With Graham standing beside him in the hallway, Cruz is laying into Twitter and Facebook for blocking the hack-and-dump materials from Giuliani. “The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know what the hell is going on,” Cruz says, threatening to subpoena @jack next week.
Both Cruz and Graham say that they don’t know if the NY Post articles are true.
The judiciary committee vote on subpoenaing @jack will be next Tuesday, Graham said. Hawley stepped up to the microphone to suggest Zuckerberg should be subpoenaed too. Then they all went back into the hearing.
No one asked what jurisdiction the judiciary committee has over Twitter or Facebook. No one asked what the appropriate social platform response to hack-and-dump materials that bear red flags for disinformation ought to be. No one asked whether Giuliani would be subpoenaed.
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It turned out to be the US Attorney in EDNY who AG Barr assigned to coordinate everything Ukraine-related, about a month after the purported subpoena to the Mac shop.
under EDNY’s umbrella, the US Attorney in Pittsburgh was assigned to “assist in the receipt, processing, and preliminary analysis of new information provided by the public that may be relevant to matters relating to Ukraine.”
Back then, “the public” was thought to mean Giuliani
On ABC, Joe Biden is giving a lengthy, cogent explanation of his plans to handle the pandemic, incorporating recent scientific findings and recent testimony of the CDC Director encouraging mask wearing.
Biden has moved on to answering a fairly tough question from an audience member about tax pay-fors for his plans, with a couple challenging follow-ups from Stephanopoulos.
A young black audience member challenged Biden on his “you ain’t black” comments earlier in the campaign and asked him what else he had to appeal to young black voters who feel they shouldn’t participate in a system that doesn’t protect them.
It cannot be overstated how clearly bullshit the Post “secret emails” story is. It comes from a known conduit of Russian disinformation, who says the information has been in his possession for nearly a year while he rabble-roused about this very subject and never disclosed it.
Giuliani held this through impeachment, through a senate investigation, etc., then feeds it to a friendly paper 20 days out from an election. Responsible reporters should make Giuliani’s conduct the center of attention and skepticism here, not his payload of sketchy info.
If Giuliani’s conduct doesn’t convince you to be wary, consider the anonymized DE shop owner who says he doesn’t know who his customer is but for a beau biden fdn sticker on the device, yet purportedly created an invoice addressed to “Hunter Biden” including phone and email
In a loose and free-flowing opening round with Chairman Graham, it seems to me Barrett has answered a lot of questions about cases that may come before the court in the future (e.g. an extended discussion of potential follow-on cases to Heller and Obergefell).
It seems to me this may make it difficult for Barrett to retreat behind the usual dodge nominees rely on to get out of tough questions (that they can’t discuss cases that may come before the court at all).
Now, after commenting substantively on potentially overruling Brown v. Board, on the scope of Obergefell, on whether there’s precedent in the forthcoming ACA case, when asked by Feinstein about potentially overruling Roe v Wade, Barrett invokes the dodge.
Griswold is a landmark decision recognizing a “right to marital privacy” that was violated by a state contraception ban, and it’s a stepping stone in the path that led the Court to Roe. The case is key to understanding the law that Barrett’s nomination threatens to disrupt.
It is precisely “your freedom to buy contraception” that is under threat when Justices on the Supreme Court want to overturn the decision that recognizes your right to do so.
A staffer on the Judiciary Committee sends over this exchange Sen. Kennedy (R - Louisiana) had with Barrett on Griswold v Connecticut and the right to privacy at her Circuit confirmation hearing in 2017.
Would you accept that the Senate majority (i) holding open vacancies by refusing to vote *in any way* on Obama's judicial nominations at all and (ii) rapidly confirming Trump's nominees to those vacancies is, at least, contrary to the constitutional design?