Elizabeth Warren Barred From Reading Coretta Scott King Letter About Jeff Sessions On Senate Floor

[manifold]

60 posts were cleaned from this thread - flaming, derailing, trolling - please remember you're in Zone 2. Posts need need to include relevant discussion related to the topic in addition to any flames. Excessive use of memes is considered trolling and spamming and adds little to the discussion. Some infractions were handed out and some thread bans.

Yet somehow this one made the cut, eh?

i believe that at least one dictionary company is going to put warrens pic next to "Dumb Bitch"

 

[flacaltenn]

McConnell Cuts Off Elizabeth Warren For Criticizing Sessions, Senate GOP Silences Her

Warren was reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King about Sessions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rose on Tuesday and objected to a speech Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was giving in opposition to the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general.

McConnell took particular issue with Warren as she quoted a letter written by Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, when Sessions was under consideration for a federal judgeship in 1986.

McConnell invoked the little-used Rule XIX, which says that “No Senator in debate shall, 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.” King’s letter argues that, during Sessions’ time as a prosecutor in Alabama, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.” It was that portion of the letter that McConnell read back to the presiding officer, arguing that it was over the line.

The Republican presiding in the chair, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, agreed with McConnell, ruling her in violation of the order and forcing her to sit down.

“I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate,” Warren replied.

A vote was then held on Warren’s appeal of the ruling of the chair, and Republicans prevailed. Under the rules, she would be barred from speaking during the remaining 30 hours of the Sessions debate.

Democrats then asked that, notwithstanding the ruling of the chair, her speaking privileges be restored, and McConnell called for a vote on the request. The story is developing.

Watch a clip of the exchange above.

More: Mitch McConnell Cuts Off Elizabeth Warren For Criticizing Jeff Sessions

I've been watching the Senate for many years - but I've never seen anything like this. This seems like a very stupid move by Mitch McConnell. Senator Warren was "Red Carded" by the Senate - which means she will not be allowed to speak on Jeff Sessions anymore.

It's about time McConnell grew a pair. damn rules, you folks just can't seem abide by them

What the fuck rule are you talking about? The letter was already in the congressional record. She didn't do anything wrong. She just read what was already there and had been read before. Why wasn't it wrong then but it's wrong now? The answer? It wasn't wrong. It was racist Republicans shutting up a Democrat because he felt like it. Period.

Evidently it violated rule 19, McConnell brought it up and the chair sustained and told the bitch to take her seat. I guess you didn't bother to watch the video. Maybe instead of bitching at me you should look up Senate rule 19, I'm not going to do it for you.

Cruz called Mitch a "liar" on the senate floor, but Mitch ignored it.

Ms. Warren read a letter decades old in the Senate record. But she is censored? Like I said a couple of hundred times. The rules are different for Democrats.

The point of order was about her motive for reading it. Once again, refer to the rule, I've already read it, she was in violation.

It's a Senate CONFIRMATION DEBATE.. How else do you cover the history of a candidate if you cannot bring into evidence SIGNIFICANT testimonials. Only REALLY by denying the significance of MLK and his wife.

Repubs are so darn stupid for picking these fights. That's why I have ZERO sympathy for them. They play at this like a game they really don't like. Because the REAL GAME would have been to DEBATE the merits of that testimonial. And refute the significance of it if you could. You are NEVER pressed for time to do that. You just have to work HARDER and LONGER.. .Something neither side seems capable of...

 

[Wry Catcher]

They should have just let her talk.

Now she's a martyr, just like Milo.

People just don't learn. Let 'em talk.
.

No! You don't achieve anything by tolerating bullshit.

Tolerating hysterical leftist gobbledygook is exactly what got us to this place in history. That's why she's still in office! Liars and idiots have to be publicly called out, and nobody is obliged to listen to them. They don't get to monopolize all venues. They need to be told to shut up and sit the fuck down more often.

That's exactly what is said on college campuses.

If you're confident in your positions, let your opponents talk.
.

We aren't obliged to give them the floor, however. Other people get to talk, too.

And while her right to free speech is constitutionally protected, that doesn't mean she gets to monopolize every single platform on the face of the earth. So no, telling Elizabeth Warren to step back from the podium is not the same as dressing up in black and knocking the shit out of Trump supporters.

