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Elizabeth Warren silenced for reading Coretta King's 1986 letter admonishing Sessions

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E

EatinOlives

Member
My jaw is on the floor.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-acti...votes-to-silence-warren-after-sessions-speech

The Senate voted to bar Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) from speaking on the floor Tuesday night, after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said her blistering comments about fellow Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Trump's pick for attorney general, broke Senate rules. 
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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 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. 
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This is potentially historic.

Sessions (yes, THAT Sessions), was up for a federal judgeship and Coretta Scott King (yes, THAT Coretta Scott King) wrong a long and eloquent letter admonishing Sessions and his sheer incompetence for the position. Sessions was ultimately not confirmed for this position.

This letter was ALMOST lost to time, since Strom Thurmond at that time did not submit this letter into congressional record even though he was supposed to. This letter was uncovered and first reported on by Buzzfeed:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...86-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.ecf4f57b0e82

During the 1986 hearing, the letter and King's opposition became a crucial part of the argument against Sessions's confirmation.
BuzzFeed News first reported the existence of the letter earlier Tuesday, noting that it was never entered into the congressional record by then-Judiciary Committee Chair Strom Thurmond.
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Warren was effectively silenced because turtle-neck McConnell thought this was a violation of the rules:
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."
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In other words, Coretta Scott King's own words were deemed too offensive for the Senate floor and thus Warren has been silenced for the rest of this debate regarding Sessions.

This is Republicans straight up spitting in the face of black Americans.

Fuck them. Just, fuck them.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Saint Gregory said:
So nothing new then.
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While nothing new, this takes it to a whole new level.

I urge everyone to read the letter that was almost lost forever. Racist Republicans have been actively trying to sweep the letter and its contents under the rug for to this day for 30 years.
 
Z

Zubz

Banned
I definitely do not feel safe with the Republican Party holding & abusing this much power. We need more people like Warren out there standing up for us.
 
T

theignoramus

Member
igorvolskyVerified account ‏@igorvolsky 28m28 minutes ago
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Marco Rubio now appears to be blaming Coretta Scott King's 1986 letter condemning Sessions for the acrimony in today's politics.
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And this is a moderate of the Republican Party.
 
C

commedieu

Banned
Zubz said:
I definitely do not feel safe with the Republican Party holding & abusing this much power. We need more people like Warren out there standing up for us.
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Yeah but...

I just couldn't.. trust hillary, you know? I mean if she were to win.. lord knows what would have happened to the earth as we know it. My right to vote for someone other than the democrats is my gee golly right.. how else are we ever going to get a real third party if we don't take this stand right now! I still can't believe this country. Low turnout, and people protest voted. With this man and the republicans at the door. They literally just opened their house to rick james then left.

But then I remember. Most people, and I'm being kind, won't be affected by the republicans. Just a good %, but not enough to matter in Electoral states, and Senate seats, etc.
 
S

Saint Gregory

Member
EatinOlives said:
While nothing new, this takes it to a whole new level.

I urge everyone to read the letter that was almost lost forever. Racist Republicans have been actively trying to sweep the letter and its contents under the rug for to this day for 30 years.
Click to expand...

The very fact that we're having this debate about a man deemed to racist by his own party to be on the Supreme Court in the 80's who's now being handed the reins of all US law enforcement should be all we need to understand what we're dealing with right now. The game has completely changed. There's no longer any such thing as common decency left in the Republican party and America, even though gerrymandering contributed, has largely chosen to put them in power.

I can almost guarantee you that more evidence of racism with be found against Gorsuch in his background than was available back during Session's SC hearings and Gorsuch will still be approved with full Republican support.
 
Z_Y

Z_Y

Member
Altazor said:
but "the party of Lincoln"
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Exactly. Get back to me when you free the slaves, Dems aka the party of the KKK.

actually had this card pulled on me and was jumped on by others when I said it was absurd. I don't social media anymore
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
Watching Rubio and Hatch respond to Warren is one of the most maddening things to witness. Pure villainy. Add to that seeing Youtube chat flying by full of vile morons and I had to turn it off.
 
C

Candeldandel

Member
But if we just talk it out things will come around again, right? Civil debate, conversation, back & forth? Sure.

I have no words for this.
 
K

Kettch

Member
Is there any recourse for this? Or could McConnell and the Republican majority just silence all democrats if they felt like it?
 
N

Nelo Ice

Banned
Candeldandel said:
But if we just talk it out things will come around again, right? Civil debate, conversation, back & forth? Sure.

I have no words for this.
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Yep surely we should build a bridge and talk it out with these people. Have to be tolerant because not all Republicans.

I hate being born brown in America.
 
Z

Zaraki_Kenpachi

Member
And yet people on here were still wanting to not vote hillary because she's a crook and "how can things get any worse". Let it all burn, maybe idiots who voted for them to have complete power will wake up one day.
 
S

Slime

Banned
I hope this results in a Streisand effect, but I don't have enough faith in the American people right now for anything to come of it.

Republicans are a cancer.
 
S

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
Slime said:
I hope this results in a Streisand effect, but I don't have enough faith in the American people right now for anything to come of it.

Republicans are a cancer.
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Certainly seeing the letter a lot on social media right now.
 
S

Strike

Member
...but both sides are the same, right? Fuck them and anyone who continues to buy into that line of horseshit.
 
M

Madness

Member
CazTGG said:
What prevents Booker or another Democrat from sneaking in quotes from this letter, exactly?
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Senate rules. Jeff Sessions is still a sitting senator from Alabama. Thats why Mcconnell evoked Rule 19 to stop her from reading that. Booker and others could try a few lines, but anything personally attacking Sessions or criticizing him as a Senator or his work as a senator won't be allowed.
 
V

Vincent Alexander

Member
I have GOT to stop reading NeoGaf and the news in general for a while, because I'm just getting too pissed. I barely got any work done today because I was just reading dumb shit the GOP was up to, and getting pissed all day. I hate to close my eyes, but I can't handle this. I just don't even know anymore.
 
I

ICO_SotC

Member
EatinOlives said:
This letter was ALMOST lost to time, since Strom Thurmond at that time did not submit this letter into congressional record even though he was supposed to. This letter was uncovered and first reported on by Buzzfeed.
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I'm sure it was an accident and an isolated incident.

Seriously though, IMO it's not so much what the letter actually says but the fact that the public is being alerted to the fact that Republicans actively tried to erase the letter from history is what is making Republicans really freak.
 
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