There have been leaked reports of Donald Trump’s association with Russia during the election campaign last year and sooner or later, an evidence or two might just show up to bolster the allegation.

In a report by the Washington Post, the White House, having failed to get the FBI director and deputy director to publicly rebut reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence operatives before the 2016 election, then enlisted Congress and the intelligence community to knock down stories about the alleged connections.

And the goon squad attempting to limit the president’s PR damage reportedly includes the man Trump picked to lead the CIA and the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who were Trump transition advisers and now are the two men most responsible for investigating Trump’s Russia ties, details the USA Today.

The greatest scandal in US history

The two are Rep. Devin Nunes and Senator Richard Burr, who have been derelict in their duties as they should have started the investigation in August before the election and showed no interest in doing so.

Instead of investigating what could be the greatest scandal in US history, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are focusing on the leaks that led Trump to ask Michael Flynn to step down as national security adviser.

Critics actually consider it as Watergate with a Congress even more interested than the President in covering up potential high crimes and misdemeanors. It can be recalled that it was because of the Watergate scandal that forced former US President Richard Nixon to resign before he was impeached.

Political analysts believe that it is about time for the Democrats to start talking impeachment, even if it less likely to happen under the current Congress.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats should not use the ‘I’ word in reference to Trump until when and if he breaks the law.

It does not only misunderstands the Founders’ design of the ultimate check and balance, it also ignores that besides his foreign entanglements Trump may already be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Most importantly, Pelosi’s abeyance all but absolves Republicans of any responsibility to dig into potential wrongdoings of Trump.

Incapacitated now and during the campaign

Observers say that Trump’s constant lying, featuring 80 false claims during his first 30 days in office, and twitchy tweeting indicate that he’s at least no more incapacitated than he was during the campaign.

Perhaps Trump’s possible coordination with Russian President Vladimir Putin reflected in softened language on Russia in the GOP platform and his campaign’s odd associations with pro-Russian forces, merely indicate he’s a huge fan of murderous thugs who compliment him.

But the question of whether Trump is engaged in schemes of self-gain at the expense of actual taxpayers demands a thorough investigation, at the very least. Instead, House Republicans are acting as his defense lawyers, refusing to ask for his tax returns and burying investigations into his conflicts.

Ignoring the party’s transgressions is standard politics, but the GOP has made a fine art of it. When Republicans are out of power they conjure scandals, like #Benghazi, a tragedy in search of a crime. Now that they are back in charge at the White House, they are trying to set records for how deeply they can push their heads into the sand.

Ethics watchdogs have already filed dozens of complaints against Trump. If Democrats don’t move swiftly, they may find themselves trailing both their base and public opinion, again.

The post Impeachment Against US President Donald Trump Could Only Prosper If It Can Show His Unprecedented Conflicts of Interest, Say Political Analysts! appeared first on Master Herald.

They have found a very strong ally in former US Attorney General Eric Holder but they are apparently paying the hefty price for it.

Reports have it that California taxpayers are shelling out $25,000 a month for 40 hours of Holder’s time to help the state strategize for upcoming clashes with the Trump administration, according to a contract obtained by a conservative watchdog group.

The California Legislature hired Holder and his Washington, D.C., firm, Covington & Burling, last month to assist with legal challenges over everything from immigration to environmental policies, reports Fox News.

Crony corruption of a deal

Judicial Watch, which obtained Holder’s contract through a records request, called the deal crony corruption, pure and simple.

The new records show California state legislators are wasting tax dollars to bankroll another corrupt politician, Eric Holder, under the pretense of attacking the Trump administration, said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a written statement. Holder’s firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Early this month, lawmakers paraded the former Obama administration official around the state capital, though they remained quiet on what exactly Holder would be helping them with. Holder himself was coy when asked about his role.

Holder said that he was there to assist the gentlemen and the people who they serve with in trying to protect the interests of the people of California. But when he was asked how he was doing it, Holder responded by merely saying ‘Well.’

