A day ago, the New York Times dropped its latest embarrassing, but ultimately meaningless, leak from Senate investigators, who told the Grey Lady (under the cover of anonymity, of course) that Donald Trump Jr. had testified that he was trying to determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness” for office when he took the infamous “Russia meeting” at Trump Tower in June 2016, shortly after his father had cemented his grip on the Republican nomination.
Already, the White House – or perhaps a sympathetic lawmaker – is helping Trump Jr. fight back. According to a Politicoreport citing unnamed government officials, notes taken by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during the Russia meeting show nothing damaging to the Trump family or campaign officials.
“The notes from the meeting do not contain any damaging information about Clinton or references to promises of damaging information about her, nor do they indicate that officials on the campaign were promising favors or seeking them in return for money, the people who’ve seen them said.
According to these people, the notes have been with Senate officials for weeks and have been reviewed by a number of people on Capitol Hill. Also in attendance at the June 2016 meeting in New York were a Russian lawyer, a Russian businessman and other Trump campaign officials, including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.”
Manafort is believed to be the primary target in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Earlier this month, Mueller reportedly enlisted the help of an “elite” IRS investigative unit to scrutinize Manafort’s tax returns, a sign, one expert said, that the prosecutor could be looking for a “check the box” violation – or literally anything he could use against Manafort, regardless of its relevancy to the Trump campaign. He first turned over his notes to the Senate back in June when he met with investigators for closed-door testimony.
Those who’ve seen the notes say they are “not likely to be independently vital in any case.”
“Officials who have reviewed the notes say they are not likely to be independently vital to any case, if at all, because they are difficult to follow, particularly one year later. To be sure, the notes are not an exhaustive account of the meeting, and other things could have been discussed that are not included in the notes.”
In an interesting twist, the people said the notes reference financier Bill Browder, a supporter of the Magnitsky Act and enemy of the Russian government. As Politico reminds us, the act sanctioned Russian officials for human rights abuses. In retaliation for those sanctions, Russia banned US citizens from adopting Russian children. Browder is the same Russian official who revealed to lawmakers that the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned former UK spy Christopher Steele to assemble the now debunked “Trump dossier,” was funded in part by money from Russian entities – complicating the investigation’s narrative of Russian interference to benefit Trump.
In accordance with the version events given by everyone in attendance who has spoken with Congressional investigators of the special counsel – a group that includes a Russian lobbyist – the notes include a spirited case on why
Trump officials should overturn the Magnitsky act, and why Republicans could support it. It indicates that the Russian officials made critical comments about Browder, but that Trump officials seemed to know little about the legislation.
There you have it, folks. The grand Russian conspiracy – to convince the Trumps to overturn a minor law that had sparked outrage back home. We wonder: when will investigators leak something that amounts to, you know, actual evidence that a crime was committed? Or will this patter of inconsequential details, sanctimoniously reported by the mainstream press, continue for the next four to eight years?
Ann Coulter, the conservative firebrand who predicted Trump would win, much to the cackling laughter of the Bill Maher audience and panel, railed against Trump in an interview with Mark Simone.
Sounding despondent and admittedly "depressed" over the recent firing of Steve Bannon, Coulter lashed out at the President, saying "it"s not a good idea to let the media know to manipulate him as President." Coulter was referencing Trump"s defensive posture and annoyance that Bannon had been credited with Trump"s election win. Over the past half year, the media, including comedy outlets, had lampooned Trump and Bannon -- painting Bannon as the true, yet sinister, mastermind behind Trump"s success.
Coulter almost pined for the campaign era days of Trump, reflectively saying "finally, after 30 years, we"re gonna get a President not controlled by Goldman Sachs," making reference to the Goldman alumni stacking Trump"s cabinet.
Coulter threw down the gauntlet to Trump, saying, "if you really want to prove to us that Bannon had nothing to do with winning the nomination and then winning the Presidency, what you really want to do now is pedal to the metal on raising taxes on Wall Street (carried interest loophole), start deporting illegals, end NAFTA, bring the jobs back and build the wall."
Ann furthered, "and if he does all those things, okay, I"ll say "My gosh Mr. President you"re right. Steve Bannon had nothing to do with your success.""
The reason why she"s depressed over Bannon"s departure likely stems from the fact that all loyalists from inside the campaign, save Conway and Miller, have been purged from the White House.
"People like us should be a little depressed today because there"s no one on the President"s side in the White House anymore. "
She summed up Trump"s isolation succinctly, "it"s just you in the White House surrounded by the people you hired from Goldman Sachs. Don"t you want to have one guy in the White House on your side?"
Ann then ripped Trump to shreds for calling out "fake news media" and then giving them exclusive access to him, saying "he"s calling Maggie Haberman (NY Times) everyday."
"Why isn"t he giving all his interviews to Breitbart, Daily Caller? Why isn"t he directing his communications director, or press secretary, to call on the conservative media. No, the conservative media is totally dissed in the press briefing room."
In short...
"He"s surrounded himself with the ruling class." -- Ann Coulter
For a couple of years now we"ve highlighted various data points suggesting that Obamacare was, and continues to be, in an inescapable death spiral that will end in a spectacular collapse of healthcare exchanges around the country. While there are a number of reasons that Obamacare was doomed from the start, it basically all boils down to the original failed logic that millions of young, healthy Americans would gladly pay out the nose for a product they didn"t want and knew they would never use all to fulfill a civic obligation to subsidize the healthcare costs of their older and/or less fortunate neighbors.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, most Americans simply aren"t wired that way.
In fact, as we pointed last week, a study from Mark Farrah and Associates found that the "off-exchange market" (i.e. people who make too much money to quality for subsidies and whose premiums are required to subsidize everyone else who does qualify) contracted by 2.1mm in 2016, or a 29% drop. With those kind of declines, it"s only a matter of time until there are no more rich fools in the pool willing to continue subsidizing a broken system.
Also, MFA published the same report in 2016, facilitating a year-over-year comparison. The on-exchange market fell from 12,681,874 to 12,216,003 individuals, a reduction of 465,871 or 4 percent. However, the off-exchange market fell from 7,520,939 to 5,361,451, a reduction of 2,159,488 or 29 percent. In other words, enrollment is steady among those who receive subsidies but declining dramatically among those who do not.
Much has been made of the question of whether the individual markets are in a “death spiral.” Given that the on-exchange market enrollment is relatively stable, there is clearly not a death spiral in the subsidized market. However, with a reduction in the unsubsidized market of 29 percent in just one year, that pattern certainly looks like one we would expect in a market spiraling down.
