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WATCH: Chuck Schumer compares Mitch McConnell to southern segregationists for blocking voting rights
June 22, 2021
On Tuesday, following Senate Republicans' lockstep vote to block debate on voting rights, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gave a thunderous speech comparing Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the southern segregationists who fought the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
"Republican state legislatures across the country are engaged in the most sweeping voter suppression in 80 years," said Schumer. "Capitalizing on and catalogued by Donald Trump's big lie. These state governments are making it harder for younger, poorer, urban and non-white Americans to vote. Earlier today, the Republican leader told reporters that, quote, 'Regardless of what may be happening in some states, there is no rationale for federal intervention.' The Republican leader flatly stated that no matter what the states do to undermine our democracy — voter suppression laws, phony audits, partisan takeovers of local election boards — the Senate should not act."
"The Republican leader uses the language and the logic of the southern senators in the '60s who defended states rights, and it is an indefensible position for any senator, any senator, let alone the minority leader to hold," said Schumer. "When John Lewis was about to cross that bridge in Selma, he didn't know what waited for him on the other side. He didn't know how long his march would be. And his ultimate success was never guaranteed. But he started down that bridge anyway. Today Democrats started our march to defend the voting rights of all Americans. It could be a long march, but it is one we are going to make."
Watch below:
Chuck Schumer compares Mitch McConnell to southern segregationists www.youtube.com
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces she'll form a special select committee on Jan. 6 attacks
June 22, 2021
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday that she will create a House Select Committee to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, said Guardian congressional reporter Hugo Lowell.
Breaking: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells Dem steering and policy committee that she will create a House select co… https://t.co/RaZ374L1Nm— Hugo Lowell (@Hugo Lowell) 1624401616.0
Republicans were able to block a bipartisan commission like the 9/11 commission in a Senate vote where many Republicans were willing to support the bill but many Democrats were out of town.
It's unknown how Pelosi will form the commission, though there are dozens of former Republican officials who could join the commission to ensure a bipartisan panel. The problem, however, is that many of those former Republican officials aren't likely supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Still, if Pelosi can manage to impanel a bipartisan commission it could give the panel more legitimacy once the findings are released.
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Nicolle Wallace predicts 'political peril for Democrats if they fail to deliver due to GOP obstruction
June 22, 2021
The Republican Senate might be behind the efforts to shut down the U.S. Senate but MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace predicts that Democrats will suffer the consequences.
It's unclear if that was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) goal when he announced that he would block everything the Democrats attempt.
"One-hundred percent of my focus is on standing up to this administration," McConnell told reporters last month. "What we have in the United States Senate is totally (sic) unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country."
"So, all I have is history in my own reporting on this. And history shows Mitch McConnell obliterated the filibuster to push through judges his power rose in his caucus and his political power rose in his state," said Wallace. "The idea that there is political peril of leaving [the filibuster] in place. There is political peril of Democrats going out to voters in two years and saying, 'Guns? I know, we have 80 percent of the public crying for something of the epidemic of mass shootings. But we can't get through the filibuster. Infrastructure we have to go small because Joe Manchin wanted it to be bipartisan. Voting rights, yeah, I am sorry the dropbox that you left your ballots in the middle of the pandemic fini' I think they are choosing between bad and worse. Today the worse is levering the filibuster in place."
Melber noted that it's striking for her to lay out the argument like that because it often only goes in one direction of "what if we do this and what if they do this."
"If it does not work, you are saying what if you don't do it, what's the cost to that," he explained. "Everyone says 2020 was this historic and important election. You go back and say we could not get more things done. We just could not. I will give you the final thought and we'll bring in our next experts as we watch the voting."
Republicans successfully blocked any debate on the voting rights legislation.
See the discussion at the handoff below:
political peril for Democrats www.youtube.com
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