#sen. Roger Wicker

[simply-ivanka]

Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Cornyn (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Thune (R-SD), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Todd Young (R-IN)

VOTE THESE PIECES OF SHIT OUT OF CONGRESS.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Fox News is Private, Pro-GOP US Media]

"I welcome the U.S. and coalition operations against the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists responsible for violently disrupting international commerce in the Red Sea and attacking American vessels," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. "President Biden’s decision to use military force against these Iranian proxies is overdue."

"I am hopeful these operations mark an enduring shift in the Biden Administration’s approach to Iran and its proxies. To restore deterrence and change Iran’s calculus, Iranian leaders themselves must believe that they will pay a meaningful price unless they abandon their worldwide campaign of terror," he added.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul, R-Texas, who said he was meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the strikes were called, also praised the actions. He also called on Biden to restore the Houthis' terror designation.

"I’m pleased the president, in coordination with our allies, finally took action against the Iran-backed Houthis following weeks of instability in the Red Sea. Tonight, with these strikes, we are beginning to restore deterrence. The administration must acknowledge it was a mistake to rescind the Houthis designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and re-list them immediately," he said.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, similarly called the action "overdue" and accused the Biden administration of contributing to the increasingly hostile situation in the Red Sea, but said the strikes were "a good first step toward restoring deterrence in the Red Sea."[...]

["]It is important that we follow this action in close consultation with our Saudi partners to ensure they are with us as the situation develops," Wicker said.[...]

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ally of former President Trump's, said he was "very supportive of the Biden Administration’s decision to strike Houthi rebels who have been harassing international shipping and trying to attack Israeli and American interests."[...]

Even rank-and-file Republicans have been issuing cautious and rare praise for the move. Rep. John James, R-Mich., a military combat veteran who served in Iraq, told Fox News Digital, "The Houthis are a terrorist organization. They have been striking at U.S. military personnel since late last year and must be destroyed."[...]

"While I support these targeted, proportional military strikes, I call on the Biden Administration to continue its diplomatic efforts to avoid escalation to a broader regional war and continue to engage Congress on the details of its strategy and legal basis as required by law," Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

11 Jan 24

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Adam Kredo

Lawmakers like Budd, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have taken a great interest in the Palestine Chronicle and its nonprofit parent company, the People Media Project, since the Free Beacon first reported on Monday about its links to Iranian regime-controlled propaganda sites. The outlet’s editor in chief, Ramzy Baroud, wrote for two now-defunct websites that the U.S. government seized in 2020 for being part of a propaganda network controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). At least six of the outlet’s writers also wrote for these IRGC-controlled sites.

Following Aljamal’s death during an Israeli raid in Gaza to free the hostages, the Palestine Chronicle published a glowing obituary, claiming its writer was just an innocent civilian trying to perform journalism. As Budd and his colleagues note in their letter, however, Aljamal "previously served as a spokesman for the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Labor in Gaza."

"While Aljamal may have played a journalist by day, the evidence clearly suggests he was, at a minimum, a Hamas collaborator, if not a full-time terror operative, responsible for keeping hostages captive," according to the letter, which is also backed by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), Rick Scott (R., Fla.), Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.), and Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

With questions now swirling about the Palestine Chronicle and its editor Baroud, the senators say a multi-pronged federal investigation is necessary to determine if the outlet and its parent company were "actively employing an individual with apparent ties to and support for Hamas." The Palestine Chronicle downplayed its ties to Aljamal in a Monday piece, saying Aljamal "was a freelance writer who contributed articles to the Palestine Chronicle on a voluntary basis, mostly since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza."

"It is possible that this tax-exempt media outlet had no knowledge of its correspondent’s Hamas affiliation; however, given the organization’s recent attempts to cover up evidence of its ties to Aljamal, this seems unlikely, making them complicit in supporting terrorist propaganda on their platform," the senators wrote.

The lawmakers also instructed the IRS to "prepare a report on the findings of this investigation for the [Senate] Finance Committee to review in the appropriate venue."