That said, for some folks, including Bernie Sanders, the problem with Obamacare isn"t that it"s too socialist for Americans but rather not quite socialist enough. As such, we learn today that he Vermont Senator will introduce a bill calling for a single-payer healthcare system as soon as he gets back to Washington DC from his month-long vacation. Per The Hill:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) plans to introduce his "Medicare for all" single-payer healthcare bill after Congress returns in September.
Speaking to constituents in Vermont Monday, Sanders admitted that the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Congress or be signed by President Trump.
"If we pass this thing, it"s not going to be tomorrow, it would be the most significant step forward legislatively since I suspect the creation of Social Security in the 1930s. It"s a big deal," he said, according to The Associated Press.
Sanders has long argued in favor of a government-run universal healthcare system, commonly referred to as single-payer. It was included in his platform during his 2016 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Of course, what Bernie"s "Medicare for all" plan really equates to is another massive tax hike for Americans...you know, because the federal government has demonstrated time and again what efficient allocators of capital they are.
All of which just proves that if you don"t like your Obamacare, too bad because Bernie"s going to take your money anyway.
Politics is personal. You might LIKE that Trump is your Uncle Gus but the tenured political faculty doesn"t and McCain is Professor Emeritus Maverikus of the tenured political faculty. McCain didn"t think Trump was qualified to be President, Trump insulted the crap out of him, and McCain is not going to hand him a political victory. The personal bonus from McCain"s defection? John McCain is the most powerful man in Washington now.
Here are three reasons why the "repeal and replace" will have McCain"s fingerprints all over it:
1-McCain has a sense of urgency
John McCain"s health problems make it likely that he won"t serve more than a year or two. McCain, for all of his detractors on the right and left, is still respected by his colleagues. If ANYONE can broker a deal with Democratic support, it"s John McCain. The American people are impatient and a mid-term election is 15 months away but McCain has to GSD. He will invoke his illness, if he deems it necessary, to get both sides to the table. Does this make your blood boil? It shouldn"t when you read reason #2.
2- McCain is a political animal.
McCain sells himself as a "mavericky statesman" but he"s not. He is a crafty, old politician who knows how things work in DC and his home state. He sidestepped the "Keating Five" scandal, beat down a popular news anchor in 2010, and crushed a Trump-supporting, tea party type in 2016. When the powerful Maricopa County GOP censured him for not being conservative enough, McCain picked off the grass roots activists, one precinct at a time-- it was an exercise in raw political power at the grassroots level.
McCain sincerely believed that he deserved to be President in 2008. He went to Annapolis, He served as a Naval officer. He spent 5.5 years as a prisoner of war. He served in the House from 1982 until he won his Senate seat in 1986. He stepped aside after he lost the Republican nomination in 2000 and "waited his turn". McCain believed that he has spent his life in service to America and rightfully should have been elected President in 2008. When he referred to Obama as "that one", it was only a reference to his youth and inexperience. I have met McCain and I don"t think he has a racist bone in his body but, like so many retired military officers, he abhors those who don"t "pay their dues". McCain never thought Obama paid his dues and he thinks that Trump is a charlatan.
McCain is a brawler. He was Trump before Trump was Trump. Consider what he said in his 1982 primary election when he was accused of being a carpet bagger:
Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.
He will do whatever it takes to win, He loves to call political opponents "weird". McCain is a brawler.
3- McCain is a statist.
I believe, at his core, McCain mistrusts the free market and trusts government. He suspended his Presidential campaign, in 2008, to pass TARP--this was no political ploy. John McCain sincerely believed that only government could save the economy from another Great Depression (then said he was lied to when he felt the heat in 2010). Like many (not all) retired military officers who run for public office, McCain lacks an understanding of how small businesses operate. He has never had to meet a $4,000 payroll with $3,000 in the bank. He has never had to increase his advertising budget because of a poor location. McCain has never had to miss an electric bill payment so he could a buy a ticket to his best customer"s favorite charity"s gala.
McCain is looking at the health insurance crisis like a commanding officer might view a logistics problem; beg for more money and make do with what we get. I expect him to lead the health insurance compromise that way. Expect the eventual "bi-partisan" health insurance plan (I call it McCare) to: retain the individual mandate and pre-existing condition requirements, open up markets by letting insurers compete across state lines, expand health savings accounts, and offer more Medicare expansion for the states.
McCare is going to suck. It will suck a little bit less than Obamacare but it"s still going to suck. McCain has a heightened sense of urgency, the political will to say f*** y*** to Trump, and the political acumen to bring big government Republicans and Democrats together.
McCare, like Obamacare, will suck and be unsustainable. The government will always be begging us for more money and we will all have to make to do with what we get. McCare is coming because this "my friends", is John McCain"s last stand.
About Brian Brady: San Diego-based real estate and mortgage broker. He writes about both HERE. Libertarianish Tea Party conservative with 25 years experience in capital markets. "Still waiting to watch the rEVOLution on television and, wouldn"t you know it"s happening on the internet"
After a few days of non-stop tirades against current Attorney-General Jeff Sessions by President Trump, increasing numbers of Republicans are coming out in support of the "beleauered" AG urging Trump to stop.
As Bloomberg reports, a number of Republicans have called White House officials - and even Trump personally - to warn against removing Sessions, according to a Senate GOP aide who asked not to be identified discussing the private conversations. Their message has been that Sessions is universally liked on Capitol Hill and that removing him would be one of Trump’s biggest mistakes as president.
But, just in case the message from senior Republicans was not getting to the President, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CNN on Thursday morning...
WATCH: "Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency," says Sen. Lindsey Graham. pic.twitter.com/x2scZCKUIo
“If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”
Graham described as “chilling” a tweet posted by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley late Wednesday in which the Iowa Republican said there was “no way” his panel would consider the nomination of a replacement for Sessions.
“There will be no confirmation hearing for a new attorney general in 2017,” Graham said.
Graham also warned Trump against any efforts to remove the special prosecutor appointed in the Russia probe, former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
“Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency,” Graham said on CNN.
Over/Under on Trump"s tweet response to Graham"s "threat" is currently 90/120 mins.
Grinnell College awards a $100,000 prize each year to an “Innovator for Social Justice,” and recently began accepting nominations for the 2018 recipient.
The "Innovator for Social Justice Prize" is the largest award given by a U.S. college for efforts to promote social justice, and has disbursed at least $1.5 million since 2011.
Grinnell College awards a $100,000 prize each year to an “Innovator for Social Justice,” according to a nomination form that went live on Sunday.
