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Conway slams Democrats' vow to filibuster Trump Supreme Court pick

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway said Monday that Democratic senators who have vowed to filibuster President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee are in the business of "permanent protest."
"They don’t even know the person’s name yet," Conway told Fox News' Martha MacCallum on "The First 100 Days." "They haven’t even met him or her and they’ve already committed themselves to obstructing, blocking and filibustering that person."
Trump is expected to announce his choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia Tuesday evening. The seat has been vacant since Scalia's death this past February. Former President Barack Obama nominated federal judge Merrick Garland for the Court, but Senate Republicans prevented his nomination from being heard.
Conway declined to say whether she supported Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., using the so-called "nuclear option" to change filibuster rules and force Trump's nominee through the Senate with a simple 51-vote majority.
"We should take a look at all of our options and I think [former Democratic Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid probably regrets the day that he went so nuclear with the nuclear option because now his party is no longer in power," Conway said. "That’s up to Leader McConnell and his colleagues. I’m supportive of a fair and full process."
Conway also fired back at Obama's criticism of Trump's controversial executive order suspending refugee processing and immigration from certain countries.
"He’s welcome to say what he wants. It’s a free country, including for ex-Presidents," Conway said. "[But] this is temporary, it is 90 days and it is very narrowly restricted to seven countries that none other than President Obama’s administration identified as high risk for harboring, training, and exporting terrorists.

Trump names Thomas Homan acting director of ICE, replacing Obama holdover

President Donald Trump appointed Thomas Homan to be acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security announced late Monday.
Homan replaces Daniel Ragsdale, who had been the acting director of ICE since 2013. DHS did not provide an immediate explanation for the change.
DHS Secretary John Kelly said he was confident that Homan "will continue to serve as a strong, effective leader for the men and women of ICE. I look forward to working alongside him to ensure that we enforce our immigration laws in the interior of the United States consistent with the national interest."
A former NYPD officer and Border Patrol agent, Homan has served as ICE's executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations since 2013.
An April 2016 Washington Post profile of Homan lead with these two sentences: "Thomas Homan deports people. And he's really good at it."
Homan's appointment was announced shortly after Trump dismissed acting Attorney General Sally Yates, another Obama administration holdover, for telling Justice Department attorneys not to defend the president's refugee and travel ban.

Former AG Lynch once praised Trump's pick Boente as 'consummate utility' player

Dana J. Boente, a longtime federal prosecutor who was thrust into the middle of President Trump’s controversial immigration order when he was named new acting attorney general Monday night, was once praised by former Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch as the department’s “consummate utility” player.
“He is that reliable middle child, Lynch said of the Eagle Scout, according to The Washington Post, “the one you could always count on to be there for you.”
Boente was nominated in 2015 by President Obama and confirmed as the 60^th U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He has spent his entire 31-year career working in public service.
One of his most high-profile cases was the corruption trial of Virginia’s former Gov. Bob McDonnell. The former governor was given a two-year prison sentence for an alleged public corruption scheme, but the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Newsweek reported that he was born in the Midwest and raised by a single mother. He is a graduate of St. Louis University and its School of Law and has lived in Northern Virginia for 29 years.
Boente was named to the job Monday night after Trump fired Sally Yates, a Democratic appointee who had publicly questioned the constitutionality of the executive order and directed Justice Department attorneys not to defend it in court. Yates said she was not convinced it was lawful or consistent with the agency's obligation "to stand for what is right."
He's expected to serve only a few days, until Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for the position, is confirmed.
Boente says in a statement issued by the Justice Department that Trump's executive order is "both lawful on its face and properly drafted."

