Speeches
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Delivers Opening Remarks in Drug Caucus Hearing on the 2022 National Drug Control Strategy
We lost over 107,000 Americans to drug overdose last year, including 453 Rhode Islanders, a painful reminder of the massive challenge ahead in addressing drug trafficking and substance use in this country. We must do better. The Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, has a comprehensive plan with ambitious goals to meet by 2025, including : A 13 percent reduction in drug overdose deaths; Doubling treatment admissions for the populations most at risk of overdose death; … Continue Reading
06.14.22
The Scheme 15: The Hothouse and WV v. EPA
Mr. President, I rise now for the 15th time to call attention to the right-wing donors' long-planned Scheme to capture and control our Supreme Court. What I will talk about today is that Scheme's donor-funded doctrine factory, and a case in which The Court That Dark Money Built could weaponize dangerous, concocted doctrines to power up polluters and threaten a basic function of government. Before I get into this, let me say that I detest and condemn violence or threatened violence against memb… Continue Reading
06.08.22
Whitehouse Commemorates 250th Anniversary of the Burning of the Gaspee
Mr. President, this week marks the 250th anniversary of the first blow struck in the American Colonies' struggle for independence from the British Crown. I come to the Senate floor every year to commemorate this moment because it took place in Rhode Island at the hands of some brave and bold Rhode Islanders. Before recounting the tale of those bold Rhode Islanders, I would like to acknowledge a special guest with us in the Gallery today: Michael Tatham, Deputy Head of Mission for the British Em… Continue Reading
05.10.22
The Scheme Speech #14: The Attack on Roe
Madam President, I am here for the 14th time to keep unmasking the scheme to control our Supreme Court-a scheme that is now poised to destroy a woman's right to make her own reproductive health choices and to smash foundational Supreme Court precedent to get there. Last week, Politico confirmed a fear that many of us have had for years. We now see that the Supreme Court has at least five votes to eradicate Roe v. Wade, one of the most important decisions in the Court's history. For nearly half … Continue Reading
05.04.22
Sen. Whitehouse's Opening Remarks in a Hearing on the Political Activities of Tax Exempt Entities
Twelve years ago, the Supreme Court rested its decision in Citizens United on the false predicate that "effective disclosure" would let voters know who was speaking to them, and that important because it was the means by which it would dispel corruption. Well, instead, a torrent of dark money - a "tsunami of slime" it has been called - washed into our politics. That torrent washed into our politics from behind a veil of organizations formed under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. … Continue Reading
05.03.22
Time to Wake Up 283: Crying Out for American Leadership
Mr. President, this is my 283rd travel to the Senate floor to ask that we wake up to the threat of climate change-an issue that demands, right now, American leadership. Over the recent recess, I traveled to parts of the world where climate catastrophe looms, and I saw firsthand what the absence of American leadership has cost. My first stop was to the 2022 Our Oceans Conference in Palau, where I joined President Biden's Special Envoy for Climate, Secretary John Kerry, to discuss the state of ou… Continue Reading
05.03.22
Chairman Whitehouse Delivers Opening Remarks in a Courts Subcommittee Hearing on Judicial Ethics
I'll first veer from my prepared opening statement to report that today is a hell of a day to be considering ethics questions around the Supreme Court, and particularly the spectacular level of right-wing influence that seems to be the tendency of the Supreme Court since the Federalist Society has taken control of Republican judicial nominations. We do not know yet whether Justice Alito's leaked decision is going to be the decision of the Court or not, but as of the moment of this hearing, ther… Continue Reading
04.06.22
TTWU 282: Chamber of Carbon
Mr. President, I rise again, with my increasingly battered poster, to call on this body and in particular on corporate America to wake up to the threat of climate change. Just this week, the IPCC report came out saying that we are now at the door-die, last-chance moment. The other interesting thing about that IPCC report was that it, for the first time, focused on the role of malicious fossil fuel political influence in preventing the solution. Political influence is actually contributing to t… Continue Reading
03.31.22
Whitehouse Announces Vote to Confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court
Mdm. President, the reason I am here is to announce my intention to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and to congratulate her on the grace and dignity with which she withstood what Chairman Durbin called her "trial by ordeal" in the Judiciary Committee. Last week, Judge Jackson set the gold standard for patience and courtesy from a Supreme Court nominee. She demonstrated, hour after hour after often agonizing hour, in plain view the qualities … Continue Reading
03.15.22
The Scheme 13: Auditioning
Mr. President, I rise again to discuss the scheme that has captured and now controls America's Supreme Court. If you have been following this series of speeches, you know that we have gone over the Powell memo and the plan it laid out for the corporate rightwing. We have gone over the technique of Agency capture, regulatory capture, that has been applied to the Supreme Court. We have gone over the turnstile, that big anonymous rightwing donor setup within the Federalist Society to approve Repub… Continue Reading