The “Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize” is the largest award given by a U.S college to promote social justice. Half of the money is awarded directly to the winner, while the other half goes to the organization that the winner represents.
“With the creation of the Grinnell Prize, the College is extending its educational mission beyond the campus and alumni community to individuals anywhere who believe innovative social justice programs create a better world,” the school boasts on its website, noting that students and staff members are offered the chance to work with prize-winners and their organizations through “student internships and staff fellowships.”
Funded with “discretionary funds from the College’s endowment,” the school has awarded at least $1.5 million dollars since the prize was launched in 2011. Three prizes were awarded in each of the first two years, after which the number was reduced to two until 2017, when only one recipient was selected.
The nomination form encourages people to nominate individuals, including current students and alumni, who are “a force for social justice,” noting that nominees “should have identified a concrete social justice need, designed creative and socially just solutions to address that need, and made a substantive impact through their hard work and dedication.”
The school asserts that there is not “one specific definition of social justice,” saying the concept should be “interpreted broadly” and that it’s up to the person who makes the nomination “to make the case as to how his or her nominee effects positive social change.”
Grinnell College President Raynard S. Kington defended the creation of the expensive award in a statement to the college community in 2011, acknowledging that “some people have asked me why the College is undertaking an expensive new initiative now, in such challenging financial times,” but vowing that the expenditure would not adversely impact the school’s budget or financial aid commitments.
“We decided we’d rather offer a prize that advances useful work and contributes more to the mission of the College than do other equally expensive things to build our prestige,” Kington explained, calling the prize “a creative way to achieve many of the College’s goals even in a time of tight money.”
The Las Vegas Sunreports, “Destiny Diaz stood in line for nearly three hours at the Jardin Premium Cannabis dispensary in central Las Vegas to celebrate what some were calling the end of marijuana prohibition in Nevada.”
“A local resident for 35 years, [Steve] Evans, 54, said he arrived just before 7:30 p.m. and that the nearly five-hour wait Friday night was the longest he had been away from his home in over eight years.
“‘I want an ounce of Gorilla Glue 4, and then I’m going home to sink into the sofa and be with my wife,’ Evans said, referring to one of the dispensary’s best-selling marijuana flower strains. ‘Pretty simple.’”
It turns out the reality of supply, demand and the tax man bites for medical users. “Paul Pastwa, a medical marijuana cardholder who said he shops at Jardin twice a week, complained that a half-ounce of marijuana flower climbed from $60 to over $100 for medical buyers since he last shopped at the dispensary,” writes Chris Kudailis. “We understood that recreational buyers would have to pay more, but not medical,” Pastwa said. “My price has doubled overnight.”
Adam Denmark Cohen, Jardin"s owner, “said he was forced to raise prices because of a state-mandated increase in marijuana wholesale distribution taxes for shipment of items from cultivation and production facilities to dispensaries.”
The Sun reports that Essence Cannabis Dispensary saw 1,200 customers at its two locations early this morning. Local laws allowed dispensaries to be open from midnight to 3 a.m., but then had to close until 6 a.m. As an aside, Sun newspaper CEO Brian Greenspan owns a portion of Essence. Marijuana licenses went to the politically connected, not necessarily to those with expertise in the business.
All this reefer madness is happening after Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a letter to Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer voicing the Department of Justice’s opposition to anything that would “inhibit the DOJ’s authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).”
The attorney general claims marijuana use has “significant negative health effects,” including the loss of IQ points, which is funny coming from a guy, who claims “marijuana has a high potential for abuse [and] no currently accepted medical treatment in use in the United States.” He evidently hasn’t read this article from the Business Insider listing 23 health benefits of marijuana.
“Is Russia an enemy of the United States?” NBC’s Kasie Hunt demanded of Ted Cruz. Replied the runner-up for the GOP nomination, “Russia is a significant adversary. Putin is a KGB thug.”
To Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, the revelation that Donald Trump Jr., entertained an offer from the Russians for dirt on Clinton could be considered “treason.”
Treason is giving aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war.
Are we really at war with Russia? Is Russia really our enemy?
“Why Russia is a Hostile Power” is the title of today’s editorial in The Washington Post that seeks to explain why Middle America should embrace the Russophobia of our capital city:
“Vladimir Putin adheres to a set of values that are antithetical to bedrock American values. He favors spheres of influence over self-determination; corruption over transparency; and repression over democracy.”
Yet, accommodating a sphere of influence for a great power is exactly what FDR and Churchill did with Stalin, and every president from Truman to George H. W. Bush did with the Soviet Union.
When East Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles rose up against Communist regimes, no U.S. president intervened. For those nations were on the other side of the Yalta line agreed to in 1945.
Bush I and James Baker even accused Ukrainians of “suicidal nationalism” for contemplating independence from Russia.
When did support for spheres of influence become un-American?
As for supporting “corruption over transparency,” ex-Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili resigned in disgust as governor of Odessa in November, accusing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, our man in Kiev, of supporting corruption.
As for favoring “repression over democracy,” would that not apply to our NATO ally President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, our Arab ally Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, and our Philippine ally Rodrigo Duterte? Were U.S. Cold War allies like the Shah of Iran and Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile all Jeffersonian Democrats? Have we forgotten our recent history?
The Post brought up the death in prison of lawyer-activist Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. Under the Magnitsky Act of 2012, Congress voted sanctions on Russia’s elites.
Yet China’s lone Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to 11 years in prison for championing democracy, died Thursday of liver cancer, with police in his hospital room. Communist dictator Xi Jinping, who makes Putin look like Justin Trudeau, would not let the dying man go.
Will Magnitsky Act sanctions be slammed on China? Don’t bet on it. Too much trade. Congress will do what comes naturally — kowtow. Yet our heroic Senate voted 98-2 to slam new sanctions on Russia.
What are the roots of this hostility to Russia and hatred of Putin, whom a Fox analyst called “as bad as Hitler”?
During the Cold War, every president sought detente with a USSR that was arguably the most blood-soaked regime of the century.
When the Cold War ended in December 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved into 15 nations. Moscow had given up her empire, a third of her territory, and half the population of the USSR. Marxist-Leninist ideology was dead. An epochal change had taken place.
Yet hostility to Russia and hatred of Putin seem to exceed anything some of us remember from the worst days of the Cold War.
Putin’s Russia is called imperialist, though Estonia, next door, which Russia could swallow in one gulp, has been free for 25 years.
Russia invaded Georgia. Well, yes, after Georgia invaded the seceded province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers.
Russia has taken back Crimea from Ukraine. True, but only after a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev replaced the elected pro-Russian regime.
