We will leave it up to the reader to determine whether Senator Sessions has made serious errors in in judgment. He has supported a Conservative Far Right Christian position especially when it comes to Church and State issues. It is apparent from the data collected, that the first amendment is in danger from his past and future actions as well as other constitutional sections. He has supported deregulation of banks and the SEC causing the current economic Depression.

Senator Sessions's office stated that his position is that Certain Religions aren't "Real" religions. What is a real religion, Mr. Sessions? What you have been practicing? He says on the one hand that only certain Christian denominations are valid. Read the following and remember: "By their Works may they be known." This is a summary of information collected from several sources about Senator Sessions.

(Remember it is best to investigate on your own when looking at allegations about anyone. Don't believe us, think for yourself and investigate for yourself! And remember, the First Amendment Coalition and Religious Freedom Coalition of the South East do not represent any political party nor do we recommend any political candidate, nor are we involving ourselves in the political process.)

THE TRUTH ABOUT REPUBLICANS BY GEORGE CARLIN

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/273071/detail/

George Carlin: The Truth About Republicans

www.milkandcookies.com

Audio only and of course NSFW. But Carlin has some opinions.

Sen. Jeff Sessions Tries To Cut Food Stamp Funding

Excerpts from an article posted on crooksandliars.com 22 Oct 2011

Senator Jeff Sessions is very, very, very worried about fraud, waste and abuse within the Federal food stamp program (SNAP). So worried he has introduced an amendment to cut funds to the program because he's certain there are just a bunch of poor deadbeats out there taking advantage of the Feds' largesse.

From his press release Friday:

Consider the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP”—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP is the largest item in Agriculture Department’s budget. Spending on food stamps has surged over the last decade. It’s nearly doubled since President Obama took office. And in the appropriations bill before us this week, Senate Democrats propose another increase that would quadruple food stamp spending from what it was in 2001.

Eleven million more Americans are on food stamps now than when President Obama first took office. The size of the benefit has increased 31 percent since 2008. When the food stamp program was expanded nationally in the 1970s, food stamps were used by 2 percent of the population. At the beginning of the last decade, they were used by 6 percent of the population. Today that figure has risen to 13 percent—one in eight Americans. This seven-fold increase in food stamp usage demands honest examination.

It’s time to look under the hood.

Gosh, that couldn't be because this crappy economy has fattened the wallets of rich folks while millions are unemployed and desperate to feed their families while still paying the rent, could it? As an experiment, I went to the USDA website and put in a hypothetical family of 4 earning $1500 per month. Estimated benefits were about $490 per month for that family of four with no children under the age of five. The estimated income was unemployment benefits for the 2 adults and rent of $1,000 per month. The UI estimate was high; the rent was on the low end. $490 per month won't stretch over that family without some serious sacrifice. It's not like these folks would be out eating filet mignon every night.

So what, exactly, does Senator Sessions see as the flagrant abuse? Well, he singled out a couple of weird examples of people who, on first blush, shouldn't be eligible.

For instance, in one state they’ve included information for a pregnancy hotline on the food stamp application. If you use the hotline you automatically become eligible for food stamps. In many states, all that is needed to become food stamp eligible is to be mailed a brochure by the government—again, regardless of assets. The amendment I am filing today would eliminate categorical eligibility. Only those who are eligible under the food stamp program’s requirements would be able to receive benefits. Is it too much to ask of an applicant for a benefit worth thousands of dollars to file an application under oath that assures that the person is really in need—and qualifies under law—to receive a benefit paid for by the taxpayers?

Gosh, that's terrible. I guess that's a product of each state having administrative authority over each state's program -- something conservatives are supposed to love. As for automatic eligibility, I could only find documentation saying if someone was eligible for SSI or TANF, automatic eligibility in SNAP was available. Again, these are hardly millionaires, you know?

Fortunately, Sessions' amendment failed in the Senate, which led him to a second tirade in the Senate well:

This program is not being run honestly, effectively, or fairly. It is deeply disappointing and extremely telling that the Democrat-led Senate voted down even this modest effort to address the almost shameless mishandling of taxpayer funds. We’re in a fiscal crisis that is already killing jobs, and these bills just increase spending—and destroy confidence—that much more.

It’s time for President Obama to adopt the ‘Solyndra Rule.’ Before the president puts forward a single tax-hike proposal he must first put all of his effort into stripping the egregious spending waste from every corner of the federal budget.”