I bet you'd shit your pants if trump's tweeter account is revoked in the name of national security. Which, BTW, is a very good idea.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Wow, the fake Indian who LIED to get a racial preference was blocked from openly slandering a fellow Senator on the floor of the Senate?

She ought to be censured and stripped of all Senate positions for her vile behavior.

 

[paperview]

Squakahontas, the blond Cherokee babe, insists she will not be silenced while appropriating the very words of a woman of a different race. Is this cultural appropriation fair?:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Coretta Scott King Will Not Be Silenced"

She had the right to read it publicly, just not on the Senate floor

Sure she had the right.

Three other male senators read the letter on the Senate floor. Nothing happened to them.

Who? When? That's interesting.

I posted this earlier today:


Senator Brown was just on floor reading Coretta Scott King letter that got Warren into trouble.

Senator's Merkley and Udall did same thing. No GOP response.

 

[flacaltenn]

McConnell silenced Coretta Scott King from the grave??'

Smooth move, old white Republican dude.

Hahahahahahahaha ....

Actually Repubs took the cheap way out here. Should have MADE the case for the merits and actual significance in debate.

 

[kaz]

Squakahontas, the blond Cherokee babe, insists she will not be silenced while appropriating the very words of a woman of a different race. Is this cultural appropriation fair?:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Coretta Scott King Will Not Be Silenced"

She had the right to read it publicly, just not on the Senate floor

Sure she had the right.

Three other male senators read the letter on the Senate floor. Nothing happened to them.

All I know on Warren is she did violate the rules. I don't know that there were any differences in how the others read it, so on the surface it sounds ridiculous it wasn't consistently enforced.

Sounds political for sure, but your implication it's her sex just makes me laugh at you. She's been a rabid moonbat leftist, and I am saying it totally sounds political. But I'm tired of you fucking stupid Democrats bringing bigotry into every conversation. All I can tell you is put some ointment on that butt hurt and learn to say President Trump. But you're a fucking partisan, moonbat idiot for having to bring misogyny into this

 

[NightFox]

so what?

The "so what" is that the Republicans just gave Senator Warren EXACTLY what she wanted, namely Martyr status coupled with damaging the Republicans street creds regarding being "pro freedom of speech". The Republicans missed a golden opportunity to send one of their own (Tim Scott perhaps?) up to rip her argument to shreds on the Senate Floor while at the same time looking like they were all about open discussion, politics is perception and the perception on this one is and is likely to remain that the Republicans canned Senator Warrens right to speak because they didn't like what she had to say. Average Joe citizen doesn't give a damn about arcane Senate rules but he does understand what a gag order represents.

Do you really want the Senate to become a forum where anyone can just read a third party letter of a laundry list of unfounded accusations ?

What do you mean "become"? The Senate has already been that way since it's beginning, the prudent thing to do was to destroy those "unfounded accusations" in front of the cameras.

no the prudent thing to do is to not let unfounded accusations be uttered at all

Oh yeah, that's a better strategy, let Senator Warren go out and cry foul to the press that she was censored before ever being allowed to open her mouth, that'll play better with the public.

it's a waste of time and money and believe me the Senate already wastes enough of both

Just about everything they do is a waste of time (other peoples) and money (other peoples), so yeah, I'm all for shutting the Senate down and sending all the assholes home for say 51.5 weeks out of the year, however this case is infinitesimally minute by comparison to the REAL time and money wasting exercises that go on in the Senate and thus wasn't worth the Republicans getting a PR Black Eye over.

Fauxcahontis is a perennial whiner no one but her wacko base gives a shit what she says

Yep most people didn't even know who the hell she was, until NOW, she just got her profile raised which is exactly what she wanted, now she gets to play the free speech Martyr card AND attach MLK's widows name to her own.

Senator Dingbat pulled a two'fer with a big assist from Mitch McConnell.

 

[Care4all]

You know the Republic is in deep trouble when the scumbags in the Senate start censoring each other in order to stifle debate, what the heck is McConnell afraid of? Let Senator Dingbat read the letter, if the contents offend Senator Sessions (or any of the other nimrods in the Senate) too fuckin' bad, suck it up buttercups.

reading a letter outlining accusations with no proof is not debate

do you think her testimony/letter read before the Senate hearing to the senators was checked out by the Senators at the time? OF COURSE it was verified...