Russia has intervened to back Bashar Assad in Syria. Yes, but only after our insurgent allies collaborated with al-Qaida and ISIS to bring him down. Is Russia not allowed to support an ally, recognized by the U.N., which provides its only naval base on the Med?
Russia has meddled in our election. And we have meddled in the affairs of half a dozen nations with “color-coded revolutions.” The cry of “regime change!” may daily be heard in the U.S. Capitol.
Putin is not Pope Francis. But he is not Stalin; he is not Hitler; he is not Mao; and Russia today is not the USSR. Putin is an autocrat cut from the same bolt of cloth as the Romanov czars.
His cooperation is crucial to the peace of the world, the freedom of the Baltic States, an end to the Syrian civil war, tranquility in the Persian Gulf, and solving the North Korean crisis.
While our tectonic plates may rub against one another, we are natural allies. The Russia of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn and the Orthodox Church belongs with the West.
If America stumbles into a war with Russia that all our Cold War presidents avoided, the Russia baiters and Putin haters will be put in same circle of hell by history as the idiot war hawks of 1914 and the three blind men of Versailles in 1919.
After refusing to discuss the FBI investigation into whether his wife submitted a fraudulent loan application during her time as president of the now-defunct Burlington College, Sen. Bernie Sanders has chosen to say a few choice words on the matter during an interview with noted fake news purveyor CNN.
When CNN’s Erin Burnett repeatedly pressed Sanders to confirm the probe, the Senator demurred, but then decided he’d like to say a few words about the investigation. Echoing remarks made to a local reporter in May – before the existence of a federal investigation was known to the public – Senators launched into a diatribe about how the investigation is nothing more than a political attack perpetrated by Republicans.
“My wife is about the most honest person I know.When she came to that college it was failing financially and academically when she left it, it was in the best shape it’d ever been. Five years later, coincidentally no doubt, when I am a candidate for president of United States Donald Trump’s campaign manager – vice chairman of the Republican party of Vermont – launched this investigation.
"It is a sad state of affairs in America. Not only do we have politicians being destroyed – when there are attacks against elected officials – but when they go after your wife? That’s pretty pathetic. And that"s where we are right now, and that’s all I’m going to say."
“When people are involved in public life, it’s not only that they get attacked, but their wives and families get attacked as well.”
When repeatedly asked if he could confirm if his wife is under investigation, Sanders demurred.
“That’s all I’m going to say.”
* * *
Of course, the notion that Jane Sanders left Burlington in “the best shape it’d ever been in” is ridiculous: The school of course closed last year after more than 45 years of operation thanks to the crushing debt burden accumulated during Sanders’ reign.
And what about the allegations that Sanders’ office improperly leaned on People’s United Bank to grant the $10 million loan? Those allegations were conveniently glossed over.
As we reported over the weekend, Sanders and his wife Jane have hired lawyers to defend themselves amid an FBI investigation into a loan obtained to expand Burlington College while she was its president. Burlington College, a small Vermont private school once led by the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, closed last year, citing "the crushing weight" of debt incurred during the presidency of Jane Sanders who was in charge of the college until 2011.
The college, which enrolled 224 students as of fall 2014, said it faced financial troubles connected to its 2010 purchase of 32 acres of lakefront property from the Archdiocese of Burlington. The college said it had sold property to reduce its debt to a manageable level, but it was placed on probation in 2014 by its accrediting agency and it faced cash flow problems due to the imminent loss of a line of credit.
The reason for the small liberal school"s terminal financial trouble is that to fund the property purchase from the Catholic diocese, Sanders took out $10 million in loans. As HeatStreet reported last year, the college almost immediately fell short on its financial obligations as fundraising pledges and commitments Ms. Sanders cited in the loan agreements never materialized. Less than a year after leading Burlington College into massive debt, Ms. Sanders resigned, taking with her a $200,000 severance package. By 2014, because of its shaky finances and running deficits, Burlington College found itself placed on probation for two years by the regional accreditation agency.
Jane Sanders was president of the college from 2004 to 2011. Her husband, Bernie Sanders, a former mayor of Burlington, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007 and since then has represented Vermont in the U.S. Senate.
A Sanders ally said the couple has sought legal protection over federal agents" allegations from a January 2016 complaint accusing then-President of Burlington College, Ms. Sanders, of distorting donor levels in a 2010 loan application for $10 million from People"s United Bank to purchase 33 acres of land for the institution.
* * *
Poor Bernie. He dedicates his entire life advocating on behalf of America’s disenfranchised, and how does this country repay him? By electing him mayor, Congressman, Senator…the essential unfairness of the situation is staggering.
And who knows? Maybe if it weren’t for blatant collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC, Bernie would’ve won the Democratic nomination, and maybe he’d be sitting in the Oval Office right now instead of Trump.
We wonder how media outlets like CNN – not to mention special counsel Robert Mueller and the Congressional investigators – would’ve treated the investigation then?
In a new book about the failed Clinton campaign entitled "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton"s Doomed Campaign," Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen reveal a story that confirms what most of us already knew about that whole Bernie endorsement of Hillary, namely that it was a complete and utter farce.
As the story goes, members of the Clinton campaign reached out to Sanders aides in late September 2016 to share a script of an ad they wanted the Vermont senator to record on Hillary"s behalf. Unfortunately, Bernie wasn"t feeling Hillary"s "I"m With Her" slogan and refused to recite it for the ad, saying:
“It’s so phony!” Sanders said. “I don’t want to say that.”
As The Hill notes, The Clinton campaign eventually decided not to use the ad on television, after learning that voters found it completely obvious that Bernie didn"t actually support Hillary"s nomination.
“People felt that it was him delivering his message, not Hillary’s,” said one Clinton aide familiar with focus group responses.
"People didn’t feel that it was an authentic pitch for her and what she wanted to do. It even had some backlash in folks saying that he’s not really supporting her.”
Perhaps being sabotaged by his own party so that Hillary could claim her birthright left a mark after all.
In a historic vote, Senate Republicans on Thursday crushed "a Democratic blockade" - in Reuters" words - of Trump"s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, in a fierce partisan brawl, approving a rule change dubbed the "nuclear option" to allow for conservative judge Neil Gorsuch"s confirmation by Friday.
The Senate voted 52-48 along party lines to repeal a rule allowing filibusters against Supreme Court nominees,invoking the so-called nuclear option, and clearing the way for Gorsuch confirmation who now needs a simple majority for nomination. Shortly thereafter, the Sante voted 55-45 to end debate on Gorsuch’s nomination, setting up a final vote expected Friday. Thanks to the new rule enacted earlier Thursday, a simple majority was needed.
