All posts tagged "patty murray"

'You are wasting my time': Senator loses patience as Sean Duffy retorts 'Welcome to MAGA'

Another lawmaker could barely stand the way Trump's transportation secretary refused to answer straightforward questions during Capitol Hill testimony on Tuesday.

"You are encouraging Americans to spend the summer road tripping," Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during testimony on Tuesday. "Let me just ask you, how much did you rack up on gas during your Great American Road Trip?"

She was referring to Duffy's controversial vacation that was reportedly bankrolled by industry giants he's supposed to regulate, including Boeing, Toyota, and Shell. Murray was pressing Duffy on how much he spent on gas because of his position that more people should road trip like him, but she was upset he would make that suggestion while gas prices rose amid the war in Iran.

Duffy said he didn't know how much he racked up on gas, but he added, "I know it wasn't as much as it was under Biden."

However, Murray was already trying to ask a new question, and she was clearly frustrated by Duffy's instance of making a political jab.

"Holy cow," she said. "Just listen."

She tried to explain that "you've been recording a promo of yourself and not working to lower the cost. This show is just incredibly out of touch with where Americans are." She then pointed out that sponsors of his road trip were able to get invited to events where they'll have special access to Duffy, even though he's supposed to oversee and regulate them.

Duffy had been grilled by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) earlier in the hearing, and as he did with her, he responded by accusing Murray of taking money from businesses she supposedly regulates.

"If someone in the healthcare industry gives you $2 million, what do they get for it?" Duffy asked.

"I do not regulate the healthcare industry," she responded.

Duffy kept repeating, "You have jurisdiction, you have jurisdiction," as Murray tried to shut him down by saying, "Mr. Secretary."

He then retorted, "Welcome to MAGA," as Murray shouted, "Mr. Secretary!"

"Welcome to 'Drill, baby, drill,'" Duffy said. "Do you want to support lower gas prices? I welcome that. Let's drill."

"Mr. Secretary, you obviously came here with a book about every one of us, so that instead of answering our questions, you can attack," Murray said over Duffy as he kept hollering about building pipelines. "You are wasting my time."

Senator hammers Blanche over exposed Epstein victim names — and doesn't let him respond

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called out Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche during a heated hearing on Tuesday — forcing him to address Jeffrey Epstein survivors whose identities were revealed.

Blanche was testifying before the Senate Appropriations committee on Capitol Hill when Murray pushed him to apologize to survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and the Department of Justice's release of unredacted victim names in the Epstein files. The two got in a fiery back-and-forth over her questions.

"That is so not the question I'm asking," Murray said, telling Blanche he needed to answer her questions.

Blanche said he was trying to answer the questions in order when she cut him off again.

"The question I want you to answer is, will you apologize to the victims whose names, sensitive personal information and even nude photos were not redacted by your department? Will you apologize?" Murray asked.

"Of course," Blanche said. "We never want to release a victim's name."

Murray interjected again and Blanche appeared frustrated.

"Can I answer the question, please?" Blanche said.

"I'm asking if you'll apologize," Murray said again.

"And I just said yes, but I wanted to — I would like an explanation to be given to that," Blanche said.

Murray also pressed him to answer her questions about the Justice Department's controversial anti-weaponization fund, The New York Times reported. Blanche had said the compensation plan for Americans who claim they have been victims of political prosecutions was "not a slush fund."

"This is corruption that has never been more blatant or more widespread,” Murray said.

"What is happening is you write the check, Trump and his cronies cash it. American taxpayers who are already being whacked with high prices are going to foot the bill. That is what we are seeing today and that is what many of us are really, really angry about," Murray added.

'Stick to podcasting': Senator tees off on embattled FBI director Kash Patel

A longtime Democratic leader on Tuesday had a serious message for FBI Director Kash Patel as Patel scrambled to respond.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) expressed concerns about Patel's leadership of the FBI during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. Patel, who was testifying before lawmakers, pushed back against claims of excessive alcohol use and other allegations of misconduct.

"I am deeply concerned about the reports that your leadership has not been serious," Murray said. "We need somebody at this agency who is focused on solving criminal cases, not passing out branded bourbon or jetting around the globe. Your job is to be reachable... If you want to pass out liquor or pop bottles in a locker room, stick to podcasting. Leave law and order to people who really do care about justices and appearances, that is really critical. It's what I am really deeply concerned about and so are many people."

Murray was referencing recent reporting from The Atlantic that Patel has been distributing personalized, FBI-branded bottles of Woodford Reserve bourbon to bureau staff and civilians during official business. The Atlantic also reported that Patel transported cases of the bourbon on a Department of Justice plane during a February trip to the Winter Olympics in Milan, where he was filmed celebrating with the U.S. men's hockey team and reportedly left a bottle behind in the locker room.

Patel attempted to defend his tenure, sharing a paper with apparent stats titled "FBI 2025 & 2026 under Trump administration," outlining his accomplishments since he took the top position.

"If people want to continue the baseless, fraudulent personal attacks at me. That's great. Keep the target on me, but the mission has never been better," Patel said.

Murray responded again.

"I appreciate the work of our FBI agents, but leadership, serious leadership is a concern," she added. "And we are seeing the pictures of passing out branded bourbon and what happened at the Olympics, jetting around the globe, all the rest of it, and that I will say, again, Mr. Chairman, is of deep concern to me."

