." Said Barrett, "There's a difficulty that the statutory language and its lack of clarity presents in trying to figure out when something crosses from an inconvenience to a burden."</p><p>Asked what the Republican Party's investment in the case, GOP lawyer Michael Carvin suggested that a change in the status quo might hamper Republicans' chances of winning future elections. Lifting the restrictions, Carvin said, would put Republicans "at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats, Politics is a zero sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretations of Section 2 hurts us. It's the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election."</p>
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