Sessions once asked Yates about AG's responsibility to say 'no' to a president

Sally Yates

President Trump’s selection for attorney general once questioned Sally Yates during a confirmation hearing in 2015 about whether the role of an attorney general was simply follow marching orders from the sitting president.
“If the views the president wants to execute is unlawful, should the attorney general or deputy attorney general say no?” Sessions asked.
“Senator, I believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has the obligation to follow the law and the Consitution and to give their independent legal advice to the president,” she responded.
Trump relieved acting Attorney General Yates of her duties Monday night after she directed Justice Department attorneys not to defend Trump's controversial executive refugee and immigration ban.
Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, was replaced by Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Boente, 62, was sworn in Monday evening. He will lead the Justice Department pending the confirmation of Sessions, Trump's nominee for attorney general, by the Senate.
Yates said in a memo earlier Monday that she was "not convinced" that Trump's order was lawful, nor that its defense was consistent with what she described as the department's obligation to "always seek justice and stand for what is right."
An unsigned White House statement said Yates had "betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States." The executive order, which Trump signed Friday, temporarily halted the entire U.S. refugee program and banned all entries from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days.
The March 24, 2015 confirmation hearing video was posted on C-SPAN. It contained footage from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing to consider Yates for deputy attorney general, the department’s second-highest position.

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Rob O'Neill: We Must Be Smart About Who We Let Immigrate to US

Rob O'Neill, the former Navy SEAL who killed Usama bin Laden

Rob O'Neill, the former Navy SEAL who killed Usama bin Laden, reacted to criticism of President Trump's executive order placing a moratorium on immigration from several Middle Eastern and North African countries.
"[Authorities] need to look at certain things: a diabetic grandma probably isn't a threat, [but] the military-aged male could be a threat," he said, "It's when you get a bunch of the males that are coming in, that's where you... profile a little bit as far as the way they are acting."
O'Neill said key questions of prospective immigrants should be their view on Sharia Law versus the U.S. Constitution.
"This is a different war," he said, "we're not fighting Nazis."
He said that Trump's order is not a flat "Muslim ban" as some critics have characterized, but rather an order encompassing several countries on the "watch" for terrorism and violent ideologies.
"My ancestors are from Ireland: If we have a lot of problems with the Irish, I would expect the same thing," O'Neill said.

Canadian PM Trudeau calls Quebec City mosque shooting 'terrorist attack on Muslims'

Two gunmen stormed an Islamic center in Quebec City and opened fire killing at least six people and wounded eight others Sunday, police said
Two suspects in the shooting were arrested, Quebec City police spokesman Constable Pierre Poirier said. Their identities haven’t been released.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the shooting, calling it a “terrorist attack on Muslims.”
“It was with tremendous shock, sadness and anger that I heard of this evening’s tragic and fatal shooting at the Centre culturel islamique de Quebec located in the Ste-Foy neighborhood of the city of Quebec,” he said in a statement.
“Muslim-Canadians are an important part of our national fabric, and these senseless acts have no place in our communities, cities and country.”

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Jan. 29, 2017: Police survey the scene after deadly shooting at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada. (Francis Vachon/The Canadian Press via AP)

Le Journal de Quebec reported that the gunfire started at the Islamic center at around 8 p.m. There were approximately 40 people attending prayer service at the time of the shooting. The center's president Mohamed Yangui said the shooters reloaded at least three times.
According to the Le Soleil newspaper, one of the arrested suspects was 27 years old and had a “Quebecois name.” The paper also reported that one of the suspects was armed with an AK-47.
One witness, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Radio Canada, a Canadian Broadcasting Company French-speaking outlet, that the two gunmen were masked.
“It seemed to me that they had a Quebecois accent. They started to fire, and as they shot they yelled, 'Allahu akbar!' The bullets hit people that were praying. People who were praying lost their lives. A bullet passed right over my head,” the person said.
An unidentified man looking for his friends, who were regular attendees of evening prayers, told Le Journal de Quebec, "I've tried to reach them, but I cannot. It's terrible."
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard called the shooting a "terrorist act." later Sunday. He expressed solidarity with the victims' families.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Twitter Sunday that he was deeply saddened by the loss of life. His office says no motive had been confirmed.
The CBC reported that someone left a pig's head on the mosque's doorstep this past June, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Islam's holy book, the Koran, forbids them from consuming pork.
"We were told that it was an isolated act, but today we have deaths," Yangui told reporters. "It is minutes and hours of terror and anguish."
In the U.S., the NYPD said in a statement that officers have been told to give “special attention” to mosques in the area. Police said they were monitoring the situation in Quebec.