The only fiscal crisis that's killing jobs is the one where there are no jobs, so there are less consumers to buy things, so there are less things made. I guess that's too complicated for Senator Sessions, though.

Senator Sessions and the Republican Party Supports Rape by Defense Contractors!!!

I think that all homo sapiens can understand how the mere thought of an organization that receives government money through contract mechanisms being tangentially involved in setting up a fake tax shelter for a fake pimp and his fake prostitution ring of fake prostitutes can justifiably lead to lawmakers going absolutely cross-eyed with white-hot, impotent rage. But what happens when a similarly taxpayer-endowed contractor attempts to cover up employee-on-employee gang rape by locking up the victim in a shipping container without food and water and threatening her with reprisals if she report the incident? Somehow, it doesn't engender the same level of anger!

30 misogynist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are totally OK with rape, at least where women are concerned. Predictably in yet another routine attempt to serve their corporate masters, (this time the GOP stood by Halliburton) Republicans voted against women and for corporate contempt of rape victims.

Some Republican senators are taking heat for voting against an amendment that would allow employees of military contractors to sue their employers if they are raped at work -- and they want the Democratic senator who wrote the amendment to help them fight off the bad publicity.
In October, 30 Republicans voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would de-fund contractors who prevent their employees from suing if they are raped by co-workers. Since then, those Republicans have faced outrage for what critics say amounts to support for rape.

Instead of standing up to take responsibility for or clarifying their disgraceful votes, Republican cowards are instead attacking Al Franken, blaming him for their votes.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused Franken exploiting the story of Jamie Leigh Jones -- a former KBR employee who says she was locked in a container in Iraq after alleging she was raped by co-workers -- to further his political agenda.
"Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape --and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don't think it's a very constructive thing," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.

I guess Franken held a sledge hammer over Cornyn's head and said if he did not vote against the anti-rape amendment Franken would crack it over his head.

What shameless cowards.

To summarize the Republican position: As women, we are not "average Americans," and gang rape is not a "serious" issue. As women, no matter how powerful we become on our own merits, the Republican establishment will still be hoping for a man to come along and put us in our place.

Not every Republican signs onto these views -- indeed, 10 Senate Republicans voted for the Franken amendment, giving the lie to the NRSC's claim of partisanship -- but this is the undercurrent of the party's policies. This is what they're hoping to get voters to overlook when they run a Sarah Palin or a Kelly Ayotte for office. This is why Bob McDonnell's campaign for Virginia governor has been such a popular campaign stop for 2012 prospects: because of, not despite, his opposition to marital contraception and women in the workplace. This is why David Vitter (who voted against the Franken amendment) is still a senator in good standing with the party of alleged sexual morality.

You don't have to go very far beneath the Republican surface claims of equality-but-not-really to get to the rock-bottom sense that women just don't count, that our rights and our wellbeing are always subordinate to whatever interest of men they might conflict with. When it comes to it, even the (themselves sexist) notions of chivalry and protecting women come behind protecting the right of corporations to imprison their female employees to shield their male employees from rape charges and still get government contracts.

Credit new Senator Al Franken however, for introducing an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would punish contractors if they "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." You'd think that this would be a no-brainer, actually, but that didn't stop Jeff Sessions from labeling Franken's effort a "political attack directed at Halliburton." Franken, of course, pointed out that his amendment would apply broadly, to all contractors, because otherwise, 'twould be a bill of attainder, right? Right?

Franken's amendment ended up passing, 68-30. Here's a list of the Senators who showed broad support for Rapists and Pedophiles by voting against it: (Click on their names to find out more about them).

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

ADDENDUM: It's been pointed out to me that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the Franken amendment as well:

Republicans point out that the amendment was opposed by a host of business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and applies to a wide range of companies, including IBM and Boeing.

I guess we must cover up crimes like rape in order to save capitalism.

PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
Franken Gets His First Amendment Passed By Roll Call Vote

Jeff Sessions Praises Segregationist Judges and Led Opposition To Obama Nominees

Excerpts from an article at Think Progress by Brian Beutler on May 4, 2009

As I noted below, it looks like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will be, at least for a time, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee. That's an interesting role for a man with Sessions'...history. In a 2002 New Republic article, Sarah Wildman detailed the Alabama senator's rise through the ranks of politics in Alabama and in Republican Washington.

