All posts tagged "chris murphy"

'Disastrous': Top Dems marvel at 'irony' of Trump dragging US into war

A senior Democratic senator marveled at the “irony” of President Donald Trump seeming set to lead the United States into another Middle Eastern war, as he mulls joining Israel in striking Iran despite having won two elections with promises of an isolationist, “America First” foreign policy.

“What an irony it would be if Donald Trump dragged us into another Middle East war,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters at the Capitol.

“That's clearly not anything the American people want.”

Widely held to harbor presidential ambitions, Murphy is a prominent Democratic voice on Capitol Hill, sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Common sense would tell us there is a significant and perhaps certain risk of escalation, including targets on U.S. forces in the region that would be a … potentially disastrous outcome for the United States,” Murphy said.

“So I still don't believe the United States should get involved here, and I don't think I would be supporting Congress to authorize it. The president doesn't have the ability to authorize a strike without congressional authorization — [that] is probably the most important thing here.”

Another prominent Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), has introduced a resolution to force Trump to seek congressional approval for strikes on Iran.

Kaine, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and was his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2016, pointed to polling showing scant support for military action.

“I saw yesterday, 60% of Americans do not think we should be at war with Iran, 16% say yes, 24% say they're not sure,” Kaine told reporters.

“That is consistent with what I'm hearing in Virginia, a very pro-military state, that it would be a very bad idea for us to be in another war in the Middle East.”

‘I may do it, I may not’

Five days after Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing top leaders, and Tehran answered with strikes of its own, the conflict shows no sign of slowing.

Trump is still mulling what to do.

On Wednesday, with Congress abuzz with talk of his intentions, the president did not make things clear.

“I may do it, I may not do it,” he told reporters at the White House, when asked if he would order an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate. And I say, why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction.”

Trump also attacked a CNN reporter who noted, “some of your supporters are split on the U.S. response”.

Kaine told reporters his speech introducing his resolution prompted “a lot of military members and military families” to reach out to his office.

According to Kaine, such callers said: “Thank God somebody is trying to make Congress think about this, and do you really want to go back into another war in the Middle East?”

Kaine brushed off questions about Trump’s apparent split from his director of national intelligence, the former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has said Iran is not close to a nuclear weapon.

“He can say whatever he wants about his own staff,” Kaine said.

But he added: “I will say, and this has been publicly reported again and again and again, that Iran's nuclear enrichment activities were under control during the JCPOA,” the Iran nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama in 2015.

“When Donald Trump tore it up [in 2018], they started to move ahead on centrifuges and enrichment.

“However, the intel community has consistently said they see no evidence that there's been a decision to turn that into a nuclear weapon. And that's basically what [Gabbard] was saying. That's been consistent for years.”

‘Bamboozled’

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. James Risch (R-ID), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee, disagreed with Kaine.

“I've sat across the table from [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu off and on for the last 17 years, and he has been incredibly frustrated with Iran refusing to give up its nuclear ambitions,” Risch said.

“The Obama administration tried, they got bamboozled. They wound up with a really bad deal, and we're in a worse place now than if we hadn't had that deal in the first place.

“I think that the Israelis have finally had it and said, ‘Look, this is an existential question for us. We're going to do something about it. That's their decision.’

Risch indicated an expectation that all Iran’s nuclear sites will be destroyed, whether by Israel or the U.S., despite widespread analysis that only the U.S. can do so.

“I sit on the Intelligence Committee so I have to be careful what I say here,” Risch told a reporter.

“But I am not willing to accept your proposition or your premise that you ask that question on, that [Israel’s] not going to be able to finish the job on the three nuclear sites that Iran has.”

Referring to an Iranian facility hidden under a mountain, the reporter asked: “Including Fordow?”

“You heard my answer to your question,” Risch said.

There is Republican opposition to Iran strikes — including from the populist conservative Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) — but there are plenty of hawks.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-SD), a member of the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs committees, said he would back Trump.

“One of the things I've been trying to resist is speculating what Donald Trump is thinking,” Cramer told reporters, before flirting with speculation over “the movement of tankers and Navy ships and … fleets,” then saying again he did not want to “speculate in terms of an offensive attack.”