[darkmaga-retard]

Dozens of military veterans serving in Congress have signed a letter blasting radical Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz over claims of stolen valor.

The letter was distributed on Thursday by President Donald Trump’s campaign.

The letter condemning Walz has emerged as the Democrat Minnesota governor has sought to dodge questions about the timing of his retirement from military service.

In an announcement about the letter, the Trump campaign slammed Walz as “Freakish Timothy.”

Walz, who joined the Nebraska National Guard as a teenager and also later served for Minnesota, met his 20-year requirement in 2001.

After learning he was due to be deployed to Iraq in 2005, Walz abruptly retired, abandoning his battalion.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, the senator from Ohio, and others have criticized Walz for retiring shortly before his unit was deployed to Iraq.

The letter was led by retired Army sergeant Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) and signed by other servicemembers-turned-lawmakers including:

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA)

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS)

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL)

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX)

Rep. Jennifer Kiggans (R-VA)

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN)

Rep. Greg Lopez (R-CA)

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL)

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI)

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

[bighermie]

Share Link

Sen. Roger Wicker Calls for a Briefing from the Pentagon After It Hid Austin’s Hospitalization https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/07/sen-roger-wicker-calls-for-a-briefing-from-the-pentagon-after-it-hid-austins-hospitalization/

[mariacallous]

Dozens of civil society groups urged lawmakers in a letter Monday against passing a bill that aims to protect children from online harm, warning the bill itself could actually pose further danger to kids and teens.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, GLAAD and Wikimedia Foundation were among the more than 90 groups that wrote to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., opposing the Kids Online Safety Act.

The bipartisan bill, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., would establish responsibilities for sites that are likely to be accessed by kids to act in the best interest of users who are 16 or younger. That means the platforms would be responsible for mitigating the risk of physical or emotional harm to young users, including through the promotion of self-harm or suicide, encouragement of addictive behavior, enabling of online bullying or predatory marketing.

The bill would require sites to default to more private settings for users 16 and younger and limit the contacts that could connect with them. It would also require tools for parents to track the time their kids are spending on certain sites and give them access to some information about the kids’ use of the platform so that parents can address potential harm. Sites would have to let their young users know when parental tools are in effect.

The civil society groups that signed Monday’s letter, which includes several groups that advocate for the rights of the LGBTQ community, warned that the tools the bill creates to protect children could actually backfire.

“KOSA would require online services to ‘prevent’ a set of harms to minors, which is effectively an instruction to employ broad content filtering to limit minors’ access to certain online content,” the groups wrote, adding that content filters used by schools in response to earlier legislation have limited resources for sex education and for LGBTQ youth.

“Online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate, including from state Attorneys General seeking to make political points about what kind of information is appropriate for young people,” they added. “At a time when books with LGBTQ+ themes are being banned from school libraries and people providing healthcare to trans children are being falsely accused of ‘grooming,’ KOSA would cut off another vital avenue of access to information for vulnerable youth.”

The bill has gained momentum at a time when debates over parental control of what’s taught in school, specifically as it relates to gender identity and sexual orientation, have come to the forefront due to controversial state measures such as Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, also referred to by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The KOSA opponents warned that prescriptive parental controls could be harmful to kids in abusive situations.

“KOSA risks subjecting teens who are experiencing domestic violence and parental abuse to additional forms of digital surveillance and control that could prevent these vulnerable youth from reaching out for help or support,” the groups wrote. “And by creating strong incentives to filter and enable parental control over the content minors can access, KOSA could also jeopardize young people’s access to end-to-end encrypted technologies, which they depend on to access resources related to mental health and to keep their data safe from bad actors.”

The groups also fear that the bill would incentivize sites to collect even more information about children to verify their ages and place further restrictions on minors’ accounts.

