Another Romney run? Election 2016. Democrats. Republicans. Mitt Romney
Another Romney run? Jimmy Williams, MSNBC Contributor and Executive Editor at BlueNationReview.com, and Mercedes Schlapp, Republican Strategist and former Spokesperson for President ...
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Another Romney run? Election 2016. Democrats. Republicans. Mitt Romney - Video
Pelosi: Democrats Won #39;t Be #39;Irrelevant #39; Next Year
In an exclusive interview with CQ Roll Call on Dec. 5, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi insisted she doesn #39;t gloat when House Republicans can #39;t shore up the votes among their own members...
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Pelosi: Democrats Won't Be 'Irrelevant' Next Year - Video
Officials Fear Backlash Over The Release Of The (Democrats #39;) CIA Torture Report
Why is Senate releasing CIA torture report? Fox Friends http://www.foxnews.com/foxfriends/index.html Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/ Fox News Insider: The Official Live Blog of Fox News...
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Officials Fear Backlash Over The Release Of The (Democrats') CIA Torture Report - Video
On Tuesday, Senate Democrats will use some of their last hours in the Senate majority to release the much-anticipated report about the CIA's methods of extracting information from terror suspects, called "enhanced interrogation" by some and "torture" by others.
The report is 6,000 pages long, but only the 480-page executive summary will be released. It is contentious, opposed by both Republicans and former CIA officials who argue that it not only is false, but that it will bring harm to American personnel abroad.
Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said she will release the report Tuesday morning around 11 a.m., and will not comment until that time.
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CBS News' Bob Orr and former CIA Director Michael Hayden discuss the controversy surrounding the forthcoming report from the Senate Intelligence ...
Former CIA director Michael Hayden said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that the report would damage CIA morale by making the workforce "feel as if it has been tried and convicted in absentia since the senate Democrats and their staff didn't talk to anyone actively involved in the program." He also said the information would motivate people to attack Americans and American facilities overseas, and making U.S. allies wary about cooperating with America in the future.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, warned of "violence and deaths" abroad in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" and called the report's release "a terrible idea.
The concern for U.S. personnel abroad prompted Secretary of State John Kerry to call Feinstein to discuss "the impact that the release" of the report would have on factors ranging from U.S. efforts to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to the safety of American hostages around the world, State Department Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.
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White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the Senate Intelligence committee will release its controversial report on the CIA's use of torture...
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Democrats prepare to release contentious CIA torture report
Washington Just over a year ago, Senate Democrats went "nuclear," changing the rules to make it far easier to confirm most presidential nominees from judges to cabinet secretaries. Republicans, in response, went ballistic, issuing doomsday warnings of the move's consequences. Now, they may well keep the rule change.
Hypocrisy? Or practicality?
Continuing it would certainly go against the grain of Sen. Mitch McConnells pledge to restore the Senate to its traditional ways of working. The Republican from Kentucky, who will lead the Senate when the GOP takes controlJan. 6, plans to bring the subject up with his caucusTuesday.
But the spokesman for the current Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D) of Nevada, says the nuclear option which removed the threat of a blocking filibuster from all nominees except for the Supreme Court was unequivocally worth it. The change to simple majority approval smoothed the gears of the Senate, allowing easier confirmation of nominees.
The move allowed Democrats to alleviate the emergency in judicial vacancies in federal courts, fill vacancies in the crucial federal circuit court of appeals that hears challenges to executive actions, and confirm key nominees, such as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was charged with planning the presidents executive action on immigration, writes spokesman Adam Jentleson in an email.
Indeed, the 113th Congress (2013-2014) has had a 95 percent rate of confirmation for judicial appointees unheard of, according to Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution.
In short, why wouldn't a majority leader want to keep the Senate's new confirmation rule?
The main concern is that this path could turn into a slippery slope that fundamentally alters the character of the Senate and undermines the Founding Fathers' vision for the chamber. The threat of filibuster which requires 60 votes to overcome helps the Senate act in a deliberative way, so it can temper the hot-headed House, which requires only majority votes.
If Senator McConnell keeps the new rule intact, why stop there? Why not apply it to legislation? If a controlling party were to go that far, then the Senate would be little different from the House, where the majority can get what it wants without concern for what the opposing party thinks.
Thats why some Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, want to reverse the rule change and go back to the way things were. But McConnell has said that its hard to un-ring a bell. If Republicans change the rule back, they reason, Democrats can just unchange it the next time they are in power.
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One year later, Senate's 'nuclear option' has worked. Is that good?