“That said,” Cramer added, “I will support whatever he decides to include, if he decides to drop bunker-busters on Fordow and finish, once and for all, the getting rid of any nuclear capability by this regime.”

'I didn't say that!' GOP lawmaker balks when confronted with own words on tariff reversal

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) of the House Ways and Means Committee spoke with CNN's Brianna Keilar Wednesday shortly after President Donald Trump announced he was issuing a 90-day reprieve on tariffs for every country except China.

The news caused whiplash in the markets, as stocks rebounded into green territory.

"We have to do these things to bring other countries that are not treating us well to the table," Murphy said.

Keilar asked what that meant for allies like Australia, adding, "Why treat them like this to get to this point?"

Murphy answered, "There will be obviously some collateral damage in one way or the other, but you can't pick and choose, you have to have an international policy. And this is what the president is doing."

"He's picking and choosing," Keilar asserted, using Murphy's own words. "By definition, he's picking and choosing today. He was picking and choosing with how he decided different countries would get different tariffs. He's picking and choosing today by giving a reprieve to countries except for China."

ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world

"Yeah, he sure is," Murphy said, "because those are the countries that are — "

"But, you just said, 'You can't pick and choose,'" Keilar maintained.

"Well, no, no, no, no, I didn't say that, I said you have to come back — but these are picking and choose because these are the countries that said, 'Hey, you're right, we are doing this wrong.'"

Keilar then asked about the committee hearing during which trade representative Jamieson Greer was caught off guard by the White House announcement delaying the tariffs.

"The U.S. trade representative — after the treasury secretary insisted this was the plan all along to do it this way — the trade secretary was asked when he was made aware of this pause, and he said the decision was made just a few minutes ago."

Murphy responded, "Sure. Well, you know Brianna, when you're playing poker, you don't show your hands before. You don't tell them what you're going to do —"

"This is after the hand was played," Keilar pushed back.

"No, no, the hand was not played yet," Murphy argued.

"The decision was made just a few minutes ago. It's been under discussion."

"Right, it's been under discussion — Well, Brianna, if you let me talk."

Watch the clip below or at this link.

'Stars of resistance': Columnist names 6 Dems who can 'galvanize opposition' against Trump

It's not all bad news for Democrats who are still reeling from the divisive spending bill vote that saw 10 of their own senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), cross party lines to approve Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) continuing resolution.

A new opinion piece in The Washington Post has identified at least six Democratic politicians ready and able to lead the party through the political wilderness and toward victory with a spirit that's been lacking for far too long, according to columnist Perry Bacon, Jr.

If you think California Gov. Gavin Newsom is on the list, think again. Bacon claimed Newsom was even worse than Schumer after bizarrely deciding, "this is the time for him to start a podcast with softball interviews of pro-Trump conservatives such as Stephen K. Bannon and Charlie Kirk."

ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world

The Democrats (and one Independent) who made Bacon's list "are showing real fight and resolve — and have from the start of Trump’s second term," Bacon wrote. "They are not only voting against his initiatives but attacking him in ways intentionally designed to get media attention and galvanize opposition against the new administration."

Bacon called them "the stars of Resistance 2.0," figures who have "distinguished themselves in ways that others in the party should emulate."

They include: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

"It’s possible that nothing these six — or any other Democratic officials — do will rein in Trump, particularly until the midterms," Bacon wrote. "A president with Congress, the federal courts and about half the state governments aligned with him has huge power."

However, Bacon postulated that there may be some hope yet with these six politicians, who "were some of the earliest to speak up and break with the Jeffries-Schumer nonaggression posture. They are likely to be actually leading the party over the next few years, even if none of them are formally senior Democratic leaders."

Read The Washington Post Opinion piece here.

This Project 2025 goal is on a fast track despite Trump and Vance distancing themselves

WASHINGTON — As the Trump-Vance ticket attempts to pivot toward the middle to try and convince independent voters they’re not as radical as portrayed, Donald Trump is doing all he can to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

But that’s just on the surface.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find the Republican Party — including Trump and vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance — is all in on some of the proposal’s more drastic recommendations, especially when it comes to slashing the federal workforce and then reshaping it in the GOP’s own image.

