Courtesy of the New York Daily News:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell resorted to a rarely-used Senate code to stop Sen. Elizabeth Warren from using the words of Dr. Martin Luther King's widow to question Trump's pick for U.S. Attorney General.
The jarring rebuke prevented Warren (D-Mass.) from speaking after reciting Coretta Scott King’s 30-year-old letter opposing Sen. Jeff Sessions on his failed federal judge nomination.
In the thick of King’s letter, she was first warned that her prior use of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s decades-old remarks criticizing Sessions as “a disgrace to the Justice Department" had violated an arcane Senate bylaw that prohibits lawmakers from disparaging a colleague’s integrity on the floor.
She was interrupted again, this time by McConnell (R-Ky.), while quoting a piece on sexual violence and slapped with a violation for "impugning the motives and conduct" of Sessions.He said Warren violated Senate Rule XIX a half hour earlier by quoting King, specifically the line “Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”
Well that was not very intelligent.
For Mitch McConnell to literally dredge up some out dated rule of decorum to shut down a woman reading aloud from the letter of a civil war icon on the Senate floor is unbelievably short sighted.
Not only did he just vastly increase Warren's number of supporters, and fire up the female and African American voter base, but he may very well have helped to choose the Democrat's 2020 nominee for President.
P.S. It should also be noted that Senator Tom Udall finished reading Coretta Scott King's letter.
Source http://ift.tt/2lkozdZ
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell resorted to a rarely-used Senate code to stop Sen. Elizabeth Warren from using the words of Dr. Martin Luther King's widow to question Trump's pick for U.S. Attorney General.
The jarring rebuke prevented Warren (D-Mass.) from speaking after reciting Coretta Scott King’s 30-year-old letter opposing Sen. Jeff Sessions on his failed federal judge nomination.
In the thick of King’s letter, she was first warned that her prior use of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s decades-old remarks criticizing Sessions as “a disgrace to the Justice Department" had violated an arcane Senate bylaw that prohibits lawmakers from disparaging a colleague’s integrity on the floor.
She was interrupted again, this time by McConnell (R-Ky.), while quoting a piece on sexual violence and slapped with a violation for "impugning the motives and conduct" of Sessions.He said Warren violated Senate Rule XIX a half hour earlier by quoting King, specifically the line “Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”
Well that was not very intelligent.
For Mitch McConnell to literally dredge up some out dated rule of decorum to shut down a woman reading aloud from the letter of a civil war icon on the Senate floor is unbelievably short sighted.
Not only did he just vastly increase Warren's number of supporters, and fire up the female and African American voter base, but he may very well have helped to choose the Democrat's 2020 nominee for President.
P.S. It should also be noted that Senator Tom Udall finished reading Coretta Scott King's letter.
He was NOT told to shut and sit down.I entered Coretta Scott King’s letter abt #Sessions into the Senate record and read it from the floor—her words should not be silenced.— Tom Udall (@SenatorTomUdall) February 8, 2017
Source http://ift.tt/2lkozdZ
