Tag: Sen. John Kennedy

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Abortion Elections GOP

Sen. John Kennedy Gets His A*s Handed To Him When He Asks A Fact-Free Question About Abortion

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) was fact-checked and shut down by a witness who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday during a hearing on the topic of abortion.

According to HuffPost, Kennedy tried to suggest that many women have abortions in the third term of their pregnancies.

“At a Senate subcommittee hearing that focused on interstate travel for abortions as more states restrict the procedure, Kennedy mentioned a woman who supposedly asked for an abortion in her 34th week of pregnancy.”

Kennedy asked one witness, “Should the mother at that juncture have the right — clearly a viable child — to abort the child?”

When the witness told the senator she didn’t want to engage in hypotheticals, Kennedy began visible agitated.

“That’s what your side always says. My example’s not unrealistic. I wanna save my time. If your answer’s gonna be, ‘That never happens,’ let me go to Ms. Frye. What do you think?”

Ms. Frye is Jocelyn Frye, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, and she proceeded to lay a verbal smackdown on Kennedy.

“Well, Senator, first of all, if you– don’t ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer. But I’m saying to you, Senator, 1%, 1% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later. So, I think the premise of your question sets up a conversation about abortion that is unfair. It is rarely, is that ever the instance. Most, the vast majority of pregnancies and abortions that are considered late in a pregnancy have to do with severe, devastating medical circumstances.”

Frye continued, “And I understand your point, Senator. I understand your point. But with all due respect, I also think the chances of people sort of getting all the way through a pregnancy and just sort of saying, ‘I don’t want it,’ is disrespectful to women.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) posted a video of the exchange between Kennedy and Frye on Twitter, along with his take on the matter.

“At my hearing on the freedom to travel for abortion care, Senator Kennedy asked our witnesses to respond to a sensationalized, highly unrealistic hypothetical aimed at stoking fear. Ms. Frye’s response says it all.”

Others on social media also praised Frye for effectively countering Kennedy’s blatant lie.

The right of every American woman to make he own reproductive choices is on the ballot in November, and it could wind up being the issue that makes the GOP a permanent minority party.

 

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GOP Viral Video WTF?!

Unhinged GOP Senator Attacks Witness During Hearing: ‘Are You Going To Call Me A Sick F**k?!’

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy had a deranged meltdown yesterday during a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee and verbally attacked a witness for daring to retweet a posting on social media in which Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was called a “sick fuck” by climate protesters in March.

According to Mediaite, “Manchin was confronted by a group of climate activists at Harvard University, where one protester called him a ‘sick fuck’ before he was forcibly removed from the room. Supran retweeted a post by the organization responsible for disrupting Manchin’s visit at the university.”

The witness, Dr. Geoffrey Supran, Professor of Environmental Science & Policy and Director of Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami, told Kennedy, “Big oil is the new big tobacco. As a scholar of disinformation, I do not use the word lie’ lightly. But no other word adequately describes the oil industry’s brazen efforts to mislead the public about its history of misleading the public.”

Rather than engage Supran on the issue of climate change and public policy, Kennedy tried to pick a fight with him.

“Are you going to call me a sick fuck?”

Supran countered.

“This form of character assassination is characteristic of the kinds of propaganda techniques of the fossil fuel industry.”

Kennedy got his comeuppance on social media, where many noted that he is indeed a sick fuck.

Careful what questions you ask, Sen. Kennedy. You might not like the answers.

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GOP U.S. Senate

GOP Sen. John Kennedy Has A Conniption Fit When Reminded He Used To Be A Democrat

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) is one of the biggest blowhards in Congress, and he proved that again this week during a confirmation hearing for one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, suggesting she was a Marxist simply because she happens to be a Democrat.

HuffPost reports Kennedy asked Melissa DuBose, Biden’s nominee for the U.S. district court in Rhode Island, “Are you still a Marxist?”

“I am not nor have I ever been a Marxist,” DuBose responded.

Kennedy continued to press his specious allegation of DuBose being a Marxist, even suggesting that she was lying under oath, quoting an interview DuBose gave in 2000 when she worked at a coffee shop and said she was “in my Marxist phase.”

Even though DuBose explained that comment, Kennedy acted as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, again asking, “My question is real simple,” he said. “Are you still a Marxist?”

DuBose reiterated that she was not a Marxist.

“I am not a Marxist. I do not espouse Marxist theory or ideology. I never have, I never will. I’m a very proud Democrat.”

Committee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) then joined the debate.

“This was many, many, many, many, many years ago,” Whitehouse said of DuBose’s. Perhaps during the time when my colleague Sen. Kennedy was a Democrat, showing that people can change their views, even if it were true that you were in a Marxist phase.”

Whitehouse’s jibe enraged Kennedy, who began shouting.

“I’ve never been a Marxist!” he shouted. “I’ve never been a Marxist! And I’ve never admitted I was a Marxist and then not turned a document over to this committee!”

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Justice Department U.S. Senate

WATCH A Republican Senator Make A Complete A*s Of Himself While Questioning AG Garland

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy is one of the most annoying and arrogant people in Congress, and he made a complete ass of himself on Tuesday during a hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland, proving just how completely clueless many in the GOP are when it comes to the issue of law enforcement.