And this is WHY he did NOT get the consent of the Senate.

do you care to prove your claim or was it just the opinion of the wife of a dead civil rights leader and mere allegation

You do not know as FACT that it is mere opinion of Mrs. King's and was not followed through by the committee as much as I don't know as FACT, that it was....

I am certain we could probably find out one way or another by delving in to the congressional records....if we had the time.

but my best guess, is this letter was RESEARCHED by the Senators because it was THEIR JOB to do so in their vetting of him....

And I am certain Republicans at the time would have presented facts showing she was a liar, if it was not true....

but instead, they voted against him becoming a federal judge.

 

[paperview]

The rule that silenced Elizabeth Warren for reading King? It was created after a 1902 fistfight on the Senate floor. http://wapo.st/2kSmDIZ

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Squakahontas, the blond Cherokee babe, insists she will not be silenced while appropriating the very words of a woman of a different race. Is this cultural appropriation fair?:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Coretta Scott King Will Not Be Silenced"

She had the right to read it publicly, just not on the Senate floor

Sure she had the right.

Three other male senators read the letter on the Senate floor. Nothing happened to them.

Who? When? That's interesting.

I posted this earlier today:


Senator Brown was just on floor reading Coretta Scott King letter that got Warren into trouble.

Senator's Merkley and Udall did same thing. No GOP response.

It had nothing to do with the letter... it was because Warren was on the floor continually slamming a colleague.

 

[Skull Pilot]

You know the Republic is in deep trouble when the scumbags in the Senate start censoring each other in order to stifle debate, what the heck is McConnell afraid of? Let Senator Dingbat read the letter, if the contents offend Senator Sessions (or any of the other nimrods in the Senate) too fuckin' bad, suck it up buttercups.

reading a letter outlining accusations with no proof is not debate

do you think her testimony/letter read before the Senate hearing to the senators was checked out by the Senators at the time? OF COURSE it was verified...

And this is WHY he did NOT get the consent of the Senate.

do you care to prove your claim or was it just the opinion of the wife of a dead civil rights leader and mere allegation

You do not know as FACT that it is mere opinion of Mrs. King's and was not followed through by the committee as much as I don't know as FACT, that it was....

I am certain we could probably find out one way or another by delving in to the congressional records....if we had the time.

but my best guess, is this letter was RESEARCHED by the Senators because it was THEIR JOB to do so in their vetting of him....

And I am certain Republicans at the time would have presented facts showing she was a liar, if it was not true....

but instead, they voted against him becoming a federal judge.

if you can't prove your claim that it was researched and deemed true then it is by definition opinion and allegation

That you assume it was researched means less than nothing

 

[kaz]

Squakahontas, the blond Cherokee babe, insists she will not be silenced while appropriating the very words of a woman of a different race. Is this cultural appropriation fair?:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Coretta Scott King Will Not Be Silenced"

She had the right to read it publicly, just not on the Senate floor

Sure she had the right.

Three other male senators read the letter on the Senate floor. Nothing happened to them.

as I said before maybe they just got away with it because this rule was not known at the time when it was discovered it was enforced

Er, they read it AFTER Warren was silenced, putz.

It was because she has been an extremist moonbat, not her sex, putz. Sure that's political, a fair charge, but sexism? Just groan over you stupid Democrats. You took an issue you had a point on and took the chance to make yourself look more stupid than the people you were criticizing

 

[paperview]

Read Coretta Scott King's Letter That Got Sen. Elizabeth Warren Silenced

Read Coretta Scott King's Letter That Got Sen. Elizabeth Warren Silenced

"Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to express my
strong opposition to the nomination of Jefferson Sessions for
federal district judgeship for the Southern District of Alabama.
My longstanding commitment which I shared with my husband,
Martin, to protect and enhance the rights of Black Americans,
rights which include equal access toithe democratic process,
compels me to testify today.

Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert
Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered
access to the ballot box. Mr. 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.

This simply cannot be allowed to happen. Mr. Sessions
conduct as U.S. Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting
fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations
of civil rights laws, indicates that he lacks the temperament,
fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.

The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important
to the future of democracy in the United States.

<snip>

A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those rights by Black people should not be elevated to the federal bench.

The irony of Mr. Sessions' nomination is that, if
confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a
federal prosecution what the local sherifls accomplished
twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods.