“Age verification may require users to provide platforms with personally identifiable information such as date of birth and government-issued identification documents, which can threaten users’ privacy, including through the risk of data breaches, and chill their willingness to access sensitive information online because they cannot do so anonymously,” they wrote. “Rather than age-gating privacy settings and safety tools to apply only to minors, Congress should focus on ensuring that all users, regardless of age, benefit from strong privacy protections by passing comprehensive privacy legislation.”

The groups called the goals of the legislation “laudable,” but said KOSA would ultimately fall flat in its aims to protect children.

“We urge members of Congress not to move KOSA forward this session, either as a standalone bill or attached to other urgent legislation, and encourage members to work toward solutions that protect young people’s rights to privacy and access to information and their ability to seek safe and trusted spaces to communicate online,” they wrote.

[myweddingsandevents]

Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military draft

BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 06/20/24 6:00 AM ET

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Senate Democrats have added language to the annual defense authorization bill to require women to register for the draft, prompting a backlash from Republicans and social conservatives and complicating the chances of moving the bill on the Senate floor before Election Day.

Conservatives led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) are certain to attempt to remove the provision requiring women to register for the draft, which could present a tough vote for Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and other Democrats in tight reelection races.

Republican candidate Sam Brown, who is running against Rosen, is already making it an issue in the Nevada Senate race.

Brown, an Army veteran who was severely burned by an improvised explosive device explosion, slammed Rosen in a video for voting to require women to sign up for the draft.

“Look at my face. This is the high cost of war,” he posted recently on the social platform X.

“Amy and I volunteered to serve, and we honor all who serve,” he wrote, referring to his wife. “But forcing America’s daughters to register for the draft is UNACCEPTABLE. Shame on Jacky Rosen.”

In the video posted below those comments, Brown pointed to the scarring on his face as evidence of the dangers women would face in combat theaters.

“Look at my face. This is the high cost of war and I just found out that Jacky Rosen voted this week to make signing up for the draft mandatory for our daughters. You’ll be hearing more from me on this,” he said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called the provision requiring women to sign up for the draft “insane.”

He accused the Biden administration of trying to implement a woke agenda at the Pentagon.

“There shouldn’t be women in the draft. They shouldn’t be forced to serve if they don’t want to,” he said on Fox News. He criticized Democrats for wanting to experiment with the military, saying “normal people are like, ‘Leave our daughters alone.’”

Hawley led efforts to strip language requiring women to sign up for the draft from the defense authorization bill in 2021 and 2022.

A group affiliated with former Vice President Mike Pence also weighed in on the issue Wednesday.

The group, Advancing American Freedom, wrote a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declaring that “the notion of the United States of America requiring women to register to fight our wars is simply untenable and must be opposed at all costs.”

Wicker, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he’ll try to strip it out of the bill.

“I’m opposed to that. I don’t think this is the time to get into a debate on the floor of either house about that. We’re not anywhere near implementing a draft, and to me it’s a distraction when we need to be talking about real issues that are immediate,” he said.

“I hope it will fall out, either on the floor or in conference,” he added.

But Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) defended the proposed policy change, arguing that women can hold many warfighting positions without serving as front-line infantry troops. 

“Women are doing a remarkable job in our forces today, and if we were in a situation requiring a draft, I think we would need all able-bodied citizens 18 and above,” he said.

“If we go to a draft, that means we’re in a serious, serious situation,” he added.

“It’s not like World War II where we need a lot of infantry. We need cyber experts, we need intelligence analysts, linguists, etc. Wait a second, there are a lot of women out there that can do this better than men,” he argued.

He said the intense GOP opposition to the proposal “just doesn’t make any sense.”

Senate aides point out the issue cuts across party lines, with some Republicans generally supportive of requiring women to sign up for the Selective Service System, just like men when they turn 18.  

Senate Republicans are already raising doubts about whether Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will even bring the bill to the floor anytime soon, given the dwindling number of days on the legislative calendar before the election.

“I do hope we get to the floor. It’s very important we have this debate publicly. … I hear rumblings that the Democratic leader may not bring it to the floor, I hope that can be reversed,” Wicker said.