Kennedy began his remarks by attacking Garland:

“I think the Justice Department is losing. I think you’re losing on crime. I think you’re losing on drugs. I think you’re losing on immigration. I think you’re losing on Chirenese espionage.”

From there, Kennedy asked about dirty cops:

“Let me start with crime. What percentage of cops in America do you think are bad cops?”

Garland:

“A very small percentage.”

Rather than let the attorney general continue his remarks, Kennedy interrupted to ask:

“How small? Is it less than 10%?”

AG Garland responded:

“Yes, let me be clear. We believe that most police officers follow the Constitution. Most police departments do. All police officers, I believe, want to work in police departments that follow constitutional policing requirements.”

Next, Kennedy asked about stop and frisk, though he was hardly able to call it by its proper name:

“Why doesn’t the Justice Department support stop question, and frisk?”

Garland replied:

“I don’t know that the Justice Department has a position. This is a state and local role normally”

Rather than accept that response, Kennedy asked:

“Why doesn’t the Justice Department aggressively encourage law enforcement officials to use that technique? It’s been declared constitutional as you know?”

The AG again noted that stop and frisk is left to local law enforcement, which led to an extended rant from Sen. Cornpone:

“Here’s what I’m asking. Let’s take Chicago, where you have, we haven’t made any inroads and stopping the killing. Chicago is now the world’s largest outdoor shooting range. We know that a lot of the shootings come from gangs. Why wouldn’t you want to call the police chief, the mayor in Chicago, and say, ‘look, you know who these gang members are. When you have reasonable suspicion, and objective standard, more than just a hunch, why don’t you aggressively stop, question, and frisk these gang members?’ You get guns off the street. You’ll get drugs off the street and you get at a lot of gang members off the street. You’ll stop people killing each other. Why won’t you do that?”

Garland patiently tried to explain:

“The best way for the federal government to stop violent crime is to work at each local level and determine and let the state and locals determine what the best use of their –“

Kennedy rudely interrupted the attorney general yet again:

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m trying to get some answers. Why won’t you do that?”

Garland answered:

“Because there is no one solution fits all that the federal government can suggest to state and local law enforcement.”

Someone needs to explain some basic facts to Sen. Kennedy. Then again, as stupid as he seems to be, all the explanations in the world would probably leave him nonplussed.

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GOP The Biden Administration U.S. Senate WTF?!

GOP Senator Makes A Fool Of Himself When He Tries To Smear Biden Nominee

During a confirmation hearing in the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) proved that though he may not be as well known as his equally obnoxious GOP colleagues, Sens. Ted Cruz (TX) and Josh Hawley (MO), he’s just as narrow-minded and bigoted as his two colleagues.

The Banking Committee was considering the nomination of Saule Omarova to be comptroller of currency, and Kennedy used his allotted time to suggest that since Dr. Omarova was born in Kazakhstan when it was still part of the Soviet Union. As a child in that Soviet satellite, Omarova was forced to join the Young Communists because if she hadn’t she would have been persecuted by Soviet authorities and perhaps even sent to a gulag where she would more than likely have died.

Specifically, according to CNBC, Kennedy went out of his way to suggest that Omarova might still be a communist:

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked Omarova about her membership in a youth communist group during her childhood in Kazakhstan.

Omarova replied that membership in the Communist Party was required under the totalitarian government and noted that members of her family were murdered by the Communist Party led by Joseph Stalin.

That’s the very same Joseph Stalin who killed an estimated 6 million people he considered to be “disloyal” to him. The Omarova family could either claim to be communists or they could have been wiped off the face of the planet.

And yet, Kennedy felt it necessary to then add:

“I’m struggling with what to call her. I don’t know whether to call her ‘Professor’ or ‘Comrade.’”

Fortunately, Democrats on the committee called out Kennedy for his comments, with Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown of Ohio noting that his colleague was asking “irrelevant” questions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called Kennedy’s remarks “vicious.”

The real reason Kennedy and other Republicans are opposed to Dr. Omarova is because she’s promised to keep a close eye on the reckless fiscal policies of big banks, telling NY Magazine in a recent interview:

“They [the banks] know that I won’t let them do whatever they want. I’m not the one to easily go along with whatever big banks would tell me is ‘good for them, therefore good for the country.’ I want to make sure that what is good for them is also good for the country. I’m also very reasonable, and I will have an open door, and I will work with any bank that wants to do good for the country. Any bank that wants to channel credit into the real communities, real economy, I’ll be their best friend. If wealthy banks genuinely commit to doing good for the United States, then they have nothing to be afraid of from me. Nothing.”

That’s not what big banks like Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo want to hear, so their paid puppets in the Senate GOP are attacking Dr. Omarova as some sort of a danger to capitalism, which is total bullshit.

Banks need to be regulated. If you doubt that, remember how the foolish policies of banks nearly crashed the U.S. economy back in 2007 and led to what became known as the Great Recession.

Sen. Kennedy and his ilk are nothing but bigoted assholes who would gladly crash the American economy again if it would benefit their corporate sugar daddies.