Parents 'spitting mad' at Trump Cabinet member after grilling on Capitol Hill: report

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon had to face heated questions about her cuts and changes to programs in her department.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) grilled McMahon for plans to shift programs for special education and disabled students to other agencies, like the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services. Murray told McMahon that the move has left parents "spitting mad, because they want to ensure their child with a disability has an education," according to a report by WJCT News.

"Moving [special education] out of the department is not only undermining that," Murray said, "but it's a direct message to them that their health is more important than their education."

McMahon was on Capitol Hill for her first testimony in nearly a year, WJCT reported, to talk about her proposed budget and restructuring of her department.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley was upset that under McMahon, about 88,000 borrowers of student loans are waiting to find out if they qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness as she seeks to move oversight of the program to the Treasury Department.

"My staff tells me that it's often nine months to a year before my constituents get a substantive response," Merkley said. "We currently have over 70 constituents waiting just in our office for answers about their applications."

McMahon downplayed the delays and how much of a problem it is.

"Is it confusing for a minute? Of course," she said. "But I believe we are making really good progress."

'Fire him': Trump urged to 'immediately' axe official over eyebrow-raising crack

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded the White House fire budget director Russ Vought over a crack he made at a breakfast Thursday morning, according to Politico.

Vought is the controversial author of Project 2025, which Democrats have called a "right-wing plot to undermine democracy."

Vought told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that the government funding process should be "less bipartisan," according to the report.

“Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately before he destroys our democracy,” Schumer said, adding that if the White House attempted to "walk back" Vought's comments because they believed they were wrong, "all the more reason they should fire him.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) posted about the incident to social media, writing, "Trump's budget chief, Russ Vought, has said he wants the appropriations process to be LESS bipartisan. This is a man who ignores our laws and flaunts it. My message to my Republican colleagues this afternoon? STAND UP for Congress as a co-equal branch of government."

Read the Politico piece here.

Kamala Harris was not ‘the most liberal senator’ — take conservatives' word for it

Every four years, it seems Republicans claim that the Democratic Party presidential or vice presidential nominee is “the most liberal senator” (just as they did for Barack Obama).

This year is no different. Many conservatives, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have argued that Kamala Harris was the nation’s most liberal senator during her four years (2017 to 2021) representing California.

“Kamala Harris is a dangerous liberal. She makes Joe Biden look competent and moderate by contrast,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently declared.

ALSO READ: Don’t be fooled: Project 2025 is already happening

“Kamala Harris will appoint hundreds of extreme far left judges to forcibly impose crazy San Francisco liberal values on Americans nationwide,” Donald Trump himself told a crowd of supporters last month.

To test this argument, I analyzed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)’s congressional ratings database, which in part uses American Conservative Union (ACU) system of ideological voting rates in Congress. (And yes, this is the same CPAC that conducts the annual convention near Washington, D.C., so beloved by Donald Trump’s MAGA acolytes.)

This is a database that I have used in my political science classes, as well as in academic publications that evaluate congressional voting records.

This research focuses on Sen. Kamala Harris’ last year in office: 2020. This gives her most recent voting score and her lifetime voting score, based on how she voted on a variety of bills before the Senate.

In 2020, Harris’ CPAC score was 9 out of 100, with 100 being the most conservative one could be and zero being as utterly lefty liberal as possible.

ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast.

CPAC ranks almost all Democrats as more liberal than their Republican counterparts — no surprise there.

But: Harris getting a score of nine tied her with Democrats such as Sen. Jon Tester of Montana — hardly a far-left icon — and then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party shortly after her failed run for president in 2020, is now a favorite among some conservatives.

I also tested Harris’ score against all of her fellow Democrats to see if, indeed, she is “the most liberal” during her final year as a senator.

Of all the House of Representatives members and U.S. senators who were Democrats in 2020, Harris fell on the more conservative end of the spectrum — relatively speaking.

CPAC data reveal that the average score for Democrats in the Senate during 2020 was 7 out of 100. For the House, the average was 4 of 100.

This means that Harris’ voting habits were more in line with the most conservative Democrats than, say, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) or Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).

When I analyzed Harris’ overall voting record from 2017 to 2020, she finished with a four percent conservative score, according to CPAC.

Even by that measure, Harris is far from the most liberal member of the Senate, or Congress as a whole, during that period.

I found at least 26 members of the House and Senate with a voting record below 4 of 100, and 19 members of Congress with voting scores also with at least a 4 of 100. There may be more — full disclosure: this is a lot of data to wade through — and it doesn’t cover anyone who left office between 2017 and 2019.

So no, Kamala Harris was not the most liberal senator during her time in the Senate, according to one of the most conservative, Trump-loving organizations among conservative, Trump-loving organizations.

Let’s look at one vote Harris took on one of her final days in the Senate before becoming vice president.

The vote — taken on January 1, 2021 — was for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. It reads: “To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2021 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.”

Harris voted for it.

Does that make Harris a conservative for being pro-military, or an anti-conservative for voting for a lot of fiscal spending? Regardless of CPAC scores, if Harris had voted against it, would she be praised for fiscal restraint? Or would she be criticized for being anti-military? You be the judge.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

Why OTC birth control is a terrible idea

In an effort to make birth control more accessible, lawmakers in Oregon and California are working on legislation that would allow women to get prescriptions for the pill from pharmacists instead of their gynecologists. The idea behind the proposal is that women wouldn't have to go through any hassles or pay the extra costs necessary to visit their doctor for a simple prescription.

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