United States Senate 2

[GreyhoundFan]

Kennedy is such an asshole:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good read from a professor at Louisiana State University: "Our Foghorn Leghorn Republican senator little resembles his former Democratic self, but in Louisiana we know the type"

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Many Americans took fresh notice of Louisiana’s sardonic junior U.S. senator, John Neely Kennedy, last week when the Republican lawmaker questioned the patriotism of President Biden’s nominee for comptroller of the currency.

“I don’t know whether to call you ‘professor’ or ‘comrade,’” Kennedy told Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on which Kennedy serves.

When Kennedy asked if she had a resignation letter from the Communist youth group the Soviet-controlled Kazakhstan government forced her to join as a child, Omarova responded, “Senator, I’m not a Communist. I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born.” Omarova told Kennedy the Communist regime persecuted her family, adding, “That’s who I am. I remember that history. I came to this country. I’m proud to be an American.”

Among those criticizing Kennedy for trying to smear Omarova was Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who said his Louisiana colleague had violated “senatorial courtesy.” That includes, Brown added, “not doing character assassination.”

But Kennedy’s antics at the hearing should have surprised no one in the room. Since entering the Senate in 2017, he has specialized in outrageous comments on Fox News, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings.

An acerbic Biden critic, Kennedy is a fount of sharp-but-folksy one-liners. He punctuated his 2016 Senate campaign spots with, “I will not let you down. I’d rather drink weedkiller.” With his exaggerated Southern accent, he affects a mixture of Mr. Haney, the con artist of the 1960s CBS sitcom “Green Acres,” and the bombastic Looney Tunes rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn.

The 70-year-old Kennedy is so committed to this persona that a columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune challenged readers in 2019 to guess the author of a series of eccentric statements: Foghorn Leghorn or Kennedy? It was a difficult quiz.

Whenever Kennedy appears on Fox News or launches an attention-getting stunt, those of us in Louisiana who know him well roll our eyes and reflect on the Kennedy we knew before his Senate election.

We recall the brainy graduate of Vanderbilt University, the University of Virginia Law School and Oxford University’s Magdalen College; the relatively progressive Democrat who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004; the man who, despite his 2007 party switch, served capably as state treasurer from 2000 to 2017; the official who, although in the same Republican Party as then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, was a fierce critic of Jindal’s reckless fiscal policies.

Mostly, we wonder what happened to the reasonable, non-incendiary Kennedy we once knew.

In preparing this piece, I found a lengthy interview Kennedy did in October 2004 with the Shreveport Times. In pitching his Democratic Senate candidacy, he was articulate, restrained and progressive. He scorned the tax cuts for wealthy Americans that then-President George W. Bush had signed. He favored increasing the federal minimum wage.

He was no Bernie Sanders liberal, but he was the progressive Democrat in the race — so much so that some prominent Black leaders, including our congressional delegation’s most liberal member, Rep. William J. Jefferson of New Orleans, backed him.

But what stood out in that 2004 interview was the absence of the homey sayings, abusive zingers and character assassinations that have become Kennedy trademarks. He was nothing like the man you see these days insulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — “It must suck to be that dumb” — or vilifying then-Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland as “a neo-socialist, left-of-Lenin whack job.”

When people outside Louisiana ask me about Kennedy, I tell them he’s not the folksy bumpkin you see on TV, but a wealthy, well-educated attorney with an Oxford degree. Just like Pat Buttram, who portrayed Mr. Haney in “Green Acres,” Kennedy is acting. He’s a shape-shifting, attention-hungry politician who found a role — wily country boy — that brings him some fame.

Since the days of Huey Long, Louisiana has celebrated its brash, entertaining and clever politicians. But Kennedy’s latest media splash was not clever. It was entertaining only to those who enjoy cruelty and xenophobia. It was conduct that, until recently, might have earned Kennedy criticism from some members of his party. The pre-2017 Kennedy would have abhorred it.

What troubles me about Kennedy’s latest stunt is not just what it revealed about a politician doing what some unprincipled, opportunistic politicians have always done. What bothers me more is what it says about Louisiana politics, and today’s Republican Party, that Kennedy could expose himself as a xenophobic demagogue and pay no price for it.

