Republican Senator Says Lindsey Graham Loves Alcohol Like Nothing Else |
Senator John Kennedy shared some revealing information about his fellow GOPer Lindsey Graham in his new book, confirming Graham’s hawkish sensibilities and his penchant for alcoholic beverages.
“If you want to stump Lindsey, just ask him to name a country he wouldn’t bomb,” Kennedy wrote in his book, How to Test Negative for Stupid: And Why Washington Never Will.
Then Kennedy moved on to the drink.
“Invite him to dinner, and you don’t know if he’ll sit down for an intelligent conversation or get drunk and vomit in the fish tank. But that’s why I like him.”
This isn’t the first time Graham’s drinking has come up. In 2015, New York magazine wrote that Graham “likes a drink so much he thinks drinking more might just solve the problems in Washington.” And just last month, he appeared visibly drunk while answering questions at a news conference in Charleston, South Carolina.
Senator Elissa Slotkin said Monday that she has learned federal prosecutors are investigating her for a video she made in November, along with other congressional colleagues, urging members of the military to disobey illegal orders.
Slotkin said she found out about the investigation from Jeanine Pirro, appointed by President Trump as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro had emailed the Senate’s sergeant at arms requesting an interview with Slotkin or her personal attorney, according to The New York Times. Pirro’s office declined to confirm or deny the investigation to the Times.
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, helped to organize the video, along with five other Democratic members of Congress who served in the military: Senator Mark Kelly and Representatives Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan. They each urged service members to refuse illegal orders, drawing anger from President Trump, who accused them of sedition and suggested they be executed.
The investigation of Slotkin follows Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s attempts to target Kelly, censuring him and going after his military pension. In response, Kelly has sued Hegseth on free speech and due process grounds.
While Slotkin isn’t a military veteran, a Justice Department investigation could result in criminal charges. Is the Trump administration willing to try and punish Slotkin merely for exercising her free speech rights?
Multiple military officials have sought legal counseling in the wake of President Donald Trump’s escalating (and illegal) military operations in the Caribbean.
Steve Woolford, a resource counselor with the GI Rights Hotline, told HuffPost that calls for advice started coming in at the end of September, after the U.S. military had killed 17 people in a series of extrajudicial strikes on boats the government claims—but won’t prove—are smuggling drugs.
The official, who Woolford said had an important role in approving the strikes, questioned whether what they were doing was a “legal military operation.”
Woolford recalled the reluctant service member saying, “‘This doesn’t look like what the military is supposed to be doing, and the military is doing it.’” Woolford referred the member to legal counsel.
“They didn’t want to be doing it,” he told HuffPost.
In October, another service member reached out to Woolford to express concern that they would be ordered to participate in future boat strikes.
Since then, the calls from concerned service members have only become more common. Hours after the U.S. military’s large-scale operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Woolford said the hotline received three calls from service members. One expressed concerns that the operation was unlawful, and another described it as “imperialist.”
While Woolford referred his worried callers to The Orders Project, a group providing legal advice to military service members, nonprofit Vice President Brenner Fissell said that he’s received no calls from officers involved in the strikes.
“People are really scared of at all stepping out........