"This will be the first and last partisan filibuster of the Supreme Court," Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, accusing Democrats of trying to inflict political damage on Trump and to keep more conservatives from joining the high court.
"In 20 or 30 or 40 years, we will sadly point to today as a turning point in the history of the Senate and the Supreme Court, a day when we irrevocably moved further away from the principles our founders intended for these institutions: principles of bipartisanship, moderation and consensus," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor.
McConnell initiated the rules change by raising a point of order asserting that simple-majority votes should advance Supreme Court nominees to final confirmation votes. Democrats tried to delay it by offering motions to postpone a vote and to adjourn the chamber, but both fell short as Republicans stayed unified.
Earlier Thursday, McConnell said the rules change would restore the Senate’s tradition of considering a Supreme Court nominee based on credentials instead of ideology. He called the Democratic filibuster of Goruch “a radical move” and something “completely unprecedented in the history of our Senate.” “This threatened filibuster cannot be allowed to succeed or to continue for the sake of the Senate, for the sake of the court and for the sake our country,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Democrats successfully blocked Gorsuch’s nomination from getting 60 votes earlier Thursday morning, prompting Republicans to go “nuclear” and change the rules to allow Gorsuch and future Supreme Court nominees to clear the Senate with only a simple majority. Democrats tried to delay the rules change vote by offering motions to postpone a vote and to adjourn the chamber, but both fell short as Republicans stayed unified.
Democrat senators Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.) voted with Republicans to allow President Trumps’s pick to move forward.
Republicans defended the party-line vote on the nuclear option, saying Democrats were to blame for blocking Gorsuch, who they believe is eminently qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) argued that Democrats should “come to their senses.”
“The truth of the matter is that throughout this process, the minority led by their leader has been desperately searching for a justification for their preplanned filibuster,” he said ahead of Thursday’s votes.
McConnell added that the current stalemate was part of a decades-long Democratic effort to “politicize the courts and the confirmation process.” “The opposition to this particular nominee is more about the man that nominated him and the party he represents than the nominee himself,” he said.
Republicans hinted for weeks that President Trump’s nominee would be confirmed one way or another. McConnell confirmed during a leadership press conference that he had the votes to go “nuclear” if needed.
According to The Hill, Republicans appeared resigned to the tactics, arguing if Democrats won’t support Gorsuch — who received the American Bar Association’s highest rating — they won’t allow any GOP nominee to join the Supreme Court.
* * *
The Republican-backed rule change on Thursday maintains the ability to filibuster legislation. In the past, the nuclear option has been averted when moderates in the two parties compromised to avoid a showdown, but the ferocious partisanship in Washington now made that impossible.
Experts said eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments could make it more likely that presidents, with little incentive to choose centrist justices who could attract support from the other party, will pick ideologically extreme nominees in the future.
Ending the filibuster also would make it easier for future Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed when the president and Senate leadership belong to the same party.
With the failure of Republican healthcare legislation in Congress and with federal courts blocking the president"s ban on people from several Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States, securing Gorsuch"s confirmation took on even greater importance for Trump, who took office in January.
* * *
Senate confirmation of Gorsuch, 49, would restore the nine-seat court"s 5-4 conservative majority, enable Trump to leave an indelible mark on America"s highest judicial body and fulfill a top campaign promise by the Republican president. Gorsuch could be expected to serve for decades.
The court"s ideological leaning could help determine the outcome of cases involving the death penalty, abortion, gun control, environmental regulations, transgender rights, voting rights, immigration, religious liberty, presidential powers and more.
The nine-seat Supreme Court has had a vacancy since conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016.
* * *
Update 2: Republican"s start roll call to implement "nuclear option":
Update 1: As expected, Democrats have just voted to temporarily block Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination, setting up a “nuclear option” vote for later in the day. Around 11:30AM EST, Senators voted 55-45 on ending debate over President Trump’s pick leaving Republicans 5 votes shy of the 60 vote threshold required.
As we noted earlier, Republicans are planning a vote later today to remove the 60-vote threshold for cloture on Supreme Court nominees, lowering it to a simple majority.
And with that vote, the official Democrat policy objectives for the next two years have been publicly recorded:
* * *
Back in 2013, before Republicans seized control of the Senate during the 2014 mid-term elections, Democrats became the first party to pursue the "nuclear option" in order to appoint Obama judges over the objection of Republicans. Both Obama and then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised the use of the "nuclear option" at the time:
Obama: "The gears of government have to work. And the step that a majority of senators took today, I think, will help make those gears work just a little bit better."
Harry Reid: "It"s time to change. It"s time to change the Senate before this institution becomes obsolete."
And while Democrats celebrated, Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor to warn his colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they just might come to regret their decision "sooner than you think."
"If you want to play games, set another precedent that you"ll no doubt come to regret. To my friends on the other side of the aisle, you"ll regret this and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think."
Today, it"s looking increasingly likely that "sooner" has come. As NBC reports, barring some unexpected, last-minute deal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will almost certainly trigger the so-called "nuclear option" later today to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Senators spent all day yesterday debating the matter, but the outcome — a permanent change in rules that will affect both the Senate and the nation"s highest court — has been as good as settled since at least week when Democrats confirmed they had the votes required to block Gorsuch"s nomination.
Here"s how it will work:
The Senate is slated to hold a procedural vote, called a cloture around mid-day Thursday. Sixty votes are needed to end debate and move forward to a final vote that requires a simple majority of 51 to confirm Gorsuch.
But Democrats have enough votes to prevent, or filibuster that first step. When the cloture vote fails, McConnell is likely to begin the process of changing the rules to eliminate filibusters on Supreme Court nominations, with a vote on that expected later Thursday afternoon. Then the final up-or-down vote to confirm Gorsuch is expected to take place on Friday.
Meanwhile, the rule change will come after Senate Democrat Jeff Merkley wasted 15.5 hours "filibustering" on the Senate floor overnight. Ironically, as even Chuck Todd notes in the video below, Merkley fully supported the Democrats" use of the "nuclear option" in 2013.
As The Hill notes, a group of Republicans and Democrats led by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.) negotiated intensely over the weekend in hopes of avoiding a blowup over the rules, but they fell short.
“The negotiations with which I was heavily involved have failed to come up with a compromise, which saddens me. There’s so little trust between the two parties that it was very difficult to put together an agreement that would avert changing the rules,” Collins told reporters.