03.10.22
Time to Wake Up 281: To-Do List
Mr. President, I am here for a rather different reason. It is to call on this Chamber yet again to wake up to the urgent threat of climate change. I wish I was done with these ''Time to Wake Up'' speeches. Frankly, I wish I had never had to deliver a single one. I wish Congress had dealt with this threat-for instance, back when another Senator from Rhode Island, Republican John Chafee, held hearings on the looming challenge of carbon dioxide pollution. I wish we had dealt with it when the Hous… Continue Reading
03.02.22
Ending Kleptocracy's March
Mr. President, as I rise today, kleptocracy is on the march in Europe showing how unchecked corruption leads to evil. Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime fabricated a pretext to invade and subjugate the sovereign and peaceful nation of Ukraine. Putin's attack helps divert the Russian people from his festering corruption and misrule, as jailed Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny put it. America and our allies are meting out stiff sanctions, and my colleagues and I here in Congress are working on… Continue Reading
03.02.22
Chairman Whitehouse Delivers Opening Remarks in a Drug Caucus Hearing on the Economics of Cartels
We are here today because drug cartels have become hulking multi-national conglomerates, which stand on a massive international dark economy. According to the RAND Corporation, the illicit drug trade in the United States is worth $150 billion. Worldwide, it's reached as much as $652 billion, according to Global Financial Integrity. So if this were a national GDP, it would be 22nd in the world, ahead of Sweden, Poland and Belgium. These conglomerates' operations must be concealed, and virtually … Continue Reading
02.09.22
The Scheme 12: JCN’s Opening Salvo
Mr. President, I am here again today to discuss the scheme by big Republican donor interests to capture and control our Supreme Court. Today, I am going to put a little spotlight on ongoing scheme operations. As we all know, Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this Supreme Court term. As the Biden administration selects a nominee, the scheme is shifting gears to attack her even before she has been named. A dark money front group called the Judicial Crisis Network has already annou… Continue Reading
02.09.22
Sen. Whitehouse Delivers Opening Remarks at Courts Subcommittee Hearing on Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and "Texas Two-Step"
We are here to address a novel and rather troubling circumstance that is emerging in bankruptcy law. Imagine that a big corporation wreaks serious harm on you and your family. You sue for damages to cover hospital bills, or to care for a family member. But when you do, you discover that your claim against the company - a company that is out there operating, apparently thriving in the marketplace - your claim is somehow in bankruptcy court that may not be heard for months or years, and it may ne… Continue Reading
02.02.22
Time to Wake Up 280
Thank you very much, Mr. President. Well, I am not very happy to be back with my trusty and somewhat battered Time To Wake Up poster. Almost exactly a year ago, I delivered what I hoped would be my last Time to Wake Up speech, and took the poster off the Floor. Things looked good then. The conditions for climate progress were in place. Voters had elected a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, so the malicious grip of the fossil fuel industry on the Republic… Continue Reading
01.19.22
Sen. Whitehouse Delivers Floor Remarks on Dark Money and the Right to Vote
Madam President, this past weekend is our annual reminder as a country of the courage, suffering, sacrifice, passion, love, and energy that so many of our fellow Americans put into protecting our democracy. When in a democracy, one group of citizens can deliberately, purposefully make it more difficult for another group of citizens to vote, they have put a dagger into that democracy. We cannot let that happen. I am here today to focus, in particular, on one voting right that we have in this co… Continue Reading
01.11.22
The Scheme 11: Faculty Lounge Report
Mr. President, I am here to speak for the 11th time in my series discussing the scheme through which a bunch of big, anonymous donors captured our Supreme Court. Today, I am going to talk about the Biden Supreme Court commission, which could have done a useful, even authoritative investigation of the scheme and all its terrible effects at the Court but which, regrettably, ended up as an exercise in ineffectual time-killing. I have laid out the scheme in detail in earlier speeches in this serie… Continue Reading
12.09.21
The Scheme 10: Climate Obstruction and The Scheme
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, it is a pleasure, and I appreciate my friend, Senator BLUNT. I am here today to rise for the 10th time to talk about the rightwing scheme to capture our Supreme Court. As the Presiding Officer knows, I have delivered a lot of speeches on the Senate floor, and a majority of them- 279 of them, to be precise-addressed climate change. These were my ''Time to Wake Up'' speeches, many of which focused on the network of phony front groups and trade associations used b… Continue Reading
11.16.21
Scheme Speech 9: Amicus Flotillas
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today for now the ninth time to unmask the rightwing, dark money scheme to capture our Supreme Court. I say ''capture'' in the sense of regulatory capture, an Agency capture-a well-known phenomenon. Today, I turn to an important tool of the scheme's apparatus: the orchestrated amicus curiae brief. So, first things first, amicus-or friend of the court-briefs are an important instrument in our judicial system. They help those who aren't parties to a case to … Continue Reading
