Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) scolded acting attorney general Matt Whitaker for behaving disrespectfully toward her during a congressional hearing.
The Texas Democrat told Whitaker up front that she planned to ask him yes-or-no questions, but he insisted on offering more expansive answers — and House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) directed him to comply with the lawmaker.
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“Witness will answer the question as asked, please,” Nadler said.
The ranking Republican, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), complained that “Democrat administration officials” had been allowed to answer questions as they wished, and Nadler fired back.
“The member has only five minutes, I will not allow the witness to stall and waste members’ time,” Nadler said.
Jackson Lee asked for her time to be restored, and the committee leadership briefly discussed how much she was owed, and Whitaker made a joking reference to his assertion earlier in the hearing that Nadler had run out of time in an apparent effort to avoid a question.
“I don’t know if your time has been restored or not,” Whitaker said.
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Jackson Lee fixed a glare on Whitaker, who sat blank-faced after his remark.
“Mr. Attorney General, we are not joking here and your humor is not acceptable,” she said. “You are here because we have a constitutional duty to ask questions and the Congress has a right to establish government rules.”
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North Korea state media reported on a "successful" test at a missile launch site.
"A very important test took place at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on the afternoon of December 7, 2019," a spokesperson for the Academy of the National Defense Science said.
The spokesperson said the test was "of great significance to the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.
#UPDATE North Korea conducts a "very important test" at its Sohae satellite launch site, state media reports, as nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington remain deadlocked https://t.co/abYhRDvBicpic.twitter.com/neCYEQTEhf
President Donald Trump's personal attorney is causing "shock" among Ukrainians for working with Andrey Artemenko, according to new reports.
"In an attempt to exonerate President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani has been working with right-wing media outlet One America News Network (OAN) to produce a television special featuring a string of current and former Ukrainian officials defending Trump’s conduct in withholding military aid to Ukraine and seeking investigations of the Bidens," Law & Crime reported Saturday.
Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are masters of outrage — not just the emotion, but a genre of political theater — just as Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are masters of ironic satire. They’re poles apart, and yet — ironically or outrageously — they’re profoundly similar, both in how they’re impacting their audiences, and why their genres emerged when they did. That’s perhaps the central thesis of “Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States,” by Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, who’s both a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware and an improv comedian with the troupe ComedySportz Philadelphia. That’s among the many different hats she wears.