“I will immediately reissue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the president's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats,” former President Donald Trump says in a video on his 2024 campaign website. “And I will wield that power very aggressively.”

ALSO READ: Sen. John Fetterman violates financial law with botched corporate bond disclosures

That move alone could turn some 50,000 nonpartisan federal jobs into Trump political appointees, even as his campaign is also pledging to ship “up to 100,000 government positions” outside of the Washington, D.C., area.

The Trump campaign has also attempted to distance Vance from Project 2025 after the senator from Ohio faced criticism for writing the foreword for a forthcoming book by the project’s lead architect, Heritage President Kevin Roberts.

But Vance was an early promoter of the spirit of Project 2025 — a sweeping conservative playbook that reimagines the government in its attempt to root out “deep state” actors and replace them with the far-too-fringe-right’s wishlist in every federal agency — even before coming to Congress.

“Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” Vance argued in 2021.

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

Even with Trump and Vance publicly backpedaling, ProPublica recently unearthed upward of 14 hours of Project 2025 videos that are meant to be tutorials for incoming conservative staffers if Trump nets himself a second administration.

They address various topics, including, how to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests or even on how “to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” as a former Trump staffer encourages viewers.

Dismantling government now mainstream in GOP

That thinking is now mainstream in today’s Republican Party. During the GOP presidential primary, for example, even the more moderate wing of the party was taking aim at federal workers.

Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) proposed cutting 10 percent of the federal workforce. His opponent, former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), put forward a five-year term limit for government workers.

Under #TheFreedomPlan, we won’t just have term limits for politicians—we will limit bureaucrats too. No bureaucrat should hold the same position for more than five years. https://t.co/zI3H5WqL0B
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) November 22, 2023

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) went a step further.

He promised to “start slitting throats” of federal workers, including at the three agencies he vowed to eliminate: Commerce, Education and Energy. Then-candidate — and current Trump campaign surrogate — Vivek Ramaswamy advocated for slashing the jobs of 75 percent of the current federal workforce.

Key aspects of Project 2025 remain popular among Republicans in Congress, too.

“I’ve been in a business role a lot longer than I've been in the elected position, there's no doubt in my mind at any agency in the federal government, you could line them all up and probably remove every 10th one,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — a member of the Senate Finance Committee — told Raw Story. “There would be a substantial reduction in costs but not a substantial reduction in service.”

This is the new gospel for today’s right.

“Every single organization needs to get lean. In the period of time that corporate America has gotten leaner and leaner, we've gotten fatter and fatter,” Tillis said. “We're not seeing more productivity. We're not seeing people thrilled about their customer relationship experience. So all the indicators are going in the wrong direction, in spite of the fact that we're spending more than we ever have and we have more employees than we ever did.”

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

While that’s become a top talking point, it’s not based in reality.

Under President Joe Biden, the government has shed 170,000 jobs; dropping from 3.122 million federal workers in September 2020, Trump’s last year in office, to 2.952 million in September 2023, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even so, Republicans are itching for deep cuts to the federal government as we know it.

“If you just started with discipline, it can be very easy. And through attrition you could accomplish a lot,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) — a member of the Senate Budget Committee — told Raw Story.

“Do you think you get a lot of budget savings from cutting a lot of the federal workforce?” Raw Story pressed.

“Well, let's face it, we're spending 30 percent more than we take in. Anything we spend new, we borrow 100 percent of it. Have you heard of any other place that gets by with that or where that's a good financial plan? No,” Braun said. “So sooner or later, you've got to. Whether you, say, cut mid level bureaucrats, I say, just be sane about it. You could accomplish most of it through attrition. They’ve been living high on the hog at the expense of your generation and your kids. And that's a mountain of debt.”

Republicans who haven’t studied the specifics are open to the idea.

“Well, it might not be a bad idea,” Hawley said. “Cutting the bureaucracy might not be a bad idea. A lot of these people don't do anything.”

Hawley says he’s witnessed this first hand in Missouri with an effort to clean up nuclear waste that’s poisoned a community for half a century now.

