Weâve made it to Saturday, all the while trying to sort through the blizzard of executive orders issued by our Orange Overlord. As we cruise into the weekend, we need to reflect on Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trumpâs nominee for Attorney General. The Senate Judiciary Committee will probably vote on the nomination on Tuesday, after which it will go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
Wrongo agrees with Charlie Pierce:
At a moment like this one, it simply will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who was deemed too racist to be a federal judge 30 years ago. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who launched a dirty-tricks prosecution of voting-rights activists when he was a U.S. Attorney in Alabama. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who greeted the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by noting that it was “good for the South.”
Pierce says that no (zero) Democrats should vote for Sessions:
There is no room for compromise or horse-trading. The Democratic Party should stand for the expansion of the franchise and for a greater ease in exercising it.
Voting rights will be at risk if Sessions is confirmed. The AG will follow Trump’s lead and focus on a âvoter fraudâ investigation in the big liberal states and urban areas that do not vote Republican. This is something the right wing has been doing for years. From what Trump said this week to David Muir on ABC, he believes that the problem exists only in places he didnât win. He told Muir that every one of the alleged 2 million to 3 million illegal votes went to Hillary Clinton.
If it isn’t clear by now, this is a powerful new national campaign of voter suppression coming down the road to a polling place near you. We donât know at this point who will be heading Trumpâs âinvestigation,â or what form itâs likely to take, but Jeff Sessions is just the man for the job.
We could also tell our Senators that they should not vote to confirm Betsy DeVos and Tom Price, but both will probably get a few Dem votes. Wrongo isnât arguing for complete resistance as the only response to Trump, but we canât appoint Sessions.
Will even a single Republican Senator have the backbone to vote against the president’s hand-picked bigot? The prospects are not heartening.
Glad thatâs off of Wrongoâs chest. Time to grab a cup of Bengal Spice Chai tea, and mellow out with the Saturday Soother. Today we are going acapella with the University of North Carolina Clef Hangers. They have been around for 35 years, and have released 17 studio-produced albums. Here are the Clef Hangers doing âYou Never Need Nobodyâ, a song by the Brooklyn NY-based The Lone Bellow:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
