The key points from Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing

[riversedge]

Source: The Guardian






Highlights from Jeff Sessions’ hearing for attorney general

Jon Swaine

Tuesday 10 January 2017 12.27 EST


(We will be updating this section throughout the hearing. Please refresh the page for latest news.)


......Citing President-elect Trump’s campaign threat to use the Department of Justice to go after his opponent, Hillary Clinton, Feinstein told Sessions his loyalty must be “to the people and the law, not the president”. She said Sessions must assure senators that he can “dispatch himself from the president and from his record” and enforce the law “fairly, evenly, without personal bias”. “Will he be independent of the White House? Will he tell the president no when necessary?” Feinstein asked.

Feinstein said that Sessions’ “extremely conservative agenda” had seen him vote against – and speak enthusiastically against – the notion that the US must not block people’s entry to the country on the basis of their religion. He voted against immigration reform and against giving some legal status to the children of undocumented immigrants, which he called a “reckless proposal for mass amnesty”. He voted against banning illegal torture, said Feinstein. He voted against a law against hate crimes, saying in 2009: “Today I’m not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don’t see it.”

In a sharply critical closing section, Feinstein said: “We cannot ignore that there are deep concerns and anxieties throughout America. There is a deep fear about what a Trump administration will bring in many places and this is the context in which we should consider Senator Sessions’s record.

“Communities across this country are concerned about whether they will be able to rely on the Department of Justice to protect their rights and freedoms. These freedoms are so cherished. They are what make us unique among nations.”
Background...........................

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/jeff-sessions-attorney-general-confirmation-hearing-news

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Lots of comments from panel plus Sessions responses.

[tenorly]

1. Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions is a pro at the Confederate two-step.

Establish your segregationist bona-fides, then play at being a misunderstood damsel in distress until you're put in a position of power over civil rights.

Once ensconced as Attorney General, he will do everything in his power and then some to bring back Jim Crow - believe you me.

[elleng]

2. 'He voted against banning illegal torture, said Feinstein. He voted against a law against hate crime

saying in 2009: “Today I’m not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don’t see it.”

In a sharply critical closing section, Feinstein said: “We cannot ignore that there are deep concerns and anxieties throughout America. There is a deep fear about what a Trump administration will bring in many places and this is the context in which we should consider Senator Sessions’s record.'

[Elmergantry]

3. Wa?

'He voted against banning illegal torture, said Feinstein"


Well, if it is already "illegal" then its already "banned"


Just sayin.

[ProudLib72]

4. Found to be

illegal by a world court, but not necessarily "illegal" for the U.S. It's part of our "don't ask, don't tell" approach to torture.

[Elmergantry]

6. i see.

Makes sense now.

[tenorly]

5. It's illegal by international law, you see.

But not banned by many intelligence agencies - including most of the ones Shrub and Cheney would render people to.