By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

Civil rights leaders and Senators joined in a rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday to voice their support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation.

The familiar phrase from President Obama’s campaign, “yes we can,” was heard both in English and Spanish at the rally, which was hosted by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). The atmosphere was extremely celebratory as the crowd loudly responded with cheers each time the name of the historic nominee was mentioned.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) was one of four Senators who spoke at the rally. “There are three words that sum up this nomination: It is time,” Schumer declared.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) also showed their support, adding that they were not pleased with the overall Republican response to the nomination.

“Let us hope that as history looks back on this day, it notes the historic occasion of the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor and …not the Republicans’ strange and strained efforts to impose right-wing political orthodoxy on our courts and judges,” said Whitehouse.

Sen. Menendez spoke about the response of the Hispanic community to Sotomayor nomination, but also mentioned the appreciation of the few Republican Senators who have said they will vote yes for her confirmation.

“When she raises her hand and takes that oath of office, the Supreme Court will be better, the nation will be better, and we will have fulfilled our promise as a country,” said Menendez.

Civil rights organizations including the Hispanic Federation, the Alliance for Justice, the NAACP and others were also present in support of Sotomayor. Many people held signs with the slogan “I stand with Sotomayor,” and at one point, a chant of, “What do we want?-Sonia-When do we want it?-Now,” erupted.

By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

Doctors from around the country visited the U.S. Capitol Thursday to promote health care reform and to present their diagnoses on the current health care system.

“We are too close to achieving health care reform to stop now,” said Dr. Jim King, a family physician. “Family physicians cannot understand why we would ever want to continue a health care system that reduces productivity, accelerates costs increases and promotes inefficiency. Why would this status quo be acceptable to anyone?”

King said health care in this country will deteriorate greatly if Congress doesn’t produce a system that works for everybody.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) issued a diagnosis of his own, saying, “Our health care system is chronically ill. It cannot survive as it currently exists.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said both the doctors and the American public know that the nation needs reform. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) agreed, but noted that Congress can’t be expected to snap its fingers and have it done. Rather, real change will take time, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he believed the media had created a false deadline for getting legislation passed before the August recess. Reid said he wants the bill passed before the end of the year.

Reid added that his focus is working on coming up with enough votes in the Senate to override a filibuster.

“I’m pretty good at arithmetic. I know how to count to 60,” he quipped.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says Congress must overcome obstacles standing in the way of health care reform, and get something done. He says the current system isn’t working, or it’s just getting to the point that it won’t work in the next decade. (0:19)

 

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By Courtney Ann Jackson – Talk Radio News Service

The health care debate has taken on many angles, but today the focus of Democratic leaders in the Senate was on uninsured families. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-N.V.) welcomed two families directly affected by health care issues to a press conference Thursday to represent the many families being affected everyday.

“Our opponents aren’t talking about the real families and the real problems these families have,” said Reid. “Reforming health care is not abstract because health care is not theoretical…It’s about people, real people.”

Reid was joined by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). The Senators noted that the families in attendance know the real costs of health care due to personal experiences. Reid repeated the phrase, “we’re talking about people,” multiple times in his opening statement.

Murray said she’s asked constituents in her home state to share their personal stories about health care and why they feel health care reform is needed. So far, she said she’s received over 5,000 e-mails in two weeks.

Murray highlighted the need to control the costs for family health insurance, noting that people with quality health insurance are paying more in premiums because the system as a whole does not cover everyone.

“Overcome the obstacles and get something done. We have to get something done,” said Schumer. “The system just isn’t working or it’s getting to the point that it won’t work in the next decade.”

Durbin said stories about ordinary Americans losing health insurance are not uncommon because 14,000 people lose health care everyday. He said that if nothing is done now, the problem won’t just go away, and that’s why health reform must happen this year.

The Senators said they will give the legislation more time so that Republicans who oppose the plan can review what Reid described as a “complex difficult issue.” They said they would continue to work on the bill when they return from recess in the fall.

“I’ve had conversations with them [Republicans] and I’ll have future conversations to give them assurances that we’ll take everything they do and we’ll do what we can to make sure their issues aren’t buried,” said Reid.

Reid expressed confidence that all 60 Democrats in the Senate are prepared to vote for the legislation.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says that the U.S. needs an employment verification system that uses a biometric identifier in order to determine whether or not an employee is an American citizen (0:23).

 

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Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) announced the Promoting Innovation and Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act, to make generic alternatives available as “biologics” go out of parent.

Schumer joked that he couldn’t make an acronym out of the initials, then explained biologics are drugs produced from living cells, (such as Premarin from horses, vaccines from killed or weakened microbes, Insulin from bacteria, or the anticipated results of stem cell research).

Collins said the act is needed because currently the FDA has no pathway to evaluate and approve this class of drugs. Many lifesaving biologics are long out of patent, but are still expensive because generics can’t get approved. “The price tag (for insulin) might well drop by as much as 25 percent,” she said.

Brown and Martinez agreed that there was strong bipartisan support for the act.

“We probably have four different opinions here about here on the best way to proceed on healthcare reform, but everyone agrees a prerequisite is to bring costs down,” Schumer said.

