As of March 18, there is now an acid test for whether h Republicans Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy are serious senators.
The test is this: If they vote to confirm their fellow Republican senator, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, to be the new Secretary of Homeland Security, then they aren’t serious. Period and end of story. They should find another line of work.
When one of the many good reasons the job is open in the first place is that the prior occupant of that office, Kristi Noem, encouraged and excused outlandish violence and thuggishness from poorly trained immigration officers, the last thing the nation needs as her replacement is a thuggish hothead who encourages and excuses excessive violence.
But that’s what and who Mullin is. A former mixed-martial-arts fighter who repeatedly has claimed that, while in Congress, he did secret missions in war zones that he can’t discuss, Mullin has quite a history of reveling in the idea of violence. In one infamous incident, he even rose from his desk at a Senate hearing and challenged a union official to a public fight right then and there.
In Mullin’s March 18 confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Oklahoman immediately came under attack from fellow Republican Committee Chairman Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul described in horrifying detail the incident where a neighbor attacked him from the blindside, cracked six of his ribs and punctured his lung, leading to two bouts of pneumonia, long hospital stays and excruciating pain.
In the wake of that incident, Paul recounted, “You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted.”
“I just wonder,” Paul continued, “if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.”
Mullin, astonishingly, refused to offer even a hint of regret: “I’m not apologizing for pointing out your character.” Bizarrely, Mullin later asserted that “, is still there” as a legitimate way to resolve differences.
To which, Paul correctly noted that dueling “has been illegal for 170 years.”
Also recalling another time Mullin said, “people just need to be punched in the face,” Paul scorched the nominee for having obvious “anger issues.”
Those are just a few examples of Mullin’s discreditable behavior.
And all of this is for a nominee who, aside from his tough-guy histrionics and claims about , has done almost nothing to distinguish himself in 13 years of public office.
There is no way, not even remotely, that Mullin is the right choice to steady the course of the Department of Homeland Security. The entire reason the Senate is asked to vote yea or nay on Cabinet nominations is, in , “to prevent the appointment of unfit characters.” Senators have a duty to do just that.
In the past, neither h senator has distinguished himself by judicious use of this crucial duty. Neither Kennedy nor Cassidy opposed a raft of horrible Trump nominees last year. Neither one, for example, opposed the now-departed Joe Kent as director of the National Counterterrorism Center even though the extremely pro-Russian Kent also long has been widely condemned for what reasonably can be described as anti-Semitic blatherings. Neither Cassidy nor Kennedy opposed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., notorious for sniffing cocaine off of toilet seats and for a determination to topple the nation’s vaccine regimens, as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Neither opposed the oft-inebriated, as Secretary of Defense. Neither opposed the pro-Russian, pro-Syrian demagogue Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, or the as Attorney General, or the wildly unqualified Kash Patel as Director of the FBI.
In sum, in their role of deciding on “advice and consent” for presidential appointments, both Kennedy and Cassidy have surrendered their “consent” like subservient serfs afraid of angering their feudal lord.
Now is the time for both of them to abandon their self-imposed serfdom and announce themselves not just as freemen, but as one of only 100 people in the country with the authority and duty to stop giving key government jobs to people of unfit character.
It is their job to oppose nominees of Markwayne Mullin’s ilk.
Senators, do your jobs.