“I've just seen this in my own state with the EPA, Department of Energy and our victims of nuclear radiation. These guys are supposed to be cleaning up that pollution that has been killing people for 50 years. They haven’t done anything. It’s leading me to say, ‘Well, maybe we don't need a lot of them then,’” Hawley said.

That has Hawley looking to use agency budgets as bludgeons.

ALSO READ: 21 worthless knick-knacks Donald Trump will give you for your cash

“They’ve visited the site multiple times. They keep saying, ‘We're gonna fix it.’ Well, gosh, maybe we should just cut your department in half, and that would concentrate the mind,” Hawley said as he snapped his fingers. “I mean, apparently, all of y'all are not necessary. So I'm generally pretty open to having fewer people collecting a government bureaucrat paycheck and more actually doing stuff.”

To Hawley and many Republicans, Vance’s idea of a partisan workforce would also make it more responsive.

“There's no question that the government bureaucracy is hugely bloated, and my concern is, it's not really responsive to anybody. Doesn't answer Congress. Doesn't really answer to the president. And yet they kind of run the country," Hawley said. “Anything we can do to fix that — where they're actually accountable — will be a good deal, but I don't know the specifics of his proposal.”

Careful what you wish for

Conservative organizations and elected officials are eager for the party to aggressively start unwinding the administrative state the second Trump takes his oath, which some see as a sort of redux of what Trump tried to do with his executive order in his first administration.

“I think that's fine,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) — who served three terms in the House before moving to the Senate in 2019 — told Raw Story. “Remember, Donald Trump sort of did that, because he didn't like those layers of bureaucracy.”

While Trump and officials at the Heritage Foundation want to revive the executive order that would make it easier to fire federal workers, Cramer warns that many of these proposals like the one Vance previously floated end up merely “empowering the swamp.”

“That said, this is a big place. So the thing I would caution about that — and J.D. didn't live through this in this town, and we did — is that when you cut out president-nominated, Senate-confirmed political appointees and nominees, if you cut out a couple of layers of those, you have just empowered the bureaucracy,” Cramer warned. “So what you don’t want to do is cut down. It may look noble on the balance sheet, but, believe me, you're just empowering the swamp.”

Dems brace for ‘creepy weirdos’

Some moderate-leaning Republicans, like they do on many issues, say they haven’t looked at what their party’s standard bearers have proposed.

“Curious your thoughts on Vance's call in the past to get rid of most mid level government bureaucrats and replace them with GOP partisans?” Raw Story asked Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

“I haven't seen the statement,” Murkowski told Raw Story ahead of Congress’ August recess. “So I'm just not gonna comment on it right now.”

Democrats say they don’t have the luxury of looking away from a proposal such as Project 2025 as they do all they can to elect newly minted presidential nominee Kamala Harris and avert a second Trump presidency.

“He's just going to have a bunch of creepy weirdos working in the White House that are intent on destroying government from the inside and pursuing their super creepy, weird political agendas,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story earlier this summer.

'Dystopia scary': Senator joins alarmed internet over apparent J.D. Vance leaked audio

The internet was abuzz Thursday night over new audio — shared on social media by a Kamala Harris promoting account — in which Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance appears to say he'd be in favor of a "federal response" to prevent women from crossing state lines to obtain abortions.

In the audio, a voice that sounds exactly like Vance floats a scenario.

"Let's say Roe vs. Wade is overruled. Ohio bans abortion in you know 2022, let's say 2024, and every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity. Uh, that's kind of creepy, right?"

Later in the clip, the voice adds: "If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening? Because it's really creepy. And you know I'm pretty sympathetic to that actually."

Raw Story couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of the audio.

The account that shared the audio called it a "stunning leak," and slammed the Ohio senator for calling for a "federal response to stop women from traveling from red states to blue states to receive reproductive healthcare."

The internet wasted no time slamming Vance over the remark — including Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who called the audio "dystopia scary."

"It's not enough for them to tell women when they can have children or what health care they can get. Now they want to control where women can travel," he wrote on X.

"I think we’re gonna need a clarification for 'disproportionally black women,'" wrote @Folkmusings_.