“I worked very hard over the weekend, as did several Democrats and several Republicans, but we were not able to reach an agreement,” Collins added, estimating that about 10 lawmakers were involved.
The group held calls as early as 6:30 a.m. and as late as midnight in hopes of avoiding a rule change adopted along party lines.
Coons said the talks fell apart because of pressure from Senate leaders, who weren’t interested in a deal, and from the conservative and liberal bases of the party, who view the Supreme Court’s composition as a top priority.
“The fact that both leaders were opposing negotiations also, frankly, made it difficult,” Coons said. “Both caucus leadership and outside groups were a source of steady and aggressive pressure against some consensus negotiation, in both parties.”
Of course, while Republicans will undoubtedly declare victory tomorrow upon Gorsuch"s nomination, it"s only a matter of time before the tables are turned once again and their decision comes back to haunt them.
While Democrats debate whether or not to filibuster the Neil Gorsuch nomination for Supreme Court, moments ago they delayed for one week an initial committee vote on Gorsuch. As The Hill first reported, Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the committee, said Democrats had requested that the committee"s vote on Gorsuch be punted to next week.
"I understand that the minority would like to hold [him] over," Grassley said during the Judiciary Committee"s meeting on Monday. Under committee rules any one member can request that a nomination be held the first time it appears on the agenda.
Today"s move is not a surprise: Democrats were widely expected to delay the committee"s vote until next week. The delay means the committee vote will likely take place on April 3, giving Republicans days to meet their goal of winning Gorsuch"s confirmation by the full Senate by the end of that week. The Senate will then go into a recess.
Democrats are demanding a 60-vote threshold for Gorsuch"s approval, but it is unclear whether the party has enough votes to support a filibuster against Trump"s nominee.
Meanwhile, Republicans have suggested they will change the Senate"s rules allowing a filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if Democrats block Gorsuch. The committee held a four-day hearing on Gorsuch"s nomination last week, with Trump"s nominee appearing before the committee for three days.
Democrats also delayed Rod Rosenstein, nominated to be deputy attorney general, by a week.
He looks like he was interpreting the law as it was written not how he feels. Of course, we all feel that an autistic child get all the opportunities possible but the law stated that the school district had to provide just anything above the absolute minimum. If the district was providing anything above the minimum, the district was well within the law and the three judges were right. But then there are the vitue signaling , holier than thou crowd who is SOOOOOO enlightened and who is annointed to spend others peoples money and who write the laws from the bench, of course that crowd would overturn a judgement that is perfectly in line with the law as written.
We discussed the reasons why Judge Neil Gorsuch is quite likely to be installed on the Supreme Court following this week’s hearings in an earlier post: In short, he’s eminently qualified and universally esteemed, Democrats lack the votes to stop him (barring a further escalation of tactics that have already burned them badly, and that can be overcome through retaliatory maneuvers), and opponents have failed to settle on a coherent approach to impede his confirmation. But that doesn’t mean that Senate Democrats and left-wing interest groups — who have worked hand-in-glove in the past — aren’t up to their usual tricks. When they don’t have a substantive case to prosecute, there’s always the scurrilous character assassination card to play. New York Magazineis on it, publishing a piece that quickly began making the rounds on Lefty social media. “Surprise” number one:
Jennifer Sisk, who graduated from the University of Colorado Law School last year, says that during a Legal Ethics and Professionalism class last spring, Gorsuch told his students that companies should ask women about their pregnancy plans during job interviews, and claimed that many women plan to manipulate their employers by taking maternity leave, then quitting to stay home with their children. Sisk sent a two-page letter describing the incident to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. It was posted on Sunday night by the National Employment Lawyers Association and the National Women’s Law Center…He told them that “all our hands should be raised because ‘many’ women use their companies for maternity benefits and then leave the company after the baby is born.” She says he “implied that women intentionally manipulate companies and plan to disadvantage their companies, starting from the first interview.”
This is remarkably thin gruel on its face, especially since the key charge rests on an inference of something Gorsuch allegedly “implied.” But the gruel gets thinner. Surprise number two, courtesy of Glenn Reynolds:
The quoted “former student,” identified by New York Magazine as one “Jennifer Sisk, who graduated from the University of Colorado Law School last year,” is not just any former student, but a former operative for Democrat Mark Udall. (“Sisk went to college in Massachusetts, at Wellesley, then worked as an aide in Mark Udall’s Senate office in Washington.”) New York Magazine leaves that rather important fact out.
But of course. This concerned former student just happens to have worked as a Democratic operative (on behalf of Colorado’s hapless and defeated “Senator Uterus”), which colors her credibility. In fairness, though, just because she’s an explicitly partisan actor doesn’t necessarily mean that her concerns should be dismissed entirely out of hand. Maybe she has a point. Perhaps an independent assessment from another student who was in the classroom for that discussion could be illuminating. Surprise number three, via Ed Morrissey:
But in a letter provided to NBC News on Monday by a person helping with the Gorsuch nomination process, another former student wrote to the committee to refute Sisk’s claims. “Although Judge Gorsuch did discuss some of the topics mentioned in the letter, he did not do so in the manner described,” Will Hauptman wrote in the letter, which was sent on Sunday. Hauptman wrote that Gorsuch often asked his students to consider the challenges they would face as new attorneys, including the tension between building a career and starting a family, especially for women. “The seriousness with which the judge asked us to consider these realities reflected his desire to make us aware of them, not any animus against a career or group,” he wrote.
Having recently waded into the Russia-NATO axis scandal, when as Reuters first reported on Monday Rex Tillerson planned to skip the April 5-6 meeting of NATO foreign ministers despite flying a week later to Russia, which as Reuters said is "a step allies may see as putting Moscow"s concerns ahead of theirs", only to reverse his decision last night, and offer NATO several "conflict-free" dates which could work for an upcoming meeting (NATO has yet to respond), attention has turned this morning to an interview Tillerson gave to the IJR, in which the former Exxon CEO appears to be expressing some reluctance about his current posting.
In the interview, Tillerson said the job of secretary of State wasn"t a role he actually sought out.
"I didn"t want this job. I didn"t seek this job," Tillerson told the Independent Journal Review in an interview during his recent Asia trip.
So why did he take the job? As the Hill points out, when asked why he agreed to take on the position of secretary of State, Tillerson said his wife "told me I"m supposed to do this."
During the interview Tillerson said he had never met President Trump before the election. After his victory, the president wanted to talk with Tillerson "about the world."
“When he asked me at the end of that conversation to be secretary of State, I was stunned," Tillerson said. Tillerson later told his wife about the offer.