The former US Attorney General had a closed-door meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra joined in by phone.

Holder’s visit in the first week of the month marked the first time that he has come to the capital since his firm was hired last month as independent counsel.

Not everyone is onboard

However, not all California lawmakers are on board with the hiring of Holder. Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, a Republican, claims the three-month contract with Holder’s firm is illegal.

In a letter to the opinion unit of the state attorney general’s office, Kiley contended that hiring Holder as outside counsel violates Article VII of the California Constitution.

Representatives for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León said the legislature was exempt from rules that would apply to an executive agency.

Holder was one of former President Barack Obama’s longest-serving and most controversial Cabinet members.

On June 28, 2012, he became the first US Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress on civil and criminal grounds for refusing to turn over documents on Operation Fast and Furious.

Democratic leaders of the California Legislature announced early last month that they had hired Eric H. Holder Jr., who was the Attorney General under President Obama, to represent them in any legal fights against the new Republican White House.

The decision by the Legislature to retain Holder, who is now a prominent Washington lawyer, is the latest sign of the ideological battle that may play out over the next four years between the predominantly Democratic state and Washington, details the New York Times.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for president, defeated Trump by more than four million votes in California.

Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the Senate said that having the former Attorney General of the United States brings them a lot of firepower in order to prepare to safeguard the values of the people of California. He added that it also means that they are very serious to fight it out with the Trump administration.

De León said he expected California to challenge Washington and defend itself from policies instituted in Washington on issues including the environment, immigration, and criminal justice.

He said California Democrats decided to turn to Holder as they watched Trump assemble his cabinet and begin to set the tone for his presidency.

The move by Mr. de León and his Democratic counterpart in the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, follows Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointment of Representative Xavier Becerra as attorney general last month, to succeed Kamala D. Harris, who was elected to the United States Senate.

The post California Taxpayers Pay the Price of Fighting the Trump Administration Through Former US Attorney General Eric Holder; Other Lawmakers Say Hiring is Illegal! appeared first on Master Herald.

However, it seems that it may not be the case at all particularly in the murder of two British tourists in Australia sometime in August last year.

The Trump administration cited that the deaths of the two British tourists in the Land Down Under was part of the global terrorist attacks as mentioned in the list of the White House, which it also said, has not received enough attention from the Western media.

Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 20, was stabbed to death in front of dozens of people at a hostel near Townsville in Queensland state in August. Another Briton, Tom Jackson, 30, was stabbed when he came to Ayliffe-Chung’s aid and died in a hospital a week later, reports ABC.net of Australia.

Critics found the branding by the White House as ironic since the Australian police authorities have already ruled out a terrorism angle on the incident.

The incident appeared on a list of 78 attacks the White House said were terror-related and executed or inspired by the Islamic State.

Insane persecution of innocent people

In a letter to President Donald Trump and posted on Facebook, Rosie Ayliffe, the mother of Mia, said that she would not allow the Trump administration from using her daughter’s death to further the insane persecution of innocent people.

She said that the vilification of whole nation states and their people based on religion is a terrifying reminder of the horror that can ensue when people allow themselves to be led by ignorant people into darkness and hatred.

Les Jackson, Tom Jackson’s father, also wrote on Facebook and said that he is pretty sure that Trump and his advisors know fully well, or could very easily verify, that Tom and Mia died not as a result of an act of terror but rather through the actions of a disturbed individual.

Jackson said that the Trump people only made it appear that it was a result of a terrorist attack to suit Trump’s agenda.

Ayliffe-Chung and Jackson were killed by a 29-year-old French national named Smail Ayad. Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski alleged that Ayad shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ which is Arabic for God is the greatest, during the attack.

However, investigators concluded that there was no indication the attack was motivated by extremism and the suspect had no known ties to the Islamic State.

Suffering from schizophrenia

Investigators suspect Ayad may have been romantically obsessed with Ayliffe-Chung. Ayad’s lawyer said in October that Ayad was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In fact, the Queensland Mental Health Court is considering whether Ayad is fit to stand trial.