Sessions first appeared on the scene in 1986 D.C. when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to serve on the U.S. District Court in Alabama. At the time, the Judiciary Committee was controlled by Republicans, but his appointment nonetheless went absolutely nowhere--a fact that may have had a thing or two to do with stories like this:

Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU ) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings....
Another damaging witness--a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures--testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Figures echoed Hebert's claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "un-American." Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times.

The committee ultimately voted 10-8 against reporting his nomination on to the floor. In a perverse form of poetic justice, Sessions will soon be that committee's most powerful Republican. And in that position, he'll no doubt be leading the charge (such as it is) against whomever President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court--or any court, really. Having been given the Robert Bork treatment in the past, it's hard to imagine Sessions treating Obama's picks all that genially.

As Wildman wrote, "it has been on judicial nominees that Sessions has really made a name for himself."

When Sessions grabbed Heflin's Senate seat in 1996, he also nabbed a spot on the Judiciary Committee. Serving on the committee alongside some of the senators who had dismissed him 16 years earlier, Sessions has become a cheerleader for the Bush administration's judicial picks, defending such dubious nominees as Charles Pickering, who in 1959 wrote a paper defending Mississippi's anti-miscegenation law, and Judge Dennis Shedd, who dismissed nearly every fair-employment civil rights case brought before him as a federal district court judge. Sessions called Pickering "a leader for racial harmony" and a "courageous," "quality individual" who was being used as a "political pawn." Regarding Shedd, he pooh-poohed the criticism, announcing that the judge "should have been commended for the rulings he has made," not chastised.

And after carefully reviewing Sessions' record, Republicans in Washington ~~took appropriate measures to limit his influence~~ gave him an extremely influential position in the Senate. It'll be...enlightening...to hear conservatives defend the move, or, better yet, excuse it on the grounds that the GOP's only giving these views special prominence for about a year and a half.

Sessions Subordinate: I Thought I'd Be Fired If I Objected To Being Called 'Boy'

Excerpts from an article at Think Progress By Brian Beutler and Eric Kleefeld on May 7, 2009

When it became clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was poised to become ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, we recalled this 2002 article by Sarah Wildman which addresses some of the controversies that kept Sessions from being confirmed in 1986 as a U.S. District Court judge in Alabama.

Wildman writes in particular that the testimonies of two witnesses--a Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, and a black Sessions subordinate named Thomas Figures--helped to doom Sessions, then a U.S. Attorney, at his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. According to Wildman, Hebert testified reluctantly "that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." And Figures--then an assistant U.S. Attorney--told the committee that "during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he 'used to think they [the Klan] were OK' until he found out some of them were 'pot smokers.'"

Today we obtained a copy of the transcript of the Sessions hearings--over 500-pages worth--and it turns out there's quite a bit more. We're still going through it, of course, but the Figures testimony alone contains some damning details.

Figures recalled one occasion in which the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division sent them instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close: "We had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them.'"

All of them, according to Figures, meant civil rights cases generally. As he explained at one point: "[T]he statement, the manner in which it was delivered, the impression on his face, the manner in which his face blushed, I believe it represented a hostility to investigating and pursuing those types of matters."

Figures said that Sessions had called him "boy" on a number of occasions, and had cautioned him to be careful what he said to "white folks. "Mr. Sessions admonished me to 'be careful what you say to white folks,'" Figures testified. "Had Mr. Sessions merely urged me to be careful what I said to 'folks,' that admonition would have been quite reasonable. But that was not the language that he used."

In response to these allegations, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asked him if he'd ever objected to this behavior. Senator "Did you ever say anything to them? Did you ever say, knock it off, or quit it?"

Figures admitted he hadn't: "Senator, I felt that if I had said anything or reacted in a manner in which I thought appropriate, I would be fired. I always felt that my position was very tentative around Mr. Sessions."

At one point during his testimony, Figures paid Sessions a backhanded compliment on his overall professionalism. "In all fairness to Mr. Sessions, however, I should make clear that the problems which existed in the area of civil rights were not present in other aspects of my case assignments," said Figures. "Except in criminal civil rights cases, Mr. Sessions deferred to my recommendations regarding whether to pursue cases, and never withdrew a case assignment because he disagreed with my recommendation."

Thomas Figures still practices law in Mobile, Alabama, but could not be reached by phone this afternoon. We'll keep perusing the testimony and report any other noteworthy details.