 

[WiseGirl]

Calling out repugs. "Sanctity of life" indeed. My heart breaks for Michigan (and I can't find the thread about shootings). 

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

Harry Reid has died.

Spoiler

 

[Cartmann99]

[Ozlsn]

3 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

God wants us all to die!! That's why he created a deadly virus! Who is Ron Johnson to thwart the will of God? That's why he eschews all medical care, and relies solely on God for all his healing! 

And seriously, if he does fall sick I tgink hospitals would be justified in turning him away with "who are we to thwart God's will? 

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I bet Fauci wants to reach up and slap these rethuglikan morons:

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by GreyhoundFan

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

"What a moron!"- Dr. Fauci's hot mic moment was absolutely wonderful.  He's human sunshine so imagine how much of a toll all of this bullshit has taken on him for him to finally get to this point.  I'd enjoy seeing him go full Samuel L. Jackson on the idiots that keep spreading the lies.  

[GreyhoundFan]

It looks like Lindsey is wearing more makeup than he has in the past. I wonder if he is doing it to endear himself to his lord and master. If so, he'll need to up the level of orange tint.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wonder what hallucinogens Joni is taking:

 

[fraurosena]

Ooooh, very interesting! Does anyone know what the current status is? 

Thread btw.

 

[fraurosena]

Sinema's about to find out that actions have consequences.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

You know who needs a cognitive test? Marshall.

 

Another reaction to Marshall's stupidity:

[GreyhoundFan]

The GQP is the party of obstruction and stupidity:

 

[47of74]

Marco Rubio just got told to shut the fuck up

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[AnywhereButHere]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/senate-unanimously-passes-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/

Hey, look! A bipartisan bill passed the senate. Granted, it’s not world peace, but at least the majority came to an agree On something. Now it heads to the House where Boebert and Greene will probably try to torpedo it because sunshine is evil and turning the clocks back and forth is necessary to help recall JFK Jr from the great beyond. Or something like that… 

[Cartmann99]

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun: SCOTUS should leave abortion, interracial marriage to states

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U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to legalize interracial marriage nationwide and should have left it to individual states.

Braun’s comments Tuesday came as he discussed what he’s looking for as he evaluates Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearings for Jackson, Braun said she seems well qualified. And the GOP lawmaker said as he evaluates her record, he wants a justice who won’t be an “activist.”

“Stick with interpreting the law," Braun said. "Don’t legislate from the bench.”

Braun said examples of judicial activism include the landmark decision legalizing abortion. He said the Supreme Court shouldn’t “homogenize” issues nationwide, instead leaving them up to individual states to decide – which extends, when asked, to include interracial marriage.

“If you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too," Braun said. "I think that’s hypocritical.”

Braun said he thinks a few Republicans may ultimately vote to confirm Jackson.

 

[47of74]

Josh Hawley getting dismantled

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

Some of you may remember the story of how he and Ann survived their college years:

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As anyone knows, cynical cash giveaways to political supporters are meant to result in massive tax cuts for the rich, not debt relief for millions of Americans. Don't forget, the hot new Republican plan this year is to raise taxes on low-income folks.

Besides, Mitt Romney knows how people should pay for college. The could follow his example, as Ann Romney lovingly recalled in a 1994 Boston Globe interview, which people very ungraciously kept bringing up when ordinary guy Mitt was running for president in 2012.

Recalling her early years with Mitt, when they were young and having to scrape by, Ann remembered how they scrimped and saved, like any young married college couple in Utah in 1969:

They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income. It was tiny. And I didn’t have money to carpet the floor. But you can get remnants, samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting.

But by golly, they had each other, and they had their carpet samples, and they had love. It was a little bit like those idealistic bohemian dreamers in Rent, but without the Broadway production values or the AIDS.

Oh, and they had a little something else:

We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time.

Oh, yes, the stocks were probably some help, come to think of it. She went on to explain that:

The stock came from Mitt’s father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested Mitt’s birthday money year to year—it wasn’t much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education.

As UCLA political science prof Andrew Sabl pointed out in 2012, that little bit of American Motors stock, having increased in value by a factor of 16 from an initial investment of "a few thousand" dollars, would conservatively have been worth about $60,000 in 1969, or in 2012 dollars, roughly $377,000. ($60K in 1969 dollars would come to a hair over $470,000 today.)