"He's racist and misogynistic, just like every other Republican," replied @TrickyViking2.

"Project 2025 = Project Control," wrote @ThisWillHold.

"Not a stretch that women will be separated and tested for pregnancy before being allowed to board an international flight or cross the border to Canada and Mexico," said @MumOf2RatBags.

"Could the GOP not find a single non hardcore misogynist to be Trump's running mate? Not even one?" asked @forbestonow.

Listen to the audio below or at this link.

BREAKING: In a stunning leak, JD Vance is found to be calling for a federal response to stop women from traveling from red states to blue states to receive reproductive healthcare. Retweet so all Americans hear this devastating leak. pic.twitter.com/t9Q4n9dQJL
— Kamala’s Wins (@harris_wins) July 26, 2024

How Trump and Senate Republicans are circling the wagons to save Clarence Thomas

WASHINGTON — The cycle continues: Clarence Thomas has former President Donald Trump’s back, Trump has Senate Republicans in his back pocket and Senate Republicans, in turn, have Thomas’ back.

No matter how much financial dirt journalists and watchdog groups dig up on Thomas, and no matter how much Democrats single Thomas out for what they consider his shameful jurisprudence, his legend only continues to grow within conservative circles.

And those conservatives are striking back.

ALSO READ: How to survive Supreme Court stupidity without losing your mind

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and other Republicans on Capitol Hill say they have no plan to drop their blockade of Democrat’s proposed ethics reform package for the Supreme Court as long as Thomas’ gaggle of prominent detractors continue lambasting his for what reform organization Fix the Court tallies is more than $4 million in gifts from wealthy benefactors.

Last July, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the SCERT Act —Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023 — which would force the court to adopt an ethics code, establish an enforcement mechanism and increase transparency. Just last month, Senate Republicans brought their blockade to the Senate floor where the GOP quashed the measure.

Supreme Court 2022, Image via Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

“There's like a Clarence Thomas story every week. I'm sure next week it'll be something else. I mean, they're just hounding the poor guy. They want to hound him off the court,” Hawley told Raw Story before the Senate left town for senators' two-week long July Fourth recess.

“But none of them have been good headlines,” Raw Story pushed. “He admitted to... ”

“Well, of course not,” Hawley replied. “They’re like oppo research for the campaign. I mean, of course, they're not good headlines. They’ve been trying to discredit him. They tried to do this from the moment he got on the court.”

‘OK with felons’

Democrats aren’t surprised.

“Well, I think you have to understand that the little billionaire elite that put these people on the court is also heavily, heavily, heavily funding the Republican Senate political operation. So they have strings everywhere to pull,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Raw Story. “Do the math.”

Democrats are increasingly frustrated, though. And they don’t get the GOP’s blanket immunity from every unseemly accusation flying Thomas’ way, including that the upward of $4 million in gifts he accepted is “nearly 10 times the value of all gifts received by his fellow justices during the same time,” according to the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee.

“I think it's unacceptable. I’m stunned that he did not think this would undermine not just the view of his impartiality but will undermine the institution itself,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Raw Story.

But Booker says Democrats aren’t merely singling Thomas out, particularly with a Supreme Court that has regularly ruled in Trump’s interests. One such ruling dropped Monday, when the conservative majority led a 6-3 ruling that gave Trump (and future presidents) significant, if not absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.

“There's no way to objectively look at this other than showing that the highest court in the land is descending into some of the lowest examples of, I think, unethical behavior that points to horrendous influence of people who have issues, matters and, frankly, strong beliefs about which direction the court should go in,” Booker said.

ALSO READ: NRA no longer 'human rights group' on Google

Other Democrats say the problem is the ethical standards — and lack thereof — on the right have been upended in this Trump-era.

“You have a Republican Party now that their presumptive nominee is a felon, so I guess that's, you know, where Republicans are now. They're OK with felons running for high public office,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told Raw Story.

While Raw Story tried to press Peters — who is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — on the politics of the court ahead of November, Peters refused to go there.