Exclusive: Jeff Sessions Makes Children Cry

Excerpts from an article at the New Republic by James Kirchick on June 4, 2009

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committe held the first-ever hearing on the Uniting American Families Act, which would equalize the status of foreign-born same-sex partners of American citizens. Heterosexual Americans can earn citizenship for their foreign partners by marrying them. Gays, obviously, cannot do that, effectively making a gay American and his or her foreign spouse legal strangers.

Testifying was Shirley Tan, a Fillipino woman who has been with her American partner for 23 years. Together, they are raising twelve-year-old twin boys. She originally left the Phillipines after suffering a violent attack from a man who murdered her mother and sister (one of the reasons why Tan does not want to return to her native country, aside from the fact that her partner and children live in the U.S., is that the man who brutalized her has since been released from prison.) Tan was originally scheduled to be deported on April 3rd, but won a reprieve after Senator Diane Feinstein introduced a private bill allowing her to stay in the country temporarily.

As you can see in the video below, one of Tan's children started crying within seconds of the start of her testimony. At the sight of this, Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy stopped the hearing and asked Tan if her son might want to sit in another room, where presumably a Senate staffer would console him for the duration of what was clearly an emotionally fraught experience. For most people, the sight of a 12-year-old boy in tears at the prospect of his mother being deported halfway around the world would invoke some sympathy. Unmoved, however, was Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking minority member of the Committee and the only Republican to bother to attend the hearing. At the sight of the weeping boy, according to a Senate staffer who was at the hearing, Sessions leaned towards one of his aides and sighed, "Enough with the histrionics." Sessions's press secretary did not return a call seeking comment.

Sessions opposes the bill, stating that it would amount to a federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Perhaps gay rights advocates could reach a compromise with Sessions in which he would support equal immigration status for foreigners with "gay tendencies."

GOPers Who Slammed Marshall's Activism Can't Name A Case Typifying It

Excerpt from an article at Talking Points Memo by Brian Beutler on June 29, 2010

Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Republicans raised eyebrows yesterday when they criticized the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, as a way to attack nominee Elena Kagan, his former clerk. One would think that, to avoid any appearance of racial dog-whistling, the senators attacking Marshall's record would be able to name the decisions or opinions with which they so vociferously disagreed.

After the hearing broke last night, TPMDC asked three of the top Republicans on the Judiciary Committee which of Marshall's opinions best exemplified his activism. And while two of the three were careful to praise Marshall the man, none of them could name a single case.

"You could name them," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Pressed, though, he could not. "I'm not going to go into that right now, I'd be happy to do that later," Hatch demurred.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) claimed it wasn't about Marshall's jurisprudence at all, but rather about how Kagan, as his clerk, drove his work on the court behind the scenes. "I don't think it's cases, it's that she wasn't looking at a legal outcome, she was looking at a political philosophy: on which cases were accepted, and which weren't and the direction of those cases," Coburn said. "It isn't about Justice Marshall. It's about what she did in prepping him or advising him. It's not about his cases."

Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) came closest to citing individual cases, though ultimately fell back on a generalization.

"Perhaps the most activist decision in history, or actually it wasn't a majority decision, was Brennan and Marshall dissenting in every death penalty case because they said the death penalty violated the constitution," Sessions claimed. "The only thing it violated was their idea of what good policy was. And they just dissented on every death penalty case. And said 'based on my view that it's cruel and unusual punishment.'"

By way of comparison, I asked him if yesterday's Supreme Court decision, throwing out a handgun ban in Chicago, amounted to judicial activism.

Sessions insisted it did not. "It violated the Constitution," Sessions said of the Chicago law.

How is that any different than Marshall dissenting in death penalty cases?

"Well, first you look at the Constitution as a whole....The Constitution says you can't inflict cruel and unusual punishment. Well, every state had the death penalty. It wasn't unusual. It has to be both."

Notwithstanding their disagreement with his service on the bench, both Sessions and Hatch prefaced their remarks by lauding Marshall as a civil rights hero,

"Marshall was a fabulous lawyer and a champion of civil rights," Sessions said.

"My feeling about Thurgood Marshall was that he was a great man. He wen through travails and problems that most of us never dream of," Hatch gushed. "He was a gutsy guy that risked his life time after time for his belief in civil rights, and I don't think it's right for anybody to criticize him. Now, was he an activist in his decision making? Yeah."