“I told you God’s not through with you," he said his wife told him. The former ExxonMobil CEO added: “I was supposed to retire in March, this month. I was going to go to the ranch to be with my grandkids."
Tillerson also said he serves at the "pleasure of the president."
"My wife convinced me," he said. "She was right. I"m supposed to do this." Tillerson was confirmed as secretary of State in February, despite a late effort by Democrats to slow down the nomination.
Tulsi Gabbard has continued to impress ever since she came on the national scene last year with her courageous and very public support for Bernie Sanders in the rigged Democratic primary.
Most recently, she continued to demonstrate her knowledge of geopolitics and willingness to stand up to America’s unelected government, aka the Deep State, in a recent interview with CNN’s Jake Taper.
Note, the clip is about a month old, but important to watch if you haven’t.
If the Democrats have any hope of becoming a decent opposition party which not only resists the worst of Trump, but also rejects the perverted neoliberal/Deep State ideology currently embraced by establishment Dems, Tulsi Gabbard will have to play a key role.
A rising star within the Democratic ranks, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, cut herself off from the party’s establishment by resigning from her post as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee and endorsing Bernie Sanders for president.
Her position with the DNC required her to stay neutral in the primaries, but she said that “the stakes are too high.” She announced her decision on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and made a video where she explained her reasoning.
Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, said she knows the cost of war firsthand. “I know how important it is that our commander-in-chief has the sound judgment required to know when to use America’s military power—and when not to use that power.”
The importance of this move cannot be understated. In no uncertain terms, this gesture publicly exposes the weakness of the “Clinton brand.” She clearly isn’t afraid of Hillary or of any repercussions from the Democratic Party elite, a fact that is underscored by the fact she came out with her endorsement after he got pummeled in South Carolina.
But let’s take a step back and think about this in the even bigger picture. You don’t get to Congress by being a political imbecile. On the surface, this move looks like career suicide, particularly since Hillary is probably about to clinch the nomination. Recall, Rep. Gabbard didn’t merely endorse Sanders after a bruising loss in South Carolina, she stepped down from her official position with the DNC to do so. This isn’t merely a statement, it’s the equivalent of dropping a neutron bomb on the Democratic establishment. So why did she do it?
While I think she genuinely agrees with Sanders on key issues, the reason she came out so aggressively is because she sees the writing on the wall. She’s playing the long game, and in the long game, Hillary Clinton represents a discredited and failed status quo, while Bernie Sanders represents a push toward the paradigm level change that will define the future.
When it comes to the Democrats, we need to see a lot less Pelosi and Schumer, and a lot more Gabbard.
For an indication of the current state of US political discourse, look no further than twitter.
Shortly after Democratic establishment favorite Tom Perez defeated Keith Ellison as the new DNC Chair, the Republican National Committee issued a statement slamming Democrats for being out of touch with the American people, a sentiment shared once again by many Bernie Sanders supporters, who saw the loss of Ellison as a symbolic perpetuation of the status quo.
"By selecting a D.C. insider, Democrats only create deeper divisions within their own party by pushing a far left agenda that rejects a majority of their base outside Washington," said chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
"The DNC would be well-served to learn from two straight election cycle losses, encourage the leaders in their party to listen to what the voters want, and get to work with Republicans to fix the mess they created."
However it was Donald Trump"s trolling of Perez on twitter over his victory, saying he could not be happier for Perez or the GOP, that was the punchline of the day.
“Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!”
Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!
Perhaps Trump"s compliment was sincere: on Wednesady Trump weighed in on the DNC chair election, praising Keith Ellison for his 2015 prediction that Trump could win the Republican nomination. “One thing I will say about Rep. Keith Ellison, in his fight to lead the DNC, is that he was the one who predicted early that I would win!”
Then again perhaps not, because shortly after Trump"s tweet, Perez - best known during the Obama administration for getting accolades for "seasonally adjusting" America"s transformation into a part-time worker society, responded as follows: "Call me Tom. And don"t get too happy. @keithellison and I, and Democrats united across the country, will be your worst nightmare"
Call me Tom. And don"t get too happy. @keithellison and I, and Democrats united across the country, will be your worst nightmare. https://t.co/fu7WvLofrD
And just like that, another classic Twitter war was born, because while Americans may await (a long time) for Trump"s economic plans to be implemented, they will surely be entertained.
The Senate has voted to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general in a 52-47 vote that went along party lines, following days of rigorous discussion and capping a vicious debate that left Democrats and Republicans seething, and Elizabeth Warren barred from speaking.
Sen. Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to break party rank and vote to back Sessions. Independent Senators Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont voted alongside 45 Democrats in opposition to the nominee.
The fight over Sessions" nomination infamously escalated last night, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren read a letter that Coretta Scott King had written in 1986 that accused Sessions, a U.S. attorney at the time, of using the power of his office to prevent blacks from voting. As we reported last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to Warren’s speech, saying she had impugned another member of the Senate. Then, in a 49-43 vote, the Senate agreed, blocking Warren from speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
Angry Democrats accused McConnell of silencing a woman on the floor, and Warren went on a media blitz against the Republican senators and Sessions. The tensions were on full display during the debate over Sessions’s nomination. “We all know our colleague from Alabama. He’s honest," McConnell said. “He’s fair. He’s been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle.”
Democrats defended their criticism of Sessions’s record on issues of race and civil rights. “When we make a big issue of the position of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on the Voting Rights Act, it"s with good cause. It is historically an issue which has haunted the United States since the Civil War,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — the No. 2 Senate Democrat — said ahead of the vote.
“Senator Sessions is not a man apart from this agenda. He is not independent of [Trump"s] agenda,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Republicans meanwhile decried the Democratic tactics, arguing they were going to new lows to smear Sessions. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — a long-serving Senate traditionalist — said Democrats are treating Sessions like a “terrible person,” urging his colleagues on Tuesday night to think of Sessions’s wife.
As The Hill points out, the fiery words in the last days of the debate over Sessions were somewhat surprising.
While the issue of race had always hung over the debate, Sessions is well-liked personally by many senators. That made the stinging words all the more noteworthy — and raises questions about the ability of lawmakers to work together going forward.
Sessions will now take over the Justice Department’s defense of Trump’s controversial order barring people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. A former aide to Sessions was instrumental in the order’s writing, and Democrats argued the Alabama senator would not be a firm defender of an independent Justice Department.
Not The Onion. Following a scathing speech against Trump"s nominee for Attorney General, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said Senator Elizabeth Warren had "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama," violating the so-called "Rule 19". By a vote of 49-43, Senator Warren was then barred from speaking on the floor until Senator Sessions nomination debate is complete (likely tomorrow evening).