“We have to have a court that is respected by the American people, and when things like this happen, people start losing respect for the court,” Peters said. “And the court’s power is based on the respect of the rule of law and the integrity of the justices. If you damage that, you damage the court.”

Some Republicans won’t go there, either.

Many point to the code of conduct Chief Justice John Roberts announced last fall. While it laid out some specific instances when justices need to recuse themselves — like, say, if a justice or their relative is tied to a case — it falls short of requiring recusal. And there’s no enforcement mechanism.

Still, that’s good enough for many of today’s Republicans.

“The Supreme Court has developed its own code of ethics, and I have not reviewed that,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Raw Story.

“Did you see that Clarence Thomas got $4 million in gifts?” Raw Story asked. “What do you make of that number?”

“I really haven't been focused on it,” Collins said as a “Senators Only” elevator closed on Raw Story.

‘Getting pressured’

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been focused on it, yet they’re whistling a similar tune.

“I’m all for getting the Article III branch to update, modernize their disclosure requirements and ethics rules, but please spare me this,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story. “I’m trying not to call out the individual members, but believe me we’ve got a rap sheet on every single one, both sides. And they should really come together.”

For one, Tillis is thinking of the disclosure that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accepted four tickets to see Beyoncé, an estimated $3,700 value.

While $4,000 and $4 million are worlds apart, it’s still unseemly to Tillis and others. That’s why he’s hoping the court just adopts its own stout ethics standards already.

ALSO READ: Marjorie Taylor Greene buys condo in 'crime ridden hell hole'

“They’re vulnerable,” Tillis said. “And, quite frankly, I’d like for the new ethics standards to get done when we have a majority conservative Supreme Court, and they can’t say it’s just because they’re getting pressured.”

Other Senate Republicans seem to have also outsourced their thinking on the Supreme Court to the court.

“Look, I trust the chief justice,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) — who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — told Raw Story.

The American people generally don’t.

Back in 2009, 61 percent of Americans approved of a then divided Supreme Court, according to Gallup. These days, Gallup shows a mere 41 percent approval rating for the nation’s high court.

This is nothing new.

A decade ago, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) introduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act of 2013, which would “require the Supreme Court of the United States to promulgate a code of ethics.”

“It's extraordinary that there's not more outrage. This seems to be a pretty simple grift,” Murphy told Raw Story. “Maybe we have to wait until there's some scandal with a Democratic appointed judge before anybody on the right cares about it.”

Most Republicans raise constitutional doubts about Congress’ power to write ethics rules for a separate branch of government. Still, some, like Hawley of Missouri, agree with the thrust of Democrat’s ethics proposal.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). (Nash Greg/TNS)

“Don't get me wrong, it would be helpful to everybody, if they had firm rules that they don’t accept gifts,” Hawley said. “They shouldn’t take gifts. I’m opposed to the gifts. They shouldn't take tickets, cruises, planes — they shouldn't do it. That's my view. They haven't asked for my opinion, but that's my view.”

“We don't have power over them. They’ve got to do it, but I think they should. I think it'd be helpful if they would just say, ‘we're not gonna do that,’” Hawley told Raw Story. “I don't think they should own stock either. Just like I don’t think members of Congress should. It’d just be cleaner. Like, ‘we don’t own stock. We don't take gifts.’ That'd be better for everybody.”

Overall, Hawley remains dubious of Democrats.

ALSO READ: Neuroscientist explains how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

“I just think that they should just adopt their own ethics code and it ought to mirror, as much as possible, what Congress and the executive branch do,” Hawley said. “And honestly, if that were to happen, they'd still be attacking Justice Thomas.”

As of now, the left is promising to continue highlighting the lavish life Thomas lives at the expense of the wealthy donors who’ve taken him under their private wings, and they are showing no signs of letting up.

Progressives in the House of Representatives have been frustrated with their Senate counterparts for not doing more, like deploying filibuster reform to expand the size of the court.

And now, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for one, is angling to impeach Thomas and potentially his fellow conservative justices as soon as the U.S. House returns from recess.

Still, over in the Senate, most Democrats are resisting those calls from the party’s left wing. Instead, they’re promising to remain steady in their effort to expose this Supreme Court, so voters know the true choice facing the nation this November.

