US senator is getting ‘excellent care’ after being hospitalized on Sunday morning, spokesperson says
Mitch McConnell, a US senator from Kentucky, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday morning, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning. He is receiving excellent care,” the statement read.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
MANILA, June 3 — A group of Philippine lawmakers wrested back control of a bitterly divided Senate today, electing an acting president amid a boycott by Vice President Sara Duterte’s supporters ahead of her impeachment trial.
Pro-Duterte lawmakers began their Senate boycott this week after losing majority control, with one lawmaker arrested for large-scale corruption and another in hiding to avoid arrest by the International Criminal Court.
The change in leadership was made possible after Senator Francis Escudero from the pro-Duterte bloc attended the session, allowing lawmakers to reach a quorum and elect Sherwin Gatchalian in a temporary capacity.
“The Senate has been adjourned and unable to resume session for the past two days, placing us on the brink of constitutional violation had we not convened today,” Gatchalian said.
He said the quorum was calculated based on a “majority of the 22 senators over whom jurisdiction can be obtained by the Senate” — not including the lawmaker who was arrested and the other in hiding.
Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, leader of the pro-Duterte bloc, challenged the constitutionality of the vote, arguing that the entire 24-member chamber should have been counted.
“The majority is 13,” Cayetano said in a video message posted on social media.
“Has Philippine democracy died again? Has the Philippine Constitution been thrown out?” he said.
The presidency said the developments were in accordance with the law.
“The palace recognises and respects the decision of the new majority and the leadership of Acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian,” spokeswoman Claire Castro told reporters.
‘Some form of stability’
The surprise move came hours after President Ferdinand Marcos warned that important laws may be derailed if senators continue to boycott sessions.
“The legislature is now in disarray,” Marcos told reporters earlier today.
“Get back to work because it’s important... We have to pass a lot of laws.”
Marcos said his team was looking at possible laws and amendments to aid Filipinos as the Middle East war sends shockwaves through the global economy.
“We are trying to achieve some form of stability so that people can go on with their lives and plan ahead for their future, so that people can count on the assistance of government during this time of an emergency,” the president said.
“We cannot do that if the legislature decides to stay at home and have a vacation.”
The Philippine Constitution states that the executive is co-equal to the legislature, limiting Marcos’s options.
“We cannot tell them what to do, we cannot punish them for what they are doing,” Marcos said.
Last month, the 13 lawmakers allied with Duterte took control of the 24-seat Senate just hours before the House of Representatives voted to impeach the vice president.
Four days later, Duterte ally Ronald Dela Rosa fled after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him.
Another pro-Duterte senator, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, was arrested on Monday for allegedly receiving kickbacks worth more than 573 million pesos (RM37 million) over a flood control project.
Cayetano justified the boycott by saying the body was being “held by the throat” and that majority members are being eliminated.
The vice president’s Senate impeachment trial is expected to begin on July 6. Duterte only needs nine votes from the senator-judges for her to be acquitted. — AFP
WASHINGTON, June 5 — The US Senate handed President Donald Trump a victory early this morning, passing a bill that would provide the Department of Homeland Security with an additional US$70 billion (RM281 billion) for immigration enforcement and sending it to the House of Representatives for final consideration.
The Senate voted 52-47 to approve the legislation, with no support from Democrats. One Republican voted against the bill.
Republicans accused Democrats of “defunding” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, despite the agencies having a combined US$100 billion in unspent funds that was part of a larger DHS spending package enacted last year by Republicans.
The House is not expected to take up the measure before next week, according to Republican leaders.
Extra money for deportation crackdown
Much of yesterday’s long debate over the bill was overshadowed by efforts from Democrats, and some Republicans, to insert language unrelated to immigration. Those proposals revolved around prohibiting the use of federal funds and even private donations for building the lavish, 90,000 square-foot ballroom on White House grounds that Trump wants.
Senators also debated provisions making it illegal for federal dollars to be used for an “anti-weaponisation” fund that could compensate Trump’s political allies for allegations that the government mistreated them.
None of those amendments were approved.
The funding provided by the bill would help pay for Trump’s controversial migrant deportation crackdown over the next three years and augment about US$100 billion in unspent Department of Homeland Security law enforcement money enacted last year by Republicans, who control Congress.
Lawmakers began voting on amendments to the immigration bill in a “vote-a-rama” session early yesterday that culminated in the vote on the underlying measure in the early hours of today.
An initial move by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to kill the “anti-weaponisation” fund, which Democrats call a “slush fund” for Trump’s allies, brought the session to a largely procedural halt for hours after Republican Senator Susan Collins voted for the motion.
She was later joined by fellow Republicans Jon Husted and Dan Sullivan.
Schumer’s measure failed in a 50-49 vote but exposed the political turmoil among rank-and-file Senate Republicans. Some of them sought their own amendments to eliminate the fund permanently, five months before the November midterm elections.
Collins, Husted and Sullivan all face competitive races for reelection at a time when Trump’s approval rating is down, even among Republicans.
“Republicans refused to permanently outlaw Trump’s US$2 billion slush fund, leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump’s personal fixer,” Schumer said in a statement after the vote, referring to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “That is not accountability. That is a permission slip.”
The fund, which critics say would allow Trump to use taxpayer dollars to compensate his political allies, has already been put on hold by the White House and Justice Department.
But on Wednesday, Trump declined to say whether the fund had actually been terminated, telling reporters: “I love it. I think it’s so important.” Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who opposed Schumer’s motion, told reporters he would not support passage of the funding bill without a Republican amendment vote to codify Blanche’s congressional testimony that the administration was abandoning the fund.
Tillis argued that failing to do so would place a burden on congressional Republicans up for re-election in November who are worried about a voter backlash to the fund.
Opponents call Trump fund ‘immediate and dire threat’
Nearly all of the immigration bill’s funding would go to DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agencies that are carrying out the Trump administration’s vigorous deportations throughout the United States.
Tillis later offered his own amendment to reallocate the controversial Trump fund’s resources to fraud-enforcement operations. It failed in an 84-15 vote, while garnering support from 12 Republicans.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who proposed his own amendment to end the fund, joined Democratic Senator Cory Booker in a friend-of-the-court brief urging US District Judge Leonie Brinkema to maintain the block on Trump’s fund that she imposed last week.
They argued the fund “presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress”.
A number of recent actions by Trump have prompted open criticism from some Republicans, from seeking US$1 billion in taxpayer funding for a White House ballroom and security upgrades to his decision to nominate Blanche as attorney general and name political ally Bill Pulte as US intelligence chief.
Cassidy, who lost his primary last month to two Trump-aligned challengers in Louisiana, has proposed a series of amendments, including one to nullify an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service protecting Trump from tax audits. — Reuters
Login