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who was presiding over the the Senate during the Massachusetts Democrat"s speech - who at times was repeating words being said to him by GOP Senate floor staff - initially interrupted Warren to warn her that she was on the brink of violating the rule.
As The Hill reports, the drama on the Senate floor comes after McConnell interrupted Warren"s speech accusing her of breaking the upper chamber"s guidelines.
“The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama,” McConnell said from the Senate floor.
“I call the senator to order under the provisions of Rule 19.”
Under the Senate’s “Rule 19,” senators are not allowed to “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."
Warren offered a blistering speech against Sessions"s nomination, arguing he wouldn’t stand up to Trump’s “campaign of bigotry.”
“He made derogatory and racist comments that should have no place in our justice system,” she said.
“To put Sen. Sessions in charge of the Department of Justice is an insult to African-Americans.”
Warren quoted a 1986 speech from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) who referred to Sessions as a “throwback to a shameful era” and a “disgrace” to the Justice Department.
McConnell defended the decision, noting Warren had been warned.
"Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation," he said after the vote. "Nevertheless, she persisted."
McConnell on Warren: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted"
McConnell also specifically pointed to Warren quoting a letter from the late Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist and wife of Martin Luther King Jr., as evidence that she had broken the rules.Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986, during Sessions"s failed confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship, that he “had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" as a U.S. attorney in Alabama. When Warren said she was "surprised" by McConnell"s actions and asked to continue, the Republican objected and was backed up by Daines, effectively ending Warren"s speech.
Warren rejected McConnell"s move, tweeting to her millions of followers that
"I will not be silent while the Republicans rubber stamp an AG who will never stand up to the @POTUS when he breaks the law."
Of course, Democrats did what they do best in response - unleashed a social media frenzy of hurt fellings capped by the hashtag #LetLizSpeak.
But Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) - the Senate"s top Democrat - had the last word... "If the average American heard someone read a letter from Coretta Scott King ... they would not be offended, It seems to me that we could use Rule 19 almost every day on the floor of the Senate. This is selective enforcement."
On Tuesday, President Trump announced that he would nominate Neil Gorsuch to fill the open seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch currently serves on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, and he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate when he was appointed to that position by President George W. Bush in 2006. Gorsuch appears to have some strong similarities to Antonin Scalia, and many conservatives are hoping that when Gorsuch fills Scalia’s seat that it will represent a shift in the balance of power on the Supreme Court. Because for almost a year, the court has been operating with only eight justices. Four of them were nominated by Republican presidents and four of them were nominated by Democrats, and so many Republicans are anticipating that there will now be a Supreme Court majority for conservatives.
Unfortunately, things are not that simple, because a couple of the “conservative” justices are not actually very conservative at all.
For example, it is important to remember that Scalia was still on the court when the Supreme Court decision that forced all 50 states to legalize gay marriage was decided. Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberal justices in a majority opinion that Scalia harshly criticized. So with Gorsuch on the court, that case would still have been decided the exact same way.
Sadly, even though Kennedy was nominated by Ronald Reagan, he has turned out to be quite liberal. In the past, not nearly enough scrutiny was given to justices that were nominated by Republican presidents, and a few of them have turned out to be total disasters.
And let us also remember that Scalia was still on the court when the big Obamacare case was decided. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal justices in a decision that was perhaps one of the most bizarre in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
For some reason, Justice Roberts was determined to preserve Obamacare, and if you read what he wrote it is some of the most twisted legal reasoning that I have ever come across.
As someone that was once part of the legal world, let me let you in on a little secret. Most judges simply do whatever they feel like doing, and then they will try to find a way to justify their decisions. So if you ever find yourself in court, you should pray that you will get a judge that is sympathetic to your cause.
Fortunately, Gorsuch appears to be one of the rare breed of judges that actually cares what the U.S. Constitution and our laws have to say. In that respect, he is very much like Scalia…
Gorsuch is seen by analysts as a jurist similar to Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, 2016. Scalia, praised by Gorsuch as “a lion of the law,” was known not only for his hard-line conservatism but for interpreting the U.S. Constitution based on what he considered its original meaning, and laws as written by legislators. Like Scalia, Gorsuch is known for sharp writing skills.
“It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives,” Gorsuch said on Tuesday at the White House event announcing the nomination in remarks that echoed Scalia’s views.
One of the most high profile cases that Gorsuch was involved with came in 2013. That was the famous “Hobby Lobby case”, and it represented a key turning point in the fight for religious freedom. The following comes from CNN…
In 2013, he joined in an opinion by the full Court of Appeals holding that federal law prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services from requiring closely-held, for-profit secular corporations to provide contraceptive coverage as part of their employer-sponsored health insurance plans.
And although a narrowly divided 5-4 Supreme Court would endorse that view (and affirm the 10th Circuit) the following year, Gorsuch wrote that he would have gone even further, and allowed not just the corporations, but the individual owners, to challenge the mandate.
Donald Trump said that he wanted a conservative judge in the mold of Scalia, but I think that he was also looking for someone that he could get through the Senate.
And considering the fact that Gorsuch was confirmed unanimously by the Senate in 2006 will make it quite difficult for Democrats to block him now. Gorsuch has tremendous academic and professional credentials, and he will probably have a smoother road to confirmation than someone like appeals court judge William Pryor would…
Trump may have favored Gorsuch for the job in hopes of a smoother confirmation process than for other potential candidates such as appeals court judge William Pryor, who has called the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.”
But Pryor is still reportedly on the short list for the next spot on the Supreme Court that opens up, and by then the rancor in the Senate may have died down.
If Gorsuch is confirmed, what will this mean for some of the most important moral issues of our time?
As for abortion, even if Gorsuch is confirmed I do not believe that the votes are there to overturn Roe v. Wade. But if Trump is able to nominate a couple more Supreme Court justices that could change.
But even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it would not suddenly make abortion illegal. Instead, all 50 states would then be free to make their own laws regarding abortion, and a solid majority of the states would continue to keep it legal.
The analysis is similar when we look at gay marriage. If the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states was overturned, each state would get to decide whether gay marriage should be legal or not for their own citizens. And just like with abortion, it is likely that only a limited number of states would end up banning gay marriage.
So the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court appears to be a positive step, but it does not mean that we are going to see dramatic change when it comes to issues such as abortion or gay marriage any time soon.
But at least Gorsuch can help stop the relentless march of the progressive agenda through our court system. So in the end we may not make that much progress for right now, but at least the liberals won’t either.