The summary of the bill contained a clause limiting “exclusivity” (like a patent) to five years for the original molecule and three years for some modifications.

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,(D- Nev.), Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D- N.Y) Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wash.), and Sen. Dick Durbin, (D- Ill.), presented a favorable Senate Majority response to President Obama’s budget proposal. ($3.5 trillion, according to the Christian Science Monitor)
Reid feels the president’s budget is “in keeping with the message he delivered on Tuesday night, a message of hope, a message that directs his priorities: education, healthcare, and energy. “
“I salute the president on, I think, an excellent budget,” Schumer said.
Murray said, “He’s following up his words by putting into this budget investments that will make our economy stronger, reducing our dependence on oil, investing in healthcare policy, and investing in education.”
“Even more important,” she added, “I appreciate his honesty about the underlying fundamentals of this bill.” She finds criticisms ironic coming from those who did not put the cost of the war into their budget. “We did not get budgets that were honest about the real costs we knew were going to be out there.” This one is, she finished.

But, what about cuts? “We inherited the deepest economic hole that we’ve had since the great depression,” Reid said, adding, “This budget will cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. Anyone making less than $250,000 will pay no new taxes. We’re giving tax breaks to the people that need them the most, middle class Americans.”
It will cut the deficit in half over the first term, he promised. “We now have adopted the pay-as-you-go program that we had during the Clinton years, and during the Clinton years the deficit was reduced by $600 billion.” There will be $2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years.
Schumer added, “We will have a more active government but, at the same time, a more responsible government that eliminates waste. This budget is aimed at the middle class like a laser. The days are over when Republicans used to give 90 percent of the tax cuts to the very wealthy and say they’re giving tax cuts to everybody.”

Asked if he thought Congress was moving too slowly, Reid said: “In a very short period of time we’ve passed a huge land bill, we’ve passed the Lilly Ledbetter matter, we passed the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the economic recovery package,” and the pace is not slowing.
Schumer added that they are making “Making Work Pay” permanent, continuing tax cuts for families with children, and the job tax credit. “Something I feel very good about, the 2,500 dollar American Opportunity Tax Credit for college…he makes that permanent,” in the form of a tax deduction for tuition.
Schumer went on to say, “I’ve always seen a housing bill (pending reforms to limit foreclosures) as a matter of fairness, now it’s a matter of fairness and urgency.” Critics of this reform, he added, don’t realize how many homes have been lost, “and 99 percent of the time, the bank gets the house and the attendant responsibilities, and have to hope they can sell them to somebody. “We’re trying to give that family a fighting chance to stay in that home.”
Reid said that bankruptcy courts could renegotiate vacation homes, but not primary residences.

As far as Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, is concerned, there must be a “heightened sense of urgency” about the enactment of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. At a full committee hearing on the turmoil in the United States credit markets, the committee heard from Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Neel Kashkari, interim assistant secretary for financial stability and assistant secretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department; Brian Montgomery, federal housing commissioner and assistant Housing and Urban Development secretary; Elizabeth Duke, member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; and James Lockhart III, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The opening statements included Senator Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) comparison of the financial investment firms in question to “spoiled teenagers” who threw a house party while their parents were out of town. Schumer said the financial crisis was “not unforeseeable” and that the Treasury must issue guidelines for future banking endeavors now that taxpayer money is involved. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) believes that if 9800 Wall Street jobs were lost everyday, like they were lost for millions of Americans, the financial problem would have been solved long ago. He then stated that the “funds are not a gift” from taxpayers to banks and that must be made clear through oversight and compliance.

In her testimony, Chairwoman Sheila Bair advised the necessity to recapitalize banks in order to reverse the “confidence problem” happening in America. She said this recapitalization would be similar to that of European banks and would help in the area of liquidity. She also advised that to help homeowners, the FDIC would work with the Senate Banking Committee and Treasury Department to prevent future foreclosures and create sustainable mortgages. Neel Kashkari said that to help financial institutions, the Treasury Department had created seven policy programs including an equity purchase program, a homeownership preservation program, and an executive compensation program. Kashkari believes that the Treasury has “accomplished a great deal in a short period of time,” but stated that it may not be until the end of the year before the $250 billion is allocated to chosen banks.

In a briefing with the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke of the funding from special interest groups for Republican senatorial races. Over $16.3 million has been spent on attack ads against Democrats in strategic swing states such as New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Colorado by the Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates. Schumer pointed out that “the good news is that it’s not working” with the polls showing overwhelming support for Democratic candidates in Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Alaska, and New Hampshire. Schumer believes that “the message of economic change is succeeding everywhere” and the Democrats are the ones expected to bring this change.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) held a pen-and-pad briefing on the news of oil companies making record profits. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the oil companies are using their record profits to buy back their stock and make it more expensive, rather than make gas more affordable for American consumers. Schumer said the oil companies’ record profits could do so much to lower gas prices, such as give $2000 to every American family. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said oil companies are trying to increase their profits while consumers suffer.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the Republicans’ agenda is the oil companies’ agenda. Their push for drilling in Alaska will give the companies more acres to siphon profit from. Reid said the Republicans’ persistent obstruction of all Democratic efforts to support renewable energy is “mind-boggling.”