Category: U.S. Senate

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GOP U.S. Senate Viral Video WTF?!

WATCH: Near ‘Literal Brawl’ Starts When GOP Senator Threatens Union Leader Testifying Before Committee

In what was once known as “the greatest deliberative body on earth,” today, a Republican senator threatened to fight a union leader who was testifying before a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien was the witness, according to Mediaite, when Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) referenced several barbs the two men have traded in recent months.

For example, O’Brien posted this in June:

That led Mullin to tell O’Brien:

“Sir, I wish you was [sic] in the truck with me when I was building my plumbing company myself and my wife was running the office because I should remember working pretty hard and long hours. ‘Pretends like he’s self-made. What a clown, fraud always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these Senate hearings. You know where to find me. Any place, any time, cowboy.”

Mullin then added: “Sir, this is a time, this is a place. You want to run your mouth. We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”

O’Brien: “Okay, that’s fine. Perfect.”

Mullin: “You want to do it now?”

O’Brien, accepting the challenge: “I’d love to do it right now.”

Mullin: “Well, stand your butt up, then.”

O’Brien: “You stand your butt up.”

As Mullin stood and started to take a ring off his finger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) intervened:

“Hold it. Stop it. Stop it. No, no. Sit down. Sit down! You’re a United States senator!”

When O’Brien asked if he could respond to what Mullin had said, Sanders insisted he couldn’t, telling him, “No, you can’t. This is a hearing.”

Here’s the video:

The greatest deliberative body on earth? Sure, until a redneck like Markwayne Mullin tries to turn it into a boxing match.

 

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GOP Media in America U.S. Senate

Tom Cotton Gets Swatted Down By The NY Times For Suggesting It Has Ties To Terrorists

Like far too many conservative politicians in the United States, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is fond of attacking and berating American news outlets for daring to do their jobs and report what’s going on the world, especially if those dispatches don’t comport with the narrow-minded view of current events favored by right-wingers.

However, a disgusting, unverified conspiracy theory circulated online by Cotton suggesting that members of the New York Times were embedded with Hamas terrorists as part of the October 7 attack on Israel has the senator in hot water with the newspaper’s legal department.

Earlier today, Cotton’s office issued a press release which made this accusation against the Times. It reads:

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) yesterday sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as executives at CNN, the Associated Press, Thomson Reuters, and The New York Times. All the news organizations reportedly had employees embedded with Hamas during the terrorist group’s deadly October 7 attack on Israel.

Senator Cotton demanded that AG Garland open an investigation into the outlets, and he asked that the news organizations provide answers as to their involvement with Hamas.

“If your employees, as part of their work, participated in terrorist activities or if your organization or employees provided material support (including any funding) to Hamas, the leadership of your organization may also face criminal penalties under federal law.”

Where did Cotton get the information he referenced in his press release? From HonestReporting, an Israeli media watchdog organization, which used nothing more than rank speculation to hint that some Palestinian photojournalists must have had advance notice and warning in order to shoot the photos they brought back from the attacks. HonestReporting later admitted they had absolutely no proof of the claim and were merely “raising questions.”

That led David McCraw, who serves as the Times’ deputy general counsel, to write a response to Sen. Cotton, noting, “As I am sure you agree, the spread of disinformation and incendiary rhetoric threatens the health of our democracy,” wrote David McCraw, the Times’ deputy general counsel. “Sadly, your letter to The New York Times of November 9 exacerbates those very problems.”

McCraw continued:

“You are merely parroting disinformation harvested from the Internet based on a website that has conceded it had no evidence for its claims.”

“No employee of The Times was embedded with Hamas, or had advance knowledge of the attack, or played any role in the savage massacre of that day. Falsehoods circulated on the Internet are many things, but they are most certainly not ‘reports.’ They also should not be abused by a U.S. Senator to falsely accuse fellow Americans of crimes.”

The letter from McCraw ends with this reminder for Cotton: “The only connection The New York Times has to Hamas is that we report on the organization fearlessly and at times at great risk.”

The senator has yet to apologize for his dangerous attack on the Times. Perhaps a libel lawsuit would convinced him to issue a full-throated retraction of his lies.

 

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GOP U.S. Senate Viral Video

WATCH Josh Hawley Get His A*s Handed To Him When He Attacks DHS Secretary Mayorkas

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was in full asshole mode today during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee which featured testimony from Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

Hawley asked Mayorkas about a DHS officer who posted anti-Semitic messages on social media, according to Mediaite, including one “of a Hamas paraglider with a machine gun, and the caption ‘Free Palestine.'”

Another message from the same DHS official read, “F-ck Israel.”

That led Hawley to inquire, “Mr. Secretary, what’s going on here? Is this typical of people who work at DHS? This is an asylum & immigration officer who is posting these, frankly, pro-genocidal slogans and images on the day that Israelis are being slaughtered in their beds. What have you done about this?”

