What Are They Doing To Us Today, 07/11/23?

What Are They Doing To Us Today? Lots.

On the nominations front, the marquee hearing is Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, at 9:30, to be chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. If Brown is confirmed, he would be the second African-American man to hold the post. If there are fireworks about a topic that has direct impact on both service members and military preparedness, it's likely to be sparring between Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Brown, and Democratic senators over Tuberville's blockade of military promotions. Tuberville is angry at the military's efforts to protect its members' abortion care options. At last count Tuberville, Tuberville was obstruction more than 250 promotions in the military, with the highest-ranking vacancy as of this week being the commandant of the Marine Corps.

In May, seven former defense secretaries, including two Trump secretaries, wrote a letter to Senate leaders condemning the blockade, saying it is harming military readiness and risks harming national security.

Tuberville is angry that after the Supreme Court struck down the right to an abortion, civilian leaders in the military changed policy to help women stationed in states that restrict abortion to travel to jurisdictions that allow them. If Tuberville gets his way, it would make it much harder for women who need abortion care, and some have suggested it could dissuade women from signing up in the first place.

More on the hearing from WaPo.

Watch the hearing here.

Another hearing with potential impacts on more Americans -- 1.4 million -- is a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing entitled "Accelerating Breakthroughs: How the Special Diabetes Program Is Creating Hope for those Living with Type 1 Diabetes."

The NIH's Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, will make the pitch for how funding from Congress has been key to making progress against the debilitating disease. His testimony.

For a dash of celebrity attraction, the committee has brought in Jimmy Jam, the Grammy-winning producer perhaps best known for his work with Janet Jackson. His son, Max, has Type 1 Diabetes. His testimony.

"People like Max need insulin to survive. I’ve heard heartbreaking stories of families forced to ration insulin because it is too expensive. Congress should make sure no family has to make these impossible choices to keep their child alive," he says.

Watch here.

The HELP committee is looking at the alarming problem of "Superbugs: The Impact of Antimicrobial Resistance on Modern Medicine," at 10, with experts from around the country, here.

The Senate Banking Committee is looking at the growing -- and often destructive -- prevalence of what are know as land contracts in "Hijacking the Dream: How Land Contracts and Lease-Options Hinder Rather than Advance Access to Homeownership," with several experts. Land contracts are essentially deals where someone agrees to buy a home, but the seller keeps the deed until the home is fully paid off. And it is easy for the seller to cancel the contract for any violation -- and keep all he money paid. According to testimony from Sarah Mancini, the co-director of Advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, about half of land contracts fail. Citing Pew research, she says some 11 million people got their homes through a land contract. More of her testimony here.

On the high-profile side of things, with have PGA Tour executives Ron Price and Jimmy Dunne testify on the controversial partnership with Saudi LIV Golf at Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, here.

Another lightning-rod event is the House Oversight's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic's "Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up," with the star witnesses being Drs. Kristian Andersen, a professor at Scripps Research, and Robert Garry, a professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, who were both involved in a report on the origins of the Covid pandemic. They are expected to shoot down various conspiracy theories about the coronavirus's origin, and claims that former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci and former Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins suppressed a conclusion that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. Here is the Democrats' prebuttal.

Here is the Republican report, "The Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up: Did the ‘Bethesda Boys’ Downplay a Lab Leak?"

Watch here.