Richard Blumenthal

The really significant news tonight is scheduling this vote the day after, literally the day after this hearing, leaving no one really time to consider the testimony.

The sexual assault survivor Dr. Blasey Ford will appear and be questioned by a prosecutor selected by the 11 male Republicans.

But even before the hearing, if he really wanted to clear his name, he would demand that the White House order an FBI investigation of these serious credible allegations.

He deserves to have a vote, if it is concluded he's telling the truth, if his veracity is established after this hearing.

Scheduling this hearing even before hearing Dr. Blasey Ford on Thursday demonstrates exactly the disregard and disrespect for assault survivors that shames and silences so many before they come forward.

It's really hammering our fishing industry in the Northeast--it's Connecticut, it's Massachusetts, because it's completely stuck.

The fishing fleets of other countries essentially are free to operate with impunity and are lawless

The fishing industry in Connecticut is still vibrant and active but increasingly threatened by a system that appears to most of our fishermen as a cruel and irrational, sometimes ridiculous, joke in their view

They are compelled to throw back perfectly good fish that they catch as a result of quotas that are based on totally obsolete, out-of-touch limits

It will cast a shadow and a stain on Judge Kavanaugh, if he is confirmed, as a result of this broken process that shattered the norms.

I believe that this nominee should be opposed by my colleagues. I hope my Republican friends and colleagues will step forward and speak out and ask for a truly full, fair investigation by the FBI before a hearing.

I believe Dr. Ford, this survivor. There's every reason to believe her. She has come forward knowing that she faces a nightmare of hostile and probably vicious scrutiny.

Your question, Anderson, points exactly to the need for a full and fair FBI investigation before there is a hearing. Otherwise, we're going to be asking those questions in the dark. We'll be shooting, in effect, blindfolded.

Have these rollbacks in the standards stifled innovation?

I wonder if you could tell the Committee how have existing fuel economy standards resulted in innovation within GE and the electric vehicle market?

And maybe we should postpone voting until we have the results of that investigation?

But wouldn't you agree, Ms. Quigley, that the results of that investigation would be valuable to this committee, to our colleagues, in----

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I believe very strongly that he must do so. He must commit in this confirmation hearing that he would take himself out of any consideration of any issue involving the president's personal criminal or civil liability.

I think he should come forward or she, because there's an obligation to tell the American people even more about the reasons that this official has such deep-seated and frankly alarming views of the chaotic, out of control, potentially…

He failed to establish that judicial independence. He has the right rhetoric, would be defended in practice, in real terms with real backbone, and that is the reason -- or one of them that I am committed to vote against him.

Invoking the 25th Amendment requires a high bar to be met, in terms of the facts.

There is a need for Congress to investigate much more aggressively so much of the law breaking and wrongdoing, the culture of corruption in this administration.

I would like your commitment that you will recuse yourself if there is an issue involving his criminal or civil liability coming before the United States Supreme Court.

As a Federal judge, you always want the best evidence, don't you?