In the letter, Ayliffe-Chung’s mother wrote that she wanted to discount the myth of a connection between her daughter’s death and Islamic fundamentalism, adding that any fool can shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they commit a crime.

Ms. Ayliffe said she wanted to point out the facts about what happened to her daughter, by saying that Ayad was not an Islamic fundamentalist because he wasn’t even a practicing Muslim.

She said that the branding of Mia’s murder as a terrorist act is a retrograde step on Trump’s part. Queensland Police has also rejected the claims, saying the crime was not race or religion.

In a statement, Queensland Police said they had ruled out the possibility that the stabbing was terrorism related.

The post Parents of Two Killed British Tourists in Australia Hit Trump for Insinuating that their Children’s Deaths were the Work of Islamist Terrorist! appeared first on Master Herald.

John Kelly, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security said that the proposal to require visitors to hand over the passwords to their social media accounts is part of the enhanced security checks which the country as part of the promise made by President Donald Trump when he assumed office on January 20.

Kelly told the US Congress that the measure was one of the several ideas being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

He explained that if the foreigners do not cooperate, the Department of Homeland Security would not allow them to enter the country, reports NBC News.

Part of the vetting process

Kelly’s statements came the same day judges heard arguments over President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily barring entry to most refugees and travelers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen.

Secretary Kelly stressed that asking for people’s passwords was just one of the things that they are thinking about and that none of the suggestions were concrete.

Under the existing vetting process, according to Kelly, officials don’t have a lot to work with, relying on the applicant’s documentation and asking them questions about their background.

He said it was even more problematic when dealing with so-called failed states such as Syria or Somalia, where infrastructure and record-keeping have been degraded by conflict.

Kelly explained that when someone says he is from this town and this was his occupation, US immigration officials essentially have to take the word of the individual for it. He said that it is not enough because President Trump doesn’t think that’s enough.

That is when they thought of adding additional layers including the possibility of prying into the foreigners’ social media accounts and have a look-see at his or her personality. Although social media accounts are not a determining factor of an individual’s personality because there is also the so-called fake social media accounts.

Going the extra mile

In addition to asking people for their passwords to their social media accounts, Kelly said he was looking at trying to obtain people’s financial records as well, which is really going the extra mile for the Department of Homeland Security.

He pointed out that they can follow the money, so to speak, in order to know how the visitor is living and who is giving him or her money. Kelly added that it applies under certain circumstances, to individuals who may be involved in on the payroll of terrorist organizations.

While some critics of Trump believe that the idea is kind of overkill, it should be noted that obtaining visitors’ passwords for their social media accounts was considered by top officials at the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration. But the policy was never adopted.

The idea was actually a reaction of the Homeland Security department to vet people coming from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen, the citizens of which were barred from entering the US by President Trump’s recent executive order.

That order, however, remains in legal limbo after a federal judge blocked its enforcement. The Trump administration urged a federal appeals court early this month to overturn the lower court’s ruling.

The Obama administration had considered demanding social media passwords from visitors entering the US.

However, the Obama administration did adopt a plan to ask the millions of tourists entering the country each year to reveal their online presence, such as social media identities.

The post US Department of Homeland Security Eyes to Toughen Up on People Entering America by Requiring them to Reveal Passwords of Social Media Accounts! appeared first on Master Herald.

In fact, at that time, he could not get enough of the private e-mails of senior Democrats released by WikiLeaks.

Trump even called on Russia to locate and release emails by his then Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. He said then that if Russia was listening, he hoped that they were able to find the 30,000 emails that were missing.

However, things have change for the 45th President of the US as he is now singing a different tune on leaks from the intelligence community that led to the early resignation of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The articles cited anonymous officials saying that during the presidential transition, Flynn had been in contact with Russia about the sanctions that had recently been imposed by the Obama administration, reports Politifact.

