Freedom of speech denied in the Senate: Today's news for February 8th

Fox News:

Warren barred from speaking on Senate floor for rest of Sessions debate

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was prohibited Tuesday night from speaking on the Senate floor for the rest of the debate over Sen. Jeff Sessions' nomination to be attorney general.

The drama began when Warren, quoting a 30-year-old letter by civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, referred to the Alabama Republican as a "disgrace." King's letter was written in 1986, when Sessions was nominated to the federal bench but was never confirmed.

King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., also wrote that when acting as a federal prosecutor, Sessions used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens."

Warren's reference drew the ire of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said that Warren had "impugned the motives of our colleague from Alabama."

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. advised Warren that she was out of order under Rule XIX of the Senate, which states 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."

Mark this day on your calendar, because this may be the only time you will ever hear me defend Senator Warren. The Senate rule above is in defiance of the First Amendment's freedom of speech protection. Personally, she should challenge this Senate rule, to the Supreme Court if necessary.

On a more political view of this, the Republicans really dropped the ball here. With this action, they made Warren sympathetic. They keep forgetting the old axiom, "Better to be silent and be thought the fool, then to speak and remove all doubt." The Republicans should let Warren speak as much as she likes.

In international news...

New York Times:

After Flawed Raid, Yemen Forbids U.S. Ground Missions

Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Trump, Yemen has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terror groups in the country, according to American officials.

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” — a characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.

Admittedly, this story takes a decidedly anti-Trump view of this failure, when Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would likely have approved the same mission. This kind of action is typical of America's war on Islam that has been going on since Bush was president. It is doubtful the Times would be propping up this story if it was done by Obama or Clinton, although it should be propped up for all to see: This is typical of our military's failure in the Middle East, as we have tasked them to fight an unwinnable war (Are you ready to kill a billion Muslims?).

At least Yemen understands what a bad idea siding with America is. Sadly, it took the deaths of their own children to get the message. Too bad America won't get that message.

Finally, the funniest thing ever associated with Al Franken:

National Journal:

No Joke: Al Franken for President?

Al Franken isn’t a punch line in the Sen­ate any­more. He’s emerged as one of the Demo­crats’ most ag­gress­ive and ef­fect­ive ques­tion­ers of Pres­id­ent Trump’s Cab­in­et nom­in­ees. He’s gen­er­ated nu­mer­ous made-for-TV clips as one of the few Demo­crats will­ing to go full-bore against his party’s top tar­gets—Jeff Ses­sions, Tom Price, and Betsy De­Vos. He’s fi­nally show­ing some per­son­al­ity in the Sen­ate, punc­tu­ated by his laugh-out-loud ex­change with En­ergy Sec­ret­ary-des­ig­nate Rick Perry. And he’ll be one of nine Demo­crats on the Ju­di­ciary Com­mit­tee ques­tion­ing Trump’s Su­preme Court nom­in­ee, Neil Gor­such. This is Al Franken’s mo­ment in the spot­light, and if he chooses, he could par­lay his good for­tune in­to a bid for the pres­id­ency in 2020.

This will be difficult, but seriously, Franken is a Leftist wet dream. Consider the next paragraph:

To be sure, Franken, 65, may not be the Demo­crats’ strongest can­did­ate in the gen­er­al elec­tion. His deeply lib­er­al polit­ics and long-stand­ing dis­missive­ness of Re­pub­lic­ans turn off many voters in the middle. But with Demo­crats look­ing for strident op­pos­i­tion to Trump in the early days of his pres­id­ency, they’re prob­ably not go­ing to be in a prag­mat­ic mood in the primar­ies. So far, much of the lib­er­al ex­cite­ment has centered around Sens. Eliza­beth War­ren and Bernie Sanders, but they will be 71 and 79, re­spect­ively, dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion. Neither has shown any abil­ity to win sup­port out­side the most pro­gress­ive pre­cincts. Franken, at least, can point to a re­cord of elect­ab­il­ity with groups that Demo­crats will need to win over.

See how the last sentence contradicts the first sentence? Who writes this crap?

Here is the only ideological defense of Franken:

Like Trump, he cham­pioned buy-Amer­ic­an le­gis­la­tion for iron and steel com­pan­ies, and helped se­cure new trade pro­tec­tions and tar­iffs against Chinese steel.  

This is the defense of Franken: He shares Trump's worst protectionist ideals.

This is beyond even the absurdity of Trump.