Twenty years ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery, the fear of
voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody heads in
Selma and Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote at the

time, "it was net just a sick imagination that conjured up


the vision of a public official. sworn to uphold the law,
who forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of Negro children;
who ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to his
sickbed; who clubbed a Negro woman registrant. and who
callously inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities
upon nonviolent Negroes peacefully petitioning for their
constitutional right to vote..."

The bolded part is what McConnell cited as his objection when invoking the rule to gag her.

 

[paperview]

30 years ago that letter by MLK's widow was tucked away by the Dixiecrat bigot Strom Thurmond, who was supposed to officially enter into the Congressional record -- but the bastard OOpps disappeared it.

It should have been part of the Congressional record long ago, but for the GOP bastard. At long last, it finally is part of the record, and everyone should read it.

 

[paperview]

"Black Belt voter fraud case in Alabama shaped Sen. Jeff Sessions' career"

"In 1985, when he was U.S. Attorney in Mobile, Sessions’ office brought indictments over allegations of voter fraud in a number of Black Belt counties, an area in Alabama named for the color of the soil but with a majority black population.

In Perry County, Sessions’ office charged three individuals with voting fraud, including Albert Turner, a long-time civil rights activist who advised Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and helped lead the voting rights March in Selma on March 7, 1965, known as "Bloody Sunday" after state troopers and a local posse attacked the protestors.


Prosecutors alleged that Turner, his wife Evelyn, and activist Spencer Hogue altered ballots for a Sept. 1984 primary election.
Robert Turner, Albert’s brother and an attorney in Marion, Ala., said in a phone interview Friday that the defendants – later known as the Marion Three – were trying to assist poor and elderly voters in casting ballots. In some cases, the defendants said they were helping illiterate voters mark their ballots, and only altered ballots when requested."

A jury acquitted them of all charges.

 

[kaz]

30 years ago that letter by MLK's widow was tucked away by the Dixiecrat bigot Strom Thurmond, who was supposed to officially enter into the Congressional record -- but the bastard OOpps disappeared it.

It should have been part of the Congressional record long ago, but for the GOP bastard. At long last, it finally is part of the record, and everyone should read it.

It's what you have to go to since you have no actual evidence against Sessions

 

[paperview]

"King also took issue with the aggressiveness in which Sessions pursued the case at that time. She said witnesses who testified were pressured and intimidated into submitting "correct" testimony.


"Many elderly blacks were visited multiple times by the FBI who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand jury in Mobile when they could more easily have testified at a grand jury twenty miles away in Selma," said King.

"These voters, and others, have announced they are now never going to vote again."

A jury would eventually dismiss all charges against the three. Sessions, in 1986, had his nomination to the federal judgeship defeated by the Senate Judiciary Committee amid allegations of other racist claims which included alleged statements that he called the NAACP "un-American."

Coretta Scott King's 1986 letter opposing Sessions adds last-minute drama to confirmation hearings

 

[AntonToo]

Just for you Senator Warren!

STFU? Noooope, all McConnell did was hand Warren a MEGAPHONE.

Her reading would be mostly ignored if not for all the gag order headline making from Republicans.

THANKS dumb-asses!

 

[Care4all]

You know the Republic is in deep trouble when the scumbags in the Senate start censoring each other in order to stifle debate, what the heck is McConnell afraid of? Let Senator Dingbat read the letter, if the contents offend Senator Sessions (or any of the other nimrods in the Senate) too fuckin' bad, suck it up buttercups.

reading a letter outlining accusations with no proof is not debate

do you think her testimony/letter read before the Senate hearing to the senators was checked out by the Senators at the time? OF COURSE it was verified...

And this is WHY he did NOT get the consent of the Senate.

do you care to prove your claim or was it just the opinion of the wife of a dead civil rights leader and mere allegation

You do not know as FACT that it is mere opinion of Mrs. King's and was not followed through by the committee as much as I don't know as FACT, that it was....

I am certain we could probably find out one way or another by delving in to the congressional records....if we had the time.

but my best guess, is this letter was RESEARCHED by the Senators because it was THEIR JOB to do so in their vetting of him....

And I am certain Republicans at the time would have presented facts showing she was a liar, if it was not true....

but instead, they voted against him becoming a federal judge.

if you can't prove your claim that it was researched and deemed true then it is by definition opinion and allegation

That you assume it was researched means less than nothing

true,

and that you assume that it was NOT researched, means less than nothing....

that was my point.