The secretary tried to answer, only to have Hawley ask, “Has she been fired.”

Mayorkas: “That individual has been placed in administrative leave.”

“So she has not been fired?” Hawley said, adding:

“Has she admitted, contrary to law, individuals who should not be in this country, or denied Jewish refugees, whose genocide she’s advocating, asylum that they deserve?”

Mayorkas said twice that he couldn’t discuss a personnel matter.

Hawley then began lecturing the DHS secretary:

“I can’t believe that you would come to this committee knowing about this! I’ve written to you about it. You know all about it! And you come here, and you’re unwilling to answer, and suggest that it’s wrong of me to even ask the question! Quite frankly, Mr. Secretary, I think that your performance is despicable and I think the fact that you’re not willing to provide answers to this committee is absolutely atrocious.”

Mayorkas asked, “Mr. Chairman, may I?”

The chair, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) replied, “If you’d like to have a minute to respond —”

Mayorkas: “Oh, I would, and I’m not sure I’ll limit it to 60 seconds.”

Peters: “That’s fine.”

And that’s when Mayorkas let loose on Hawley.

“Number one, what I found despicable was the implication that — this language, tremendously odious — actually could be emblematic of the sentiments of the 260,000 men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, number one.”

“Number two, Sen. Hawley takes an adversarial approach to me in this question, and perhaps he doesn’t know my own background. Perhaps he does not know that I’m a child of a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps he does not know that my mother lost all of her family at the hands of the Nazis. And so, I find his adversarial tone to be entirely misplaced. I find it to be disrespectful of me and my heritage. And I do not expect an apology, but I did want to say what I just articulated.”

When Hawley asked if he could respond to the secretary, the chairman told him he couldn’t, so Mayorkas got the last word, or in this case, the last words.

Josh Hawley is going to lecture a man whose mother lost her family to the Holocaust on the dangers of anti-Semitism? Instead, he should do what he did on Jan. 6 and run away like the coward he is.

 

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Congress Foreign Policy GOP U.S. Senate WTF?!

WATCH: Lindsey Graham EXPLODES When Asked A Question By Reporter During Trip To Israel

During a visit to Israel on Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had a full-scale meltdown when a reporter from right-wing network Newsmax asked him a question about Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

At a press conference, Newsmax’s Daniel Cohen began by thanking Graham for his support of Israel, but then asked, “And I’d like to ask any Democrat senator here that would like to speak to Rashida Tlaib. She still has a tweet up condemning Israel for a hospital attack.”

Graham replied, “We are here together, not to talk about the problems at home, which are many.”

Cohen pressed: “It’s a question.”

That’s when Graham grew angry.

“You’re not going to screw this up!” Graham shouted.

Cohen: “I’m not trying to screw it up.”

That only made Graham angrier, leading him to suggest Cohen should be removed.

“Get this guy out of here!”

Graham then pounded the podium and declared:

“I’m an American. And I believe in free speech. I don’t believe what the squad has to say at all. But I came here with Democrats and Republicans to let everybody in the world know.”

“Don’t judge every Democrat by the squad, and don’t judge every Republican by some of the things you hear.”

A few minutes later, Graham offered an apology to the reporter: “And I’m sorry, my friend. I probably shouldn’t have said it, but my nerves are raw right now.”

Here’s the video:

 

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Congress GOP U.S. Senate

John Fetterman Burns Marjorie Taylor Greene Down After She Whines About His Wardrobe

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) masterfully swatted down Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) this morning after she fired off a hateful tweet aimed at him on Sunday.

Here’s what Greene tweeted out:

What does it matter if Fetterman wears jeans and a hoodie instead of a suit and tie? Some of the biggest douchebags in the Senate (i.e. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley) always wear a suit, but they also try to overturn the will of the voters and invalidate an election as they smugly sit and adjust their ties.

Also, Margie is in no position to complain about how anyone dresses considering that she often looks like her outfits came from the markdown rack at Walmart.

Fetterman only needed a single sentence to put Greene in her place:

“Thankfully, the nation’s lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings.”

Fetterman is referring to Greene showing nude photos of Hunter Biden during a House hearing in July:

“Displaying a pornographic image of Hunter Biden, Greene continued:

“So when Hunter Biden paid for this woman to do this with him, to travel across state lines from California to Washington, DC, on June 15th, this is a violation of the Mann Act. This was prostitution.”

“Greene then added, ‘This is evidence of Hunter Biden making sex, excuse me, this is my time, making pornography.'”

Others joined Fetterman in swatting down Margie.

The House dropped the bar on the ground when they let MTG in!

— Elena Callahan (@ecastrignano11) September 18, 2023