Notebook: Mark Warner notes the obvious, that ‘the climate is changing’

‘Hottest times in our life’

Temperature records are being broken worldwide, some areas are experiencing record droughts, others are enduring record rainfalls resulting in disastrous flooding.

And Washington is fiddling as the world burns.

“We would be hard pressed to have anybody in elected office these days deny that our climate is changing and deny that we’re going through some of the hottest times in our life,” Sen. Mark Warner said at the end of a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

It was just a passing thought from the Democrat who likes to think of himself as a “radical centrist.”

I note that about him to emphasize that, Mark Warner is not some flaming liberal environmental nazi.

Dude is as middle of the road as it gets, and even he’s out there saying, it’s getting hot in herre.

“I think it’s taking a toll. There are literally nation-states that are virtually becoming inhabitable. And the scary thing is unless we do something about it, this may be the last cool summer we have in terms of what the future may hold,” Warner said.

Easier voting

Warner is among the 51 Senate Democrats to sign on to the Freedom to Vote Act, legislation that would establish national voting standards, end partisan gerrymandering, tackle felony disenfranchisement, require the disclosure of top donors and create protections for nonpartisan election officials.

The bill would also establish Election Day as a national holiday and create same-day voter registration.

Notably, the legislation doesn’t have any Republican supporters, which would make it difficult to get through the Senate, given the stupid filibuster thing that’s not in the Constitution, but both sides pretend is sacrosanct.

“I’m old enough and been doing this long enough to remember when both political parties encouraged easier voting,” Warner said.

‘Our country is stronger being in NATO’

Warner is solidly behind the push from junior Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine to enact legislation that would require a president seeking to remove the United States from NATO to get the approval of the Senate before doing so.

“We had a NATO that prior to Biden going into office was frankly on its last legs, and we’ve seen NATO grow stronger. We’ve seen the granting of NATO membership to Finland, and with the recent summit, Sweden hopefully only joining us well, that has stood tall against Russian aggression,” Warner said.

“We need to make sure that on a going forward basis some future administration doesn’t willy-nilly take United States out of NATO. Our country is stronger being in NATO.”

Warner on Tuberville push on abortion: ‘Weakens our national security’

Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville is holding up military promotions in his quixotic quest to reverse a Department of Defense policy to pay for travel-related expenses for female servicemembers who have to travel out-of-state to be able to access abortion care.

This Tuberville guy is also pushing back against efforts to weed out White nationalists from being able to serve in the military, if you need to know more about the guy.

Warner didn’t weigh in on that, but he did offer this thought on Tuberville’s push on women servicemembers’ access to healthcare.

“The idea that we’re going to restrict women servicemembers access to healthcare is a bridge too far,” Warner said. “I mean, I firmly support a woman’s right to choose, I firmly support a woman’s right to get access to healthcare, and candidly, we’re going to lose women volunteers if you say, suddenly, I’m stationed at a base where abortion rights have been completely taken away.

“Are we going to still have the number of women volunteering for the armed services that we have right now? I mean, we’re already in huge problems in terms of recruitment. We’ve got a large number of Americans who just frankly, aren’t physically fit enough. We’ve seen a dramatic growth in women playing critically important roles. The idea that we’re going to suddenly restrict their rights, we’ve already seen one senator, on his own, hold up all of the military promotions in our country. It’s something that was never politicized. That weakens our national security.”