During a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump lamented that Flynn had been treated very unfairly by the media.

He said that papers and things are being leaked, adding that such are criminal actions. He said that it has been going on for a long time, even before he assumed the US presidency and those who perpetrate it, he describes as low-lifes.

He explained that leaks are now really going on, and people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.

Criticizing leaks and leakers

In another press conference held on the same day, Trump spent time criticizing leaks. He said that the press should be ashamed of themselves for running stories based on leaks.

Critics say that there are some differences between the election leaks and the leaks by the intelligence community. However, experts on national security said that Trump has inconsistent standards on the matter of leaks.

Pressed on the question at his February 16 news conference, Trump drew a distinction between the release of classified information and the release of personal emails.

He explained that in one case, the leaks talk about highly classified information but in the other case, the leaks talk about DNC chairman John Podesta saying bad things about the boss, referring to Hillary Clinton.

In simple terms, during the campaign, Trump praised an organization that made its name by leaking classified information. Now he’s criticizing leaking.

Dead-set against leaking

Robert F. Turner, associate director of the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law, said he understands the distinction between leaking classified material and information that is merely private.

He also made clear that he is almost always dead-set against leaking. Regardless of who makes or broadcasts the leak, good people die and freedom is placed in jeopardy, he said.

However, Turner added that it seems clear to him that Russia was trying to influence the outcome of the US election, which he views as a serious national security issue.

If a disgruntled Democratic National Committee official had copied some documents and leaked them, he thinks Trump could have drawn a reasonable distinction between those garden variety disclosures of private information and disclosures derived from classified national security programs that were apparently disclosed by government employees in violation of their security agreements.

Speaking of Michael Flynn, he has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, which is why Trump let him go to find an economist instead.

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s volatile behavior has created an environment ripe for leaks from his executive agencies and even within the White House.

And while leaks typically involve staffers sabotaging each other to improve their own standing or trying to scuttle policy ideas they find genuinely problematic, Trump’s one-month-old administration has a third category: leaks from White House and agency officials are alarmed by the President’s conduct, details The Huffington Post.

The post Trump Now Singing a Different Tune on Intelligence Leaks; Describes Them as Products of Low-Lifes! appeared first on Master Herald.

However, because the US Special Operations ground missions caused a number of civilian casualties, it fuelled the anger of Yemeni population.

As a result, the Yemeni government has reportedly withdrawn its permission for the US to conduct further ground missions in the country. This report was confirmed by American officials, reports the New York Times.

Following the release of grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen.

A member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation.

While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a success, the suspension of commando operations is a setback for President Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.

It also calls into question whether the Pentagon will receive permission from the President for far more autonomy in selecting and executing its counterterrorism missions in Yemen, which it sought, unsuccessfully, from President Barack Obama in the last months of his term.

An early test of Trump’s security decision-making

Obama deferred the decision to Trump, who appeared inclined to grant it. His approval of the January 29 raid came over a dinner four nights earlier with his top national security aides, rather than in the kind of rigorous review in the Situation Room that became fairly routine under Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of Trump’s national security decision-making, and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over dinner, it had been fully vetted, and had the requisite legal approvals.

Trump will soon have to make a decision about the more general request by the Pentagon to allow more of such operations in Yemen without detailed, and often time-consuming, White House review.

It is unclear whether the US President will allow that, or how the series of mishaps that marked his first approval of such an operation may have altered his thinking about the human and political risks of similar operations.

The Pentagon has said that the main objective of the raid was to recover laptop computers, cellphones and other information that could help fill gaps in its understanding of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose leaders have tried to carry out at least three attacks on the United States. But it is unclear whether the information the commandos recovered will prove valuable.

On Trump’s list

It was also unclear if Yemen’s decision to halt the ground attacks was also influenced by Trump’s inclusion of the country on his list of nations from which he wants to temporarily suspend all immigration, an executive order that is now being challenged in the federal courts.