“You continue the investigation,” Whitehouse told Raw Story. “You continue the persistent pressure. Continue working with the judicial conference, which has been quite productive.”

‘Creepy weirdos’: Senator fears Trump WH staff would destroy government from ‘inside’

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is raising alarms over the quality of staffers the Republican Party is vetting in preparation for a second Donald Trump administration.

Murphy’s not alone. In response to the far-right Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a sweeping blueprint for a future Republican president to upend the federal workforce as we know it — a handful of House Democrats have formed a working group to combat the sweeping changes for which conservatives are calling.

ALSO READ: ‘They could have killed me’: Spycraft, ballots and a Trumped-up plot gone haywire

Murphy sees things a tad differently.

“I'm not worried about Project 2025. I'm worried about Donald Trump being the president of the United States,” Murphy said. “It’s gonna be a disaster, and Project 2025 is part of the book of evidence.”

Besides policy proposals, Project 2025 also includes a long list of conservatives eager to join a second Trump administration in order to unwind the federal government from within.

In his first administration, some conservatives within his cabinet stood up to Trump — from then-Vice President Mike Pence to former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Democrats such as Murphy are worried that many of those principled conservative voices have been ostracized by Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

“So he's not gonna have anybody to protect the country, and the White House is just going to have a bunch of really off-the-wall radicals working for him,” Murphy said.

ALSO READ: Neuroscientist explains how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

Democrats need to wake up, Murphy says. He’s predicting a second Trump administration would be marked by the political vengeance and retribution Trump is promising on the campaign trail.

“One of the first things he would do is clear out anybody who stands in the way of his desire to persecute political opponents,” Murphy said. “So if he wins, it's very possible this could become a banana republic within weeks. So like, I think everyone is vastly under estimating how serious this is going to get very quickly.”

At present, President Joe Biden and Trump are statistically tied in most national polls, as well as statistically tied in most polls taken within key swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. As president, Trump enjoys a slight edge in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina.

Biden and Trump are scheduled to square off Thursday in their first presidential debate.

The debate comes two weeks ahead of Trump’s scheduled sentencing after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and three weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is slated to officially become the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee.

'Pathetic': Lawmaker accused of making Kate Middleton cancer news 'about himself'

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut drew criticism on Friday after appearing upset that his appearance on CNN was purportedly bumped for a story about Kate Middleton having cancer.

Murphy, a Democrat, is known for his passionate defense of shooting victims. In this case, however, he said he was scheduled to discuss the healthcare system in the United States.

Journalist Yashar Ali reported earlier in the day that he had been "told by multiple sources that U.S. networks will broadcast a special report on Kate Middleton’s health at 2 PM Eastern time today."

"I can’t confirm if the broadcasts will share major news on the status of her health," he said Friday.

ALSO READ: Marjorie Taylor Greene to federal election regulators: get bent over ‘MTG’

Later, in a post that has now been deleted, Murphy reposted that message from Ali, and said, "Can confirm!"

"I was supposed to be on [CNN] at 2pm to talk about the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and the millions of lives it has saved, but my interview has been bumped by this much more important topic."

Murphy's post appeared to be made shortly before the British Princess of Wales' appearance, which turned out to be her announcement of a cancer diagnosis. It was deleted soon after.

But the inference from Murphy's followers was that he was insulting the cancer patient.

"In other news, Chris Murphy has been diagnosed with terminal Main Character syndrome,'' wrote @_HMSP.

Another user, @SPimpernel22, simply wrote, "Chris Murphy sucks lol."

Ben McDonald of The Blaze said, "Only Chris Murphy could get me to defend the brits."

@Ithinkyouknow8 responded directly to Murphy in an attempt to translate the meaning of the lawmaker.

"'F--- your cancer, B----,' - Chris Murphy," the user wrote.

Conservative communicator Steve Guest also chimed in.

"PATHETIC," he wrote. "Of course Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy is trying to make the Kate Middleton news about himself."

Another user, @Oilfield Rando, said, "Let's all pray for [Murphy] in this difficult time."

Murphy's office didn't return requests for comment.