McConnell on Monday urged Schumer to bring the defense bill to the floor “without delay.”

The Republican leader hailed the Senate Armed Services Committee for marking up the defense bill earlier this month but then suggested Democrats may drag out the process of bringing it to the floor.

“But shortly after the committee’s action, senior Senate Democrats shattered any expectation that they were ready to start taking the requirements of the national defense seriously,” he said.

Voting to require women to make themselves eligible for the draft could come back to bite Democrats in Republican-leaning or battleground states, such as Montana and Nevada.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) seized on the issue in the last Congress when he backed an amendment in 2022 to remove a provision requiring women to register for the Selective Service System from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“Brave Montana men and women carry out the Treasure State’s rich legacy of service by voluntarily joining our nation’s military. There is no need to force our nation’s daughters to enter the draft,” Daines said at the time.

Hawley offered an amendment to strike the women’s draft language from the NDAA in 2021. His action put pressure on Democrats to ultimately remove the issue from the bill without voting on the amendment in December of that year.

He also sponsored an amendment to the defense bill in 2022 to remove language requiring women to register for the Selective Service System, which was co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Mike Lee (Utah), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), John Boozman (Ark.), James Lankford (Okla.) and Daines.

[parttimereporter]

Including link: https://thehill.com/

Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military ...

Senate Democrats have added language to the annual defense authorization bill to require women to register for the draft, prompting a backlash from Republicans and social conservatives and complicating the chances of moving the bill on the Senate floor before Election Day.

Conservatives led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) are certain to attempt to remove the provision requiring women to register for the draft, which could present a tough vote for Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and other Democrats in tight reelection races."

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4730560-senate-democrats-require-women-draft/#:~:text=Senate%20Democrats%20have,certain%20to%20attempt

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4730560-senate-democrats-require-women-draft/#:~:text=Senate%20Democrats%20have,certain%20to%20attempt

[garythingsworld]

MUST SEE ULTRA MAGA PARTY VIDEO Triggers Adam Kinzinger: RINO Sen. Roger Wicker Votes with Dems on Ukraine Funding - Says He Has No Problem with Nuclear First Strike with Russia | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

[deblala]

MUST SEE ULTRA MAGA PARTY VIDEO Triggers Adam Kinzinger: RINO Sen. Roger Wicker Votes with Dems on Ukraine Funding - Says He Has No Problem with Nuclear First Strike with Russia | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/must-see-ultra-maga-party-release-rino-sen/

[truck-fump]

Republican hawks call for retaliation after 3 killed in Iranian-backed strike

New Post has been published on https://truckfump.life/2024/01/28/revenge-members-congress-killed-jordan-iran-backed-attack-00138245/

Republican hawks call for retaliation after 3 killed in Iranian-backed strike

Sens. Roger Wicker, Lindsey Graham and others pushed for a military response.

[darkmaga-retard]

William Hartung

Aug 22, 2024

America’s commitment to arm Israel and Ukraine while attempting to stockpile large quantities of weapons for a potential war with China is putting strains on America’s weapons manufacturing base, leading many influential policy makers and corporate officials to suggest measures that would super-size this nation’s already enormous military-industrial complex.

This argument is taken to the extreme in a new piece in The National Interest by Arthur Herman of the arms contractor-funded Hudson Institute, entitled “Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex.” The article repeats many of the stock arguments of current advocates of higher Pentagon spending while throwing around misleading statistics and dubious assumptions along the way.

Myth number one routinely put forward by today’s proponents of throwing more money at the Pentagon is that the U.S. military has somehow been neglected over the past few decades, and that therefore we need to inject hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending into the arms sector to restore our defenses to an acceptable level. This argument has appeared in a recent report by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on the need for a renewed policy of “peace through strength,” as well as in an analysis from a congressional commission charged with assessing the state of America’s defenses.

Both reports — as well as Herman’s article — are based on a false premise.