Following Donald Trump’s atrocious Muslim ban and the ensuing massive nationwide protests, Democratic members of Congress are speaking out and taking action. Emboldened by the citizenry, they are introducing legislation to nullify the order, showing that they are willing to bring the fight to the Trump administration and the dangerous new policies emanating from this White House. Action on the […]

Secretary of Health and Human Services-designate Tom Price faced stiff questioning at his confirmation hearing, including from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who wisely questioned Price’s ability to run a science-based department while ignoring the basic facts of climate science: WHITEHOUSE: These groups, and many others, have gone very clearly on record that climate change presents […]

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, billionaire school “reform” activist Betsy DeVos, evinced a number of confounding and troubling views at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday, including that schools should allow guns to protect students from grizzly bears; a clear lack of understanding of the difference between student proficiency and student growth; and a refusal to say whether […]

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump took juvenile joy in dubbing his opponents with insulting nicknames. But the crudest example of this was his preferred moniker for Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, to whom he repeatedly referred as “Pocahontas,” based on her past statements about having Native American ancestry. Trump’s use of that term is […]

At the confirmation hearing for Secretary of the Interior-designate Ryan Zinke, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked if Zinke agrees with President-elect Donald Trump that climate change is a hoax. Much of the corporate media rewarded Zinke by only highlighting part of his testimony, and congratulating him for stating what is the most basic of facts. But […]

Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA Director, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), faced the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday morning in a relatively short two and a half hour hearing, during which numerous Senators noted that they were saving certain questions for a later, closed hearing. But when it was Senator Angus King’s (I-ME) turn to ask questions, […]

On the heels of President-elect Donald Trump’s utterly meaningless plan to “resolve” conflict of interest concerns, Housing and Urban Development Secretary-designate Ben Carson’s testimony at his confirmation hearing is all the more concerning. On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) asked Carson if he could assure Americans that “not a single taxpayer dollar that you give […]

After Senate Republicans schemed to protect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees from ethics scrutiny, fast-tracking their confirmation hearings, they continued their brazen campaign to assist Trump’s dreadful nominees by limiting Senate Democrats’ questions, and the time in which they had to ask them, at Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos’ hearing. Ahead of the hearing, the […]

This piece was co-written by Shareblue staff writers Dianna E. Anderson and Ginger McKnight-Chavers. In an unprecedented move, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) testified before the Senate Judiciary committee at the Attorney General nomination hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions. These members were relegated by the committee’s schedule to the final hours of […]

Shortly after his first meeting with President Obama following the election in November, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would like to keep intact crucial provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including the ban on discriminating against people for pre-existing conditions and the requirement that children be allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until age […]

Following two days of testimony during Senator Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General — which included Senator Al Franken catching Sessions in rank misrepresentations of his civil rights record; Senator Pat Leahy busting him on trying to rewrite his LGBT record; Senator Dianne Feinstein grilling him on his dismal reproductive justice record; and […]

Betsy DeVos, the billionaire school “reformer” whom President-elect Donald Trump has named to undermine public education as head of the Education Department, had her turn in front of the Senate today for her confirmation hearings. Many of DeVos’ views and much of her history make her, as with nearly all of Trump’s cabinet nominees, an extremely […]

Following reports of the troubling intelligence assessment that suggests Donald Trump may have been comprised by Russia, Senator Dick Durbin has released a statement calling for a special investigation. Durbin stated that the new report makes Trump’s public statements about Russia “even more worrisome,” and that the claims, “though unverified, warrant serious investigation by a […]

Judge Neil Gorsuch made news by telling Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), in a private meeting, that he finds Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the judicial branch “disheartening” and “demoralizing,” a mild condemnation, at best. While the corporate media and Republicans are tripping over themselves to credit Gorsuch with an unearned streak of “independence,” Senate Democratic Leader […]

Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos forgot to study for the biggest test of her life. With Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) on the education committee — who, along with fellow Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), is one of the main sponsors of the Campus SaVE Act, which helped write stricter standards for colleges and universities dealing with […]

As we have reported, Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson faces many challenges to his confirmation, and one of the biggest was on full display at Wednesday’s hearing. Despite endorsing now-President-elect Donald Trump after calling him “dangerous” during the presidential campaign, Senator Marco Rubio came out swinging against Tillerson over his ties to Russia. Rubio’s exchanges […]

(Full transcript is available here.) In an unprecedented move Wednesday, Senator Cory Booker testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against a fellow sitting senator. Along with his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, Booker urged the committee to deny Jeff Sessions the Attorney General position, pointing to Sessions’ record on women’s rights, LGBT rights, and voting […]

Republicans have definitively said that they are going to repeal President Obama’s landmark healthcare law as quickly as possible under the new administration. In January, the GOP-controlled House and Senate appeared to make good on that promise by easily agreeing to a resolution to repeal Obamacare via budget reconciliation. The only problem? They missed their own deadline. Section […]

In a continuing show of strength by Democrats in the confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) today came out swinging against Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil and Trump’s pick for Secretary of State. Democracy will not defend itself. We need to nurture it and protect it from […]

In 1986, the widowed Coretta Scott King wrote a letter and presented a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose Sen. Jeff Sessions’ confirmation to a position as a judge in the federal district court in Alabama. Her powerful testimony cited numerous incidents of Sessions’ participation in persecuting Civil Rights leaders and Black voters […]

During his confirmation hearing, Department of Homeland Security nominee, General John Kelly of the Marine Corps, seemed caught entirely off-guard when Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) raised questions about immigrants currently protected under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as […]

Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., was a civil rights activist who sacrificed everything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is a hero to millions of Americans. Yet Warren was not permitted to read King’s letter opposing Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions’ 1986 federal judicial nomination, because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to […]

Anyone who followed the last weeks of the presidential campaign that saw now-President-elect Donald Trump badly beaten in the popular vote and eking out a 70,000-vote margin in key states knows that any undue interference would have been enough to swing the election in Trump’s favor. There were two major things that have been cited as […]

Senate Democrats are holding the floor for the second night in a row — this time in opposition to Donald Trump’s Attorney General nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions. When Sen. Warren took to the floor to read a letter from Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell intervened to […]

The Republican Party has apparently chosen yet another woman, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), as the villain they hope to use to personalize their party’s attacks on Democrats. Because they believe she “motivates donors to open their wallets and voters to go the polls,” Politico reports, “Republicans are already making plans to raise her profile — in […]

Senator Jeff Sessions, if confirmed to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s Attorney General, will be tasked with enforcing the laws of the United States, and a major concern of his critics has been that he does not seem to understand or concern himself with those laws, especially around protecting equality. In an yet another alarming […]

All but two Republicans just voted for Donald Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie and she was confirmed. It should not have gotten this far. DeVos does not know the basics of education policy. As Senator Al Franken (D-MN) exposed at her Senate confirmation hearing, she did not even know the […]

Senator Al Franken is not a lawyer. He made this point repeatedly while grilling Senator Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing, in order to underscore that Sessions’ carefully parsed questions about his claimed involvement sounded like nonsensical rubbish to his layman’s ears. But Franken laid out his case that Sessions has exaggerated his civil rights […]

At his confirmation hearing for the position of Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was confronted by Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) for saying that women and LGBT people did not experience the sort of discrimination that hate crimes legislation addresses. Sessions responded with the twin defenses that he had said no such thing, and/or that […]

Moments after Donald Trump announced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat, Senate Democrats and progressive organizations reacted with vigor, denouncing Republicans for stealing the seat and promising to fight the nomination based on Gorsuch’s troubling record. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) immediately noted “very serious doubts” about […]