According to American civilian and military officials, the Yemeni ban on operations does not extend to military drone attacks and does not affect the handful of American military advisers who are providing intelligence support to the Yemenis and forces from the United Arab Emirates.

In 2014, Yemen’s government temporarily halted those drones from flying because of botched operations that also killed civilians. But later they quietly resumed, and in recent years they have been increasing in frequency, a sign of the fact that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is considered one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.

The raid stirred immediate outrage among Yemeni government officials, some of whom accused the Trump administration of not fully consulting with them before the mission.

The post Yemen Stops Allowing US to Conduct Special Operations Ground Missions Against Terrorist Groups in its Country Because of the Number of Civilian Casualties! appeared first on Master Herald.

And it is none other than the feisty Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, who early this month has been silenced on the US Senate floor for impugning Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whose nomination for the position of attorney general was being deliberated at that time.

It was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who took the lead in silencing Senator Warren on the Senate floor on February 7 and many critics and political analysts believe that he just gave the feisty lady solon her campaign slogan for the US presidential elections in November 2020.

A beloved Senator

There are few senators more beloved on the left than the inimitable Elizabeth Warren. As the Democrats look to revamp their party and recover from their 2016 election losses, rumors abound that Warren may throw her hat in the ring during the 2020 presidential elections.

On the Senate floor, Elizabeth Warren fought the good fight in arguing against the confirmation of Trump’s nomination for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions.

Warren read a letter on the Senate floor from Coretta Scott King, wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1986 about Senator Sessions during the confirmation hearings, notes the Bipartisan Report.

She was interrupted by Senator Mitch McConnell, who insisted that she had impugned Sessions.

The senate voted along party lines in a vote of 49-43 to rebuke Senator Warren and no longer allowed her to speak during the remainder of the confirmation hearing.

McConnell, later on, explained why he had to rebuke Warren. He said that Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Solidified her position

Social media was quick to latch on to McConnell’s words and use them to Warren’s advantage.

Warren may be silenced for the remainder of Sessions’ confirmation hearing, but during the time she was allowed to speak, she solidified her position as one of the left’s favorite feminist leaders and potential presidential candidates.

Some political analysts say that the blocking of Senator Elizabeth Warren from further speaking on the Senate floor by Senate McConnell has somewhat made the latter inadvertently write the campaign slogan for the lady senator from Massachusetts

Warren was silenced under Rule 19, which prevents legislators from impugning one another on the Senate floor for reading a 30-year-old letter written by Coretta Scott King opposing Sessions’ nomination.

Given that Ted Cruz once called Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor and suffered no consequences, it would be safe to assume that Warren’s speech was deeply disparaging, cites The Slot.

For example, before she was silenced, she managed to read the incendiary quote by saying that Jeff Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.

Coretta Scott King wrote that sentence, which is part of the longer letter, in 1986 to oppose Sessions, who was then a nominee to be a federal judge.

He was ultimately scuttled for being too racist, though he was later elected to the US Senate and currently seems a lock for Attorney General.

In an interview following his silencing on the Senate floor, Warren said that she literally can’t be recognized on the Senate floor.

She added that she has become a nonperson during the discussion of Jeff Sessions. Warren ultimately read the rest of the letter from outside the Senate on Facebook Live.

The post Senator Mitch McConnell’s Silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren Kickstarts Her Campaign for the US Presidency in 2020! appeared first on Master Herald.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from the 4th District of Kentucky introduced a one-sentence bill in the House where he proposed to scrap the US Department of Education by December 31, 2018.

It is a strange bill as President Donald Trump already made clear his intention for the education department when he nominated Betsy DeVos for the portfolio.

In fact, her confirmation hearing on the Senate floor early this month also became historic as it needed Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie in the Senate on whether to confirm or reject DeVos for the position of secretary of the Department of Education.

In short, Trump and the Republicans do not see the US Department of Education being scrapped during his four-year term and the bill of Rep. Massie seemed like it came out of nowhere.

