Rancorous Senate ‘silencing’ gives Warren a national boost
Rancorous Senate ‘silencing’ gives Warren a national boost
WASHINGTON (AP) — The turbulent national debate over race, gender and free speech consumed the normally staid Senate on Wednesday after the GOP majority voted to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren, abruptly elevating her celebrity status at a moment when liberals are hungry for a leader to take on Donald Trump.
The highly unusual rebuke of the Massachusetts Democrat came as the Senate weighed President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who seemed headed toward a nearly party-line confirmation Wednesday evening. It also gave frustrated Democrats a rallying cry weeks into a presidency that is dividing the country like few before.
“I certainly hope that this anti-free-speech attitude is not traveling down Pennsylvania Avenue to our great chamber,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned darkly as Democrats jumped at an opening to link the GOP’s conduct to that of Trump himself. “This is not what America is about — silencing speech, especially in this chamber.”
Republicans argued they were just trying to enforce necessary rules of decorum in a Senate that is a last bulwark of civil debate in an angry nation.
“I hope that maybe we’ve all been chastened a little bit,” chided the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas. “We’re at a pretty challenging time in our nation’s history when many people who were surprised and disappointed at the last election are unwilling to accept the results. … I only hope that after the passage of some time they will return to their senses.”
1902 fistfight gave rise to arcane rule that silenced Warren
WASHINGTON (AP) — A fistfight on the Senate floor involving two Southern “gentlemen” gave rise to Rule 19, the arcane Senate directive that Republicans used more than a century later to silence Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. GOP lawmakers rebuked Warren Tuesday night for speaking against colleague and Attorney General-nominee Jeff Sessions.
She was silenced for reading the letter that Coretta Scott King wrote three decades ago criticizing the Alabama senator’s record on race. Senators barred Warren from speaking on the Senate floor until Sessions’ confirmation vote.
CONDUCT UNBECOMING
Rule 19 states that senators may not “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.”
Will court compound travel ban whiplash or calm it?
SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump’s travel ban and a judge’s stunning decision to temporarily block it a week later have left the nation with whiplash, shifting attention from protests at airports nationwide to Trump questioning the judge’s legitimacy on social media.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will now decide whether the executive order immediately gets reinstated, after three judges heard arguments Tuesday .
If they let the president go forward with the ban, it could compound the whiplash: The order suspending the nation’s refugee program and immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries would take effect once again.
But the courts could still strike it down later amid a legal challenge by Washington state and Minnesota.
A decision has been promised within days.
Dual Somali-US citizen elected president in historic vote
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A former prime minister who holds dual Somali-U.S. citizenship was elected Somalia’s president on Wednesday, declaring a new “era of unity” as he took on the daunting task of bringing the long-chaotic country its first fully functioning central government in a quarter-century.
Fears of attacks by the Islamic extremist al-Shabab dogged the historic vote, which was limited to lawmakers instead of the population at large, with members of the upper and lower houses of parliament casting ballots at a heavily guarded former air force base in the capital, Mogadishu, while a security lockdown closed the international airport.
“This victory belongs to the Somali people,” the newly elected president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, declared after taking the oath of office. “This is the beginning of the era of unity, the democracy of Somalia and the beginning of the fight against corruption.”
“There is a daunting task ahead of me, and I know that,” he said.
Thousands of jubilant Somalis poured into the streets, chanting the new president’s name as cheering soldiers fired into the air. “Somalia will be another Somalia soon,” said Ahmed Ali, a police officer celebrating in the crowd.
Robert F. Kennedy’s son announces bid for Illinois governor
CHICAGO (AP) — Chris Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, announced Wednesday he will run for Illinois governor in 2018, bringing the instant name recognition of his family’s political legacy to what’s expected to be a sharply contested race.
The Democratic businessman said Illinois is heading “in the wrong direction” under Republican. Gov. Bruce Rauner, who’s seeking re-election. In an email and video sent to supporters, he talked up history of service and said he wants to “restore the American dream to the people of this state.”
“Today, I am announcing my run for Governor because I love Illinois, but we have never been in worse shape,” he said. “We don’t need incremental improvement — we need fundamental change in state government.”
Kennedy, 53, is the eighth of 11 children of Ethel Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. attorney general who represented New York in the Senate and was assassinated in 1968 while seeking the Democratic nomination for president. He is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.
His campaign video featured footage of his parents and other family members, and Kennedy told The Associated Press he believes Illinois voters “remember fondly the service to this country of the Kennedy family.”
Trump criticism of Nordstrom raises conflict concern
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump criticized Nordstrom, the latest company to be the focus of his Twitter attention, saying Wednesday that the department store chain that decided to stop selling his daughter’s clothing and accessory line has treated her “so unfairly.”
Though he has tweeted in the past about companies such as the U.S. automakers, Boeing and Carrier, ethics experts saw the fact that this one was about a business run by his daughter raising conflict-of-interest concerns and even carrying an implicit threat.
In the message, Trump said, “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!” Posted first on his personal account, it was re-tweeted more than 6,000 times in less than an hour. It was also retweeted by the official @POTUS account.
Trump’s presidency has raised unprecedented concerns about ethical conflicts. His plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business has been criticized by ethics experts, who say it doesn’t do enough to make sure that Trump won’t make decisions to personally benefit himself, his family or his company.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet is problematic because other retailers may think twice now about dropping the Ivanka Trump brand for fear of getting criticized publicly by the president. She said it was especially disturbing that Trump retweeted his message on the official White House account.
Hundreds of bison sent to slaughter over tribes’ objections
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday started shipping hundreds of wild bison to slaughter for disease control, as a quarantine facility on a Montana Indian reservation that could help spare many of the animals sat empty due to a political dispute.
Fifteen female bison initially slated for quarantine on the Fort Peck Reservation were instead loaded onto trailers near the town of a Gardiner, Montana and sent to slaughter. Hundreds more will be shipped in coming days and weeks, park officials said.
More than 400 bison, also known as buffalo, have been captured this winter attempting to migrate out of the snow-covered park to lower elevations in Montana in search of food. More animals are expected to be captured and shipped to slaughter through March.
Fort Peck’s Assiniboine and Sioux tribes built their quarantine facility to house up to 300 animals in hopes of using it to establish new herds across the U.S with Yellowstone’s genetically pure bison.
Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure said state and federal officials “slapped the Fort Peck tribes in the face” by not using the facility.