Throwing out rules

The House of Representatives also voted to throw out a lot of rules that were decided on just last year.

These rules tell states how to comply with the new federal education law with regard to identifying and improving underperforming schools, as well as evaluating teacher preparation programs in higher education.

Speculations about DeVos and what her leadership might bring to the Education Department has become a talk-of-the-town issue in the US.

David Schoenbrod, a professor at New York Law School and the author of several books about the congressional role in crafting law and regulation, says that the Education Department is unlikely to be eliminated, particularly by a bill that declines to specify who or what would take over its $68 billion annual budget and the functions of data collection, oversight, civil rights enforcement and student aid, among others.

Posturing from both parties

He added that whatever people think about the Department of Education, the idea that it could be eliminated with a one-sentence bill is just posturing, reports NPR.

Schoenbrod says that posturing is not something that’s just done by Democrats or by Republicans. It’s done by both.

The issue is personal for Schoenbrod. Back in the 1970s, he was a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, fighting for Congress to ban lead in gasoline, which made its way into the air, water and the bloodstreams of children with harmful and deadly effect.

Because legislators did not specify a timeline or a mechanism, he argues, enforcement was delayed by a decade. He said that they voted for the symbolism but didn’t want to take responsibility for how it was done.

In the field of environmental law, he explained that the form of kicking the can down the road is known as symbolic legislation.

The fate of those regulations, part of the Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA, is a slightly different matter. But it’s also something that Schoenbrod has experience with. The House is invoking an obscure power granted by something called the Congressional Review Act.

Schoenbrod has long advocated for requiring Congress to vote on the details of how laws are implemented.

The professor explained that the Constitution was against taxation or regulation without representation.

But the Congressional Review Act as it now exists is different. It just gives Congress the power to throw the rules out, not the responsibility for making new ones.

In this case, if the House bill passes the Senate and receives the president’s signature, it will then be up to the states to decide how to fulfill ESSA when it comes to defining and correcting schools that consistently perform below expectations.

The post Bill Proposing to Scrap the US Education Department is Just Posturing, Says New York Law School Professor! appeared first on Master Herald.

So after she was silenced in the Senate floor, reports have it that Senator Warren had an epic meltdown that she resorted to ventilating her sentiments on social media afterward.

Based on the series of tweets she posted, it was clear that Warren was really frustrated as much as she was shocked and upset that her colleagues in the Senate would do that to her, reports USA 24.

However, some analysts argue that describing the reaction of Senator Warren as an epic meltdown is inaccurate because, on the contrary, the lady legislator seemed like a someone who came out firing with all guns blazing after she has been silenced on the senate floor.

In fact, they believed that it only gave the feisty Democratic senator an impetus to continue her tirade and criticisms of Donald Trump and his administration for the months or may be the next four years.

Upholding a floor ruling

On February 7, the Senate voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren from speaking out against Senator Jeff Sessions, who is Trump’s nominee for the position of attorney general.

The Republican-led Senate voted 49-43 to uphold a floor ruling that Warren violated Senate Rule 19 by “impugning” the character of Sessions during her lengthy speech against his confirmation.

A separate vote to allow Warren to continue to speak failed, effectively silencing the outspoken Massachusetts progressive from continuing her anti-Sessions speech, details the New York Post.

The issue on the US Senate floor began shortly before 7 p.m. when Warren took the microphone to make a long, impassioned speech on why Sessions should not be confirmed as attorney general.

She read from past statements from critics who successfully opposed his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship over concerns he was racially insensitive.

She had been warned

She earned a warning by 7:20 p.m. from the presiding Senate leader, Montana Senator Steve Daines when she quoted Senator Ted Kennedy as calling Sessions a disgrace.

He reminded her of Rule 19, which says a senator shall not impute another senator’s conduct or motives.

Warren was permitted to continue but got in hot water again for reading a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King that opposed Sessions.

By 7:47 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell interrupted Warren. He said that Warren has impugned the motives and conduct of their colleague from Alabama, as warned by the chair.

The offensive statements McConnell cited were from the letter of Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow. He explained that Senator Warren has said Senator Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.

To which, Senator Warren replied to McConnell that she was surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate. She then asks the leave of the Senate to continue her remarks.

But she was overruled. Daines told her that the senator will take her seat. The full Senate made it official around 9 p.m.

Sidelining Warren occurred in the midst of a 30-hour debate on Sessions’ nomination and Republicans’ growing frustration with Democrats for their many attempts to delay votes on Trump’s nominees. Tempers have flared all month, as Democrats boycotted votes and used procedural tools to gum up the confirmation process.

However, the moves of the Republicans in the Senate to silence Warren from continuing her criticisms of President Donald Trump have reportedly backfired on the GOP.

The post Senator Elizabeth Warren Comes Out Firing with Guns Blazing After Being Shut Down on the Senate Floor! appeared first on Master Herald.

DeVos is Trump’s personal choice to handle the US education portfolio and she was finally confirmed by the Senate early this month after an unprecedented tie happened on the Senate floor on the confirmation hearing of her appointment.

It actually took the vote of Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie and allow the appointment of Betsy DeVos to pass through a wringer in the Senate. Had Mike Pence voted not to confirm her, DeVos would not get the education portfolio under the Trump administration.

The tie-breaking vote, which Senate officials said was unprecedented to confirm a Cabinet nominee, followed an all-night debate on DeVos as Senate Democrats tried to pressure at least one more Republican to oppose her and defeat the nomination.

Unprepared to lead the department

Only two Republicans joined the 46 Democrats and two independents in opposition to DeVos. Critics have called her unprepared to lead the Department of Education after a rocky Senate confirmation hearing.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer immediately derided the proceeding. He took to Twitter and said that the cabinet nominee is so unqualified, so divisive, that Vice President Mike Pence had to drive down Pennsylvania Avenue to cast the deciding vote.

Under the US Constitution, the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, with the power to cast votes only when there are ties on nominations or legislation.

Only Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined the Democrats and two independents in opposition to DeVos. That left 50 Republicans supporting her in the 100-member chamber.

Historically, Cabinet nominees with weak support in the Senate ask the president to withdraw their nomination, which DeVos did not do.

Married to the heir of Amway

DeVos is married to the heir and former chief executive of Amway, which sells household and personal care items. She is also the daughter of the founders of Prince Corp, a Michigan car parts supplier, and sister of Erik Prince, the founder of the security company formerly known as Blackwater USA, now called Academi.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging her confirmation, said it was time to end the unprecedented delay by Democrats on the Cabinet nominations by Trump.

DeVos has been an advocate of charter schools, which operate independently of school districts and frequently are run by corporations. Democrats are concerned she will promote charter schools in a way that would undercut public schools, which have long been the anchor of the US education system.

Teachers unions, a major constituency for the Democratic Party, roundly opposed DeVos, a philanthropist and investor, to lead the department, which sets education policy for younger children and universities and also administers a college financial aid program of $1 trillion.

The Consumer Federation of America urged DeVos to confront the problem of millions of Americans in default on student loans. They said that the new secretary needs to put borrowers and taxpayers first, rather than focusing on helping the student loan and for-profit college industries pump up their profits.

Following the cliffhanger vote on DeVos, the Senate promptly limited debate on Trump’s choice of Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. And that was another story by itself.

The 51-to-50 vote to confirm DeVos capped an all-night vigil on the Senate floor, where, one by one, Democrats denounced DeVos to a mostly empty chamber.

But they did not get a third Republican defection that would have stopped DeVos from becoming the steward of the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools.

It was also the first time a vice president has been summoned to the Capitol to break a tie on a cabinet nomination, reports the New York Times.

The post US Vice President Mike Pence Breaks Unprecedented a Tie in the Senate to Confirm Billionaire Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary! appeared first on Master Herald.